Year Two

He should have told her then—the first time he saw it.He should have told her then—the first time he saw it.

Fionn was barely two.

The walk to the well took longer than it used to. Fionn insisted on walking himself; he wouldn't let Torven carry him anymore, not since he'd figured out his legs could hold him even if they wobbled doing it. His small fists clenched as he toddled forward.

Two steps. Pause for balance. Three more, arms windmilling. A bird passed overhead—Fionn's eyes followed—and Torven caught him before he fell, set him back on his feet. Two more steps and Fionn stopped again, staring at clouds drifting past bone walls.

Torven didn't rush him. Children learned this way: slowly, stumbling, fascinated by things adults walked past. Most children watched the ground. Fionn only watched sky.

Breath hung in the air, cold enough to frost his beard. Torven's burns ached; they always did in Frost-season. Dragon fire scars, wrist to elbow on both arms. He'd gotten used to the ache.

The well rose ahead at the settlement's center, the only well that hadn't run dry. Two others had failed last Frost-season, their dragon-bone pumps cracking with no materials to repair them.

People gathered—necessity forced them together even when they'd rather stay separate. Boneholder families on the north side, their dragon-scale cloaks marking them like flags. Edge-dwellers on the south, leather and iron and wood. Neutral ground in between where the children played.

Torven stood with the Edge-dwellers, as he had for two years—since the Council's decree. No hunts. No path forward.

Five or six children ran through the middle space, laughing as they kicked a leather ball between them. Mostly Edge-dwellers, and one Boneholder boy, Colm, in a dragon-scale vest too valuable to risk but worn anyway. Status, even at four winters old.

The boy didn't care who he played with. Too young to know he shouldn't be.

Fionn had tired on the walk and now rode on Torven's hip, but his eyes tracked the children with focused intensity. Not just looking—studying. The way they moved together, called to each other. His small face serious, body straining forward, following every movement they made.

He set the buckets down. "Fionn—"

But Fionn was already squirming free, sliding down before Torven could get a proper grip. He dropped to hands and knees and crawled toward the children—quick, determined, closing the distance faster than Torven expected.

Before Torven could think about whether this was wise, Fionn reached the edge of their game.

One of the Edge-dweller boys—Denn—stopped first. He turned to Fionn and smiled.

Fionn pulled himself up to standing—wobbling, unsteady, arms out for balance—until his eyes were level with the other boy's.

For one moment, their eyes held.

Then the Boneholder mother saw.

A sharp-eyed woman, cloak worn at the edges, strode over and grabbed Colm's shoulder.

"Colm. Away." Her voice cut sharp.

She pulled him back.

The other children scattered—not from Fionn, but from the sudden movement, the sharp command, the moment breaking. Denn's face fell as he backed away toward his mother.

Fionn stood alone in the middle ground, arms outstretched where the boy had been.

His hands opened and closed, fingers spread wide.

It had happened.

Torven closed the distance—buckets forgotten—before the moment could stretch longer, before anyone could say something that would make it worse.

He picked Fionn up.

Fionn's hands gripped his shirt, heartbeat quick against Torven's chest.

"Come on," Torven said. "Let's get water."

An older woman approached. Torven recognized her—Edge-dweller tanner, just like his wife, older by twenty winters but with the same stained hands.

"He's walking now?" she asked.

"Barely," Torven said. "He's late."

She glanced at Fionn, still pressed against Torven's chest. Her expression softened. She reached toward him as if to touch his hair, then stopped. Stained fingers curling back. She smiled at the boy before picking up her bucket.

"He's just a child."

She walked away.

Torven filled his buckets with Fionn quiet against his chest. Small mercy: the other people at the well didn't comment on what had happened. They just looked away.

He carried Fionn and the buckets home. Water sloshed with each step, cold spray against his legs. Fionn's weight settled against his chest, breathing steady, heartbeat slowing.

Voices carried from behind—children still playing near the well, laughter high and sharp in the cold. Torven turned down a different path.

The buckets bit into his palms, iron handles cold through calluses. Fionn's fists still gripped his shirt, even in sleep.

A Boneholder house rose ahead, dragon bone walls radiating warmth even from the path. Inside, a child's voice, a mother's answer. Laughter. He kept walking.

The settlement's edge: where dragon bone gave way to leather and wood, where their home waited. Fionn was asleep by the time they reached the door.

Torven sat with him, seeing again the small arms outstretched, the hands opening and closing where the other boy had been.

Fionn's breathing settled deeper.

Torven carried him inside, laid him down on his sleeping mat. The boy didn't stir.

Torven checked once, then slipped out.

Ingram needed his chimney repointed before true frost set in—mortar work, the kind Boneholders hired out. His hands didn't stay soft. An hour's labor for a half-portion of salt, enough to cure what Moira scraped from the hides.

Stone and mortar, weight of tools, rhythm he knew. His burns pulled tight by the end, but they always did.

