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Chapter Text

The room held within it the silence of death.

Selena crept around the doorway, glancing around for her son. She could not see him, not on his bed, the covers were neatly drawn to the feathered cushion, nor was he seated at his usual post. The cushioned chair by the window was painfully void of his tiny rump, though a wooden toy rested at the window’s edge. “Murtagh?” she whispered, barely able to get his name out. Her throat felt tight, and her hands began to shake.

She called out to him again; “Murtagh?” and again there was nothing.

What had Morzan done to her son now?

“Murtagh?” Her voice came out loader, clearer as anger interlaced with her panic. She rushed to his bed and peered beneath it, searching in vain for her young child. He was not there. She hadn’t thought that he would be but she had hoped. “Murtagh, this is not a good time to play a hiding game. Come on out.”

For a painful moment she held her breath, daring not to move. Nothing in the room stirred, not so much as a mouse. Selena’s breath escaped her in a rush, as she croaked out his name once more.

Where was he?

He was not under his bed, nor was he inside his wardrobe, nor the long chest resting near the wall. As she searched, she became more and more frantic, tearing the room apart in her haste. But Murtagh was not there.

Selena’s son was rarely out of his room in the evenings. She had told him to hide there when she was away, it is safer- a place where his father would rarely enter, if at all. But the boy must be elsewhere, unless he was- Selena shook herself, she refused to think such things. He was in the castle somewhere and he was safe. He had to be.

 She rushed from the room, eager to find her son. It had been weeks, nearing almost two months since she lay eyes on the child, and her heart ached from the lack of contact. Looking down at herself, she supposed it was for the best; her not being able to find her son at this time. There was still dried blood on her clothing, though she had tried to wash the stains out some days before, and in more than two places there were signs of injury, not to mention the knives and sword swinging from her belt. She did not want Murtagh to get ahold of the weapons, but she so very dearly wanted to see him.

 It was just as she thought this when she heard a set of footsteps slapping against the wood flooring. Knowing the culprit of loud these steps, Selena turned as her heart jumped in her chest, and-
-There he was.

Murtagh stood before her, a large grin breaking across his face, a goblet held carefully in front of him. His dark hair fell into his eyes, and his tiny nose was wrinkled. It didn’t look like she had been away from him for merely two moon cycles but a whole year! He had grown so much!

Her eyes began to burn at the sight of him. “Mamma!” he cried, nearly dropping the goblet. He ran forth, liquid flying out the cup and wetting his neat tunic.

Selena kneeled down and caught him in her arms. They embraced for a moment. “You should not run in the halls,” she said quietly, not truly meaning her words. She embraced him tighter, and then let him go. A cold replaced the warmth in her arms where he had been, and she felt suddenly very empty. She wanted to hug him again, but instead folded her arms across her chest. “You might fall. Come here and let me look you at you.” Leaning away she examined him, and flicked his nose. “Oh, my! Just look how much you’ve grown! I think you could take on a bear!”

 Murtagh laughed, and shook his head. “A bear too big!” he said as his giggling stopped. “Don’t be silly, Mamma.” He took in a sudden breath, and then glanced inside his goblet. It was empty, its contents on spewed across the floor. He glanced behind him at the liquid, and then back at his cup. With a shrug he looked back up at her, a grin spreading across his face. “I didn’t know you home!”

“Nor did I.” They both turned to see Morzan. He stood behind Selena, watching the scene with his strange eyes; one dark as night and the other as bright and blue as the day’s sky. His hair fell past his shoulders and down his back like a waterfall made of raven’s feathers, shockingly dark against the pale of his skin. He was not wearing his armor, as he rarely did in his home and the dark green tunic he wore looked out of place on him. “When did you get back?”

“Only moments ago,” Selena said, keeping her face as blank as she could. She could feel Murtagh’s small body press into hers- hiding himself behind her legs, trying his best to remain out of sight.

Morzan’s lip curled up as he frowned. “You’re supposed to come to me when you when you return.”

“I was on my way to search for you,” she lied, smoothly rising to her feet. Selena was not going to admit that she had returned some time ago and spent that time as far from her husband as possible- for as long as possible.

“Of course you were,” Morzan muttered lowly. His voice no longer held the charm it once did, now it sounded as he spoke from the depths of the Void. “I take it that the traitors has been executed in an orderly fashion, and you know all that they once did?”

“Naturally,” she muttered. She hadn’t killed Hemard and his family, but sent them south to Surda, she did explore their minds before doing so, and set their home ablaze afterward… But no one, not even Morzan, would be able to call her out on this bluff. Selena had taken too many careful steps and Morzan trusted her completely. This was the only thing she could count on him for, his complete trust. “I have done as you asked, Morzan, no more, no less. And now that I have reported to you, may I tuck my son into bed? It shan’t take long.”

Morzan looked at the boy hiding behind her, his face darkening. “No,” he said. “The boy is too old to hide behind his mother’s skirts and be tucked into bed, he should have a sword of his own by now.” He stood for a moment, watching Murtagh before flicking his hair from his face. “Well, boy? What are you still doing there? Get to out of my sight!”

Selena pressed her lips together. She didn’t dare say anything, even from this distance she could smell the reek of alcohol seeping from Morzan’s breath.

Behind her she could feel Murtagh’s debate; Morzan was standing by his bedroom door, her son knew not to walk by the man in the evenings, nor could he flee back the way he came, and to knowingly ignore his orders would lead to punishment.  Slowly, Murtagh detangled himself from around her legs and walked past her. She placed a hand on his shoulder as he passed, and let it fall to her side when he walked out of her reach. The boy glanced nervously at his father before continuing to the door. His shoulders and back were stiff with anxiety. As Murtagh walked past Morzan, as close to the wall as he dared to get, the man reached out for him but Murtagh was faster and dodged towards the wall just out of the man’s reach. He ran the rest of the way to his room, and slammed the door shut behind him.

Morzan snorted as he watched the boy. “Your son’s a sniffling coward.”

“He’s hardly more than a babe.” Her hands tightened into fists, as a boiling anger roiled through her.

“I don’t see him nuzzling to your tit,” he said with a sharp laugh.

She pressed her lips tightly together, refusing to let the words she thought to be said. It would be worse for Murtagh if she did, and she couldn’t do that to him. She could not be that thoughtless.

Morzan began to walk away and she followed, knowing that it was best not to let him become angry in the slightest way. And him being drunk did not help her in that mission, not in the least. “What did they tell you?” he asked after a moment.

“Nothing,” she said. “I couldn’t get them to talk. I searched their minds instead. They did not know much.”

Morzan grumbled something she couldn’t hear. “That boy is turning you indulgent,” he said after a moment. “You should have brought them here where they could have been properly taken care of.”

Again Selena said nothing, her lips pressed tightly together. Slowing her footsteps, she held her hands behind her back, placed there to resist the urge to strike at him. She was still very upset about what he had done to Murtagh- she would never forgive him for it.

“It would do that boy good to see what his mother can do.”

Visions of the past flashed before her eyes; the blood and the faces twisted in pain as the lifelight in their eyes slowly faded and flickered out, like a candle being snuffled. She had done that; killed them. But Morzan had done that to her. He had killed the innocence she once had, killed it and twisted it until it was unrecognizable and horrible. He would do the same thing to her son, unless she did something to stop him.

“He will be a man soon enough. He’ll need to hold his own against any who challenge him.”

Murtagh had witnessed no more than three winters. He would not a man for a very long time. He didn’t need to learn to defend himself, expect perhaps from his own father. The man had almost killed him once, and he would no doubt do it again. She should be there for her son more, to protect him; it was her greatest regret.

"You should have gotten more information from them, woman,” he continued after a pause. “I know they knew more, and now what they know is gone as well. You made a mistake.”

Selena had made mistakes. All people did. Her biggest was putting her trust in this man.

As they turned down the collider towards Morzan’s bedchamber, something shifted inside her. Something dangerous. Something thirsty. Something he had created.

Anger swept through her; her skin felt like it was crawling and boiling.

Morzan turned, and he must have seen it, whatever ‘it’ was. His face paled and tightened. “Selena?”

She had to protect Murtagh- him and her unborn child. She couldn’t stand here in front of him, any longer. Each day, each and every moment, was like death. Her hand went to a knife, the smallest one, the one he had enchanted for her. Before she knew what she was doing, she threw it at him.

Morzan did not move, he was far too shocked, and watched as the knife sailed into his chest, just above his heart. He stared at the knife, then, and like an angry cloud his face darkened. He pulled the knife out, muttered the healing words, and grabbed at her.

