Dawn crept slowly over the forest canopy, a faint hush settling across the treetops as the sun reluctantly rose, clinging to sleep much as he did. Smoke drifted lazily from the chimney, barely visible through the shifting light. In the hollow tucked between two leaning stone spines, a cabin stirred.

  Rhys sat hunched just inside the open doorway, chin in hand. The thick smell of damp earth lingered after last night’s storm, and his hair, still uncombed, was plastered in a curl over his brow. He made no effort to fix it.

  Inside, his father moved like a shadow, quiet, efficient, half-lost in thought. He was always like this before a ritual. It was the only time the man seemed subdued by nerves. Rhys studied him now, noting the scratch of boots on stone, the way Thorne rolled his shoulder before every task, as though remembering old wounds.

  Earlier that morning, Rhys had knelt beside the cold hearth and pressed his palm flat against the kindling. A brief glow bloomed beneath the skin — his embermark, spiraling faintly from the base of his thumb toward the heel of his palm. A flicker, not a flame. Not a weapon. Just heat. A boy’s first tool. It was safe because it came from him, inked with the ash of his own blood. It bore no will, no whispering weight. It didn’t resist or strain. It didn’t try to change him. That would come later.

  On the firepit, a cracked kettle gurgled. Thorne poured the hot water into two cups carved from hollowed antlers. He handed one to Rhys without a word, then sat opposite him on the worn bench just inside the doorway.

  They drank in silence.

  Not awkward silence, ritual silence. How you did things mattered. Silence could be anything, even nothing. But with intent? It became a shape. A vessel. They’d done this many times. Every moon, every season, every rite. Rhys would light the morning fire and watch the smoke drift sideways in the low wind. They would sip bitterleaf tea until it numbed the tongue, and say nothing until the silence had settled into them like moss.

  When you only spoke to one person your entire life, you learned how to say things without needing sound.

  His father had always warned him to keep his markings covered when outsiders passed too near. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, Thorne went quiet in a different way. Like holding his breath.

  Today, Rhys noticed a new weariness in his father’s movements.

  Thorne finally broke the silence. “The line snapped again. Can’t keep it patched with bark strips.”

  Rhys tilted his head. “Want me to run it to the glade? I’ll fix the hooks while I’m there.”

  A pause.

  Thorne nodded slowly. “Take the west path. Further, but drier.”

  Rhys blinked. “West? It'll take twice as long.”

  “Take. The west path.”

  The words came sharp, not shouted but final, like a gate slamming shut.

  Rhys stiffened, then gave a shallow nod. “All right.”

  It was nothing, an errand, same as always. But the tone of Thorne’s voice caught Rhys off guard. It felt… final. Not that Thorne had ever been sentimental, but there was something in the way he looked at Rhys just then. Like he was measuring him. Like he was memorizing him.

  Rhys frowned. “You all right?”

  Thorne sipped his tea. “You’re nearly twenty now.”

  “I know how old I am.”

  “You’ll take the anchor soon.” Thorne didn’t look at him. “It’s... not light, what it does. You don’t carve it in skin. You carve it in soul.”

  Rhys had no reply to that. He looked down into his tea, steam catching the morning light.

  “It’s nothing like your embermark. That is a tool, a way to survive. Anchoring will be worse. Not a boy’s mark.”

  They said the anchoring always burned worst. That even before you lit the ash, your body could feel it aching — as if remembering what was yet to come. Rhys had seen the old marks on his father’s back. Thick grooves, ragged and dark, more than surface deep. It looked as if the stain had spread from within, and the scars on the skin were just what had bled through.

  “I thought we’d do it together,” Rhys said after a while. “The anchor. You said it had to be passed down. That it’s mine, but it comes from you.”

  Thorne finally looked at him. The man’s eyes were dark, like flint worn smooth by years of use. He nodded once. “Soon.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The silence returned. It sat heavier this time, like a third presence in the room.

  Rhys stood, finishing his tea in one long pull. “I’ll bring back willow bark while I’m out. Might help your shoulder.”

  Thorne didn’t answer.

