I was on the street, staring at the tower, that pilr of white stone that went up forever piercing the clouds.

  "Mom, do you think Dad's looking at the tower right now?"

  "I'm sure of it. When he comes back, he always follows the great white tower," she said, squeezing my hand. "When I see it, I know I'll be home for dinner."

  "When I see it, I know I'll be home for dinner," I repeated at the exact same moment.

  We stopped dead, looking into each other's eyes and burst into roaring ughter, the kind that steals your breath.

  We ughed even harder because we couldn't stop, accomplices in a thought we'd shared without knowing.

  But while we ughed, the tower behind us weighed heavy. It knew what we didn't.

  "Come on, let's go, Arek."

  "Yeah. I want to help you make dinner tonight," I said, adjusting the rough strap digging into my shoulder.

  The bag with potatoes was heavy and I could feel the mark it left on my skin.

  Should I tell her about the fsh? About what I saw in the forest? And if I told her, what could she even do? No, better to wait and prepare. I need to be ready.

  "Your father will be happy about that." Her smile had finally returned to normal.

  We started walking home again, the cobblestones uneven under my feet, familiar as always. The sun heat pressing down on our shoulders like a second weight.

  But while I felt the warmth of her hand, the tower behind me weighed heavy. I felt it pressing against my back like an invisible boulder.

  It's just a feeling, Arek. Just a feeling.

  I repeated that lie the whole way home, but the cold from the forest I'd seen in the fsh wouldn't leave me alone.

  ***

  Two days had passed and rain hammered the windows with a rhythm that hurt my ears.

  The wind whistled and howled loudly.

  In the kitchen, the smell of flour had been repced by dampness and spent wax. The table was empty and crumbs from two days ago still scattered across the surface. No one had swept them away.

  She didn't cook anymore. Always standing at the window, the forehead pressed against cold gss. Her fingers worried the hem of her apron; I could almost hear fabric wearing thin under her fingers.

  "Where are you?" she whispered. Her voice was so thin it seemed like it could break at the slightest gust of wind.

  "Where are you, Tarin?"

  Two days had passed since we'd eaten the dinner we'd made together for Dad, cold from the long wait. The pte of leftovers we'd saved him was still there. It stank of rot, strangely sweet.

  Sudden gusts of wind shed rain against the windows, making them rattle angrily.

  "What wind!" I said, looking at her.

  I have to try again, have to make her think about something else. If I could just get her to move or do something or... wait, that nursery rhyme she always sings!

  But her gaze stayed fixed on the world beyond gss. No answer.

  "Crazy wind, right, Mom?" I asked again.

  "Hm. Oh, yes. This year Zephyr brought his season of winds after summer."

  "Who's Zephyr?"

  "The God of wind. Arek Grey, are you teasing me? You know perfectly well who the five gods are." For a moment her eyebrows drew together.

  "Yeah, but I mix up the names sometimes. I'm just a kid, after all."

  Mirina smiled, that smile that said 'I see what you're doing' and also 'thank you.'

  "All right, my little forgetful one," she said, finally stepping away from the window.

  She sat down next to me, but her eyes kept sliding toward the gray outside.

  "I'll refresh your memory. Let's go over that old rhyme I used to sing to get you to eat when you were smaller. You always liked it so much. Remember it?"

  She cleared her throat, and her voice, usually steady, came out a little rough from cold clinging to her.

  "Aquon sings in the stream, washes the world clean. Eteria's light breaks at dawn, gives you courage to carry on."

  She paused to fix a lock of my hair, a spontaneous gesture, while wind hit the house with a shove so strong the window panes shook.

  "Terravon knocks at your door, steady stone to the core. Piraxis burns in the hearth's glow, but your hand must never go...."

  She stopped abruptly. The whistle of Zephyr through the cracks in the door seemed to want to finish the st verse for her. She lowered her gaze to her csped hands.

  "And then there's him," I whispered. "The one yelling out there."

