Chapter 2 THE DEAD BIRD
~MARA~
"What did I do?"
My voice shook.
The sparrow lay motionless between us in the wet dirt. Its feathers were flat, its eyes dull once more, but the memory of its jerky, puppet-like steps burned against the inside of my eyelids.
Mama stood rooted to the spot, the yellow glow of the lantern casting sharp shadows across her hollow cheeks.
She didn't answer.
She just stared at the dead thing, then up at my hands.
"Mama," I pressed, taking a half-step toward her. My knees trembled under my skirt. "Tell me. What did I do?"
Mama swallowed hard, her hand tightening on the wooden handle of the lantern until her knuckles turned ghostly white.
"Come inside," she said, her voice clipped. "Now, Mara."
"No." I planted my boots in the dirt, the cold seeping through the leather soles. "I am not moving until you explain what just happened."
"Mara…."
"I touched it, and it moved!" The shout broke in my throat, raw with panic. "It was dead, Mama. I saw its eyes. It was dead, and then it wasn't. What did I do?"
Mama closed her eyes. For three agonizing seconds, the only sound was the wind rustling the high pine branches above us.
When she opened her eyes, the anger had drained completely, leaving behind an empty, sunken exhaustion.
"You brought it back," she whispered.
My stomach dropped. Cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck.
"Back from where?" I choked out.
Mama looked down at the silent brown bird resting in the mud.
"Death."
---
She didn't let me speak again until we were inside the cottage.
Mama dragged a wooden stool to the center of the kitchen, forcing me to sit. She hurried to the washbasin, filled a wooden bowl with lukewarm water, and brought it over alongside a clean rag.
Her hands were shaking as she grabbed my right hand, dipping it into the bowl and scrubbing at my fingers. She washed my skin as if she could scrub away the touch of the corpse.
I watched her, the water splashing over the side of the bowl, staining her apron dark grey.
"Am I Ashborn?"
Mama froze. The wet rag stopped midway across my palm.
"Don't say that word," she whispered, her gaze locked on the water.
"Am I?" I demanded, leaning forward, my heart is pounding quickly against my chest. "The poster in the square….the woman with the light in her eyes. The traveler in our shop today, terrified just from looking at me. Am I one of them?"
Mama pulled her hands back and squeezed the rag out over the bowl. Water dripped in slow, heavy splashes.
"The Ashborn were monsters," she said, her tone unnaturally flat.
"Then why do I have their eyes?" I pushed, throwing my scarf onto the floorboards between us. "Why did a dead bird wake up when I touched it?"
Mama looked at the scarf on the floor, her jaw tight.
"Because there are things in this world that should have stayed dead."
"Tell me the truth, Mama," I begged, my fingers digging into the edge of the wooden stool. "No more riddles. What are they?"
Mama stepped away from the washbasin, walking over to the small hearth. She stared into the embers, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
"They could command death," Mama said softly.
I swallowed hard. "The dead?"
She nodded. "And the living, if the stories are true."
"What did the Crown do?"
Her eyes hardened, catching the red firelight. "They hunted them."
"All of them?"
"Villages burned. Families dragged from their homes. Children killed before they were old enough to understand why." Her voice broke slightly, but her face remained strict. "They called it an extermination."
I stared at her profile, the reality of her words crashing over me.
"And they killed them all?" I asked quietly.
"That's what the Crown wants everyone to believe."
Mama turned her eyes back to the fire. The silence in the room grew heavy. She knew too much. The details were too intense, the pain in her voice too fresh for someone who had only heard quiet village rumors.
"How long have you known?" I asked.
"Since the day you were born," she said.
Twenty-one years.
She had known for twenty-one years. Every scarf. Every warning. Every time she'd told me to keep my eyes down.
She'd known.
"Were you afraid of me?" I asked, my throat tight. "All those years... were you sitting across the table from me, waiting for me to turn into a monster?"
Mama turned sharply, crossing the room in two long steps. She dropped to her knees in front of my stool, grasping my hands in hers. Her palms were warm, rough from years of manual labor, and entirely familiar.
"Never you, Mara," she said fiercely, her eyes searching mine. "Never you. I was afraid of what you carry."
"You are my daughter," she added, squeezing my hands until it hurt. "That is all that matters."
---
The air in the cottage felt too heavy. I pulled my hands from Mama's grip, stood up, and pushed open the back door.
"Mara, wait…"
"I just need air," I said without looking back, stepping out into the cool night.
I walked down the narrow path toward our small herb garden. Anger and confusion warred in my chest, hot and chaotic. I hated the mystery. I hated that my own body felt like an enemy waiting to ruin our quiet life.
I collapsed onto the wooden bench at the edge of the garden, burying my face in my hands. The dirt below was dry and cracked.
"I wish something would just make sense," I muttered into the silence, letting my hand fall to rest on the earth beside the bench.
A faint, tingling feeling spread through my fingertips, like the gentle hum of a plucked string.
Beneath my palm, the dry dirt shifted. A tiny green shoot pushed through the soil.
I pulled my hand back, my heart blasting against my ribs. The growth stopped instantly.
Slowly, trembling, I reached down and touched the tip of my finger to the tiny leaf.
The hum returned. A second stem split off. Leaves uncurled in fast-forward, growing thicker, darker. No light flashed. Nothing exploded. A tiny purple flower simply opened beneath my hand.
I stumbled back off the bench, landing hard in the dirt.
"No..." I whispered, staring at the fresh blossom pushing out of the dry earth. "No, no..."
---
Footsteps crunched on the stone.
