Chapter 5:The Weight of Spring
On the 2nd day of Thaloris — Arrival of Springs, the first month of The Aurethis Calendar.
The convoy eased into the town circle as if the road itself were reluctant to finish the journey.
They had not yet sighted the keep when the carriage stopped.
"Burn her!"
"Witch! Tear her open!"
"Let her scream for the gods!"
Leonard leaned forward in his carriage, eyes narrowing. The crowd had formed a ring around a stake. A girl, barely more than twenty, was bound there. Her clothes were rags stiff with blood, her skin a patchwork of bruises. Someone had already stuffed kindling at her feet.
The stench of fear and smoke turned Leonard's stomach.
"Oswin," Leonard snapped.
The town's steward, graying and hollow-eyed, bowed low. "Your Highness… we have no church here, no priest to pass judgment. The people… they decided themselves. The witch must be cleansed."
"Cleansed?" Leonard's voice came sharp, venomous. "By fire?"
Oswin did not flinch. "She killed a man. His heart torn from his chest, his blood turned black. The villagers will not sleep until her ashes scatter."
The mob pressed forward. A torch was raised.
Leonard's hand slammed the carriage frame. His voice, cold and carrying, cut the air:
"Enough!"
The square fell still, a silence taut as a drawn bow. Hundreds of eyes turned to him.
"I am Leonard Greyborne, lord of these lands," he said, stepping down onto the cobblestones. His boots splashed in a gutter of melted snow, black with soot. "There will be no burning in my name."
A man spat. "She'll curse us all, Your Highness!"
Leonard strode forward, his knights flanking him. Elias's hand hovered over his sword; Garreth's expression was stone.
"Listen well," Leonard said, voice cutting through their panic. "The Church will have its say. Until then, she is mine. Any man who disobeys me—" He paused, letting his gaze sweep the mob, "—will join her in chains."
The torch wavered. Feet shuffled back. Hate still burned in their eyes, but fear—fear of a prince's wrath—burned hotter.
"Take her down," Leonard ordered.
The crowd erupted into mutters but dared not resist. His men cut the ropes, and the girl collapsed like a rag doll, coughing, gagging. Leonard caught her gaze for the briefest instant—eyes defiant, terrified, alive.
He turned sharply. "To the mansion. Dungeon."
The mansion was no castle—just stone walls patched over years, the smell of mildew clinging to its halls. Yet compared to the gallows of the square, it was salvation.
In the torch-lit dungeon, Leonard stood over the girl. Martha, his head maid, cleaned her wounds with a steady hand, while Natalia—she had whispered her name once—winced at every touch.
"Why save me?" she rasped, voice cracked, raw. "Is this the Church's trick? Torture before the flames?"
Leonard unlocked her shackles. The clatter of iron echoed like thunder. Elias's hand flew to his sword.
"My lord!" Elias hissed. "You risk everything—"
"Stand down," Leonard cut him off. His tone was ice.
He knelt before the girl. "You're not burning today. Live, or die—those are choices still yours."
Natalia stared, distrust flickering into something else. She lifted her hand, trembling. Before their eyes, a thin vine burst from her palm, curling with fresh leaves.
Elias cursed and drew his blade in a single motion. "Witchcraft!"
Leonard's heart slammed against his ribs. This wasn't sleight of hand. This was real. Magic.
"Stop," Leonard barked. His bodyguard froze, blade half-raised.
Natalia's voice cracked as tears streaked her bruised face. "I didn't want it. I didn't ask for it. I was normal… until the woods. Until the boar. My friends—" She swallowed. "It killed one. It chased the other. I begged to live, and… the earth answered. A spike of wood through its heart. My friends saw. They called me cursed."
She shivered, hugging herself. "My father sold me to a trader. He tried to… take me. I killed him. By accident. By fear. The villagers only saw blood. That's why they burn me."
Leonard's stomach twisted. This world is cruel, far crueler than the world Allen had left behind.
