After the long war of names, the night ended and the sun rose.
Rekon woke up and stared at his wife and his child. Maria also opened her eyes slowly.
They stayed still for a moment. Everything became silent. They looked at their child without blinking.
Syla broke the silence and said desperately, "Master, tell me, what name won the war of names?",Syla seemed excited.
Maria and Rekon shared a look and both said at the same time,
"Rowan."
"Ahh~ what a name! Little master Rowan is soooo cute. I waited for long when you woke up and I can know little master's name. Now I can do my work attentively."
"I can do my work. I am fine and healthy now," Maria said.
"But you should take rest, my lady."
"Just call me sister. I am not used to this 'my lady' stuff."
Syla thought to ask who gave this name, Rekon or Maria but she forgot and a moment later, she went to the kitchen.
Rekon went in the direction of the midwife's house.
It was strange that the midwife, who was known for her obedience to God in the village—there was not a single piece of news about her being dead.
For a moment, Rekon recalled what he had done that night. Somewhere in his heart, he felt guilty. He had no choice but to kill that woman.
Deep in thought, he found himself near the woman's house. Then he stepped toward it—but the door was locked. He had forgotten that he locked the house after killing that lady.
Rekon slowly looked at the surroundings. Many houses stood in a row beside a big road. Sometimes there were patches of greenery between the houses.
Rekon entered the house of a neighbor of the woman. When he told the neighbor about the midwife, he heard shocking news, which he had not anticipated.
The neighbor told him that the midwife had said she was going to live with her grandchildren and would not come back to the village.
"I had known that she had no relatives. That's why she strictly followed the church and believed in God," the woman said.
Rekon did not reply. He observed the situation in his mind. Then he looked at the woman and said,
"When did she tell you that she was going to live with her grandchildren?"
"One day ago!"
Now Rekon understood why there was no news of her sudden disappearance.
Rekon moved his gaze away and started walking toward the market.
Finally, Rekon found the answer to why the midwife forgave him. Because she knew Rekon would kill her for his long-awaited child.
In fact, she sacrificed her life for Rekon's child.
He entered the market and didn't think about her again.
Not because he had forgotten.
Because some things you carry in silence.
The market was alive with its usual morning noise. Vendors calling out across stalls, children weaving between adults, the smell of bread and vegetables and animal feed mixing in the open air. Rekon moved through it with the ease of long familiarity, stopping at two or three stalls, exchanging a few words, filling a small cloth bag with what they needed for the next few days.
He was turning to leave when a hand landed on his shoulder.
Heavy. Deliberate.
Rekon turned.
Leader Jax stood behind him.
He was a tall man — taller than most in Greenvale — with shoulders built from years of practical use rather than training. His eyes were the color of cold water and held the same temperature. He was not a man who wasted expressions on things that didn't require them.
"Walk with me," Jax said.
It wasn't a question.
They moved away from the market's center, toward a quieter stretch of road where the stalls thinned out and the crowd gave way to open space. Jax walked with his hands behind his back, looking straight ahead.
"Two nights ago," Jax said, "a woman and her child were killed on the eastern edge of the village."
Rekon said nothing. He waited.
"A beast came out of the forest. We killed it before it reached the main road — lost two men doing it, three more injured." Jax's jaw tightened slightly. "The woman and the child were already gone by the time we arrived."
The morning air felt heavier than it had a moment ago.
"What kind of beast?" Rekon asked.
"Does it matter?"
"It might."
Jax was quiet for a moment. "Something large. Fast. The men who saw it couldn't agree on what it looked like — just that it was big enough that three swordsmen with "swordsman" symbols barely slowed it down before it turned back toward the forest."
Rekon looked at the tree line visible at the village's edge. The BeastForest began where Greenvale's farmland ended — a wall of dark trees that the village had always treated as a border rather than a destination. Everyone knew it was there. Nobody went in. Beasts occasionally came out, but rarely, and never into the village itself.
Until now.
"What's your plan?" Rekon asked, though from the look on Jax's face he already suspected he wasn't going to like the answer.
"We go in," Jax said simply. "Find whatever is disturbing the forest and stop it at the source before it happens again."