Fear ripped through her, cold and distracting, as she ducked out of his way. She fell back against the wall, and rolled out of his way as he charged her. Her head slammed against the wall, and for a moment she could see nothing.

As her vision cleared she looked up.

Morzan stood over her, with one hand on his blood-colored blade, it glittered in the dim light from the torches. His other hand was clenched into fist. His carved white face was set into a sneer, splitting the fuzz that covered the lower half of his face. “Get up.”

Selena spit the hair out her mouth then stood up, not knowing what else to do. A moment later she gasped in surprise as he seized her by the shoulders, and spun her around so that she was facing him. He glared down at her. She felt something inside her flinch.

The look in his eyes, froze her in place. He leaned closer and put his lips to her cheek, close enough that she could feel them move he breathed. “What did you think?” he asked. “That you could kill me with a cutlery knife? You know better than that, Selena. You are better than that because I made you that way.”

She couldn’t help it, she did flinched. Reality of what she just did began to weigh on her. Her eyes widened with the relation of what she must now do. She raised her hands and placed them against his chest, then turned her head. Her lips met his, her stomach twisted sickeningly, and she felt him stiffen against her. Her lips moved against his- warm as a dying, yet hard as ice in the dark. Selena slid her hand down his arm, to his sword and tingled her fingertips with him, at that moment he pulled away from her. “I thought it would be more interesting,” she murmured.

“Stabbing me in the chest would make our bed games more interesting?” He laughed, the sound echoed throughout the halls. His lips met hers lightly, almost teasingly, and he pulled away once more. He had to have more to drink than what she originally thought he had. “Interesting, indeed, but I would prefer both of us to live through more than just one night.”

She nodded, and wiggled her leg free, then brought it up and kicked him hard in his knee- where he had an old injury from his childhood that had hadn’t quite healed. As he fell back, she yanked Zar’roc from his hilt, and shot towards him. Morzan jumped to his feet, and nearly fell, but she did not wait for him to gain his balance and swung the flat of the blade at his head, knocking him off feet, blood blossoming against the black of his hair.

He snarled and sprang at her, his fist slammed across her face with enough force to send her skidding across the floor. She was stopped when she crashed into the wall, gagging, and coughing blood. Zar’roc spun down the narrow hallway and bounced against the wall. Selena dared to look at Morzan, he was fumbling over himself in his drunken state. She took advantage of this, and threw another knife at him. It bounced off his wards, he didn’t even notice it. She forced herself to her feet, and launched for his sword.

The ruby blade cut her hand as she grabbed it, slicing the skin clean open to the bone. Morzan yelled from behind her, and jerked her away. He was casting a spell, but his words fumbled over each other and he could not get much out. She stood up slowly, her muscles giving way, and slashed Zar’roc at him. He jerked back in surprise. Selena jabbed the blade into his thigh, and when he reared back, she drove her elbow into his throat, cutting off his spell. He went sideways, choking, and she rolled, pinning him under her as she yanked the bloody blade free from his leg. She drove the blade down toward the pulsing vein of his neck, and stopped-

Morzan was laughing.

He lay under her, bloody and injured, and he was laughing, his body vibrated through her own. His skin was spattered with blood- both his and hers, dripping down his face. He let his arms fall down to his sides, and looked at her in disbelief. “You’ve changed,” he said, his mismatched eyes meeting hers. “But you shan’t kill me, wife. You have not the prowess.”

Selena disagreed and thought of her unborn child and her living child. She would not allow Morzan to have control over her life or theirs. He would not hurt them anymore.

She brought the blade down and screamed when it met skin.

Chapter Text

Selena released the bloody hilt and struggled to stand up. She stumbled back into a wall, droplets of gleaming blood splattered around her boots with each step. There was a straggled sound, she looked down. Morzan was struggling for breath, his mouth open in shock. She could see him calculating just what exactly she had done.

Oh, dear gods, what had she done?

She backed away a little farther, and turned away. She could not stand to look at what she had done. Her heart was beating impossibly fast, like the fluttering wings a hummingbird. Her breath hitched but her chest felt empty, choked. She could not afford think about what had happened, not at that moment, it would come later. Right now, she needed to find her son and leave.

 The thought of him was like an anchor, and she latched onto it. She could finally take her son and leave this place- something she had been wanting to do for so long.

Turning away she ran back the way she came, towards her son’s room. Just as she moved away, Selena’s chest felt like as if knives were going in and her vision flickered black. For a few moments she was conscious of nothing but the pain. And then a great thundering roar, like a cry from the heavens to the earth below, shook the walls and she remembered the dragon in the garden. There was no one to control him now. She pushed the pain away.  It was only pain, she told herself. It was only pain.

 Selena squared her shoulders, trying to will away the pain and wounds and tiredness, and walked quickly through the hallways. The roaring continued and the tunneling hallways shook with each roar. Selena didn’t even see the people run pass or around her, nor did she hear their cries. She weaved around them, as if they were simply still columns. Had the hallways always been this long? They seemed to be growing, stretching longer and longer, until they were without any sort of end.

And then, at last, very suddenly she came to her son’s chambers.

She did not pause, did not even slow, but pushed the door wide open with such force that her son let out a startled yelp. He turned from the window which he had looking out of and stared at her, his dark grey eyes wide with shock.

“Mamma,” he said somberly, “you scare me. That not nice.”

 “I’m sorry, sweetie.” Selena looked around the room and grabbed the soft woolen blanket from his bed and handed it to him. He held it tightly to his chest, along with his wooden toy. “Hold onto this and stay close to me, alright? It is very important that you do.”

Murtagh nodded and grabbed ahold of her hand. “Mamma?” he asked as they through the doorway.

“Yes?”

 “Your hand is hurt,” he said. “What happen?”

Selena looked down at hand and saw a wide, deep gash, likely received from her fight with Morzan. She didn’t recall when it had happened or feeling it. “I fell,” she lied, and the fib did not settle well with her. She hated lying to her son but she could not tell him the truth either.

 Murtagh was silent for a time as she picked him up and balanced him on her hip, careful of her weapons and wounds. “Did daddy push you?” Murtagh whispered.

"We’ll talk later,” she said. “You’ll be my brave warrior until then, alright?”

 “Alright,” he agreed, and then he touched her face and frowned. His touch hurt, she could only assume that she had a wound there as well. She would simply just have to add that to her ever growing list.

They turned and twisted around the corners, Selena always stopping sharply and peering around, and then dashed down a hall but they saw no one. Where was everyone? The castle was eerily empty. Selena’s feet sounded too loud, her footsteps echoed off the walls, and the sound of the roaring seemed muted. There were moments when the walls shook, and flickering shadows were cast over them. She thought that somewhere the castle had been set on fire; she could faintly hear crackling of wood and stone. As they came to a small passage that led to the sables Selena said; “I have to put you down now. Can you run?”

Murtagh clenched her hand. “Mamma, wait,” he said, not moving. “I don’t want to go outside. Daddy’s monster is angry. It will eat me.”

 Selena started and looked down at him. “The dragon won’t eat you,” she said. “I won’t even let him near you. I promise.”

He shook at her hand, trying to loosen her grip, and nodded at her, and then Selena pulled open the stout door and they ran through an ivy covered tunnel. The moment the door opened, a deafening roar that shook the ground, and the rumbling of flames, the crackling of stone and wood. Selena could smell smoke and knew that fears were confirmed; Morzan’s dragon had set the castle ablaze. At least it was busy, she thought.

 Murtagh sniffled beside her, and she looked down at him. “Don’t cry, Murtagh,” she said breathlessly. “There’s my brave boy.” He looked up at her and sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Selena frowned, she wished he didn’t have to witness any of this. Guilt twisted through her but she pushed it away. She would think about it later.

The tunneling merged rather suddenly to the sables, and Selena pulled Murtagh into the building, and made a wild dash from her horse. The stallion was whinnying worriedly, his eye rolling, but after a few calming word in the Ancient Language he calmed and allowed her and Murtagh to approach. She turned to Murtagh and told him to stay put, then she began to look for the bags and saddle that only recently put away.

“Lady Selena,” came a voice, “The whole High Tower is in flames. It’s spreading fast. Where’s Lord Morzan? He usually controls these outbursts.”

Selena turned to the sable-hand, a young man named Nab, and pointed to her horse. “Where’s my supplies?” she asked ignoring his questions. “You haven’t put them away yet have you? No. Good. I need them out and set up as quickly as possible.”

The young man looked troubled but turned away to do as she asked. Slowly Selena backed away and looked over herself. She could feel the damage done to her body now that she was calming down. Her first thought was the baby. If she were lucky the coming child would remain within her, but her luck had never ran strong. She frowned and began to pace.

