“Who’s there?” she whispered, voice scarcely above the wind that pressed against the cabin walls.
No answer came. Only the whisper of branches and leaves shifting in the cold night. Yet something inside her—a sense both ancient and urgent—compelled her forward. She cracked the door open, and a swirl of mist drifted inside, chilling her skin. In the fog stood a man cloaked in black, hunched, his arms cradling something small. Rain dripped from his beard, and his eyes were wide with exhaustion and terror, dark shadows beneath them.
“For God’s sake,” he gasped, “hide him.”
Isolde recoiled. “Hide who? Who are you?”
He shifted the bundle, revealing a tiny infant swaddled in a cloth threaded with gold, embroidery delicate enough to make her breath catch.
“There’s no time,” he said urgently. “This child… he is the heir to the crown. He must be kept safe.”
The world seemed to still, the fog thickening, muffling the night’s natural chorus. Instinctively, Isolde stepped aside, letting him enter. Rainwater pooled at the bottom of his cloak, soaking the dirt floor, and the infant whimpered—a faint sound, almost fragile, yet commanding all attention.