"That's not a plan," Rekon said. "That's a sentence."
Jax looked at him for the first time since they'd started walking. "I've requested reinforcements from Millhaven. Twenty swordsmen, arriving in three days. With them and our own — including you — we'll have enough."
"Enough for what? We don't know what's in that forest. Nobody does. People who go in don't come back out with useful information because people who go in don't come back out."
"Which is why we need swordsmen," Jax said. "Not farmers."
"I have a newborn son," Rekon said flatly.
"I know that."
"Then you know why my answer is no."
Jax stopped walking. Rekon stopped with him. They stood facing each other on the quiet road, and for a moment neither of them spoke. A cart rolled past behind them, wheels rattling on the uneven ground.
"A woman and her child are dead, Rekon," Jax said quietly. His voice had lost none of its coldness, but something beneath it had shifted — something that might have been close to weight. "That woman had a son too. He's six years old. He watched it happen."
Rekon said nothing.
"The next attack might come tomorrow night. Or tonight. Or next week — we don't know. What we do know is that this village has forty-three children under the age of ten and four swordsmen capable of fighting at the level this requires." He paused. "I need you."
The words sat between them in the morning air.
Rekon thought of Rowan. Of Maria asleep with Rowan against her side. Of what it would mean to leave them three days after his son was born, to walk into a forest nobody understood, to face something large and fast that three swordsmen hadn't been able to stop.
"No," he said again.
Jax studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded once — not in agreement, but in the way of a man filing information away for later.
"Keep this between us," Jax said. "I haven't told the village about the attack yet. I don't want panic."
"You can't keep it quiet forever."
"I don't need forever. I need three days." He met Rekon's eyes. "Reconsider. That's all I ask."
He walked away without waiting for a response.
Rekon stood on the quiet road and looked at the tree line for a long time.
Then he turned toward home.
He heard Syla and Maria's voices before he reached the door — an easy back and forth, punctuated by Rowan's small sounds. He stood outside for just a moment listening to it. Something in his chest loosened slightly.
He went inside.
Maria was sitting up in bed with Rowan in her arms. Syla was nearby, folding a piece of cloth with the focused expression of someone determined to prove themselves useful. They both looked up when Rekon entered.
"You were gone a long time," Maria said.
"Market was busy." He set the cloth bag on the table. "How is he?"
"Hungry, mostly." Maria smiled down at Rowan. "And loud about it."
Rekon crossed the room and took his son carefully, settling him against his arm. Rowan looked up at him with the enormous unfocused attention of the very new — as if Rekon's face was a thing worth studying seriously.
"Hello," Rekon said quietly.
Then something happened.
The symbol on Rowan's abdomen flickered.
Just once. Brief as a blink. But Rekon felt it before he saw it — a sudden pulse of something against his arm, like a heartbeat that wasn't Rowan's. His finger, where Rowan had grabbed it the previous day, ached faintly.
He looked down.
The symbol was steady again. Normal. Or whatever passed for normal when normal was a lie held together by magic and a crystal.
But Rekon's heart was moving faster than it should have been.
He passed Rowan back to Maria without explaining why and stood very still, thinking.
"It flickered," he said.
Maria looked up sharply. "What?"
"The symbol. Just now." He kept his voice low even though they were alone — Syla had stepped outside to draw water. "For a moment it flickered. The same way it did yesterday."
Maria's face tightened. She looked at Rowan, then back at Rekon. "The crystal should be holding it. I felt it settle last night."
"It is holding it. The flicker wasn't the crystal failing." He paused, trying to find the right words for something he didn't fully understand yet. "It felt like something pushing against it from the inside."
The room was quiet.
"He's a newborn," Maria said carefully.
"I know."
"Newborns don't have power. Symbols don't activate until—"
"I know what I felt, Maria."
She looked at Rowan for a long time. Her expression was unreadable in the way it only became when she was thinking hard and didn't want to show how much.
"We watch it," she said finally. "We don't panic. We watch it and we think."
Rekon nodded.
When Syla came back inside neither of them mentioned it. But Rekon told her everything else — the fake symbol, the crystal, the reason they needed to keep Rowan's true nature hidden. Syla listened without interrupting. When he finished she was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, "I won't say a word. Not to anyone. Ever."
