And Ilys, though she never quite said it aloud, had already begun to fall in love with the little thief who now slept like he had always belonged in the crook of her arm.
The days grew longer, and Rowenna began to rise.
She moved with caution at first, hand catching on every surface, breath hitching at each turn, each step. But strength returned to her by degrees, like sunlight returning to a frost-hardened field. She no longer slept through Woolf’s cries. She hummed as she swept, stopped to pick dried herbs from the rafters, lifted her son with a surety that spoke of blood-knowledge.
Ilys watched from the table, elbow-deep in laundry, and felt a mystified emotion bloom and twist inside her.
She told herself it was pride. Relief. Maybe it was.
But there was a sting to it too.
Rowenna had her arms back now. Her voice, her footing. She didn’t need Ilys for every small thing anymore.
So when Rowenna paused near the hearth one evening, babe in arms and cheeks flushed from movement, Ilys crossed the room and held out her hands.
“Give me my Woolf.”
Rowenna turned, amused. “You know we’ll have to call him another name eventually.” She sighed, pressing her lips to the child’s forehead. “Leif wants to name him after his father, Beck.” Rowenna furrowed her brow and looked down at the boy in her arms. “I think it fits him. Sturdy little thing.”
Ilys took him carefully, holding him close against her chest. “Look at this head of hair," she grumbled. “He’s got more than most grown men. Wild as brambles. He’s my Woolf.”
Rowenna lethargic smile manifested dotingly. “Then he’ll be both.”
She brushed her knuckles gently across his cheek, then looked up at Ilys, fondness and knowing in her gaze. “You are Ilys,” she said, “and Veilwalker. My boy is Beck… and Woolf.”
Outside, the wind stirred the trees, whispering its own old names. Inside, the world felt small, and safe, and real. Ilys looked down at the boy, Beck-Woolf, with his unruly hair and tiny, clutching fingers. He blinked up at her, solemn and strange.
“Both, then,” she dictated. “Lucky thing.”
The child yawned, soft and sudden, and the room seemed to still, as if even the world had paused to witness this very small, very loud person begin to stretch into his many names.
The hooves were too fast.
Rowenna looked up from the cradle near the hearth, her brow creasing. “Is someone—?”
Ilys bounded to the door.
She opened it just as Lord Veylen dismounted, his cloak a wet, angry flare in the mist. The horse frothed at the mouth, flanks heaving. The man hadn’t ridden, he had hunted.
Veylen crossed the yard in four long strides and struck Ilys full across the face. The crack of it echoed through the still morning like a snapped branch.
She didn’t fall. Her head jerked sideways, blood blooming along her lip, but she held her stance. Inside the cottage, Rowenna stood frozen, clutching Woolf close to her chest.
“Did you think,” Veylen hissed, voice low and furious, “that there was anywhere in this kingdom you could go where I wouldn’t find you?”
Ilys didn’t answer.
He stepped closer, breath hot with cold fury. “You, who wear Death’s mark, you think that earns you privilege? That it gives you rights?” His gloved hand reached for her cloak, bunching the fabric near her collar. “You forget yourself. And if you think I won’t teach you the cost of your disobedience by turning this cottage to ash, you haven’t been listening.”
Ilys’s hand twitched at her side, but she did not reach for a blade. Not with Rowenna behind her. Not with the child.
Instead, her voice came low and even. “Surrender your threats.”
Veylen stilled.
“I will come,” she said. “I’ll gather my things.”
He stared at her for a long, hateful moment. Then he released her cloak with a sharp flick, straightening his spine.