  The forest was still damp, sunlight slicing through low mist in long golden blades. Rhys kept to the narrow trail, boots sliding just a little on the moss-slick stones. A squirrel darted across his path and vanished up a tree. Birds called above, and somewhere deeper in the woods, a distant snap echoed — just a branch falling, probably.

  He paused briefly beneath a crooked tree and stripped a length of willow bark into his satchel. Thorne’s shoulder had been acting up again, and though the old man never complained, it was always worse after storms.

  The path to the draw line took him around the slope’s edge and into the narrow glade where they gathered clean water and trapped small game. Rhys found the snapped cord quickly, already knotted twice in an attempt to patch it. The hooks were bent, rust curling on the tips.

  He sat back on his heels, working the knots free, but his mind wandered.

  He imagined the anchor rite. The fire. The ash. His father’s hand steady on his back, the blade cutting through him like lightning trapped in steel. Not a brand. Not a drawing. A mark born of pain and purpose. They didn’t ink it with dyes. They didn’t chant over it with spells.

  They carved it.

  His fingers slipped, slicing the edge of his thumb on a sharp bit of twisted hook. Blood welled quickly.

  Rhys hissed, pressing his palm to his thumb to stem the bleeding. He turned the hand slightly, avoiding the curled edge of his embermark so he wouldn’t smear blood across it. The last thing he needed was to ignite a flame on damp grass.

  Still… something sparked.

  A quiet heat pulsed at the base of the mark, faint and reactive. Almost like it responded — not to danger, but to emotion. He stared at it for a moment, then quickly wrapped the cut in cloth, frowning down at the rusted trap as though it had done it on purpose.

  “Perfect timing,” he muttered bitterly.

  Something stirred in the grass nearby. When he turned, nothing was there.

  He rose, brushing off his knees, and turned back toward the cabin.

  It was the smell that hit him first.

  A burnt, sour stink that crawled into the nose and clung to the tongue. Like scorched leather and bile.

  The willow bark slipped from his satchel and scattered across the trail.

  His pace quickened as he cleared the last of the trees and rounded the bend toward home.

  The door was ajar.

  Rhys froze.

  Then bolted.

  The tea cups were still on the bench — one shattered. The fire was out. The hearth cold.

  And his father was on the floor.

  Rhys skidded to his knees. “Father!”

  Thorne didn’t move.

  His chest was still. His face slack.

  Rhys didn’t scream. Didn’t sob. He just stared.

  The blood had pooled thickly, already congealing. But more than that — strips of skin were missing. His father's back had been flayed. Clean, precise. Three long sections from shoulder to waist. Gone.

  Not torn in rage. Not savaged. Removed.

  Rhys reached out with trembling fingers, as though touching the wound might undo it.

  His breath caught.

  The anchor. His father.

  They had taken his anchor.

  His father.

  His Father.

  Anchor...

  Fath…

  Gone.

  The realization struck harder than grief. Hotter than rage. Something fundamental had been severed. Not just his father. His future.

  The embermark on Rhys’s hand flickered softly to life — unbidden, a dull ember’s glow licking along the edge of his palm. It pulsed again, stronger, as though echoing something inside him. Anger. Mourning. Loss.

  Rhys turned it downward and drove it into the dirt beside the hearth. Hard.

  The glow sputtered. Dimmed. Smothered.

  He stayed there, curled and hunched over, pressing his weight into the earth like it might hold him together.

  Around him, the cabin was quiet. No chanting. No battle. No thunderclap of power or storm.

  Just the kettle, still warm. The tea cups. The fire, dead cold.

  His father’s blade was missing from its peg.

  And Rhys finally noticed the tracks in the doorway — one set of prints, deliberate and deep. Not bare feet. Boots.

  A fine cut had been sliced into the moss just beyond the step. Straight. Clean. Too quick for any hunting axe.

  There was no sign of a struggle. No debris. No scorched wood. But the air felt wrong.

  Heavy.

  Bent.

  This hadn’t been a wild attack.

  Someone had come for the anchor.

  And they had been very good at their work.