Weeks after the falling stars, the manor settles into a watchful quiet that presses against the walls like held breath.
Boarded windows seal Stella's chamber from the outside world. Each night, the door locks with a decisive click; Ossi keeps the key on a chain at her waist. Servants escort Stella everywhere, their footsteps echoing her own like shadows she cannot shake. The freedom she once took for granted has vanished completely.
Stella rises before dawn breaks over the eastern hills, her hands already reaching for work that might numb her thoughts. She scrubs pots until her knuckles bleed, the raw skin a small penance she welcomes. In the stables, she mucks out stalls until her arms shake with exhaustion, seeking the kind of weariness that brings dreamless sleep. The old bay mare, Ember, offers wordless comfort, her soft nose pressing against Stella's shoulder in moments when the girl's composure threatens to crack. Afternoons blur into endless hours scrubbing floors while servants whisper just loud enough for her to hear—"tyrant brought low," they murmur with barely concealed satisfaction.
Then Eirik arrives, and everything shifts.
He stands tall in the courtyard, blonde hair catching the morning light, unmistakably Ljósálfar despite the white scar that slices across his cheek like a lightning strike frozen in flesh. "I seek work," he tells Gartheride, his voice steady and unassuming. "I'm good with animals."
Gartheride studies him with the practiced eye of a man who has hired many and trusted few. Something in the elf's bearing convinces him. He offers twelve Lunari weekly, later raising it to fifteen when Eirik proves his worth. The new stablehand moves into the modest room above the tack shed, settling in with few possessions and fewer words.
Stella notices him immediately—how could she not? He is handsome despite the scar, perhaps even because of it, the mark suggesting survival rather than defeat. She tells herself that elves are tricky creatures, probably spies sent to watch the household. She builds walls around her curiosity with suspicion.
Their first encounter crackles with tension. "You're in my way," she snaps, finding him exactly where she needs to be.
"My apologies," he says calmly, stepping aside without the wounded pride she expects.
But Eirik doesn't retaliate, doesn't report her rudeness to Gartheride, doesn't treat her like the fallen tyrant the other servants see. He simply works steadily, his movements efficient and unhurried, and the horses respond to his presence—calmer, happier, their coats gleaming under his care. Gartheride notices and approves. "Better than Pollard ever was," he remarks one evening, and Stella hears the genuine respect in her father's voice.
Stella's hostility begins to crack like ice under spring sun. She finds herself lingering near the stables, inventing reasons to pass by when she knows he'll be working. She watches his hands as he curries the horses, notes the gentle way he speaks to them, observes how even the skittish gelding settles under his touch. When curiosity finally overcomes pride, she asks about his scar, half-expecting him to deflect or boast.
He answers simply, his fingers brushing the mark as if he'd almost forgotten it was there. "Border skirmish. I lived. That's more than some." The matter-of-fact tone carries no bravado, only the quiet acknowledgment of luck and loss intertwined.
Something shifts in her then—respect blooming where suspicion had taken root, recognition of a kindred soul who knows what it means to survive.
Their affection builds in stolen moments that feel both forbidden and inevitable. He leaves folded blankets where she'll find them on cold mornings, offers gentle advice about handling the more temperamental horses without making her feel incompetent. In the hayloft one afternoon, golden dust motes dancing in the slanted light, he takes her hand and laces their fingers together with infinite care. She doesn't pull away, though her heart hammers against her ribs.
He kisses her palm softly, his lips warm against her work-roughened skin, then presses his forehead to hers in a gesture so tender it makes her throat tighten. She closes her eyes, allows herself to be held, permits herself this fragile moment of peace.
He never pushes, never demands more than she offers. He waits—gentle, patient, as if he has all the time in the world to let her come to him. Their first real kiss comes in the tack room one evening, the lantern turned low, shadows pooling in the corners. "May I?" he asks, his breath ghosting across her lips.
She nods, not trusting her voice.