He was back before Fionn stirred.

The sky had dulled to evening grey. Moira was at the tanning racks, working three hides today—down from the dozen they'd processed last Frost-season.

Her hands would smell like the chemicals for days. The tremor in her right hand would get bad by evening. The work made it worse, but the work needed doing.

Torven set Fionn down inside their home.

Torven's breath smoked in the air. The cold hadn't left just because they'd moved, hadn't relented. Boneholder homes stayed warm: dragon-bone frames trapping heat somehow, even in deepest winter. But theirs was leather and wood and iron. They rationed fuel, kept flames small when they had any at all.

The boy's face was still too serious for someone only two winters old.

"Come on," Torven said, kneeling on the floor. "Let's work on walking. To me."

Fionn stood, tottering, arms spread wide like wings.

He lifted onto his toes, reaching upward, straining to pull himself into the air.

He fell.

Torven caught him. "Easy. One step at a time."

But Fionn wasn't trying to step—he was looking up at the ceiling, at the sky beyond the small window, always searching up.

"Look at me," Torven tried, his voice gentle and coaxing. "Watch my face. Walk to me."

Fionn smiled, bright, two-winter joy, took one step forward, then his eyes lifted. He fell.

They tried twice more, the same pattern each time: stand, reach up, fall.

Torven sat back on his heels. Fionn's face showed concentration and determination, but he was focused on the wrong thing—not the ground where his feet needed to land, not Torven's hands waiting to catch him, not forward, but only upward.

Fionn was two and barely walking. Other children walked by fifteen months.

But late didn't have to mean cursed. Some children took longer to find their balance. That was normal. The settlement healer had said as much when Torven asked—carefully, casually, not mentioning whose child he meant. "Some walk at ten months, some at three winters. Bodies develop at their own pace."

Maybe the way Fionn kept reaching upward was just how this child's mind worked. Children fixated on strange things. That was normal too.

Please let "late" just mean "late" and nothing more.

"One more time," Torven said.

Fionn stood. This time—finally—he looked forward instead of up.

He took three steps, then four, wobbling but moving, and then five steps—he made it all the way to Torven's hands.

"Good. Good work."

Fionn laughed—a small sound, delighted—and looked up at Torven.

"Da."

Torven couldn't breathe.

He'd said "Mama" for months—had called for Moira when she left, had reached for her when she woke—but never this. Never "Da."

Maybe they could keep doing this. Mornings at home, away from stares and whispers.

Fionn reached for the wooden blocks nearby—wanted to stack them, play, celebrate his success.

His hand closed around one.

The block warmed in Fionn's palm.

Not gradually—it was immediately warm, like wood pulled from fire, like snow melting in an impossible circle.

He'd hoped he was wrong.

But there was no fire.

Torven reached out. Touched the block.

It was warm. Impossible.

Fionn picked up the block and turned it in his hands with complete focus on texture and weight, delighted by the simple act of holding something solid. He set it down and reached for another.

That one warmed too.

Torven picked up the first block. Heat spread through his palms and into the scarred skin: dragon fire burns that never healed. The warmth seeped in, and the scars stopped screaming, falling into the same quiet that had started it all.

He didn't let go, stood there holding the warm block, alone with this knowledge.

Outside, Moira scraped hide—close but unaware.

But for how long.

He set the block down and pushed it behind the kindling pile, out of sight.

Moira ducked inside as the sun set, bringing cold air and the sharp, acrid smell of oak-bark tannin. Hands stained the same brown—a mark of her trade, wanted or not.

She crossed to the basin and scrubbed her hands with the rough soap they made from ash and fat. The water turned murky brown. She scrubbed again. The stain lightened but didn't disappear—it never did.

Her right hand shook as she dried it, worse after a long day's work, the tremor more pronounced when she was tired. She flexed her fingers, testing the stiffness, then turned to Fionn sleeping on his mat.

Her face softened.

"How was he today?" Too casual.

"He walked," Torven said. "Five steps. Made it all the way across."

Her face lit up in a way it hadn't in months—maybe seasons. "Five? Really?"

"Really. Fell at the end, but he made it." Torven paused. "Called me Da. First time."

"Da," she repeated, voice thick. Her eyes brightened. "And five steps. That's wonderful."

She knelt beside Fionn's sleeping mat. Her fingers reached toward his hair. He shifted in his sleep. She pulled back, hovering close, watching his chest rise and fall.

"He's getting so big," she murmured. "Learning so much. Growing strong."

Her voice caught. She laughed—quiet, breathless.

"I'm glad we have him," she said, her eyes bright and wet. "After everything. I'm so glad."

Moira set out their meal: ash bread, bitter root, nothing else. The same as yesterday. The same as tomorrow. She talked while she worked, her voice soft and happy, about Fionn's progress, about teaching him letters when he was older, about the future.

He should tell her now.

But her face—and the words stuck.

Later.