The following days passed in a brittle hush, the kind that comes when winter holds its breath. Snow thickened along the rooftops, sealing chimneys in white, while the fjord remained a slab of frozen steel. The villagers went about their routines quietly, shoulders hunched against the cold, but an unease lingered in their movements a restlessness that Sarah felt pulsing beneath the surface.
It was Astrid's doing.
Sara noticed first in the square, when Marta, the blacksmith's daughter, stumbled as though dizzy, her cheeks pale beneath her woolen hood. Others murmured about sleepless nights, strange moods, a heaviness in their chests. Sara needed no one to explain; she could taste the disturbance on the air, a sour tang that came when emotions were drained too sharply.
That evening, she found Astrid by the river's edge, her golden hair tumbling loose from its braid, her breath sharp with laughter. A boy scarcely older than Astrid appeared leaned against the stones beside her, his eyes glazed, his shoulders trembling as though exhausted.
"Astrid," Sara hissed, catching her wrist. "You'll draw attention."
Astrid turned, her lips glistening with a smile too bright, too sharp. "He wanted to walk me home. I only took what he offered."
"He had no choice in what you took." Sarah's grip tightened. "You drained him."
Astrid wrenched free, her laughter ringing across the snow. "You scold like Ingrid. Always caution, always restraint. Tell me, sister does Jonas make you so careful, or so careless?"
The name struck Sarah like a stone. Her breath caught, heat flaring against the cold.
Astrid leaned close, her voice a whisper meant to wound. "You think no one sees the way you look at him. But we all do. Even Ingrid."
Before Sara could answer, Astrid darted away, her figure dissolving into the drifting snow, leaving only the boy's staggered breathing behind. Sarah knelt beside him, steadying his shoulders until the strength returned to his limbs. He blinked at her, confusion clouding his gaze, and when she asked what he remembered, he only shook his head, murmuring that the cold had overcome him.
But Sara knew better.
The next day, Jonas appeared at her door. His hair was damp from the snow, his scarf askew from the climb up the hill.
"I hoped you'd walk with me," he said, his smile tentative.
Sara hesitated, Astrid's words still burning in her mind. Yet something in Jonas's expression — a kind of quiet sincerity, unguarded and human softened her resistance. She nodded, drawing her shawl tighter as she stepped into the pale morning.
They followed the road toward the harbor, where the boats lay chained in ice. Jonas asked about the villagers, their customs, their winters. Sarah answered carefully, offering fragments without revealing too much. But his curiosity was gentle, never prying, and she found herself speaking more than she intended about the songs the women hummed while weaving, the tales told by the fire, the belief that the fjord carried memory in its depths.
Jonas listened with a stillness that felt like reverence. At last he said, "It's as though the place itself breathes with its people." His eyes turned to her. "And you, Sara you carry it with you."
The words pierced her like light through frost. She turned away, her breath trembling, afraid of what he might see if she met his gaze too long.
That night, the nest gathered once more. Ingrid's mood was colder than the stone walls around them.
"Two villagers weakened in as many days," she said, her voice clipped. Her eyes swept the room, lingering on Astrid. "Carelessness leaves trails. Trails invite suspicion. You need to slow down"
Astrid lounged in her chair, feigning indifference. "They are children playing in the snow. They stumble, they fall. Who will notice?"
"I notice," Ingrid snapped. "We all do and we don't like it."
All eyes turned. Sarah felt the weight of their gazes but did not flinch. "It endangers us," she said quietly. "The villagers trust us because they do not see. If they begin to suspect—"
"Enough," Erik rumbled, his arms crossed. His gaze slid toward Astrid. "You will learn control, or you will answer to me."
For once, Astrid said nothing, though her smirk did not falter.
Ingrid's eyes narrowed, shifting back to Sarah. "And you keep your distance from the outsider. Do not think I've forgotten."
Sara lowered her head, heat flaring in her chest. But beneath the reprimand, beneath the threat, something stirred that she could not silence: Jonas's voice, gentle against the snow, telling her she carried the village within her.
A lie, and yet the first truth she had ever wished could be real.
That night, as the fjord moaned beneath its frozen skin, Sarah dreamed of Jonas's hand in hers warm, human, alive. And when she woke, her hunger was sharper than ever, a blade she could no longer sheathe.