The wind screamed louder than the thunder. That was the first thing Maren noticed.
It had been howling for hours—like something wild was circling the valley, angry it had been forgotten. Clouds sat thick and black above the hills, pressing down until the stars disappeared completely. Trees bent low. Rain came in sideways sheets, the kind that didn't just soak you, but stung like thrown pebbles.
It was the kind of night where bad things happened. Everyone in the village knew it. That was why their doors were bolted, candles snuffed, and prayers whispered behind shutters.
But Maren Fallow stood at the edge of her doorway, lantern in hand, squinting through the downpour.
> "Something's out there," she muttered.
Her husband, Corin, didn't answer. He sat in the corner with a pipe in his mouth and a whetstone in his hand, slowly sharpening the same rusted carving knife he'd been working on for the past two hours.
Their daughter Valerie slept nearby in her cradle, tiny arms tossed above her head like she owned the place.
Then the sound came again.
It wasn't thunder, or wind, or rain.
A cry. Sharp, high-pitched—defiant, even.
Maren was already pulling her boots on.
---
She moved fast through the pasture, ignoring the way her lantern fought against the wind. Her shawl was soaked in moments, rain running cold against the back of her neck. The earth squelched underfoot, turning familiar paths into slippery trails.
The old stone wall loomed just ahead, crumbling in places, draped in vines no one had gotten around to cutting back.
That's when she saw it—barely visible in the lightning's flash.
A reed basket, tucked beneath the crooked bend of the gate, half-sheltered by the wall.
Her breath caught.
She knelt beside it, pushing back the sodden fabric.
Inside, wrapped in what had once been a fine but now tattered blanket, lay a baby boy. Pale skin. Damp curls stuck to his forehead. Eyes wide. Awake.
Not crying now—just watching her, silently.
Maren reached in, scooping him into her arms without hesitation. His skin was cold, but not yet stiff. Still breathing. Still here.
> "Who leaves a child like this?" she whispered, glancing around.
Lightning lit up the pasture.
No one in sight.
But far off, near the treeline, something moved. A shape cloaked in the shadows. Watching. Then gone.
Maren held the child tighter and hurried back to the house.
---
Inside the Fallow Home – Late Night
Corin looked up as she burst in, soaked through, holding a bundled form against her chest.
He didn't ask. Not yet.
She laid the baby on the table near the fire and began stripping away the soaked layers. Valerie, still asleep, rolled over in her cradle and let out a sleepy grunt.
Corin stood and crossed the room. His jaw was tight.
> "You brought something in."
> "Someone," Maren corrected. "A boy."
Corin stared down at the child. The baby stared right back.
> "Alive?"
> "Barely."
Corin grunted. "No note?"
Maren shook her head. "Just this."
She held up the last thing wrapped with the boy—a small square of cloth, edges fraying but the sunburst crest on its center still visible in the firelight.
Corin said nothing. Just stared. Then walked to the hearth and dropped it in the flames.
It curled and smoked. The gold thread sizzled black.
> "People are going to ask."
> "Then we lie."
> "That simple?"
> "He's ours now."
Corin sighed through his nose, then looked down at the child again. The boy hadn't looked away once.
> "He's sharp."
> "He's cold and abandoned. Let him be sharp later."
Maren picked the child back up and wrapped him in a clean towel. Her heartbeat slowed as his breathing evened out.
> "We'll say he came early. Before the storm."
> "They'll compare the size."
> "And they'll talk, and we'll say nothing."
Corin scratched his chin. "You already have a name in mind, don't you?"
Maren didn't smile, but her eyes did.
> "Joren."
---
The Weeks That Followed
Joren Fallow, as the village would come to know him, did not arrive with a bang or a prophecy. There was no omen carved into the clouds. No stranger knocking at the door demanding his return.
Just a baby in a basket during a storm.
The villagers were told he had been born early. "Not quite ready, but stubborn enough," Maren would say with a tired shrug. Some nodded and moved on. A few whispered, but none pressed.
And if he bore no resemblance to either Corin or Maren?
Well, plenty of village children didn't look like their fathers, and no one had ever gotten stabbed over that.
At the spring festival, one of the elders squinted at him and said he looked "a bit noble, maybe in the eyes." Corin shrugged and muttered something about old blood and country flukes. The elder nodded like that made sense and went back to complaining about taxes.
Life resumed.
---
Joren – Age 4
Joren remembered warmth before anything else. The fire in the hearth. Valerie's hair when she fell asleep beside him. His mother's shawl after it had sat in the sun too long.
He liked warmth. Cold made his teeth chatter and his fingers clumsy.
He didn't like crying, either. Valerie cried enough for the both of them, though she'd deny it later with all the pride of a piglet in a bakery.
By age four, Joren had already figured out two very important things:
1. Chores were never optional, no matter how invisible he tried to be.
2. Sheep were both incredibly stupid and somehow faster than they looked.
He also discovered that Corin wasn't nearly as scary as he seemed — unless you broke the axe handle or stepped on his pipe. Then he became the kind of quiet that made even Valerie sit still.
Joren liked watching people more than talking to them. He'd sit with a stick in his hand and pretend it was a sword, quietly following conversations with wide, curious eyes.
He didn't understand why people said he was "calm." He wasn't. He just liked saving his words for when it counted.
---
Joren – Age 6
He started asking questions.
> "Why don't we leave the village?"
>"Where does the sun go at night?"
>"Why doesn't Valerie get in trouble when she throws eggs at the chicken coop?"
To that last one, Maren gave him a look and said, "Because she blames you first."
He began to notice little things — like how Corin always grew quiet when travelers passed through, or how Maren paused at the mention of noble houses in stories, like she already knew the endings.
Sometimes, Joren would sneak out near the pasture gate, the place he wasn't allowed to play alone. He didn't know why — just that he wasn't.
He'd sit on the cold stone wall, watching clouds move, pretending they were ships or swords or castles.
Valerie caught him once and dared him to jump off it.
He did.
He limped for two days.
> "You're not bright, but you're brave," she told him.
>"You're neither," he replied, and got a fistful of dirt thrown at his face for his trouble.
---
Joren – Age 8
He never asked about his birth. He didn't have to.
Whatever the truth was, Maren and Corin never hinted otherwise. They spoke of him like they'd raised him from the moment he took his first breath — which, as far as he was concerned, they had.
Still, on stormy nights, something inside him stirred.
A faint, uneasy feeling that the world wasn't done with him yet.
That something else was out there — and one day, it would come looking.
And on those nights, when the wind howled just the right way, he'd sit beneath the overhang outside the house with Valerie snoring upstairs and think:
> "Maybe I wasn't supposed to be here."
And then he'd press a palm to the damp earth and whisper, just to see if anyone answered:
> "But I'm still here anyway."
---
Somewhere Far Away
Over mountain paths and along darkened roads, a man with pale hair moved like a shadow beneath the moon.
Where he walked, monsters died.
Where he slept, nightmares fled.
The world called him many things.
But in the whispers of frightened villages and flickering campfires, one name passed between trembling lips:
> "The Pale Swordmaster."
And though the boy in the village had never seen him, never even heard his name—his story was already waiting.
Because the wind that moved the trees knew what was coming.