[Ten Years Earlier]
A woman's screams echoed from the dimly lit room. Her husband paced nervously outside, clutching his chest as each cry made his heart race. Eight exhausting hours had passed into the night, and her contractions grew weaker with every hour. Blood soaked the sheets beneath her—a dark reminder of the life she was trying to save but might be losing. The midwife wrung her wrinkled hands, her eyes swollen from quiet tears. She saw the truth that the mother couldn't accept—the child was already gone—but her tongue remained tight. To speak would have shattered the mother's desperate grip on hope.
The mother's jaw locked, her muffled cries mixing with the storm's drumming rain and thunder. The midwife turned to fetch the husband—I had to tell him—but—SKRIZZ—lightning split the sky, smashing into the house. Roof beams exploded. Yet when the smoke cleared, the two women sat unharmed, the storm's fury suddenly gone, as if swallowed by something unseen. The husband stumbled through debris into the room, ears ringing, and then he stopped cold at the sight. The midwife crouched, quavering, beside the unconscious mother. A newborn floated midair between them, limbs curled like a resting butterfly, glowing in the dark.
"My son!" the husband blurted, scooping the child down to his wife's chest. "Look, Lix—look!"
Her eyelids fluttered open at the warmth of the baby's skin against hers. "So… handsome," she breathed.
The husband beamed, not noticing her eyes had closed again. "Alan!" he announced to the cracked ceiling. "Your name is Alan!"
KZZZZZT! The sky thundered a thunderclap so fierce it gripped the world mid-breath.
The aftershock choked the kingdom as a blade of light split the heavens. Two stars blazed where the crack had been, bathing the land in cold brilliance. Below, the peasant couple huddled in their cottage and saw only a healthy boy—not the omen staining the sky. But in the royal hall, shadows twisted.
"Your Majesty." A man, robed in midnight-blue silk, bowed before the throne.
"Did you see, Astrolis?" asked the king, fingers clawing the armrests.
"Sixth and seventh have come. Both here. Tonight."
"Two at once?" hissed a hooded counselor.
"A double blessing!" crooned others, their faces hidden by the starlight's glare.
The king leaned forward. "Has it been three centuries already? What fresh hell must we survive this time?"
Silence descended upon the hall.
—
The Gows family lived in Nedr, a dusty town on the eastern border of the Frostgale kingdom. Ferris, a third-tier blacksmith, was the only craftsman there licensed to forge hunters' blades. Though not wealthy, his work kept meat on the table, and he even paid for a maid to help Lix, his wife.
Townsfolk called him reliable—a good man with calloused hands and a laugh that warmed the smithy.
But it was his looks that stuck in people's throats. Ferris moved like a wolf—lean muscle under sunbaked skin, hair like molten gold, eyes as blue as midday sky. His face held the sharp beauty of a storybook prince, all angles and intensity, clashing with his soot-streaked apron. "Swap his hammer for a crown," folks joked, "and he'd outshine the king's daughters."
Lix knew their whispers. Yes, her rose-gold hair caught fire in the sunset light. Yes, her emerald eyes and full curves turned heads at the market. But besides Ferris? She felt like a candle next to a bonfire. When he flashed that grin, even her proudest features seemed as dull as old copper.
Naturally, Alan shared his parents' beauty, but in Nedr, that was the least interesting thing about the boy. By the age of two, he spoke in complete sentences, as sharp as his father's nails. He snapped his fingers to spark fires or lifted fallen apples midair, breathing magic as easily as air, with no spells or wands.
Worse (or better?), the boy never walked. He floated everywhere, toes grazing cobblestones like a dandelion seed on a draft. The townsfolk muttered blessings one day and curses the next.
Ferris reveled in it. At the tavern, he tossed Alan upward, laughing as the boy hovered, giggling, above scowling drinkers. "The sky is his cradle!" he roared. Lix didn't laugh, but her chin lifted each time a neighbor flinched at Alan's tricks. When he summoned rainbows to dry her washing, she smoothed her rose-gold locks, lips curled in a smile that said, See? I made this marvel.
Alan drifted above the village square like a ghost. Below, children scrambled through mud, shrieking with laughter. He hovered closer—maybe this time?—but they scattered, eyes wide, as his shadow touched them. He learned to linger at treetop height, watching their games through leaves. Words bubbled inside him—jokes, questions—but no one looked up. Even the birds avoided his perch.
One afternoon, deep in the woods, he found something that didn't flee. A slug-like monster, fat as a rotten melon, oozed across a log. Its gaping mouth hissed, a single tentacle lashing. Alan floated closer. The monster reared, spraying green acid that burned bark to smoke. Unfazed, Alan flicked two fingers. Wind sharp as a scythe sliced the air—Thwip—splitting the creature like overripe fruit. Globs of slime plopped onto ferns, sizzling. Alan tilted his head. "Why'd you do that?" he asked the oozing halves. They didn't answer.
The monster's innards slapped the earth—Thwack. Alan drifted closer, nose wrinkling at the stench of bile. Something glinted in the gore—a girl cradled in the sludge like a pearl in rot. Her skin gleamed porcelain, her hair a shroud of black seaweed. Delicate bones carved her face—high cheeks casting thin shadows, almond eyes tightly shut, lashes feathered against her cheeks. Her lips parted in her sleep and bloomed softly like rose petals. She trembled faintly, curled tight as a fern frond, giving shallow breath.
Alan crouched, ignoring the burn where the acid had eaten through his boots. He poked her shoulder. "Are you dead?" No response.
He stared at the gore around him, shaking unnaturally as if the girl had cast a spell of her own. Without thinking, he yanked her free with a gust of wind that scoured the slime from her skin.
She jerked awake, screaming like a scalded cat. Too loud. He let go—Plop—the puddle of bile and gore cushioned her fall. Curious, he hoisted her higher and dropped her again—Splat. The mixture surged up, cradling her. He grinned.
Soon, Alan was slamming her downward from treetop height, laughing as the puddle ballooned into a cushion each time. Her screams turned to breathless giggles.
When he hauled her home, Ferris chuckled. "Found yourself a playmate, eh?"
Lix frowned, scrubbing grime from the girl's cheeks. "Whose child is this?"
But by dawn, every house in Nedr denied her. The girl just clung to Alan, her remnants of gore pooling at their feet like mercury.
The mayor squinted at the girl, her silky-dark hair flowing like a midnight river. "Found her in the woods, did you?" He sucked his teeth. "Lost by travelers, maybe. Ferris—check the guild's report. See if any caravans are missing a child."
Ferris saluted, already hoisting Emma onto his shoulders. "She'll stay with us tonight!"
By morning, he'd made three trips to the guildhall, flipping through moldy ledgers. No missing reports. No grieving parents pounding Nedr's gates. Weeks passed. Soon, "Emma Gow" slipped into conversations like she'd always been there—the Gows' odd second, quieter than Alan but just as uncanny.