She said it simply, without drama. The way people say things they mean completely.
Rekon believed her.
He spent the afternoon repairing the roof.
It was good work for a troubled mind — physical, straightforward, each problem visible and solvable. He replaced three broken beams, sealed the gaps with clay and cut wood, worked until his shoulders ached and the light started changing.
Below, through the open window, he could hear Maria and Syla talking. He couldn't make out the words. Just the rhythm of it — easy and unhurried. The sound of two people becoming comfortable with each other.
He worked until the roof was done.
Then he sat on the edge of it and looked out over Greenvale.
The village spread below him in the late afternoon light — small houses, garden plots, the market road running through the center, children moving between the buildings in the loose wandering way of children with nowhere particular to be. Smoke from a dozen chimneys. A dog sleeping in a patch of sunlight.
At the far edge, the Beast Forest.
Dark and still and patient.
Rekon looked at it for a long time.
The next morning came grey and cool.
Rekon was cleaning his sword in the front room when he felt it — a pressure in the air. Subtle. The kind that had no physical source but raised the hairs on the back of your neck regardless.
He looked up.
Through the window he could see two figures coming down the road toward the house. A crowd was quietly gathering behind them — villagers stepping out of doorways, drifting closer with the careful curiosity of people who knew better than to get too near.
A Devotee and a Squire.
The Devotee was middle-aged, soft-faced, dressed in the white and gold of the church. He walked with the unhurried certainty of a man who had never had cause to rush.
The Squire beside him was different entirely. Fully armored — iron plate from shoulder to boot, a longsword at his hip with a handle worn smooth from use. He walked without looking at the crowd, without looking at the houses, without looking at anything in particular. His eyes were red. Not from illness. From something older and harder than that.
Rekon set his sword across his knees and kept his hands loose and still.
He knew this visit was coming. Devotees blessed every newborn in every village — it was older than law, older than the kingdom. A custom so deep it had become reflex. He had prepared for it. The crystal was in place. The symbol was holding.
He told himself it would be fine.
Maria came forward with Rowan. Syla stood just behind her, close enough to be present, far enough not to draw attention.
The Devotee smiled warmly and reached out. Maria placed Rowan in his arms with a steadiness Rekon recognized — the kind you build by deciding in advance that you will not fall apart.
"And what is this young one's name?" the Devotee asked.
"Rowan," Maria said.
"Rowan." The Devotee nodded approvingly. "A good name. Strong roots."
He looked down at the symbol on Rowan's abdomen. His smile widened.
"A swordsman, just like his father. The Creator has blessed this house twice." He chuckled. "From the grace of heaven, this child will be—"
He stopped.
His smile didn't disappear. It just became still. Fixed. Like a painting of a smile rather than a real one.
His finger moved to the symbol. Touched it lightly.
Rekon fell into thought and said in his mind, Will the lie crack and the truth be revealed in front of everyone?
Rekon's hand moved to his sword.
Beside the Devotee, the Squire's red eyes shifted — not to Rowan, not to the symbol, but directly to Rekon. To his hand. To the sword.
Their eyes met.
The Squire said nothing. Did nothing. But the quality of his stillness changed — the way a bowstring changes when it's been drawn.
The Devotee touched the symbol again. His brows came together slowly.
Maria's voice came out perfectly level. "Is something wrong?"
The Devotee didn't answer immediately. He was still looking at the symbol. His finger traced its edge with a concentration that had moved well past casual interest.
Rekon's grip tightened on the sword handle.
If I move, he thought, Ihave to take the Squire first. He's the real threat. The Devotee is just a man. The Squire is something else entirely.
But if I move without cause — if I draw before the Devotee speaks — then it's over regardless. The whole village is outside. There's nowhere to go.
Wait. Wait for his words. Wait for the last possible moment.
The Devotee's lips parted.
Rekon's sword came two inches out of its sheath.
The Devotee said quietly, almost to himself —
"Fake symbol."
The word landed in the room like something falling from a great height.
For one suspended moment nobody moved.
Instantly,Rekon started pulling his sword.Then....