  "And if you hear a breath through the trees, it's Zephyr who answers as he please. He never sleeps, he never stays, brings the frost and stormy days."

  We finished together. This time we didn't ugh and we stared at each other with stony faces.

  The silence that followed was worse than the wind. Like even the wind of the new season was listening.

  I forced myself to break it and pushed myself to speak.

  "Dad knows this rhyme, right?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

  "Everyone knows it, Arek. But Zephyr doesn't listen to songs. Zephyr takes everything that isn't anchored to the ground."

  She turned back to the window. The rhyme, which should've been a game, had become confirmation of what we both feared: out there, under the fifth god's rule, Dad was alone and we couldn’t do anything to help him.

  Mirina fingers drummed on the cold gss, leaving marks.

  "Tomorrow," she whispered. "Tomorrow for sure."

  I didn't know what to say.

  I got up and went to her. Took her hand.

  "Mom..."

  Her fingers closed around mine hard, without their usual gentleness and she stared outside with eyes that didn't blink anymore.

  "There's someone."

  "Dad?"

  "A figure. Out there."

  She didn't answer right away. She peered at the shape in the rain.

  It has to be him. Who else could be outside with this nasty weather?

  "No," she said finally. "He's on foot. Your father had the cart."

  The relief I'd felt for an instant died, and I felt a knot tightening in my throat.

  I didn't want to look. I didn't want to see what was out there. But I looked anyway.

  I followed her gaze. Beyond the gss, through rain falling so thick it looked like a gray wall, I saw a bck, indistinct shadow.

  It moved between the buildings across the street.

  Staggering. Struggling.

  Every step cost too much, his knees buckling halfway, foot dragging instead of lifting.

  "Just a drunkard," I said. But my voice came out too thin.

  She didn't answer and kept staring at the dark figure, her eyebrows coming together.

  The shadow got closer, crossing the street with uneasy steps. Suddenly it lost its bance and fell to the ground.

  Then there was a sound barely audible over the hammering rain.

  An animal grunt that made me shiver.

  Mom jerked away from the window and grabbed my hand.

  "Let's go."

  "Where?"

  "Dining room. Now."

  She dragged me from the kitchen, her grip a desperate anchor as we crossed the narrow hallway.

  Our footsteps wrenched sharp, jagged creaks from the wooden floor. Too loud. Every step was a scream.

  The dining room y drowned in shadow. Only the hearth remained, where low fmes danced with a zy, dying light, staining the corners with shifting darkness.

  The front door stood right there. Looming. Facing us like an ultimatum.

  A sb of dark, solid wood. The final barrier.

  A shadow smeared across the window gss, right beside the entrance.

  A blurred, distorted shape. It looked deformed through the streaming wet pane. Something is there.

  It slumped against the outside wall. A dull, heavy thud vibrated through the stone.

  Then came the sound of something dragging itself closer, a rhythmic, wet friction. It fell against the wood with a violent shudder.

  "Who is it?" Mirina voice cracked, far louder than she intended. She pressed her fingertips to her lips, eyes wide.

  Only the rain answered, shing against the house in another sudden burst. The windows rattled in their frames.

  "Who's out there?"

  The figure remained silent.

  Then it moved. One step. Another.

  THUD.

  The sound of a fist hitting wood. Not hard, not violent.

  Desperate.

  "Mom..." I started.

  She wasn't listening. She stared at the door, a frozen statue in the flickering light.

  Heat surged. It didn't crawl from the firepce; it ignited from within.

  I looked at the fire. The fmes trembled.

  It wasn't the wind. It wasn't a draft.

  They trembled because I was watching them.

  I can do this.

  I know I can.

  Breath caught in my chest, burning with a familiarity that made my skin crawl. The fmes rose just a handspan higher.

  I have to protect her.

  "Arek?"

  Her voice reached me, distant and muffled, as if coming from under the surface of a ke.

  "Arek, what are you doing?"