 What was she going to do? Where was she going to go?

Brom was gone. He had been gone for weeks on a mission he would not speak of. She didn’t know how to contact him. And she desperately wished he were here, to help her, or perhaps give her an idea of what to do now.

Now that she had killed Morzan.

Selena sank to the ground and looked down at herself; she was covered in blood, and could see none of her injuries. She said a quick spell for healing anyhow, one that would merely help the process; to look for them and then heal all of them right then and there would take too much energy and time but to leave then uncared for could be worse.

Murtagh sat on the ground beside her, his blanket hugged tightly to his chest. There were wet treks from tears running down his face and he was hiccupping. Selena wished she had time to grab him warmer clothing, something more than a blanket, or at least a more durable pair of boots. She could buy him something better later, she reasoned and placed her arm around the boy’s shoulders. He sniffled.

"Where we go?” he whispered. “Daddy come too?”

“No, Daddy is staying here.” She pulled him closer to her. “We are leaving him here so he can focus on some important work.”

Murtagh nodded into her shoulder and then went quiet.

After a few moments Nab, the sable-hand, returned with her things, Selena stood and helped him load them. She had always been kind to Nab, in a way he reminded her of her brother when he was younger.

As she packed she wondered what she would do for food, likely she would hunt and collect berries and herbs as she usually did when out on a mission. But she did not know what she would do with Murtagh. She wasn’t certain how she would hunt with him about, nor was she certain what he even liked to eat.

 She thought that it was best to avoid towns for a time, but that would mean that durable clothing for her son would have to wait.

Selena sighed. She was a horrible mother…

“You’re not going out a mission for Lord Morzan are you?” asked Nab, as he looked at her. His face was troubled.

“No,” she said. “And yes. It’s complicated.”

Nab wrinkled his nose. “I won’t ask then,” he said and then went back to work.

“Nab?” said Selena after a moment. “Should anyone ask, I was not here. Murtagh and I, we never exited the castle.”

Nab’s frown deepened but he nodded in agreement.

“There is something else I want you to promise me.”

 "Yes?” He looked nervously.

“I want you to leave this place, and find that girl you wanted to court before you came here,” she said, picking Murtagh up and setting him on the horse. Murtagh looked at her uncertainly, and grabbed ahold of her sleeve. “Will you do that?”

“I've no horse to get there.”

 “Take one of mine,” she said, forcing her son’s grip loose. She swung herself up behind her son. “Sell it later for money and start that trade you’ve spoken of.”

Nab looked at the horses and then back at her, his dark eyes wide. “I cannot possibly do that.”

“Then take two or, if it pleases you, all of them. I shan’t be coming back,” she said urging her horse forward. “But act quickly, Nab, before the guards come to their senses.”

Nab opened his mouth to speak but closed it, and turned away to look at the ground between his feet. Slowly he nodded.

“Take care, my friend,” Selena said and then turned away.

She did not know where she was going to go, nor what she would do once she got there. All she knew was that perhaps she and her son and the unborn child inside her could find a place to settle and have peaceful, safe lives. She would find a way to contact Brom, she decided, and maybe he too would join them, and meet his child. Perhaps they could be a family.

Selena urged her horse into a gallop, and left a burning, broken world full of hate and lies far behind...

Chapter Text

That night Selena did not stay to watch as the stone tower fell to the ground, nor did she watch to see the massive ruby dragon tear apart the castle. The screaming of stone and thundering crackle of wood splitting and crashing were long lost in the distance. The spiraling inferno the dragon turned the castle into was nothing to her but a dim glow through the woodlands.

As they rode the wind shifted, the clear night quickly became plagued by hurrying clouds. The moon hung low huge and swollen in the horizon, swathed in dark rags. Selena sniffed the air, and smelling the sweet, musty scent of rain, she wrapped her cloak around Murtagh, clasping it so it cover him completely. 

The child let out a sound of complaint and pushed her arm away. Selena huffed, and tightened her hold on him. “Murtagh, I need you to cooperate with me!” she said sharply. The child only continued to wiggle within her arms. After a time of him doing so, she looked up into the sky and took in a deep breath. “Do you know what cooperate means?”

The child wiggled a bit move, driving his boney elbow into her ribs. “Something bad.”

“No, son,” she told him breathlessly, choking back a sob. Her ribs though healed were still tender. “It means that I need you to work with me and not against me.”

“Like Daddy works with the King?”

Selena pulled her hood further over her head and took a shallow breath. She said, “Something like that, yes. We are going on a long trip and I’m going to need a lot of your assistance along the way. Will you help me, Murtagh? Right now I need to you to stay still.”

Murtagh happily agreed, eager to help in any way, but Selena found over the coming days that traveling would not be so easy. Alone Selena could travel much more quickly than she could with a young child. She loved her son but she found traveling with him to be quite trying and inconvenient. She was used to being swift, traveling for hours at a time and not stopping until long after dark. But every evening she was forced to stop long before sun fall either near a cave or overhanging of rock or a small wooded valley, just to give Murtagh a short break from traveling.

In the evening her son would often talk of the castle he once knew of home. He would talk of the vast meals Morzan’s cook, Ita, would provide as he chewed on a tasteless biscuit, or the warmth within the castle that the wild evidently lacked, he would also tell her of the games he played during the day while everyone else was busy with their own tasks.

As the stories increased in their telling, Selena tried to keep his mind busy. In evening she would show him a set of animal tracks and tell him what they were from and they would follow the track to see where they would go. She would also try to get him to play a small games with her, like what they did when at Morzan’s castle, but the child was uninterested. Instead he would look around him with disinterest and study the undergrowth of prickly bumbles, thin shoots of saplings, palms of fern, and the round ruby berries growing from trees. He would not say much of what he saw but sigh and look at his wooden toy.

“Mamma,” he said one evening, as he picked his way over to her. “We need to go home now. Greta promise me a custard and I hungry. But when we get home I share it with you. I promise.”

Selena sighed but did not look up from her snare work. She was squatted next to a prickly overgrowth, pulling out a snare from within her sidebag. “I’ve told you, Murtagh, we can’t go back.”

Murtagh pursed his lips and sat down beside her. He grabbed ahold of her hands and placed his toy in her palm. “Why not?” he asked, with a huff.

She watched him play for a time and then said, “That is between your father and myself. If you’re hungry we have some biscuits left over.”

“I don’t want them, Mamma, but later I talk to the gods,” he said taking back his toy and moving away. He bent down and studied what she was doing rather solemnly. “We work it out and then we can go home.”

Selena studied Murtagh in silence. She hadn’t an idea where he had gotten the idea to talk to the gods about his problems. Yet she knew it hadn’t been from her, likely it had been from his nursemaid. She shook her head and examined the snare’s knots. She prayed slightly to herself that the snare would work, that by the end of daylight she would have something to cook for supper. It would be a nice change to not hear her son whine about the obvious lack of a meal. She knew that a few nuts and berries and hard, stale biscuit was not much to go by, despite her best efforts to turn the meager supplies into a decent meal.

 After finished setting up the snare, Selena slowly stood up and checked over her work. She deemed that it was good enough, there was nothing more for her to do here, and turned to the boy beside her. Murtagh had been watching her intently, seemingly having forgotten his earlier comment while watching her work. When she tied off the finial knot he looked up at her.

“I try?”

Selena raised an eyebrow at him. “You want to try, now, do you?”

Murtagh nodded, and hugged his wooden toy to his chest.

“Alright,” she said, taking his hand. “You can try but we shall set another one up closer to the camp.”

“Alright.” He nodded, and tightened his grip on her hand. “Can I stay and watch it?”

“If you stay nearby the rabbits will too frightened to come close enough to go into the trap.”

“I don’t want the rabbits to fall into the trap,” he told her somberly. “I just want to watch it.”

Selena snorted in amusement and squeezed his hand lightly. “Then you may watch it as long as you wish.”

Murtagh was happy enough to hear this and began to look around to woodland, telling his mother of the things he saw and he thought of them until they returned to where Selena had set up camp. Once there he reminded her of her promise and she showed a simpler trap, one that her brother had taught her, at the edge of the encampment so she could keep a close eye on him. Then when she was satisfied that the child would be entertained for time, however short it was, she began to set up a fire. Most of the wood was damp and in the end she resorted to using magic to get the wood to catch.

Selena watched her son for a time. At times such as these she could almost sense his confusion and uncertainty, and thought that his behavior was due to her taking him from the only home he had ever known, away from the only people he had ever known. It troubled her at times, and she wondered if she and done the best thing for him. Despite the cruelty of his father Murtagh has had a good life before now.  Never once had be gone to be hungry or unsheltered, nor had he had to worry about be caught in the rain and his skin burnt by the sun; always was he inside and as long as he kept away from Morzan, he had been safe.

