The pain came at midnight, a scream that wasn't his own.
Caelen bolted upright, heart pounding, the air thick with something wrong. It wasn't Hearthollow's familiar sorrows—no, this was distant, vast, a wound in the world itself. A city weeping. A forest dying.
He clutched his chest, gasping, as if he could hold the feeling in.
He stumbled outside, the village silent under a sickle moon. The stars were sharp, like scattered shards of glass, and the wind carried a faint tang of ash. Caelen's breath fogged in the chill, but the cold couldn't numb the ache. Somewhere, far beyond the hills, people were suffering. Strangers. Their fear coiled in his gut, their cries echoed in his skull.
He didn't sleep that night.
By dawn, he was hollow-eyed, hauling water from the well when Marren found him.
"You look like death warmed over," the blacksmith said, squinting. "What's eating you now?"
Caelen hesitated. How do you explain a pain with no source?
"Just… bad dreams," he lied.
Marren grunted, unconvinced. "You carry too much, lad. World's heavy enough without you hoisting it all."
Caelen forced a smile, but the words stung. He did carry too much. Always had. But what else could he do? Let the pain drown him? Turn hard, like the men who drank their nights away in the tavern, pretending their hearts didn't bleed?
That evening, he walked the village's edge, where fields met forest. The pain from the night before lingered, fainter now, but still there, a bruise on his soul.
He sat by a stream, watching minnows dart in the shallows, when a new sensation pricked his senses.
Not pain, but fear. Sharp, desperate, and close.
He stood, scanning the trees. The forest was still—too still. The birds gone quiet.
Then he saw her—a girl, staggering from the shadows, her cloak torn, her face bloodied. She was young, maybe seventeen, with hair like spun copper and eyes wide with terror.
She saw Caelen and froze, swaying, before her legs gave out.
He caught her before she hit the ground, her weight light as a bird's. Her fear crashed into him, a wave of panic and loss, and he nearly buckled.
"You're safe," he whispered, though he wasn't sure it was true. "I've got you."
Her lips moved, soundless, and then she went limp, her breath shallow.
Caelen carried her to his cottage, laying her on his bed. Her pain was a storm, wild and raw, but beneath it was something older—grief, deep as a chasm.
Whoever she was, she'd lost everything.
And now, she'd found him.
And the world's suffering had just stepped through his door.