Day 18 – Evening Fog
The village had fallen into a hush.
Smoke coiled from chimneys, curling like tired sighs. Lanterns bobbed as shopkeepers packed away the day, and the final bell from the temple tower rang like a throat clearing—final, weary, done.
Ren had returned from Lark's house, another satchel of scrolls on comparative tenses under his arm. His mind buzzed with prefixes and pronouns. He almost didn't notice the girl sitting alone under the collapsed shrine.
But he paused.
Because unlike everything else in Veylin Hollow, she didn't belong.
---
She looked about ten. Maybe older. Thin frame wrapped in a shawl that had once been white, now rain-stained and ragged. Her arms were wrapped around her legs, chin tucked into her knees. She didn't shiver. Just stared ahead, empty-eyed.
Behind her, the broken deity statue had crumbled to a stump—its hands missing, its head cracked. A broken god and a broken girl.
Ren stood for a long time before approaching.
He wasn't sure why.
Maybe it was the silence.
Maybe it was how familiar she looked—like a version of him, smaller, forgotten.
He took slow steps. She didn't react. When he reached her, he crouched and offered half a biscuit from his pouch.
She didn't look at it.
She said one word:
..."Zarno."
He blinked. He didn't know that one.
He sat beside her in the dirt and quietly took out his notebook. In big, bold letters, he wrote:
"Zarno – ?"
She finally looked at him. Her eyes were dark, wide, hollow—but curious.
She pointed at herself.
"Zarno."
Ah.
> "Name," Ren whispered. "Your name is Zarno."
She didn't answer, but didn't correct him either.
---
The Wind Carries Words
He sat with her for hours.
She didn't speak much. But when she did, Ren listened, scribbling down every sound, every inflection. Over time, her voice became steadier, less robotic. Like talking was something she hadn't done in weeks—or years—and had to relearn slowly.
From her fragments, he pieced things together.
Her parents were from Taurion Vale—before the Crown broke.
A storm. A fire. A group of people who told her to "wait here" while they "went to find help."
They never came back.
She didn't cry when she said it. She didn't have tears left.
Ren listened.
That was all.
---
Day 19 – The Question
"I found her at the shrine," Ren explained to Lark the next morning. "She hasn't moved since. No family. No food."
Lark looked up from his ink vat. "So? People lose people. Every week."
"She's alone."
Lark tapped his brush against the rim. "Everyone is."
"Not everyone is ten."
Silence.
Lark narrowed his eyes. "You want to take her in."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
Lark leaned back. "She'll slow you down. Get you noticed. Be a target. Villages won't like it. Children are resources here, not guests."
"I know."
"So why do it?"
Ren thought about it.
He saw the broken shrine. The empty stare. The way she hadn't even looked surprised to be abandoned.
He answered flatly:
"Because someone should've."
---
Day 22 – New Life, New Rules
Zarno didn't speak much.
But she watched everything.
She followed Ren at a distance, imitating his posture, sometimes even copying how he held his pen. At night, when he read by lantern light, she curled up beside the stack of books like a cat near a fireplace.
He started writing her name at the top of his journal pages:
Zarno – Status: Observed. Emotionally unstable. Quiet. Extremely perceptive. Nonreactive. Highly adaptable.
He gave her his scarf. She made it into a belt. He taught her the word for "thank you." She nodded and said "Ran." His name. Or her version of it.
He didn't correct her.
---
Day 25 – A New Entry on the Map
She pointed at the map one night, at a part he hadn't noticed before: a jagged crack near Taurion Vale labeled only with a faded sigil.
Ren traced it.
"What is this?"
Zarno hesitated.
Then whispered a word he didn't know.
He wrote it down. The pen glowed faintly.
"Xeynt."
She looked at him. Then mimed an explosion with her hands.
Ren stared.
Not just a crack. A scar.
The Crown of Taurion Vale didn't just fall. It shattered something. Something deeper.
Zarno knew more than she let on.
---
Day 28 – They Came Back
Two men arrived in the village. Not traders. Not pilgrims.
Hunters.
They wore armbands with the broken crown of Taurion Vale. Their faces were drawn, eyes twitchy, and they asked about "the stray." A child. A runaway.
Zarno hid behind Ren when they passed.
They noticed.
And narrowed their eyes.
---
Night – One Final Choice
"I can't protect her forever," Ren admitted to Lark. "Not physically."
"No," Lark said, sharpening a knife. "But you don't need to."
Ren looked confused.
"You don't fight with fists. You fight with truth. You see people."
Lark slid the knife across the whetstone with a hiss.
"You want to protect her? Then write the truth so clearly, the world can't ignore her anymore."