But how long would that safety have lasted?

Morzan had almost killed her son that one night while she was away, and there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t have done it again, whether or not Murtagh would live through it the next time was a mystery. The thought of Morzan’s act often angered her enough to push her thoughts aside. Murtagh would adapt, she told herself. It would take time but if she could live with it so could he, and he was young enough for this change. She just hoped it wouldn’t scar his soul for life.

Selena had chosen to head north along the mountainy regain of the Spine, hoping that it would be the quickest. The path she choice was one she often took when traveling north and she knew it well. It was an old, neglected path, forgotten after the fall of the Riders, overrun with crawling growth and invading grasses, a low crumbled wall ran beside it.  Whenever Selena peered over it she saw nothing different from the woodland on the other side and silently questioned its purpose.

They passed no people, which was perfectly fine with her. She would rather take no risks of people seeing her and starting rumors; she would rather not hear of her own doings.

On the fifth day of their travel, it began to rain. In a way Selena was glad when the rain came, it covered much of their tracks but it also soaked them both until they were shivering and their noses began to run. Murtagh was miserable in the rain and would often let her know his complaints rather it be that he was wet, or hungry, or simply bored, before he suddenly settled into silence and snuggled deeper into her cloak looking desperately for warmth.

“Mamma?” said Murtagh quietly as they passed a small gap in the wall. “I want to go home. My feet hurt.”

Selena did not look away from the stone road but peered closer to see what was beyond it. “How can your feet hurt, Murtagh?” she said absently. “You’re sitting on a horse.”

The small child tugged at her cloak trying to get her attention. “I’m thirsty,” he said when she refused to look at him, “and I got to pee!”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “Honestly now, Murtagh. Which one is it?” she said much more sharply than intended.

Murtagh withdrew into her cloak and for a very long time remained completely silent. Despite the coiling guilt inside of her, Selena simply stared ahead and pushed her feelings away. It would be a worry for another time.

 As they continued to travel she forced herself not to think about what had happened with Morzan. She didn’t permit herself to think, either, about Brom or Nab or the child within her. Aside from the necessities of the journey and Murtagh, she tried not to think at all; she simply moved forward and let the stars guide her. She felt that if she thought about what had happened she would begin to look contently over her shoulder for the Empire’s soldiers until she began to be obsessed with thinking that the worst was to come. At this moment she had to focus on getting Murtagh and herself to Carvahall before the growing child came, that was all that mattered.

She was not completely certain when she had decided that she was heading to the village of her childhood, merely that it seemed to be the most logical place to go. She had family there, a father who was likely willing to forgive her and a brother who would, friends even that she had left behind many years ago. She had not an idea what she would do if they refused to help her, but she refused to think of it. Still the thought hung in the back of her mind, a dark worry she couldn’t quite get rid of.

When the mountains of the Spine could finally be seen, they seemed to appear all at once, as if the leagues of hazy air making them seem as if they were mere pictures and not real things at all. For long amounts of time, she would simply look at them and then slowly began to tell her son stories of her childhood home. Murtagh heard about the misadventures she and her brother would get into, tales of fishing with her father by a lake in the Spine, and sometimes tales of her mother and how her face would turn red whenever she and her father returned with heavy baskets tied to their backs. Eventually as time went by, Murtagh began to ask questions about the family he had never met, and finally as she told him more his stories of the home he would never return to, ceased completely.

As days pasted they entered a sleepy town at the edge of the mountains. There Selena rented a room at the local inn and bought supplies and clothes appropriate for their journey through the mountains. This brought about a whole new round of complaints from Murtagh. He spent that night, pulling the collar of his woolen cloak and grumbling, “It’s itchy.”

Selena batted his hand away from its edging, and say, “If you stop itching it won’t bother you as much.”

“I can’t, Mamma,” he said. “It still itches. Can I take it off?”

She sighed but did not answer him. After a time he stopped his scratching and grumbling, and focused instead on the toy he carried. She did not a fortune teller to know that the journey through the mountains would be the hardest trip she would ever take but that adventure would not start until morn. Selena turned her thoughts away and took a long sip of the heated wine as she watched her son play, completely taken by his simple game.

Chapter Text

Garrow was outside, enjoying the first warm day since winter’s fury rolled through, when a ragged horse and the most disreputable-looking traveler he had ever seen rode through his gate. Although the lands around Carvahall had been peaceful as of late, tales of Urgals and war and deadly assassins often came adrift, and the people of the valley feared of a possibly of attack. This was an age of fear and suspicion and dark rumor. It had been for as long as he remembered.

He stared at the horse and rider before harshly threw down his trowel in annoyance. Aside from the demanding tax collector or a grim villager, no person came onto his land, no one was welcome. And besides, not one single person had any business to come onto his land, as he did not want them here.

 “Aye!” he shouted to the rider. “Geoff my land! I have work to do and you are trampling over my upturned dirt!”

The figure did not turn away. No, it raised its hooded head and directed its horse right at him. “You are not truly going to turn me away, are you, Garrow?” came a sharp, impatient voice from within the shadow of the cloak. “Surely not now after not seeing each other after all this time? It’s me, Garrow. Selena, your sister.”

Garrow started, and looked again more closely as the hood dropped around the figure’s shoulders. It had been quite a number of years since he had last seen or received word from his sister, and he was shocked to see the woman in front him was indeed her. Though the softness of childhood was gone from her face and deep shadow were etched beneath her eyes, he recognized the way her gaze held his and the half smile that played at her lips whenever she had done something she truly was not sorry for, even when she should be.

After the years of hearing or seeing nothing of his younger sister he had come to being at peace with her choices, thinking that it was likely she was either dead or married and with children. Not once in that passing time he thought that she would return. Not with the way she left, in the dead of night and without a sound or farewell. One morning she was just gone, and that was that. The family she left eventually moved on, her brother married a woman he loved, her father passed away from illness, and eventually Garrow had a son and took over the family farm. Selena was not meant to return and ruin that peace. Now that she had he wanted to know; why?

Why after years of arguing with their father had she run off when he began to weaken from sickness? When a faithful daughter would stay and nurse her father back to health? When she did leave why had she not, at least, have said goodbye? And why would someone so eager to rid herself of all ties with those who loved would she ever return?

Anger rose within him, and he thought about sending her away. He could quite easily, and not feel regretful in the least. After all the grief her disappearance had caused it would only serve her right.

He was just raising his hand to wave her off when a child head peeped out from within the cloak and studied with dark, forlorn eyes, and he forgot about sending her away. No child should have such a gaze. It was a gaze Garrow saw once from a man who had too many sorrows. Garrow’s steps faltered as the boy simply stared at him, his eyes pleading. Within moments the child disappeared back into the folds of the cloak but the twisting feeling inside him remained.

Garrow looked back up at his sister. “Come on in,” he said.

She smiled. It was a different smile, one Garrow had never seen. It sent shivers up his spine. “I shall,” she said in lithe, tilted voice that twisted her words into a strange new form. “But before I do, I have a horse I must tend to.”

Garrow peered up at her, and crossed his arms over his chest. “You know where the barn is,” he said, stepping back. “Let me know if you need any help.”

“I shall,” came her answer. The woman rode towards the barn and despite himself Garrow followed. A great frown stretched across his face as he walked toward. The barn was a small building that had little more than dirt and wood and scattered hay in it.  There was a time, a few months ago when the building was used to shelter animals that was until the wild dogs came one night. Since then Garrow had closed it off, waiting for spring to arrive so that he buy new stock with the little money he received from selling wild dog meat.

 Now Garrow looked around the byre and wrinkled his nose. The smell of must and rot was stronger than he believed it would be.  He would have to clean the barn out before he thought of bringing younger stock in, and it was likely he wouldn’t now. Not if Selena and that child were to stay.

 He turned to Selena. “How long are planning on staying?” he asked, watching as the small boy scuttled dangerously off the horse. He frowned as the boy stumbled.

Selena looked at the boy and huffed. She drew the heavy green cloak closer to her. “As long as you are willing to have me,” she said, and slowly turned on her back to Garrow and kicked her leg over. She slid gracelessly off the horse, nearly falling. “I will help however you’ll have me, as will Murtagh.”

Garrow frowned and looked about. His eyes landed on the young boy who was staring at him. “I’m supposing that you are Murtagh?” he said to the boy.

The child went white and scurried under the horse’s belly causing a sharp chiding from Selena. Murtagh did not seem to notice, he clung onto her leg and peered at Garrow with wide eyes.

