The water darkened and deepened, carrying fallen leaves in long, spiraling paths that reminded Kerreth of stories—how everything moved forward even when it seemed to turn in circles.
Alren noticed things like that. He noticed most things.
They were older now—not much, but enough that the change felt significant. Kerreth had grown taller without growing broader, his frame still lean and quick, his russet skin burnished darker by the sun. His ash-brown hair refused all attempts at order, and he had given up trying. Alren, on the other hand, had filled out. His shoulders had widened, his arms thicker with muscle from training he took far more seriously than most boys their age. His dark tan skin bore faint scars already, souvenirs of discipline rather than recklessness.
They sat on the low stone wall near the mill, legs dangling, watching the village prepare for the harvest festival.
“You’re not helping,” Alren observed.
Kerreth bit into an apple he had not asked permission to take. “I am helping. I’m supervising.”
Alren snorted. “You’re stealing.”
Kerreth grinned. “Only from people who won’t miss it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” Kerreth said easily. “If they needed it, they’d have noticed by now.”
Alren shook his head, but there was no heat in it. He had learned, over time, that Kerreth’s confidence was not carelessness. It was instinct. An unshakable sense of where he stood in the world—and where others stood around him.
People listened to Kerreth.
They always had.
Even now, when he laughed too loud or spoke out of turn, adults paused before correcting him. Other children drifted closer when he spoke, drawn in without quite realizing why.
Alren watched it happen with something like unease.
“You ever think about leaving?” Kerreth asked suddenly.
Alren blinked. “Leaving where?”
“Here,” Kerreth said, gesturing vaguely at the village. “The river. All of it.”
Alren considered. “No.”
Kerreth turned to look at him. “Really?”
“My father goes where he’s told,” Alren said. “I go where I’m needed. Usually not far behind.”
Kerreth studied his face, serious now. “And if you weren’t needed here?”
Alren hesitated. Just a moment. “Then I’d find somewhere I was.”
Kerreth smiled, softer than usual. “Figures.”
The rumor reached them a week later.
It came on the wind, carried by traders who spoke too freely after too much ale. Whispers of old stones uncovered upriver. Of clerics traveling in pairs. Of prophecies best left buried.
Alren heard it first.
He found Kerreth by the river, as always, skipping stones across the surface with reckless precision.
“Have you heard what people are saying?” Alren asked.
Kerreth shrugged. “People say lots of things.”
“They’re talking about a prophecy.”
That got his attention. Kerreth’s hand stilled. “What kind?”
“The kind that starts wars,” Alren said. “The kind scholars argue over and priests pretend not to believe.”
Kerreth frowned. “About what?”
Alren hesitated. He didn’t know why. “About a king.”
Kerreth laughed. “Well, that narrows it down.”
“They say he was born by a river.”
Kerreth stopped laughing.
The silence stretched.
“That’s stupid,” Kerreth said at last. “Half the kingdom’s born near water.”
Alren nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
They stood there for a while, listening to the river slide past, neither of them willing to say what lingered unspoken between them.
It was the flood that changed things.
Spring came early and angry, swelling the river beyond its banks. The water climbed the stone steps, then the roads, then the lower houses. Panic spread faster than the current.
Kerreth was the first to act.
“Get the children out first!” he shouted, voice carrying over the roar of water. “To the hill—don’t stop for anything!”
Adults hesitated.
Then they moved.
Alren didn’t question it. He ran where Kerreth pointed, lifted children onto his shoulders, waded into chest-deep water without a second thought. When a cart overturned and pinned a man beneath it, Kerreth was there, bracing himself against the current, shouting instructions until they dragged the man free.
Later—soaked, shaking, exhausted—they stood on the hill and watched the water recede.
Someone clapped Kerreth on the shoulder. Someone else pressed a blanket into his hands.
An old woman took his face between her palms and said, “You saved us.”
Kerreth didn’t answer. He was staring at the river, brow furrowed, as though trying to understand something it had said to him.
Alren stood beside him, silent.
That night, Kerreth found Alren sitting outside his family’s home, sharpening his father’s blade by lantern light.
“You didn’t hesitate today,” Kerreth said.
Alren glanced up. “Neither did you.”
Kerreth sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. “I didn’t think. I just… knew.”
Alren nodded. “That’s what scares me.”
Kerreth laughed quietly. “You’re afraid of confidence now?”
“I’m afraid of people who follow it,” Alren said.
Kerreth turned serious. “Would you follow me?”
The question hung between them, fragile as glass.
Alren didn’t answer right away. He met Kerreth’s eyes—deep brown, steady, searching.
“Yes,” he said finally. “But I’d stand in front of you first.”
Kerreth smiled, something fierce and grateful in it. “Then I suppose I’ll have to be worth that.”
They sat there until the lantern burned low, neither of them noticing the way the river whispered against its banks—
as if it were remembering something it would one day demand.