He rose slowly, forcing command into his voice. "You will stay here. Under my protection. If you wish to leave, I will let you go. If you stay, you will work—under me, as a servant. But no mob touches you again."
"Madness," Elias spat. "You trust a witch? My lord, the Church will string you beside her."
Leonard ignored him, eyes fixed on Natalia. For the first time, he wondered if someone like her could sense the power that brought him into this world.
She nodded, silent tears streaking her face. "Then… I'll stay."
After the convoy settled in the mansion, Leonard turned to Martha."See to the girl," he ordered quietly, meaning the witch. "She lives because of me. She survives because of you. Keep her clean, fed, and safe. I'll decide her fate later."
Martha bowed, her eyes as steady as stone. "It will be done, my lord."
Leonard then summoned Garreth and Oswin to the chamber's long oak table.
At dawn, he rode out with Garreth, Oswin, and Elias to walk the streets. The air carried the faint thaw of spring, but the town looked battered.
Men patched roofs with timber planks. Women scrubbed mold from walls. Children carried stones to fill cracks in foundations.
Leonard stopped before a bent old man hammering crooked nails into warped beams. "Tell me," he asked, "does winter snow break your homes every year?"
The man blinked, confused by the question, and gave a short nod. "Yes, my lord. Always."
Leonard frowned. Snow alone shouldn't shred wood and stone so completely. He rode on, observing. House after house bore the same scars—splintered walls, claw marks raked across doors, shattered shutters.
"Oswin," Leonard said sharply, "was this winter harsher than others? Did storms crush the town?"
The steward shook his head. "No, my lord. This is ordinary."
Leonard reined his horse. "Ordinary? Every house ruined?"
Oswin's tone grew heavy. "Because every winter, the town is abandoned."
Leonard stared at him. "Abandoned?"
"Aye," Oswin continued grimly. "Orshek lies too close to the mountains. When snow falls, the demon beasts descend. Wolves of iron-hide, bears with tusks, creatures that slip through shadows. We cannot hold the town. Without walls, without soldiers enough, it is suicide to stay."
"So you flee," Leonard muttered.
"Every year," Oswin nodded. "At the first snow, early in the second month of winter season—Glaciem—we gather what we can and march south. We scatter into nearby towns: Staningt, Lympscom, Perston. For next 4 month uptill late in the Duskmere-month of winter season—There we rent space, if it can be called that. The towns demand payment for every roof we sleep under."
"What payment?" Leonard's voice was ice.
"Iron. Clay. Coal. Wool. Leather. All we mine, all we craft. Everything Orshek produces, we surrender."
Leonard's jaw tightened. "That isn't payment. That's robbery."
Oswin looked away, shame in his eyes. "Call it what you will, my lord. We call it survival. The old collapse on the road. The sick are left in snowdrifts. Children starve, or cough themselves into shallow graves before spring thaw. But still we survive, for there is no other choice. Stay here, and demon beasts will devour us all. Leave, and at least some live to return."
The words were heavy as stones. Leonard's knuckles whitened around his reins. He looked at the people patching their broken homes, every scar of wood and stone telling a story of abandonment, flight, and return.
In his chest burned a fury that was not the prince's, but his own. Allen's.
A world that demanded children be buried in frozen earth. A world where survival meant bending knee to thieves. A world where the weak were ground down and fed to beasts, while the strong grew fat on their tribute.
"This…" Leonard's voice was low, trembling with rage, "…this is not survival. This is slaughter."
Neither Garreth nor Oswin answered. Only the caw of a crow broke the silence, circling overhead.
Leonard's eyes swept the broken streets, the weary faces, the blood-soaked history of Orshek. His first day in this town, and already he felt the noose of its suffering tighten around his throat.Leonard's eyes lingered on the claw marks carved into doors and beams, too savage for any wolf he knew. Demon beasts… The word alone felt foreign on his tongue. Were they truly monsters, or just fear wrapped in superstition?