“I apologize,” said Selena, setting her hand on the boy’s head. “Yes, this is Murtagh. My son. Your nephew. He is a good boy though I’m beginning to expect that he is rather shy.”

“His father?” Garrow asked, peering at her. She remained behind the horse, taking the saddle off from its stooped back with a look of great strain. It was a grand horse, its coat the color of the richest of polished woods. “Where is he? Who is he?”

“He traveled into the Void some months ago,” said Selena shortly, giving the saddle a look of defeat. She give the saddle a great tug and let it fall noisily onto the ground between her feet. “What of you, Garrow? How have you been?”

“I believed you to be died.”

There was a sharp intake of breath as she detangled herself from her son, and toddled around the horse. “I should not have left the way did all that time ago,” she said softly. “I am sorry for that.”

Garrow just stared at his sister and her swollen belly, his mouth opening in surprise. At least now he knew why she came here after she swore she was never going to return. He coughed. “No you should not of,” he muttered and then turned away. “I should go tell Marian you are here.”

As quickly as he could, Garrow fled from the barn and grabbed the tools he had dropped earlier. His fingers stroked their rough, worn wooden handles, and without thought and as he came closer to the house he tossed them to the ground. He cursed. Loudly.

The door opened and his wife walked out, her round face and brown hair smudged with flour. She wiped her hands on her apron as she moved to him. “Who is that in our barn?”

Garrow looked down at her with wide eyes, catching her gaze. He took a deep breath, gathering himself, and said, “My sister.”

Marian pursed her lips. “You are not truly going to her stay, are you?” she said, casting her gaze towards Selena and the child next to her.

“Look at her condition and tell me that I should send her away,” Garrow sighed, and looked too at her. “Beyond that, she is my sister. I can’t send into the unknown without first trying to help her. If she becomes too much of a nuisance, I will do my best to find her and the child a suitable place to stay.”

“If she is anything like what she I remember her to be,” Marian said lowly, touching his arm, “I want her gone. I refuse to have my son raised around her… wildness. I mean it, Garrow.”

Garrow nodded. He remembered very well the wildness his wife spoke of. He had spent more than one night of his youth in the pub chasing down his sister and being cursed at and fought off when he did. When she disappeared it had almost been a relief. “Worry not,” he muttered, “she will be.”

Marian gasped ahold of his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “She best be,” she said. “I’m going in to check on Roran now.”

When his wife walked back into the house, Garrow followed close behind. He wanted to see his bright smiling son. Roran was not much younger than Selena’s boy but that child held something within him that troubled Garrow. He held to him something of a dark sadness, a woe that would never fade. As he shut the door, he looked back into byre and saw the dark-haired boy looking at him from the distance.

The child ran into the shadows before the door was completely shut.

Chapter Text

The valley around the house had once been a field filled with soft bush-tailed grasses and tiny blossoms of gold and pink. Lines of pines and elms grew in masses at the valley’s end; tall, dark guards dutifully protecting the wild oats from the wild peaking mountains. Once when this land was untamed by human-hand elfin deer and fretful cottontails wondered the fields making thin trails to a shallow, silent blue stream. It remained this way even as the lands around it changed and altered until a man and woman came and were stunned by its unclaimed beauty. They chased the cottontail and the elfin deer away and cut down the long valley stems.

It was here in the vale’s center that a house and a byre was built, and the golden-green grass replaced with unturned ground rowed with spouts of peas and beans, and leafy heads of green and white. A wooden fence was built around the plants and house, and gate was fastened by a young boy and his father from the wood of the watching trees. Though many of these giants remained some were cut down for beams to build or burn, and after a time new, tiny saplings grew in the lost ones’ place.

For a very long time, Selena stood in that small byre in the middle of the valley, brushing down a chestnut steed with the help of her young son. Every so often she would look up at the shadowy peaks of the Spine and stare. She was back where she had started, where her whole life had begun. It was in this valley that her father built a home for his wife and where they started a family. Selena could not remember a time in her childhood where she hadn’t longed to see something other than these rocky peaks ever watching her.

They were like the walls of a prison.

Her life after leaving this valley was one that no one here could ever know about. They could never know of the golden valleys and everlasting seas and of the mountains that reached into the heavens, their peaks hidden in mist. They could never know of the wonders she had seen, and perhaps she found peace in this, because they would also never know about the pain and blood she had fallen either. Here she would only a farmer’s daughter with too many reckless dreams, and perhaps she found that she was not completely at peace with that. A part of her wanted them to know who she was and what she had done. Selena wished for them to know that she was not a fool with far too many dreams…

The child rustled beside her.

“What do think, Murtagh?” said Selena, peering down at the child. He looked at her, his hand frozen in mid-stroke. “Do you suppose that Merryleggs has been brushed enough?”

The young boy nodded sharply, and tossed the brush carelessly aside. He pointed to the small wooden house. “Go inside?”

“Yes, I suppose we will go inside,” she said. She took a deep breath and bent down to her son’s level, taking ahold of his shoulders and turned him to face her. When he looked at her, his eyes very wide, she held his gaze until he looked away. “Murtagh, sweetheart, I need you listen very closely to what I’m about say, alright?”

The child nodded. “Alright, Mamma,” he said trying to wiggle away.

Selena did not let him go. “You have to promise to never speak of your father or his beast or Greta or the castle,” she said. “Its too dangerous. Promise me, Murtagh, promise me that you won’t speak of him.”

“Promise, Mamma,” said Murtagh still fighting her grip. She let him go and he staggered away from her, his eyebrows drawn together.

“I mean it, Murtagh, not a word.”

Again, Murtagh nodded. “Not a word,” he repeated, looking past the archway toward the house. He pointed at the splintered wood door beyond the field and his face scrunched together. “We going to live there. Its small.”

Selena looked at the building in the distance. The cabin was small, more so when compared to the grand castle they had left behind- the castle with its spiraling turrets, and many halls and chambers overshadowed that cabin many times over. By right, that castle now belonged to a young boy should he ever wish to claim it, but Selena herself would never go back there even if he did. Its shadows held far too many ghosts.

“Yes, it is,” she said slowly, “but you do know the best part of living in such a small home?”

The boy shook his head.

“You shall never get lost,” she told him, “and there’s no place or shadow big enough for monsters to hide.  Perhaps if you’re polite enough your uncle will let you sleep on the loft, up there you can see everything in the house, and nothing can sneak up on you.” Grabbing ahold of her hand,

Murtagh grinned up at her. “Window?”

She nodded. “Yes, it has a window,” she said. “A small one, but if you look through close enough and peer out long enough you can see the world.”

His smiled widened, and he looked away, glancing about the byre. Not a few steps from them was a wooden ladder, many of its spokes broken or cracked, which led up to a stooped overhang. Once, years ago, the floorboards were cover with piles of straw and hay. Selena used to hide up there, as a child and imagine she was a ship sailing over the mists of the ocean, off to discover faraway lands, the imaginary smell of salt that would burn her throat, but now she could only smell the mold drift down, even from where she was standing, and it was very real. She wondered when was the last time Garrow had gone up there, likely not since she had left- he hated heights. She was always the one who had to force him up the ladder to help bring down feed for the livestock, and even then he shook the whole time as he watched her work, scooting away from any gaps or openings in the floorboards eagerly awaiting the time when he hurry down onto the earthen ground.

Murtagh released her hand, and ran over to pick up his bag and one of his mother’s, before returning to her side. He handed the bag to her, looking of the world as impatient as he could. He shift from foot to foot in a strange little dance. “Hand me the other bag too,” she said swinging the one he gave to over her shoulder.

“It’s heavy.”

“I can’t bend down to get it. Please, help you mother and hand it to me,” she told him. They had this conversation every evening and morning for nearly two months. Selena wondered if he would ever grow tired of having it- she had.

Sighing in defeat, he slumped his shoulder and waddled toward the large bag. He looked over his shoulder to give her a tired glare and grasped a hold of the strap, and began walking backwards dragging it in front of him. He fell twice, though she had a feeling he did it for show, and grumbled sounds of struggle. When he reached her, he handed her the strap and bent down lifting up the bag just barely off of the ground.

Selena took it from him, and gasped a hold his small hand, holding it tight. He fussed but after a moment tightened his grip on hers as well. Tightening her hold of the bags, she walked with her son out the barn, shutting the door and clasping its lock, leaving Merrylegs as the sole animal inside. As they walked towards the house, Murtagh worried that the horse might get lonely but after promising him that he could visit he calmed down and looked around, staring the large pines in the distance.

