The days after the storm came with a new stillness. The skies over Elowen brightened; the cobbled roads steamed under pale sun. Yet in Ochar's cottage, a quiet warmth lingered — a trace of laughter, a scent of rain-soaked hair, the memory of Isla humming softly to her son by the hearth.
She had left the next morning with shy gratitude, but not before turning back once at the fence.
"You should come by the mill someday," she had said, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Johnny talks about you too much already."
Ochar had nodded, though he knew he shouldn't.
He had begun to dream again — dreams of warmth and simplicity that had no place in his world.
That night, when the hunger came, he resisted it longer than usual. His hands trembled, his veins burned as if fire crawled through them, but he told himself no. He had promised to stay unseen, unnoticed. Yet when he finally fell asleep, his beast-self whispered in the dark corners of his mind:
You are not like them. You are their shadow. And one day, shadows devour the light.
By the fourth day, Johnny appeared again, waving a basket. "Mama sent you honey and milk!"
Ochar opened the door, surprised, and the boy slipped inside as though it were his own home. He touched the unfinished paintings scattered across the table.
"Wow," Johnny said, eyes wide. "They almost look alive."
Ochar smiled faintly. "They remember what I see."
"And you see us?" the boy asked, tilting his head.
Ochar hesitated. "Sometimes… more than I should."
Isla came later, knocking softly. She carried herself differently that day — calmer, though her eyes carried a deep tiredness.
"You work too hard," she said, glancing at the canvases. "You paint the whole town but not yourself."
"I wouldn't know where to begin," he replied.
She laughed quietly. "Start with your eyes. They tell stories no one else dares to paint."
Her words stung in the most delicate way. He watched her fingers brush a cloth across one of his canvases. There was no fear in her — none of the instinctive distance people had around him. She looked at him as if he were entirely human.
When she left that evening, Ochar followed her with his gaze until she vanished among the trees. For a long time he stood there, hand over his chest, wondering what kind of spell she had cast on him — or if the curse was finally turning cruel in another way
Days pass and oxhar began to feel that the words of the sorcerer was blasphemy but deep in his heart hewas feeling pain like his was dying little by little, but on the other hand something became a routine for him and that was isla. she would stop by at sunset, sometimes with bread, sometimes with silence. Johnny would run around the yard, chasing butterflies, while Ochar and Isla talked about everything and nothing — the crops, the sound of rain, the way light danced on river water.
Sometimes she would sit beside him as he painted, her chin resting on her hand.
"What do you see when you paint?" she asked once.
"Memory," he said. "And things that never were."
She smiled. "Then paint us. So we'll never fade."
And so he did.
But the painting wasn't simple — it became his obsession. Isla's face appeared again and again in sketches, her smile haunting his mind. He painted her beside the boy, beside the mill, beside the hill — until, one night, he realized he had drawn her standing in a field of stars, her hand stretched toward a beast in the shadows.
He tore that canvas apart before dawn.
The next morning, the curse reminded him of its cost.
His heart thudded painfully, his veins screaming for the taste of blood. He locked himself in, trembling. The hunger grew louder, sharper. He could feel his skin burn, his throat tighten. He fell to his knees, whispering, Not her. Never her.
Hours later, he heard the knock.
"Ochar?" Isla's voice. "I saw your door open. Are you well?"
He forced himself to answer, though his voice cracked. "I'm fine."
"Then at least let me bring you some water," she said, stepping inside before he could stop her.
The smell of her presence — human, warm, alive — filled the room like light through fog. He turned away, biting his tongue till blood filled his mouth.
"You should go," he managed.
She frowned. "You're pale. You're shaking—"
He turned sharply, eyes glowing faintly gold in the dimness. "Go!"
Isla froze, startled by the sudden fury in his voice. But instead of fear, she saw pain — deep, wretched pain. She placed the jar down gently and backed away.
"I don't know what you're running from," she whispered, "but whatever it is… it doesn't have to own you."
When the door closed, Ochar sank to the floor, breathing hard. Her words felt like a knife of mercy — too kind to endure.
That night, he ran in the woods as fast as he could to remove that hunger and the sickening ecstasy of survival. When dawn came, he washed his body in the river until they were raw.
Seer
Can he wrestle with it for long
~~~~~~~~
By the following week, Ochar found himself drawn to her house instead. Johnny had grown bolder, tugging his hand, asking him to tell stories. And Isla — though she said little — began to let her guard fall. They shared wine one evening under the willow tree. She spoke of her late husband, the silence that followed, and the loneliness that clung to her even in sunlight.
"I used to think love was a miracle," she said softly. "Now I think it's just the courage to stay."
Ochar listened, his chest tightening. "And what if the one you love is not meant to exist?"
She looked at him then — really looked — and said, "Then love him anyway, for as long as he can."
The world fell still. The evening breeze stopped. Even the river seemed to pause.
And though Ochar said nothing, that night he dreamed of her — not as the widow by the mill, but as the light that found him when even the stars turned away.