In his nightmares, children lay beside him in a deathlike slumber. Their porcelain cheeks tinged with a faint blue hue, their lashes utterly still. Sometimes, in the depths of his childhood, he would wake to find them there—small heads resting on the adjacent pillow, dressed in crisp, pristine nightgowns with frilled ruffles. Too still. Too quiet. He never dared to touch them.

  Morveyn’s first brush with death had come far too early.

  A distorted beast had nearly torn him apart. The memories of that night were black, empty, lost to the trauma and fever that had nearly consumed him. He had been too young to remember, and the wounds had been so grievous that even the best of the Salamander’s healers had deemed his survival impossible.

  His father had not accepted that.

  The Protectorium’s research into enhancement circuits was still in its infancy—theoretical, unstable, untested. But Menno Lyuteakh had been willing to gamble everything. In a single desperate night, he had taken his son’s broken body and rewired fate itself.

  The saap stones—a combination of them, a scheme known only to him—had been embedded within Morveyn’s flesh. A system designed for enhancement, twisted instead toward survival.

  It had worked. But it had nearly killed him all over again. The pain had been endless.

  The stitches refused to hold, reopening with every tremor of fever. His small body burned, wracked with convulsions as the stones fought to take root. Every breath had been a battle.

  Eolin, his mother—fragile, grieving, incapable of bearing the sight of his suffering—had hidden herself among her books, her gardens, anywhere but by his bedside.

  His father had distanced himself too, but for another reason. With the fury of a desperate man, Menno had thrown himself into research, refinement, calculations—searching desperately for a way to fix what he had done. But the answer was always the same: nothing could be adjusted, nothing could be undone.

  And so, the house had become a monument to waiting and mourning. Time passed painfully slow, casting a long shadow of sorrow over the household. The house was steeped in an atmosphere of mourning, with each day bringing a fresh wave of despair. His parents, who had adored each other before the tragedy, grew distant, unable to endure what was happening. Each coped with their grief alone.

  Morveyn should have died. But he didn’t.

  His grandmother, however, was a constant presence. The elderly woman spent days and nights in prayer, pleading with the Almighty to protect the unfortunate child. And when nothing worked, when prayers and medicine failed— the woman had turned to something else.

  That night, Morna had howled.

  The dog had always been by his side. As the only child in the estate, Morveyn spent all his time in her company. His partner in mischief. His shadow. His protector. But when he fell ill, she had been chained, kept away for fear she might disturb him.

  That night, she had cried so desperately that even the most stone-hearted among the household could not ignore it.

  They let her near, just enough to see him from a distance. But at night, the doors had remained locked.

  And yet—somehow—she had gotten in.

  She had pressed her warm body against his, resting her heavy head on his fragile chest, the rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing a steady, comforting weight.

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  That morning, when he had finally woken, the first thing he had seen was Morna’s sturdy neck, her familiar soft ears brushing against his hand.

  But she was too still. Her chest no longer moved. And before anyone had told him, before anyone had even entered the room, he knew. Despite never having been taught what death looked like, he knew.

  His screams had shaken the estate. That morning, he clung to Morna’s lifeless body, crying out in heart-wrenching sobs. And yet, as the servants rushed in—his father, his grandmother—their eyes had not been on Morna.

  Their eyes had been on him. His wound had finally closed. His fever had broken. He was alive.

  And Morna was not. Death had taken the dog, granting Morveyn a precious chance at life.

  "Death has been deceived," his grandmother had whispered that morning.

  And Morveyn, curled against Morna’s still-warm body, had felt it, too. From that day, boy’s recovery, while still slow, seemed more assured. The household began to emerge from its deep sorrow, though the memory of that night, the scar on his abdomen, and the sacrifice of his beloved Morna would forever linger in his heart.

  The next night, he was not alone.

  A child lay beside him. Clean. Bathed. Already asleep.

  His grandmother had explained—orphans from the workhouse, she said. She gave them a sleeping draught so they wouldn’t wake. They would leave at dawn, taking with them a rich reward.

  "If death comes for you, it will have to decide carefully. It may take the other instead."

  But Morveyn had not slept that night. He had listened.

  Every breath of the child beside him. Every slight shift beneath the sheets. Every moment, he had strained his ears, desperate to hear something, anything. Because if they stopped breathing… If they were already dead… He wouldn’t know.

  Sometimes, in the morning, he would wake and they would be gone.

  Those were the lucky nights. Other times, he would open his eyes to perfect stillness. The icy grip of terror would awaken him, and he would lie there, frozen, staring at the gentle profile of the sleeping child, imagining death standing nearby, unable to decide between the two.

  His palms would go cold, sweat pooling at the base of his spine. His fingers would tremble, terrified to touch the body beside him. He would squeeze his eyes shut, willing himself not to move, praying that death—confused, uncertain—would retreat.

  But from that day on, Morveyn's mother never smiled at him again. He remembered the joy in her eyes that morning when he first awoke, but it was the last time she looked at him without fear and disgust. It was as if he had become a hideous insect, a monster that had taken Morna's life and, each night, claimed the life of a new child.

  Years later, he would understand. Perhaps none of those children had ever woken again. They had been orphans, after all. No families. No names worth remembering.

  How many from the vanished provinces had ended up in ditches? In workhouses? Starving in the streets?

  Perhaps it was kinder this way. Perhaps they had died warm, in a soft bed, full from a good meal.

  Meanwhile, his health improved, and a month later, Morveyn could finally get out of bed on his own. That night, his grandmother didn't place another child beside him. Instead, she set a bouquet of peonies at the head of his bed. Each morning, she brought a fresh bouquet because the delicate flowers would wither and fall overnight. When the flowers lasted through the night, his grandmother declared they had finally deceived death. He could walk on his own and even sit in the garden with a book for long periods. He was relieved not to fear death looming at his bedside, but dreams of dead children continued to haunt him, waking him in the middle of the night, terrified to move.

  Nightmares of childhood no longer held power over him. Or so he thought.

  Morveyn lay still, eyes open against the dark. The air pressed heavy against his chest, thick with the weight of something unseen. And yet… somewhere beyond the silence, something stirred.

  Something small. Cold. He had outgrown these dreams. Fear was a relic of childhood, buried long ago. And yet, tonight—just before dawn—it returned. A presence beside him. Too still. Too close. His pulse thundered against his ribs.

  No. It's nothing. Just exhaustion. The past has no claim on me.

  The thought echoed coldly through his mind—sharp, deliberate, and absolute. Yet still, the air pressed against his chest, heavy with the weight of something unseen. Something uninvited.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. He knew that if he met its gaze, he would never convince himself it wasn’t real. Amid his own unsteady breathing, a whisper brushed against the edges of his mind, raising goosebumps along his skin. The voice was soft. Delicate. The way children whisper when sharing their most precious secrets.

  For a moment, he wasn’t sure if this was still a dream. The ghosts of restless souls—those he had sent away today—stirring awake. The breath of death. Except it wasn’t breath. It was the absence of one.

  The whisper came again, quiet, patient, promising. A breath that was not a breath. A voice that was not a voice.

  "Don’t be afraid, you are not alone here, in the dark."