Once those trees had promised that she would never leave this valley and see the world beyond it, now they seemed to promise to keep her son safe from that world. For the first time in her life, and the last, Selena wished that she would not have to.

The inside of the cabin was the same Selena remembered it always being. A wooden table sat at the center of the room, old and scarred from use, dried herbs and flowers and beans hung loosely from the ceiling above it. A small stone hearth, with an iron cauldron bubbling at the center its belly, burned from across the room. A moth-eaten grey cloth curtained the back wall hid the cramped sleeping quarters. The small garret above it used for storing food and uncut clothe stacked atop it, though now even that was notably almost empty.

 Selena tore her eyes away to look at the people in the room, a small brown-haired woman sat the table- she remembered the woman’s face but not her name- and a gaunt man holding a grey eyed child. Her nephew, she realized, could not be much younger than her own son. The boy was looking at Murtagh his mouth slightly agape, his tiny fists bunching Garrow’s thin shirt.

“This is my son, Roran,” said Garrow, not quite looking at her. He gestured to the woman seated near the table. “And my wife, Marian. I’m sure you remember her. Heledd was her father.”

Selena nodded and said a brisk greeting.

She remembered Heledd very well indeed. That man was constantly with her father after her mother had passed. A friendship had formed between the two men, both of them being widowers with children to raise. Whether it be at the pub or at the farm, many jokes and even more hours were passed in their company. One more than one occasion Selena and Garrow had suffered in the company of his many needy children, as the men spent the night in the byre and very likely more to drink than there were mouths to drink it. Though after quite a number of years Heledd had remarried, Selena’s father, Cadoc, never looked at another woman in his life after his wife died. And not long after their friendship faded.

Marian’s eyes remained polity on Selena and her son, as she set her work aside. “Sit down,” she said. “Come rest and eat. I’m sure you have had a hard travel.”

With Murtagh following not far behind, Selena sat down accepting the woman’s offer. She was very much exhausted and her traveling had been very, very hard. Traveling through the mountains had been the most brutal sort of travel she had ever experienced, perhaps even more trying because of the small child at her side. Her son would often moan or complain, pulling at his cloak -which he claimed to be itchy- or even hers, or shift on the saddle back and forth and side to side, until she snapped at him to remain still. Journeying the thin passes was hard enough without him distracting her. Selena needed to concentrate so that she didn’t get them both killed but the child did not see it this way. Murtagh often seemed to believe that she was mad at him, and would hide within her cloak, playing with his toy, and she let him. If he was quiet and if he wouldn’t distract than she would try not to worry about it. That is, until he threw his wooden toy over the thin pass and into the mist below- Selena didn’t know how she survive without something to keep him occupied. After the first few miles of traveling with the weepy child she believed that she would not last that day, nonetheless be sitting in a warm house outside of Carvahall with the promise of a hot meal and good night’s sleep.

“Is there something I can help with?” she said, pushing the thoughts of travel away. She was tired enough without merely thinking about the last weeks.

“No!” Marian said quickly and far too loud to be casual. She looked up at her husband’s sister and blinked rapidly. “I prefer to cook alone,” she amended in a soft, clipped voice. “If you feel the need to do something, you can always clean yourself and your son off before supper. Unpack, maybe. That is, if you are planning to stay long enough to worry yourself by doing so.”

Selena pursed her lips as she stared down at the woman. She had always believed that her brother would marry a soft hearted, kind woman who had an over developed affectation for cats but instead he had married a woman with a sharp tongue who was just as brisk as he.

Standing up, Selena grasped ahold of Murtagh’s hand. “Come on, my sweet,” she said gently. “Let us clean up.”

The child stopped his peering around and followed eagerly behind her as she guided him towards the woolen curtain. Pulling it back, Selena nearly walked straight into the feather and wool stuffed mattress on a rough wooden frame that took up the majority of the room. On it was the same red throw, wrinkled and stained, that her mother once claimed to be blessed by the gods.

She frowned and straightened it. Her mother had died in that bed during childbirth, when Selena was just old enough to have memorize the stormy grey in her eyes and the way her voice filled the valley as they labored in the fields. After she died there were no more songs or riddles and the fields, and small house, and man who had been behind with their children, seemed haunted by that silence. And that silence became far more overwhelming when the child she gave her life for followed his mother into death. The mother and babe were buried in a small flat meadow over a hill.

So had Selena’s father it seemed. Cadoc the cobbler had been sickly for some time before his daughter had left, and for him to have passed- well, it would be no great surprise to her. Still, she stood very still, her feet and ankles aching as she stared at that bed.

The ghosts that had urged her to leave peaked their ugly heads once more, but this time she could not run from them. The cabin in the center of the valley was small- there were not many places for these ghosts to hide. They would remain in the open forever, unless she found a way to banish them. And unlike the years before she knew that a stranger with a gleaming steed would not come promising a light to ward away the dark. This time she would have to face the haunts in her mind and past. She would have to find a way to make a home on this dead-land, even if she did not like the prospects. She had no weapon to fight these enemies.

Selena looked into her son’s dark eyes. She felt her face burn.

It was a long time before she was able to move.

Chapter Text

Over the following weeks, life continued in a simple routine. Selena woke early every morning, refreshed, and walked to the window to look out over the lowlands. Despite her misgivings she loved the simple room she as staying in, devoid of the luxuries of manors and castles, but with other, older beauties those places could not match. Every morning the early air came fresh and unbreathed through the timber, smelling faintly of fresh grass and carrying the songs of birds and frogs from the pond, and no mural could match her view. The view was different every morning, sometimes the valley was wreathed in mist, so that the colors seemed muted in a mauve haze and the mountains could not be seen at all as if nothing were there at all or they hung like ghosts in the sky. And other times the whole countryside was bathed in golden light so that the land possessed a supernatural clarity, the very edge of was hard and unmistakable. She had forgotten the simple splendor of this place, and all at once everything seemed so new and familiar.

After a light breakfast, Selena would watch over the children as her brother and his wife worked in the fields, and sometimes she would help prepare for the afternoon meal in the kitchen. While no word was ever said about it, she sensed that these tasks were given to keep her away from the routine that had setup over the years between the husband and wife. She did not mind too much, it was a nice change to sit down and do nothing. That was until Garrow called a break and went inside for a meal, the children trailing after him.

During these times, Selena would usually go for a solitary walk toward the mountains that soared above Garrow’s valley, grim rocky peaks draped in snow. The highest of all was the Irynuos, its sheer precipice even in the summer were shrouded in mists; then falling away were the triple peaks of the Narrows, so steep no snow could clang there.

There were times when she would go nowhere at all but watch her son interact with his uncle. Murtagh got on better than she ever believed he would, coming out from behind her more and more to talk and play with those around him. Over time he became more of the child she had always hoped he would. There was still a sadness within that clung about his shoulders like a cloak, but to her it seemed less heavy than before.

Though Garrow hardly spoke with his sister, her son was often seen following behind him- playing the role of a second shadow. It had taken many weeks and hours for him to detangle himself from his mother and allow himself to know the man. Selena had thought that it would never happen, but it began within the first weeks they had arrived, and she was glad for it. Murtagh needed that attention- it was a kind he had never gotten from his father. He seemed to glow in it, the way a blossom might bask in the late afternoon sun.

It was a peaceful time, despite the worries that beset her. Selena felt as she were gathering a strength for a struggle to come, though she did not know what that struggle might be. She bent her concentration fiercely into planning; she needed to know what she might do if Brom might not come. She had decided to sell her bracelet, a golden band shaped into leaves with petals of made pearls, the soonest chance she got. The gold she would get from it was more than enough to buy land for a home- in the north, she decided, somewhere close to Ceunon. Some of her knives, she would sell as well, and once a home was established she would sell her horse and replace it the stocky traveling breed common in this part of the country. If she used the gold she would earn of these items smartly, it would last her years to come. It was merely the question of where to sell these things without being accused of being a thief…

The coming child within her grew quickly, and as the autumn months waned and winter came in flurry of ice and snow, her mind trailed more and more to these thoughts and she withdrew the people around her. Her brother did not question the change, though she caught his wife peering at her often. “Is the child’s father still alive?” the woman asked one afternoon, her head bent over her sewing.

Selena glanced up at Marian. Somewhere under the table Roran let out a sharp wail and Murtagh scrambled away, a wooden toy in his hands- likely he had taken it while his cousin was still playing with it. “He is,” she said with a sigh, watching the boy retreat.

Marian nodded and after snapping at boys to share, she set her needle aside. “You think that he will come,” she stated. “Don’t look so surprised, I’ve seen the same look on your face that I saw on my sister’s when her beloved left town on a trading trip. Every day she would look out at the road leading from town for hours, just as you do now. You’re waiting for him.”

