Lysenne Malloren
Her feet were cold.
Not numb.
Cold.
For the first time in years, Lysenne could tell the difference.
The stone beneath her thin slippers was rough, uneven. When she shifted her weight, the texture dragged faintly across the pads of her toes, as if the floor were reintroducing itself.
I'm standing.
She stared down at her own legs as if they belonged to someone else. The muscles of her calves quivered, her knees shook, the faintest pull of strain tugged at her thighs. Her balance wavered.
It was imperfect.
It was fragile.
It was real.
Her fingers tightened around the polished edge of the dining chair as the sounds of the hall blurred—distant clink of spoons, muted breaths, scraping of wood on stone. None of it mattered.
All she could hear was Kel's earlier voice, steady and unshakable.
"You can walk. Do not press yourself. A month to recover. Then… run. Jump. Sprint."
Run.
Jump.
Sprint.
Words that had become fantasy now sat in her chest like embers refusing to go out.
She swallowed, throat thick.
Across the table, father pretended to focus on his food, but his hand around the fork trembled. Count Vanhart's usual composure seemed softer, as if a tension in his shoulders had finally unclenched.
Kel sat slightly apart. Eating plainly, unhurried. As if he hadn't just carved years of paralysis away with his hands.
He didn't look at her.
He didn't need to.
Every inch of her body—a landscape asleep for far too long—was awake and screaming.
She drew in a slow breath.
The pain coiled in her legs like heated wire.
It hurt.
She smiled.
Very faintly.
Let it hurt. I'll take pain over stillness.
Her gaze drifted to her hands in her lap.
She curled them into fists.
"I will walk," she whispered inside herself, eyes lowering so no one saw the wetness building there. "Even if I fall. Even if it hurts. Even if I crawl at first."
Because this time…
She remembered the feel of her legs obeying.
And that memory—unlike the old nightmare of them breaking—was hers to keep.
Sera Vanhart
Sera watched Lysenne stand.
She also watched Kel look away.
His eyes—those winter-dark, calculating eyes—never lingered long on anyone. Not on her, not on Lysenne, not even on himself.
He performed miracles, then sat back down to finish soup.
How annoying.
She lifted a piece of bread mechanically, hands steady, but the muscles in her jaw tensed with each slow bite.
Lysenne had been broken by her hands.
Uncle's curse.
Her strength.
Her loss of control.
She remembered the snap of bone. The scream. The way everyone looked at her afterward—as if she'd turned into some beast that broke children for sport.
She ran away.
Became a barbarian chief.
Learned to roar, bleed, and die as if that could erase the past.
But it couldn't erase the girl who never walked again.
Sera's gaze flickered to Lysenne now—standing there, shaking, clinging to the chair with white fingers and wet eyes.
Kel had done what she never could.
He had walked right into the wound that defined them and sutured it shut with quiet hands and reckless promise.
Her fingers curled slowly into her skirt beneath the table, nails pressing into the fabric.
She felt… relieved.
She felt… guilty.
And somewhere deep and ugly—
she felt threatened.
Not by Lysenne.
By what Kel could do.
He mends what I break.
Her curse was gone now—washed clean in Scarder Lake. She was no longer a living weapon sharpened by someone else's design.
But habit lingered.
She knew how to cut, not how to heal.
Looking at Lysenne's trembling legs, Sera felt something in her chest shift.
I caused that.
He fixed it.
She let out a quiet breath through her nose, eyes narrowing.
Then again—
He had also saved her.
He'd walked into Scarder Lake's domain and spoken to an ancient guardian as if he had known her lifetimes. He'd offered a contract, not chains. Given her a way to live beyond the curse that was slowly consuming her life.
He was dangerous.
Not because of how he killed.
Because of how he changed things.
Changed people.
"Oi," Sera muttered very softly under her breath, eyes dropping to her plate. "Don't go reshaping everything you touch… it makes it harder for the rest of us to pretend we're fine staying the same."
Her lips quirked in a humorless smile.