His lips brush hers—gentle, exploratory, asking rather than taking. She kisses back, deeper, her hands finding his shoulders. He pulls back slightly, searching her eyes with concern that makes her chest ache. "Too much?"
"No. Just… different." Her voice comes out smaller than she intends.
"Good different?"
She nods, flustered by the warmth spreading through her, by how much she wants to lean back into him.
They grow closer over the following weeks—kisses that linger like prayers, light embraces that make her feel safe in a way she hasn't since childhood. For the first time in years, she feels truly seen, not as the tyrant's daughter or the fallen girl, but simply as herself.
But Gartheride finds out, as fathers always do.
He offers Eirik coin to leave quietly, to disappear before the attachment deepens further. Eirik refuses the payment with quiet dignity, gathers his few belongings, and walks out at first light without a backward glance, knowing that goodbyes would only make it harder for them both.
Stella finds the stables empty the next morning, Ember's stall already mucked by someone else's hands. The ache in her chest is sharp and fresh, a wound that hasn't yet learned to scar.
She confronts her father in the great hall, her voice shaking with barely controlled fury. "You sent him away."
"I did." Gartheride doesn't flinch from her gaze.
"Why?" The single word carries all her grief and rage.
Gartheride's voice lowers, and for a moment he sounds almost regretful. "I thought he would make a great man for you. Steady. Skilled. Kind in ways I never taught you to value." He pauses, his jaw working. "In another life, he could have been the son I never had, the partner you deserved." The admission costs him something. "But he is not a man. He is an elf. I won't see this legacy diluted by mixed blood, won't have my grandchildren bear the mark of two worlds and belong fully to neither."
Stella stares at him, seeing for the first time the fear beneath his anger—fear of change, of difference, of a future he cannot control. "You didn't even let him say goodbye."
"If he'd asked to stay, if I'd seen your face when you begged me to let him…" Gartheride's voice cracks slightly. "I might not have had the strength to send him away. So I made it swift."
Stella walks out without another word, her footsteps echoing in the vast emptiness of the hall.
She locks herself in her chamber, stops eating, stops speaking, stops caring about the world beyond her boarded windows. The days blur into a gray haze punctuated only by Ossi's increasingly desperate attempts to draw her back.
Finally, Ossi forces the choice with characteristic bluntness: "Chores or three years at the temple. Choose."
Stella yields, her eyes dull as river stones. She shovels dung, scrubs floors, works in silence while her mind wanders to places she cannot follow. Letters to Mildri pour out in the stolen hours before dawn—pages filled with longing, hatred, dread, and questions that have no answers.
When Gartheride prepares to leave on a trade trip to the southern markets, he comes to her chamber door. Stella refuses to see him off, turning her face to the wall as his footsteps pause, linger, then retreat. He rides away with a heartbroken expression that the servants whisper about for days.
The manor settles into an uneasy routine, everyone moving through their tasks like players in a performance no one enjoys.
Then scouts begin arriving more often—dust-streaked, urgent, their horses lathered from hard riding. "Raids to the south… Dökkálfar warbands moving in organized columns… necromantic stench on the wind…" The reports grow darker with each passing week.
The gates bolt tighter each night. Watchmen double their patrols, their torches burning like small stars against the darkness.
Gartheride returns early from his trip and gathers the household in the courtyard, his face grim. "The skirmishes are worsening. From tonight, the gates remain barred from dusk to dawn. Keep weapons close. Trust no strangers."
A scout collapses at the gate three days later, his horse foam-flecked and trembling. "Raided at dusk… three warbands moving in formation… less than two days behind me…" He faints before he can finish, and the servants carry him to the infirmary while fear spreads through the manor like wildfire.
Stella waits in her chamber that night, a sword laid beside her bed, her birthmark pulsing with a rhythm that matches her racing heart.
The next evening, as shadows lengthen across the courtyard, the dogs begin to bark.