“I had thought that he would come by now,” she admitted. “Though now I am starting to believe that he might not know where to find me.”

“This man, he is not Murtagh’s father?” Selena shook her head, and Marian made a clicking noise with her tongue. “That’s right you said he was dead. Sad thing, losing your husband. Did he die long before you arrived here?”

Selena kept her face blank. She understood the double question; is the child you’re carrying out of wedlock? “He was killed some time ago,” she said slowly, avoiding as much of the question as possible. “I do not want to speak about this, not now and certainly not with my son about. There is much I cannot speak of, so please, do not ask.”

Marian was silent for a long while as she restarted her sewing, and Selena returned to stirring the stew. “Tell me one thing and I ask you nothing further,” said the woman looking at Selena, her light grey eyes were hard as flint. “Have you led danger towards my family?”

“I would not be here if I believed that my brother or my son were in any danger.” Selena looked the woman in her eyes, hers narrowing. “I am no idiot, Marian.”

She shrugged and went with back to her work, a tune was hummed as she did. “I just wanted to check, is all,” she said after a moment.

Selena let out a huff, and stood, her hands gripping her back. She felt the need to move, to do something, but the child prohibited it- her back ached terribly and she felt as if her feet were made of lead. When she was heavy with Murtagh it had been the same, if not worse, at least now she knew what to expect. Her gaze when unbidden to the window that overlooked the road to Carvahall, and she sighed. “Did your sister’s beloved ever return?” she asked softly.

“No,” said Marian in her loud voice. “He was killed by a group of thieves.”

Selena decided then to have a nap, and after telling her son to behave, she went to her makeshift bed and slept. After that day, Marian did not bring up the subject her dead husband again, nor Brom, but spoke of simpler things and Selena slowly found herself taking a liking to the woman, and soon they formed a friendship- the kind Selena believed she would never have with the woman.

.

She had been at the farmhouse for almost six months when one afternoon she felt a sharp pain as she watched her favorite view. In the moment she knew that the child within her was ready to come into the world, and she called for Marian. It took much of the day for the child to be fully pushed into the world and sometime after, to be finally be placed into Selena’s waiting arms.

The child was a boy, and for a long time she studied each of his features, from the blue eyes of a newborn to his ruddy, fat toes and fingers, and the tuft of wispy brown hair that scattered across the crown of his head. So much of him was Brom, even this young she knew that the child had his ears and cheekbones and long fingers. He whined like his father also, she decided, after he quieted.

As she studied her youngest son, Marian and the town healer had left her alone with him, only returning some time later with a weak broth and tea. Selena ate silently and slowly, watching the bundle within Marian’s arms. Once the food was gone she insisted holding the child, her mind troubled. The child deserved a name worthy the son of the Rider of old, but the more she thought of it, the less of idea she had for such a name. Marian tried to help, though Gertrude stood beside the bed, clucking her tongue. 

“It will come to you,” the older woman said. “Don’t rush it.” She left not long after that, having deemed the baby and Selena in good health, and promised to keep Selena’s presence at the farm a secret for the time being. After she left, the house was completely silent- not long after Selena had yelled for Marian, Garrow decided to take the boys for a walk by the river to catch a fish or two. They returned long after sunset, with a basket full of fish and beaming faces, allowing Selena enough time for a short rest. The boys came in, each holding onto Marian’s mud incrusted fingers, babbling about the fish they caught. The smell of burning hazelwood and lilac drifted throughout the house with them.

Selena half listened, looking at the woman’s hands. She understood the traditions and superstitions of the town but she had forgotten some of them over time. It seemed that Marian had taken onto herself to insure that not all of these traditions were forsaken when Selena took no interest into doing them herself. At least in the eyes of the town, her youngest child was blessed and true.

She shook her head and sat up, careful not to jolt the babe in her arms. “Come here, minx,” she called to Murtagh. “There’s someone you need to meet.”

He glanced at her, releasing his hold on Marian and hurried to seat himself on the bed beside her. He looked at the bundle that prevented him from crawling on her lap with distaste before beaming at her. “I held a fish,” he announced proudly. “Roran didn’t. He was too afraid. I braver than he is. But the fish was slimly and smelly. I don’t like holding fish.”

“No?” Selena smiled, as he shook his head. “Did your uncle let you catch them too?”

Murtagh frowned. “Yes, but he was mean to our fish. He hit them with his hammer.”

Selena snapped her head up to fix her brother with a hard glare. He shrugged, indifferent to her sudden anger, and stepped to stand beside her. “Mari told me we have another nephew,” he said, eyeing her guardedly. “Let me see him.” After fixing him with another glare, she pulled the blanket away from the baby’s face and grinned as she watched Garrow’s face soften. “He looks like you,” he decided.

“I think that he looks like his father.”

Garrow shook his head. “Unlike you I remember when you were little and whiny and annoying. He just looks like you did then, and probably will act like as bratty as you did too,” he said, poking Murtagh in the stomach. “Like this one here does.”

As the boy fell somewhere behind her on the mattress with a sharp giggle, Selena glared again at her brother. “Stop picking on my sons, you great oaf,” she said, wiggling her arm free to swat at him.

Garrow grinned at her, and then it faded as suddenly as it came, and he turned away. “It’s good to see that the babe is heathy. I’m-” He stopped himself and glanced again at her. His face unreadable. “I’m going to help Mari with the fish.”

Selena watched her brother disappear around the corner, and sighed before looking at the grinning child beside her. She scrunched up her face at him and his smile widened as he stood using her shoulders as balance. He bounced slightly on his toes. “Sit down, Murtagh, before you hurt one of us,” she said. When he sat beside her, still wiggling, she turned to face him, holding the bundle for him to see.

Murtagh studied the babe with a frown, and finally went still. “What is it?” he asked looking up at her. He pushed a tangle of hair from his face- for weeks she had thought that it was time to cut but she could never bring herself to do so. She had grown to like the slight curl at the tips of his hair, and the way he would become flustered whenever it wouldn’t stay down. It made him look younger, she thought, less of a noble’s child and more of the peasant he needed to seem to be.

“Do you remember how big my belly was, minx?” she asked, and watched as he nodded, his eyes looking at her stomach. “And you remember me saying that you would have a brother or sister, yes?” The child nodded again. “The goddesses Dhei came today and allowed your brother into the world, like in the story of the Sun Child. You remember that, don’t you?”

Again Murtagh nodded, and studied his brother closely before shrugging and climbing down from the bed. “When can we play?”

Selena blinked. “When he gets older,” she told him. “Until then you have to be gentle with him and protect him. It’s a big job but I know you can do it.”

 Murtagh made a face as if to say, of course I can. I don’t want to, though. He backed away. “I go help Uncle now,” he announced. “He needs me. You’ll have protect him until I get back.” And he too disappeared, and the sound of the door opening and closing echoed throughout the small cabin.

With a sigh, Selena looked down at the sleeping newborn babe and sighed. “I’ve been replaced by my brother,” she told him gloomily. “At least, I have you to keep beside me until you learn how to run, too.”

There was no response from the slumbering babe.

For a long time she studied the child, and then lay back down on the damp blankets and looked at the ceiling. Her mind drifted from Garrow’s cabin to a place very far away, where she sat hidden for hours listening a man describe stories and histories beside the glow of a flickering fire. She knew then what she would name her newest child. It seemed right, fitting of the new life she would forge him and his brother.

Eragon. It was a name of hope, of a warrior, and a hero.

Selena laughed to herself, thinking that she was incongruous from the labor and pain she undertook that day. Still it seemed to fit the babe. She whispered it a few times, trying it out on her tongue and sighed once more.

 She had no plans on moving anywhere anytime soon. For now she would stay and wait, to see what happened, whether or not Brom came for her, or if she would work on finding a new life. She would give him a year and six moon cycles, she decided, if he came, he came, if not… she would move on.

Selena could not burden her brother and his wife forever, but for another year or so they could survive that. She would sell a knife or two to the traders when she could and give Marian the gold. Garrow would never accept it, but his wife was different. Marian could forgive, while Garrow’s mind remained on the broken past. She had come to believe that her brother would never forgive her running as she did, nor would he understand her reasons.

She had wanted to be free, to see the world. Had she known the cost… likely she still would have left. Even now she longed to leave, she knew what was out there; a bigger, brighter world. Somewhere. Perhaps someday she would find it.

Until she did, she would wait. Selena was never a patient person but for this she would learn.

