Chapter 8 : The Seventh Day
That night, I dreamed.
At first, I thought it was Father.
The man stood with his back to me in a place that did not feel like a place at all. There was ground beneath our feet, but it faded the farther I looked, dissolving into pale mist. Above us, there was a sky without color, neither dark nor bright, as if light itself had forgotten what it was meant to be.
"Dad?" I called.
He did not answer right away.
When he turned, my breath caught.
He was not my father.
The resemblance was close enough to hurt. The same stillness in his posture. The same way he carried his weight, balanced and deliberate, as if the ground would give way if he did not respect it. But everything else was wrong.
He was taller than Father, though thinner, stretched as if time itself had pulled him apart and never put him back together properly. His robe hung in tatters, the fabric worn so thin it barely concealed the shape beneath. His left arm was gone entirely, not newly lost, not bloodied, but healed in that terrible, final way that told me the loss had been accepted long ago.
His right arm was worse.
Scars layered over scars, some narrow and precise, others jagged and uneven, crossing one another like old arguments that had never been resolved. His hand trembled once, barely, then stilled. One of his eyes was missing, the socket dark and sunken, but the remaining eye was sharp, steady, and painfully aware.
His face was the face of someone who had endured something vast.
Not rage.
Not madness.
Endurance.
He looked like a man who had survived by refusing to fall apart.
I knew, with a certainty that bypassed thought entirely, that he was not my father.
And yet something in my chest insisted that he was close to him in a way I could not name.
He began to walk toward me.
Each step was unhurried. Measured. The kind of movement that wasted nothing. When he stopped in front of me, he was close enough that I could see the fine lines carved into his skin, the faint tension held permanently in his jaw, the exhaustion he carried without complaint.
He lifted his remaining hand and placed it on my shoulder.
The weight was real.
Solid.
"I was a bit late," he whispered.
His voice was calm, almost gentle, but there was something beneath it that made my chest tighten painfully.
"Even when I cheated fate," he continued, "I still couldn't save him."
For the first time, his calm fractured.
Only slightly.
But I saw it. The sorrow behind his eye, deep and old and held in place by sheer will. It was not the grief of someone who had just lost something. It was the grief of someone who had lived with the loss for a very long time and never learned how to set it down.
He looked directly at me.
"You should have forced him to stay," he said.
Not accusing.
Not angry.
Just Certain.
The world seemed to tilt, as if something essential had shifted out of alignment.
I woke with a sharp breath, sitting upright in my bed, heart pounding hard enough that I thought it might tear free of my chest.
The room was dark.
Familiar.
My chair sat where I had left it. My boots rested near the wall. Moonlight slipped through the window, cutting a pale stripe across the floorboards. Everything was exactly as it should have been.
I was not.
I lay back down.
Then turned onto my side.
Then sat up again.
An hour passed.
I did nothing.
Usually, dreams faded. Everyone knew that. You woke with fragments, impressions that slipped through your fingers no matter how tightly you tried to hold them. Faces blurred. Voices thinned. Even nightmares lost their edges once morning came.
This dream did not fade.
Every detail remained sharp.
The scars.
The missing arm.
The pressure of his hand on my shoulder.
Every word he spoke.
My heart still raced, even though nothing had happened. It felt absurd. It had been only a dream. A strange one, yes, but dreams were meaningless things. Everyone said so.
And yet I could still see the sorrow in his eye as clearly as if he were standing at the foot of my bed.
By the time dawn arrived, I had stopped trying to sleep.
The days that followed continued much as they always had, though they left me more tired than before. Father's absence meant his responsibilities did not disappear. They shifted. Some of them settled quietly onto my shoulders, and I carried them without complaint. The work filled my hands, but not the space he had left behind.
The days were still enjoyable, in their own way. Friends still laughed. Meals still tasted the same. The sun still rose and fell on time. But something was missing from each moment, an emptiness I could not name, only feel.
I missed him.
The seventh day came quietly.
No wheels on the road.
No voices calling from the distance.
No familiar silhouette appearing where the path curved toward home.
Mother rose early and moved through the house with steady purpose. She set out breakfast for two, paused, then removed one plate without comment. She did not look at me when she did it.
"He'll be back today," she said, as she poured water into the kettle. "Sometimes travel takes longer than planned."
I nodded.
Six days there.
Six days back.
That was what Father had said.
I counted anyway.
Morning passed.
The sun climbed.
Master Hennick came by just before midday, leaning heavily on his stick as always. He spoke of the weather, of a fence post that had rotted through, of nothing important at all. Rovan joined him briefly, mentioning a trader delayed by mud farther south.
"Delays happen," he said with a shrug. "Roads change."
Mother thanked them both.
They left.
By evening, the shadows stretched longer than they should have.
No hawk came.
That troubled me more than the empty road.
Father always sent word when he could.
Night settled in.
Supper was quiet. The sound of spoons against bowls felt too loud in the small room.
"We'll wait until morning," Mother said.
I agreed.
Sleep did not come easily. When it did, it brought nothing. No dreams. No images. Just a restless half-awareness that left me more tired than before.
The eighth morning arrived without ceremony.
Mother did not set out a second plate.
No one mentioned it.
The waiting changed after that.
It stopped being something we did.
It became something we carried.
I took on more without being asked. I checked the animals. Fixed small things Father would have handled himself. Mother watched me do it, her eyes thoughtful but approving. She did not stop me.
The village adjusted around us.
People spoke softer when they passed the house. Someone said, "If anyone can handle the road, it's him." Someone else laughed and said, "He's probably enjoying the quiet."
I listened.
I remembered the dream.
You should have forced him to stay.
On the evening of the seventh day after his departure, Mother stood in the doorway longer than usual, staring down the road.
"He should be home by now," she said.
Only once.
That was all.
No one argued.
The road remained empty.
And somewhere deep in my chest, something settled into place. Not fear. Not yet.
Certainty.
Waiting was no longer enough.
Whatever had gone with Father when he left had not stayed on the road.
And whatever was coming next had already stepped beyond the point where it could be stopped.
(End of Kai's POV)