But she didn't look away from Lysenne's legs.
Nor from Kel's steady, unbothered posture.
Reina Asheville
Reina watched them all.
The hall.
The nobles.
The shaking girl on her feet.
The boy who had done what gods and healers could not.
She sat upright, spear callouses hidden against her cup, posture impeccable—trained to be invisible and yet always ready.
Her eyes lingered on Kel.
He looked calmer than he should.
Too calm.
He sat with his shoulders relaxed, his jaw loose. But she saw the faint tremor in his fingers when he set the cup down. The momentary delay when he lifted his spoon again. The almost-imperceptible stiffness in his back when he rose earlier.
He'd paid for this.
Through aura strain.
Through overtaxed mana.
Through the kind of internal damage that left no visible wound.
Lysenne walked.
Kel sat.
As if the ground hadn't just taken part of his strength as fee.
Reina's gaze flicked to Lysenne—eyes wide, tears gathering, legs trembling with every heartbeat.
She watched the girl clench her teeth and refuse to sit again immediately.
Good, Reina thought. Don't waste what he gave you.
Her jaw tightened.
Unbidden, an image surfaced in her mind:
Kel's back, turned to an entire banquet hall of nobles.
His solitary figure walking toward a duel he didn't have the strength for—
and winning anyway.
He had been weak then.
He had been cursed then.
Yet he'd stepped forward.
Now he was strong.
Now he was… changing lands, curses, destinies.
And they were all still following.
Her fingers curled around the cup.
Not just following. Guarding.
She wasn't jealous of Lysenne.
Or Sera.
Or anyone.
She was… wary.
Because the more he meddled with fate, the sharper the world's teeth would become.
Her job was simple.
Not to share his burdens.
Not to stop his choices.
Just to make sure nothing struck his back while his hands were buried in someone else's wounds.
Reina took a slow sip.
Eyes half-hooded.
You saved her legs today, Kel.
Fine. Then I'll make sure the world doesn't cut them out from under her again because of you.
She gently set the cup down.
Her expression remained calm.
Her resolve did not.
Landon
Landon did not look at Lysenne first.
He looked at the floor.
At her feet.
He studied the way they pressed down.
Not perfectly steady.
But not dead.
He watched the tension in her ankles, the slight tilt of her toes, the speed of weight shift. His mind catalogued it quietly—injury response patterns, balance adaptation, recovery margin.
Then he looked up.
Kel.
Sitting.
Breathing evenly.
Too evenly.
Landon had known him long enough.
He could feel aura strain like a pressure glitch in the air. Kel's presence today wasn't just heavy—it was thin around the edges, like black cloth stretched to near tearing over too much weight.
The others watched the miracle.
Landon watched the cost.
His hand rested casually over the hilt at his side.
No one here was hostile.
Not today.
But the world outside this hall would not be so… grateful.
A boy who healed a long-crippled noble girl?
A Rosenfeld heir who brought harlroot fields back to life?
Who made contracts with lake guardians and walked out of cursed stories with his own script clenched in his fist?
That kind of existence drew attention.
And attention drew blades.
Landon's jaw moved faintly.
He'd made a decision days ago.
If Kel broke his body restoring someone else—Lysenne, Sera, whoever—
Landon would drag him out of the land that tried to eat him and sharpen his sword until it understood who it had tried to bite.
He watched Lysenne's fingers clutch the back of the chair as she shifted.
He watched Kel not rise to assist.
Good.
She had to stand on her own now.
He watched both counts—Vanhart and Malloren—steal glances at the boy who had altered both their fates.
Their faces held gratitude.
And calculation.
Also good.
Landon preferred visible intentions.
His grip tightened slightly on his sword.
You keep breaking the pattern, young master.
Fine. I'll keep breaking whatever comes for you.
He exhaled low.
The air felt slightly easier to breathe now.
Lysenne walked.
Kel lived.
For today, that was enough.
Viscount Lorian Malloren
Lorian Malloren had always thought himself a composed man.
