"My name is Isolde von Adalbrecht… or is it? I can't quite remember."The name sounds like frost cracking on stone. Clean. Noble. Detached.But long before I became the Crimson Widow, I was something else entirely.Something small, half-wild, and forgotten by the world.
The wind howled between the hills of Valcheim, carrying the bitter scent of rain and pine needles, and somewhere in that wind, a child was singing.
A low hum, almost inaudible, wove between the rusted fences and crooked cottages of a village too poor to name. The sound slipped beneath rotting shutters and overgrown fences, then rose, stronger now, until it reached the last house on the outskirts.
Not a house, really. A shed. Once used for smoke-curing meat, now patched with moss and straw. In it lived a girl.
She was no one's daughter anymore.
They called her the witch's child, though they dared not say it near her. Superstitions ran deep in Valcheim, and no one forgot what had happened two winters ago, when old Maren died under the apricot tree, alone, sick, eyes open to the snow.
The girl had dug the grave herself.
Now she sat barefoot in the dirt beside that very tree, humming softly, the hem of her patchwork skirt soaked through with morning dew. In one hand she held a thin book, its cover cracked and pages torn. In the other, a piece of charcoal used for notes.
Her name was Liesel.
Ten years old, wild-haired, skin brown from sun and soil, and eyes too sharp for comfort. The sort of girl who spoke little and listened too well. Who asked questions the priest didn't like answering. Who knew the names of herbs by touch and the habits of animals by shadow.
A girl that didn't quite belong.
The villagers left scraps by her doorstep sometimes, bread ends, bones, fabric too worn to use. She took them without thanks, because to thank someone was to owe them something. And Liesel had nothing left to owe.
Except her silence. And her survival.
She spent her days like this: reading what she could, foraging for roots, and stitching her mother's old skirts into something still wearable. Every morning she spoke aloud to no one in particular, saying:
"Still here."
"Still alive."
"Still me."
That day began no differently. The clouds rolled in heavy above the pines. Crows barked warnings on the roof. Lieselwiped her nose on her sleeve and scrawled a note into the margin of her book:
"Boil yarrow in ash water for fevers. Test on rat?"
Then she paused. Her head cocked to one side.
Hoofbeats.
Rare in this part of the valley. Even rarer to hear two horses instead of one. And a third, a carriage?
She didn't move, but her fingers curled tightly around her book.
From the hill's crest, a shadow appeared. Then another. Then, breaking through the mist, a black-lacquered carriage trimmed in red, with silver lanterns swinging like tiny bells in the wind.
Not Church. Not merchant.
Someone else.
She stood, brushing off her skirt, and darted behind the apricot tree. Her legs trembled slightly, more from instinct than fear.
The carriage stopped.
Two riders dismounted first, armed men, both with polished breastplates bearing a stag beneath a silver tree. Behind them, the door creaked open.
Out stepped a woman.
She wore traveling leathers, though they looked almost too fine for dirt. Her cloak was heavy velvet, deep forest green, and her hair coiled in braids like dark honey. Her boots were scuffed but regal.
She was beautiful. And out of place.
She walked toward the shed without hesitation, pausing only once to glance at the apricot tree.
"This is the place?" she asked the guards.
They hesitated. One said, "Yes, milady… if the priest's report was correct."
The woman looked straight at the tree.
"Come out, child," she said. Not unkindly. "I know you're there."
Liesel didn't move.
"I won't hurt you."
A pause. Then the woman added:
"And I brought apples."
That was unexpected.
Liesel peeked around the bark. Her hair was a tangled halo. Her bare feet were already halfway toward the door.
The woman smiled faintly. "That's better."
She knelt, opening a cloth bundle. Three red apples gleamed inside. Real apples, not shriveled or stolen.
The girl stared at them, then at the woman.
"Who are you?"
The woman extended one hand. "My name is Lady Elsa von Adalbrecht."
That name meant nothing to Liesel.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
Elsa tilted her head.
"To see if the stories were true."
Liesel narrowed her eyes. "What stories?"
"That in the middle of nowhere, there lives a girl who teaches herself to read… speaks to the wind… and remembers every plant she touches.""That she lives alone and has not died.""That she dreams, when no one has ever taught her to."
The words rang heavy in the air.
Liesel didn't answer. But slowly, her fingers crept forward, toward the apples, toward the outstretched hand.
Elsa's smile was gentle now. Warm.
"Come with me," she said. "There's a world bigger than this."
And the child said nothing. But she stepped forward.
One step.
Then two.
And so it was that Liesel Maren, witch's child and barefoot shadow of the apricot tree, took the first step toward her new name.
A name she would one day speak like a curse, a shield, and a promise.