She waited a year and three moon cycles after her youngest son’s arrival to the world when a shadowy figure with a gleaming ruby blade rode through the gate. Selena looked up from the three children playing around her on the dirt and studied him, and slowly she stood from the chair. Her hands reaching for a blade she no longer carried, and she grasped only air, a ghost of a handle. She let her arms fall her sides, as she watched through narrowed eyes. The figure dismounted and stood beside the horse walking slowly forward, and she knew, without a doubt, who had come.

She rushed forward to greet him. Selena did not need to hear his voice call to her across the distance nor see the face beneath his hood, she knew the sound of his heart beat in his chest, the velvety blue eyes that kept her from hiding from the night. He was the reason that she found her courage to keep those she loved safe and now, at last, he had come home.

Chapter Text

“The land you see you see about you was once as flat as a blade,” said an old man, with a bushy beard as white as dirty snow, which is to say not very white as all. This old man was perched proudly atop of a log, looking at a trio of children. Though the two boys were grown nearly to manhood their coming of age made no difference to him; they were children as they would always be. A younger girl sat between them, a needle and length of cloth in front of her, her head was bent with work but the man knew she was listening. It was likely that she would the only one who would hear the story through. “It still would be, were it not for the ones that were lost nigh a millennia ago. It was in this time all those years ago when men and elves and the creatures of terror had only begun to crawl from their nest of creation to discover this world. It was then in this land here that a great race lived.”

“Some said these creatures were as tall as the mountains while others have said that they were they were no taller than men, but the truth is seen where only the eye can see. The mountains you see, the peaks you roams tell a tale that was once long forgotten, a tale about the mountains that now protect us and how they came to be.”

 It was than at this point in the man’s tale that his wife turned from her craft and gave him a dark look. Her face became hidden in the shadow from the lofty oak above, saving the man from the worst of her sour expression. She had never took to the protection of the mountains, had always believed them to be a hindrance, and perhaps that was why the man took such joy from this tale.

The man winked at her, and began his tale; “Once long ago lived many dragons and their young ones. One day, as the enormous mother dragons were flying in the valley hunting food, a group of hatchlings decided to fly on the gales of a storm and were lost. Their mother returned and soon found them missing, flew after them to the ocean. They flew for a very long time, and eventually just outside the winds of the storm the little ones were found. Together the mothers and their young flew back to the land but the hatchlings were very tired and fell behind. When the dragons returned to the shores, they flew to the highest point they could find, a hill made of stone, and waited for the younglings. They waited, and waited, and waited. But their young could not make the long journey. Instead the Great Spirits, who watched over all, turned the hatchlings into a great island. The mother dragons soon grew tired, and fell asleep, still watching for their young, and stone and sand began to cover to cover them. They wait still for their hatchings inside their great stone lairs.”

There was a long pause, and then the oldest boy turned to look at the man with a humored looked. “Where did you hear that ridiculous story?”

 “My father used to tell it to me.”

“That must have helped you sleep well at night.”

It had not, but the old man did not say this. He merely huffed and turned to the boy who had spoken. “It’s an old tale, Murtagh,” he said. “Today, many have forgotten it. You’re lucky to have even heard it.”

Murtagh shrugged having heard many ‘rare’ tales- there was something about that made the rare and forsaken, very mundane. He looked towards the mountains. “Kuasta must be a strange place filled with many strange tales,” he said.

His mother leaned forward, placing her hands on her lap. “Kuasta is filled with many strange people as well,” she said. “Don’t allow your father’s feelings for the place misguide you. Even after the years he spent apart from it, it remains home to him. The superstitious old goat that he is.”

The man grumbled at her and turned to the wood carving in his lap. It was half done, and the woman did not know what might soon become. Many of the objects in their home were made by the man- him and their sons. She always enjoyed it when something new was made, his work gave off a simple wonder that Selena did not have to learn to love. Or perhaps that wonder came from the simple fact that the house was one she and the man had worked to build was truly for her and her family.

Their home.

It was so very different than the place she had grown up. She had insisted on it- stopping randomly one day at the small meadow fenced by sparse trees with the idea of building their home there after weeks of travel. At first Brom had been reluctant and poked about the meadow for days before agreeing and beginning to plan. The cottage he built took half of a year to finish, and was big enough for four to live comfortably. Selena and Brom planned to live out life with the boys, and have no more children, and then twelve moon cycles later, she found out that she was again with child.

Before that, they had tried to live in Carvahall. In the town where Brom could sell his crafts but as the years passed, it seemed as if nothing would ever change. Carvahall was a bubble, a place that time only passed without the chance of variation or growth, and at last they decided to leave it behind and move forward.

Unlike when she left with Morzan, Selena never looked back. The haunts that once lurked in the shadows were something she could now overlook. These shadows, she had grown away from- like an ivy, Brom said once, seeking towards and growing in the light.

 "Mamma, how does it look?” said the girl, holding up the cloth she had been working on.

Selena started and studied the stitches before shaking her head. She was not quite certain what it was supposed to be. It looked like a misshaped something made of different colored thread. “It’s- well to be honest, Aine,” she said at last, “if I were you, I would keep working on it.”

Aine’s arms fell into her lap, her blue eyes downcast. “Oh. I thought that it looked pretty,” she said dejectedly.

 “It does, in a way.” Selena moved from her perch and sat beside her daughter. “Only I’m not quite certain what ‘it’ is.”

“A horse.” She set the needle aside and frowned, studying it. “I’m getting better though, right?”

Selena frowned, not wanting to answer the question. Aine had gotten the urge to learn to embroider some months ago, and though Selena had never been the person to enjoy the task she did her best to teach her. Her daughter at least had much more patience with the subject than she ever had- as a child Selena having given it up the first chance she was given.

“Aine,” started Murtagh, saving Selena from answering, “if your cross-stitching is bad enough where Mam won’t lie that it looks alright, than it needs work. A lot of work.”

Or perhaps her oldest son hadn’t saved her from a single thing. Selena turned towards him, a warning on her lips but she was never given the chance to speak.

 “Don’t listen to him,” said Eragon. He scooted closer and taking the cloth, he set it behind him, out of sight. “It matters not what your stitches look like. I thought you wanted to be a warrior like father was.”

“There is no ‘was’, boy,” growled out their father. “I can still beat you into the ground with little effort.”

“I do,” said Aine. “Want to be a warrior, I mean.”

 “Warriors do not embroider,” said Murtagh. “So don’t worry about it. Besides a sword is more threatening than a needle. You can’t exactly bring your needlework to the battlefield and expect to be taken as a threat.”

“You’re better at the sword anyhow,” joined Eragon hurriedly. “Don’t worry about learning how to sew.”

Aine gave him a dark look, her face scrunching up. “And what would you do if you went into a battle and your trousers ripped in half because you did not bother to learn to sew?” she began lowly. “You would have to battle Galbatorix in only your underpants! I bet you wouldn’t like being remembered for that!”

“Do you truly think that either of these two idiots would make it to Galbatorix?” said Brom, his bushy eyebrow raised.

 Aine shook her head. “No,” she said with a sweet smile. “I think that it’s more likely that they stab theirselves with their own swords and die.”

 “Thanks for the praise, sister,” grumbled Eragon. “Nice to know you have so much faith in us.”

 “You’re welcome,” she chirped happily, raising to her feet. “I’m thirsty! See you inside!”

Selena watched silently as the girl raced away, and then as Brom stood and tapped Murtagh on his shoulder. “I think that we should follow your sister’s lead. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow and it’s getting late,” he said.

 Murtagh nodded, and after wishing Selena and Eragon a good night, he walked into the cabin as well. Selena studied his back. When he had been younger, it troubled her how much her eldest son looked like her first husband, and she feared he might become like him. But he did not. Murtagh had always been different; gentle and kind- so long as he was not given a weapon. Or the chance to pester his siblings. He seemed a different person when Morzan was, and that was a good thing. She hoped so, because come the next day, he would find that traveling with Brom was more trying than it was worth the trip.

Tomorrow Brom would be leaving for the city and then Du Weldenvarden, as he did every two or so years, to purchase some rarer supplies and later meet with an old friend- a young elf- and gather news from the Varden. The only difference was this time he would be taking Murtagh with him, leaving Eragon, Aine, and Selena behind. It was first time he had ever done so.

 Her youngest son’s mind seemed to be on this as well- he was digging at the dirt with a stick dejectedly. Selena nudged him with her elbow. “After those two leave,” she said softly, “we’ll go to our favorite spot and raid the orchard. Maybe make a trip of it and hunt down a deer.”

Eragon looked up at her, his eyes gleaming. “I’d like that,” he said.

Here marks the end of
A Call to Resurgence