The village always smelled faintly of smoke—woodsmoke, hearthsmoke, the acrid reek of char from roofs patched after too many winters. It clung to the thatch and the timber, seeped into clothes until even washing couldn't chase it away. Evening settled heavy and damp, pressing down like a sodden blanket, the kind of air that clung to the throat and left a taste of ash behind the teeth.
Isolda moved through it with her basket tucked against her hip, every step sinking into the familiar rut of the main road. She told herself it was the same as always, another dusk like countless before. But the air tonight felt restless, stirred from within, as though the earth itself was holding its breath.
And people watched her. They always did.
A woman drawing water from the well stopped mid-motion, rope grating against the pulley as the bucket swung unevenly. Water sloshed and spilled, darkening the dirt at her feet, but she didn't notice. Her eyes cut sideways, sharp and narrow, fixed on Isolda as though measuring something dangerous.
A knot of boys, still caked in the day's mud from whatever trouble they'd invented, dropped their voices to a hush the instant she neared. Their whispers crawled along the air, snakelike, though she heard the hiss of her name just the same. The sound of it slid into her ear, unwelcome and sharp. Even the hounds lounging in the street stirred, ears pricking, hackles lifting before they lowered their muzzles with uneasy growls.
She gave none of them the satisfaction of looking back. She never did. Her feet knew the grooves in the earth by memory, worn down by generations of carts, and she kept her chin raised just enough that the sinking sun caught her eyes like flints.
Let them look. Let them whisper. She was used to it.
By the time she reached the baker's stall, the shutters already hung half-closed and the baskets were bare. Only one heel remained, crust hard as stone, the kind of bread no one wanted unless they were desperate. The baker's wife, red-faced from the oven, held it out with a pinched expression.
Isolda placed two coins on the counter. She kept her hand steady, her palm open in plain sight, but the woman did not reach for her fingers. Instead, she twisted her wrist and let the heel drop, as though avoiding contact with a contagion. The bread hit the wood with a dull thump, the coins sliding off and ringing against the stall before one rolled, slow and accusing, into the dust.
Isolda bent and picked it up herself. Her lips pulled into something that might have been a smile if not for the sharp edge to it.
"Kind as ever, Mistress Vey."
The woman muttered something under her breath—marked one, it sounded like—then crossed herself quick, furtive, and turned her back.
Isolda bit into the bread as she walked, teeth straining against the hardened crust. It tasted of soot, of being unwanted, of bitterness baked too long. Her jaw ached with each chew, but she swallowed anyway, stubborn. Hunger did not care if food came with humiliation.
The houses leaned close together as she passed, their roofs sagging into one another like conspirators, windows narrow and watchful. Between them, weeds knotted where no one bothered to plant, and broken fences leaned outward, skeletons of neglect. At the edges of things—the gap where a shed had rotted, the ditch where water never quite drained—she caught glimpses of the forest. Jagged and black against the reddening sky, the Thorn Forest crouched like a beast waiting for night. No one spoke its name after dusk.
Her basket remained light—empty but for the crust—but her arm ached as if it bore a weight greater than food. She didn't care. She'd walked the village long enough, endured their eyes long enough. Her father would be waiting. Or rather, his empty cup would.
She tightened her grip on the handle and turned her steps homeward.
The bread crust gnawed back at her teeth, breaking into sharp corners that scraped her tongue raw, but she chewed stubbornly as she crossed the square.
Children gathered at the fountain in a loose circle, their laughter pitched too high, too brittle for true joy. A boy with elbows sharp as kindling leaned close to the others, voice a stage whisper meant to be overheard.
"Say it. Say his name, or you're a coward."
Another boy shoved him back, eyes wide with genuine fear.
"Not at night."
"It's not night yet," the first jeered, though shadows already pooled at the corners of the square, long and hungry. "Say it—Thorn King. Say it."
The smallest among them, a girl with hair plaited in stiff little braids, lowered her eyes and whispered too softly for anyone but Isolda to hear.
"He'll come for the bride soon."
The words clung to the air like cobwebs. The other children stilled, their game souring in their mouths. No one laughed now.
Isolda stopped just long enough for the boy with the sharp elbows to realize she was watching. His smirk faltered. He swallowed, color draining, and looked away. None of them spoke again until she had passed, but their silence pressed heavy, like a stone wedged between her ribs.
At the well, an old woman hunched with her shawl tight around her shoulders rocked back and forth as she muttered to herself. Her voice carried thin and ragged, like reeds in the wind.
"Ninety-nine years, and the roots stir. Bride's century comes again. Blood for thorns, or thorns for blood."
Her bucket slipped from her hands, water spilling across the stones. She cursed too loud, breath rattling, and clutched her shawl tighter, eyes darting to see who had heard her.
Isolda slowed, one hand curling against the basket rim. She wanted to ask. She wanted to know what the woman meant by stirring roots, by bride's century. But the words withered on her tongue. Asking would be the same as admitting she felt the truth of it.
And she did. She could feel it. The way every gaze slid her way. Not just children, not just crones—but the butcher's apprentice, the blacksmith's son, the shepherd with mud still crusted on his boots. A murmur under the breath, a glance that snapped away too quickly, but always toward her.
Her father's voice echoed in memory, slurred and bitter: You were born under a bad sign. Best you learn to carry it.
The basket pulled at her arm like a stone. She could almost hear the village thinking it with one breath, one voice: unlucky. Cursed. The one who'll be chosen.
Isolda forced her steps into steadiness. One, then another, until the square lay behind her, the whispers thinning into nothing but the scrape of her boots on dirt. Still, the weight of their eyes followed, stretching the shadows longer at her back.