Mama stepped out from the shadow of the cottage. She stopped short, her eyes tracking from my face down to the fresh blossom blooming out of season in the dirt.
She walked forward slowly, kneeling beside the flower. She reached out a hesitant hand, touching the petals softly.
Nothing happened.
She looked up at me, her face pale in the twilight.
Without a word, she began pulling herbs from the garden bed. She didn't harvest them carefully with her shears. She pulled them out by the roots, fast, desperate, throwing them into her apron.
"What are you doing?" I stammered, scrambling to my feet. "Mama, stop!"
"We're leaving," she muttered, her hands moving through the dirt.
"Leaving? Why?"
She didn't answer. She snapped a thick stalk of sage in half, her breathing heavy and shallow. She wasn't just afraid anymore. She was panicked.
---
Later that night, the house was dark save for a single candle flickering on the kitchen table.
Mama thought I was asleep, but I sat in the shadows of the doorway, watching her.
She walked over to the corner of the pantry, dragging away a heavy sack of grain to reveal a low wooden latch set into the floorboards. She pulled up a dusty wooden box, its metal corners tarnished black with age, and set it on the kitchen table.
I stepped into the dim candlelight. "What's that?"
Mama flinched, snapping her head up. "Nothing you need to know about."
"Mama, stop treating me like a child."
Mama closed her eyes, letting out a long, ragged exhale. But she didn't close the box.
Inside lay old, faded belongings: a square of soft embroidered silk, a tiny silver bracelet, a stack of yellowed letters tied with twine, and several strange, heavy metallic objects engraved with twisted symbols.
"Was that his?" I asked softly, pointing toward the silk.
Mama's face didn't change. "Whose?"
"My father's."
Mama didn't answer. She reached for the box. "Don't touch it."
---
She carried the box out into the chilly night air, straight to the iron firepit in our backyard. She struck a flint, fed sparks into the kindling, and tipped the box into the growing fire.
"You're burning it?" I gasped, reaching out to grab her arm. "Mama, no!"
"Some things should stay buried," Nessa said, her voice tight as the wood crackled.
The soft silk flared into bright orange flames. The yellowed letters curled into black ash. I watched pieces of a family history I never knew disappear into smoke.
We stood in silence as the fire slowly died down. Satisfied that everything was gone, Mama turned and walked back toward the cottage.
I stayed behind. A sudden flash of light caught my eye near the bottom of the iron bowl, half-buried under smoldering ash.
I stepped closer and poked a dry stick into the embers. The ash cleared, revealing a small black ring. The fire hadn't touched it.
I reached down and picked it up.
It was made of a pitch-black metal. There was no gemstone, only a thick band carved with a single symbol….a stylized eye split in half by a twisted line.
Despite resting in hot coals, the metal was ice cold against my skin.
Thump.
A strong pulse vibrated through the metal, traveling straight up my arm.
I dropped the ring onto the dirt.
Mama turned around at the sound, going completely still.
---
I picked the ring back up before she could move. I stared at the symbol. I knew I had seen it before….I just couldn't remember where.
"What is this?" I asked.
Mama moved faster than I had ever seen her move, snatching the ring from my hand.
"Where did you get that?" she breathed.
"It was in the box," I said. "Mama... you know what this is."
"No," she said quickly. Too quickly.
"Don't lie to me! Why are you scared of a piece of metal?"
Mama looked down at her clenched fist.
"Because you were never supposed to find it," she whispered.
---
"What does the symbol mean?" I demanded.
Mama didn't answer. She pulled a piece of cloth from her pocket, wrapped the black ring tightly inside, and shoved it deep into her apron.
"Forget you saw this, Mara," she said tightly. "Forget the bird. Forget the flower. If you value your life, you will pretend tonight never happened."
"I can't pretend none of this happened!"
Mama looked at me, and for the first time, I saw a deep, devastating grief in her eyes.
"I know," she whispered softly.
She turned and walked back inside.
---
I lay awake in my bed for hours, staring up at the dark wooden rafters.
My mind spun. The dead bird. The purple flower. The extermination. The cold black ring.
‘What am I?’
If the Ashborn were monsters who brought death, why could I grow life? Something inside me was waking up, and I had no idea how to stop it.
Snap.
The sound came from far down the main road leading into Bellmere. It was the strong, steady sound of iron-covered hooves hitting the stone.
I crept barefoot toward the small window overlooking the village square.
At the northern bend of the road, a bright yellow flame sparked into existence. Then another. And another.
Thirty torches bloomed against the dark treeline, brightening a line of dark figures riding slowly into the square. They wore heavy iron armor, long dark cloaks snapping behind them.
The Crown's vanguard.
A soft gasp sounded behind me. Mama stood in the doorway, all color drained from her face.
"Who are they?" I whispered.
Mama didn't answer.
Outside, the lead rider brought his heavy warhorse to a stop near the well. He opened a thick canvas banner bearing the royal crest, letting it snap in the wind.
Shouts echoed through the streets. Doors creaked open as terrified villagers stepped out onto their porches.
"Soldiers!" someone screamed.
---
The commander urged his horse forward, his voice cutting through the panic.
"By order of the Crown, no one leaves Bellmere!" he roared. "An Ashborn survivor has been traced to this valley. Search every house! Drag everyone into the square!"
My blood turned to ice.
I looked at Mama. She looked back at me, horror carved into every line of her face.
Neither of us dared to breathe.
As the soldiers dismounted, their steel swords flashing sharply in the torchlight, one terrifying realization settled in my chest.
Someone had told them an Ashborn was here.
Someone who knew.