  The wood creaked.

  The door groaned open, slow and heavy.

  A figure beyond the threshold staggered forward. Bck boots stained the floor with a slurry of water and mud. Hooded. Dark clothes, soaked through, dripping onto the dark boards.

  I reached toward the fmes with that thing inside me I still had no name for.

  The figure took another step, body swaying dangerously like a tree about to snap.

  The veins in my arm pulsed. It felt like va was coursing through them instead of blood.

  Another step.

  A tongue of fire detached from the log, drifting toward my palm. I was almost ready.

  I know what I can do.

  I know what I have to do.

  Then the figure’s legs gave out.

  First the knees, then the chest. The body smmed onto the floor with a dull, heavy thud.

  His head y a few handspans from the threshold.

  The body stayed like that, motionless, for a long moment. Then a rasp escaped his throat, barely audible against the roar of the wind surging through the open door.

  "Mirina..." he rasped.

  A broken voice. A mere ghost of a sound. Who—

  "Mirina..."

  Again. Clearer this time.

  Wait. I know that voice.

  The recognition hit me like a physical blow, freezing the marrow in my bones.

  Dad.

  The words came out torn, a whisper dragged from an abyss of pain. It crossed his lips and turned my blood to ice.

  The fmes in my hand died instantly. They left behind only the stinging scent of smoke and a hollow, sickening emptiness in my stomach. My fingers wouldn't stop shaking.

  "T-Tarin? Oh, by Eteria! What happened to you?"

  We rushed toward him. Mom threw herself to the floor, her knees hitting the wood with a crack. Her hands trembled as they gripped the wet, soaked hood.

  Water sluiced down her skin as she pulled the fabric back.

  It was him.

  "No, no, no. What happened? What did they do to you? Who? Why?"

  I stood frozen, watching. The rain shed through the wide-open entrance, the wind biting at my hair and stinging my cheeks with a cold I couldn't feel.

  "Dad?"

  I almost didn't recognize him.

  His eyes were open. But they were empty. It was as if he were staring at something. Something we couldn't see.

  Bck veins mapped his neck.

  Tarin’s face was the color of sick parchment. The skin sagged under his eyes and hollowed at his cheeks, stretched thin over bone. He had aged years in a matter of days. His hair, once the color of sunlight, hung gray and brittle. It clung to his receding temples in wet, matted clumps.

  The bck veins were thin as silk threads, dark as tar, they branched under his skin like rotten roots reaching for his jaw, his cheek, his temple. They pulsed. They didn't just 'seem' to, they pulsed. A slow, rhythmic throb, as if something inside him breathed in pce of his heart. Under the firelight, they gave off a faint, viscous sheen. They’re alive. Were they moving, or was the light pying tricks? No. They moved. Slow, serpentine.

  "Tarin. Tarin, look at me. Look at me!" She cradled his face, her voice fracturing with every word. Dad’s eyes tracked toward her with agonizing slowness. Even a gnce cost him everything. They found her.

  "Mirina..."

  "I'm here. I'm here. What—what happened to you?"

  He didn't answer. He just breathed, every lungful a wet rasp dragged from a hollow chest.

  "You're... you're in danger..."

  "What?"

  "Close it... we have to take everything and run."

  Damn it. I didn't wait for a second warning. I threw my weight against the door. My shoulder smmed into the wood, the impact jolting through my teeth. It moved, just barely. I shoved harder. It was almost closed.

  Then it stopped.

  Five fingers, long and dark, curled around the edge from the porch's shadows. The skin was gray, like wet stone. Waxy and cold. They cmped into the wood, and the frame groaned under a strength that wasn't human.

  Just that: gray skin and, on the ring finger, a tarnished silver band. The purple stone set within it glowed with a sickening light, pulsing in perfect sync with the bck rot in my father’s neck.

  The door, which had felt so heavy a moment ago, pushed back with terrifying ease. It swung wide.

  And I saw what waited on the other side.