Their dwelling stood far from Eldermere's stone walls — within the border grasses of Hearthmere, where the wind carried old prayers and the soil still remembered ancient oaths.
The cottage crouched low against the cliffs like a patient animal, its earthen walls packed with clay and ash.
Tall silver grass bowed around crooked fencing, whispering to half-buried spirit-stones that marked the old boundaries of the land.
Smoke coiled lazily from a clay chimney, carrying peat, bitter herbs, and the resin-sweet scent of burned wardroot.
Above the doorway, bone charms and driftwood talismans clacked softly in the breeze — weathered wards carved with faded Binding marks meant to turn away sickness-spirits, sea-wraiths, and wandering dead.
This was Hearthmere.
They reached the lower spirit-path first.
Mara shifted her grip beneath the boy's shoulders, breath trembling with effort. Lira carried his legs, jaw clenched as she adjusted his weight against her hip.
Brenner walked ahead, tapping loose stones aside with his wardstaff — its wood darkened by years of prayer and salt.
The boy was heavier than he looked.
Not with muscle — but with stillness. The weight of a body whose spirit had drifted too near the veil.
By the time they passed the first standing stone, hearth-smoke had thickened the air. Wind chimes carved from shell sang faintly from nearby doorways.
A goat bleated upslope.
A hut door creaked open.
"Brenner?" a woman's voice called.
Her gaze narrowed at the pale stranger.
She crossed two fingers against her palm — an old ward — and approached slowly.
"Is he dead?"
"No," Mara said quickly. "But close."
"Pulled from the tide?"
Brenner inclined his head.
Her eyes dropped to the strange stitching of the boy's cloak, the unfamiliar cut of his boots.
"That sea doesn't return lightly," she murmured.
"Burn lamp-root tonight. Keep your wardfires fed."
Farther up the path, two children froze mid-chase.
A net-mender paused mid-knot. Eyes followed them — curious, wary, respectful.
No one crowded.
This was the old way.
They did not disturb what the sea had chosen to return.
Inside the cottage, warmth gathered around them — peat smoke, boiling root broth, dried spirit-leaves hanging from rafters.
The hearth crackled softly.
Brenner nudged the door shut with his heel as Mara and Lira laid the boy gently upon the straw bed.
His breathing rattled faintly.
Lira lingered, studying the faint crease in his brow, the restless twitch beneath his lashes.
Mara dipped a cloth into warm water and wiped the dried blood from his temple.
It stained the linen dark.
"He's not from our kind," she whispered.
"Look at his cloth… the stitching… even the cut."
Brenner nodded slowly.
"No," he said. "He comes from a land where spirits answer differently."
Outside, the wards stirred in the wind.