Long ago, when knights still wore heavy steel and rode under their house banners, there lived a boy named Yoren.
He was not born into greatness. He was born into fear.
The year he turned three, strange silver lines began to appear under his skin. They shimmered faintly, like moonlight caught in water. At first, his parents thought it was only a rash, something that would fade with herbs and rest. But the glow did not fade. It grew brighter in the cold and warmer to the touch.
People soon gave it a name.
The Ryspek Plague.
It was known across the kingdom as a terrible sickness. Some said it spread through breath. Others said through touch. Many simply believed it was cursed. Villagers avoided houses where it was found. Priests prayed from a distance. Doors closed quickly.
Yoren's parents tried. They truly did. They wore gloves when they held him. They kept him inside. They whispered prayers at night, hoping a miracle would come before the neighbors found out.
But fear grows heavy.
One cold night, under a thin silver moon, they took Yoren to the edge of the Greenwood Road. They told him they were going somewhere safer. They told him he would be alright.
They lied because they did not know what else to do.
They left him beside a stone marker and walked away.
Yoren did not understand at first. He waited. The wind was cold. The trees creaked softly. When he realized they were not coming back, he cried until his throat hurt.
By dawn, his tears had dried.
That was when Ruther Will found him.
Ruther was once a knight of the old wars, a man who had stood in shield walls and survived battles most men did not. He was older now, his beard streaked with gray, his armor resting more often on hooks than on his shoulders. But he still rode his lands every morning.
His horse stopped before Yoren did.
Ruther saw the boy, small and shaking, the silver veins faintly glowing through his sleeves.
He knew what it meant.
He had heard of the Ryspek Plague. Everyone had.
For a long moment, he simply looked at the child. He could have ridden away. Many would have. It would have been safer.
Instead, he got down from his horse.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Yoren," the boy whispered.
Ruther nodded once. "You will not die here, Yoren."
He lifted the boy into his cloak and brought him home.
Lady Elswyth Will was not pleased at first. Not because she was cruel, but because she understood the risk. They had a son. They had servants. Bringing in a child with the plague could endanger them all.
Yet when she saw Yoren's face, pale and frightened, something in her heart refused to turn him away.
"If there is even the smallest chance he can be cured," she said quietly, "then we will try."
And so Yoren stayed.
At first, he was kept in a separate wing of the manor. Windows were left open. Servants wore cloth over their faces when bringing food. He saw more healers in one year than most people saw in a lifetime. Some gave him bitter tonics. Others rubbed strange oils into his skin. A traveling scholar tried to draw the sickness out with heated silver rods. That one left him feverish for days.
The silver lines never disappeared.
But Yoren did not die.
Years passed.
The only person who did not treat him like fragile glass was Klaude Will.
Klaude was Ruther and Elswyth's son, wild-haired and stubborn, always climbing walls he was told not to climb. He had been forbidden from going near the east wing where Yoren stayed.
So of course, he went.
He found Yoren sitting by a window one afternoon, staring outside at boys training in the yard.
"You look bored," Klaude said.
Yoren turned, startled. "You're not supposed to be here."
Klaude shrugged. "Neither are you, if you think about it."
That made Yoren blink in confusion.
Klaude held out a wooden practice sword. "Do you know how to fight?"
"No."
"Good. That means I can teach you."
Yoren hesitated. Most people avoided touching things he touched. But Klaude stood there like nothing was wrong, like the silver lines meant nothing at all.
Slowly, Yoren reached out and took the sword.
That was the beginning.
They practiced in secret at first. Klaude showed him how to stand, how to hold the blade, how not to trip over his own feet. Yoren was weaker than other boys, especially when the fever came, but he learned quickly. He watched closely. He remembered everything.
When Yoren grew tired, Klaude would sit beside him and talk about becoming knights one day.
"My father says a knight must have courage," Klaude once said, lying flat on his back in the grass. "But I think that's not right."
"What do you mean?" Yoren asked.
"If courage means not being afraid, then it's foolish. Everyone is afraid. Even my father."
Yoren looked down at the faint silver glow beneath his skin. "Then what is it?"
Klaude turned his head toward him. "It's staying anyway."
Yoren did not answer, but he never forgot those words.
Over time, the servants grew less tense around him. No one else in the household fell ill. The glow beneath his skin slowly dimmed, though it never vanished completely. Some began to whisper that perhaps he had been chosen rather than cursed.
Ruther did not care for such talk.
"A boy is a boy," he would say. "He is not a symbol."
By the time Yoren and Klaude were nearly grown, they were inseparable. They trained together in the yard openly now. They ate at the same table. If villagers stared when Yoren passed, Klaude stared back harder.
One evening, as the sun dipped low and painted the fields gold, they stood along the manor wall.
"Do you think I will ever be normal?" Yoren asked quietly.
Klaude leaned on the stone beside him. "You survived something that kills most men. If that is not normal, then I do not want to be."
Yoren let out a small laugh.
Below them, the world moved on. Knights still rode. Wars still threatened at the borders. Plagues still haunted distant towns.
But in that small corner of the kingdom, in a stone manor guarded by old banners and stubborn kindness, a boy once left to die had found a home.
And though neither of them knew it yet, the bond between Yoren and Klaude would one day be tested by more than sickness.