Tempest on the battlefield.
Stone in the hall.
But when his daughter took her first unaided step today—
the stone cracked.
He watched her stand in the dining hall. Her grip shook on the chair's back, her shoulders tense, her lips pressed tightly together in stubbornness.
His heart dropped and climbed at once.
He remembered the day she fell.
The searing scream.
The way her legs twisted unnaturally beneath her.
Her hands reaching for him as healers shouted and servants scrambled.
The way she asked afterward—
"Why can't I stand?"
He had answered with lies.
Now she stood.
Her steps were short.
Careful.
Painful.
Perfect.
He blinked once.
And vision blurred.
He clenched his jaw, forcing his face back into something like nobility. But his eyes burned, and he didn't dare lift his cup because his hands might betray him.
Kel.
The boy sat a short distance away, eating in silence.
As if he had not just rewritten the definition of impossible.
Lorian looked at him with something that almost frightened him.
It wasn't just gratitude.
Gratitude could be repaid.
This was deeper.
This was debt.
Not the kind measured in coin.
The kind that chained the soul.
His daughter's chair scraped softly as she sank back down, legs trembling too hard to continue. Even seated, she kept shifting her feet, as if checking over and over that they still answered her.
Lorian swallowed.
"Lysenne," he said quietly.
She looked up, eyes wet and bright.
He smiled.
It wasn't a lord's smile.
It was a father's, rough edges and all.
"You did well," he said.
She bit her lip and nodded, fingers curling on her dress to stop them from shaking.
His gaze flicked back to Kel.
The boy had once sworn—
"If I fail, take my life."
Lorian now knew, with bone-deep certainty—
He could never have done it.
Not now.
Not even if empire law demanded.
If I am asked to raise a blade against you, he thought quietly, I will break that blade.
His cup finally reached his lips. The tea had gone cold.
He drank anyway.
It tasted like iron.
Count Elaine Vanhart
Count Vanhart had seen wars.
He'd seen men gutted in battle, cities burned in winter, banners torn down and trampled underfoot. He'd seen the Empire shift and gnash its teeth around politics and blood.
He thought there were few things left that could surprise him.
He had been wrong.
He sat at the head of the table, posture straight, expression composed. He did not let his gaze soften overlong, did not let hands shake or lips tremble.
But when Sera's eyes flicked toward him, he held them.
Just for a moment.
Her daughter.
His curse.
His failure.
Now—
His redemption.
Not his own doing.
That was the bitter part.
The boy—
Kel von Rosenfeld.
A Duke's son, but something more unsettling than that.
Not because of his power.
Because of the way he used it.
Without banner.
Without declaration.
He strode into a territory he did not own, walked into a grudge he did not carry, healed a wound he did not cause—
and then calmly discussed harvest cycles.
Elaine Vanhart had seen tyrants.
He had seen heroes.
Kel was neither.
He was… a pivot.
The kind of existence history bent around.
His gaze slid to the harlroot reports at the end of the table, then back to Lysenne's legs.
Land mending.
Child walking.
Both connected by a thread that was not visible, but unmistakable.
Kel.
The boy's face remained calm as he finished his meal.
But Elaine now saw the paleness at the edges of his lips, the slight tightness in his jaw. The toll.
Foolish child.
Blessed child.
Necessary child.
His fingers tightened around his cup.
You won't stand alone.
He had said it to himself many times these last days.
Today, watching his daughter's former victim stand, watching his daughter watch her, watching Kel sit as if this was nothing more than another step in some long path only he could see—
the Count made a quiet oath.
Not aloud.
Not written.
Not sworn before temple or emperor.
Just… inside.
When the world finally looks at you, Kel von Rosenfeld…
It will not find you unguarded.
He lifted his cup.
Drank.
And as snow whispered against the outer walls and harlroot leaves pushed higher beneath frost, Elaine Vanhart understood—
This winter was ending early.
Not because it was time.
Because someone had decided it would.