#pennybount

Do you know her at all?

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Foreword

There are mornings that arrive as gifts, and there are mornings that arrive as verdicts. This was neither. Pennybount woke as it always had—bread rising, frost clinging, bells ringing with patient indifference—but something beneath those familiar rituals had shifted. Not broken. Not yet. Simply marked.

Those who understood such things felt it first in silence. In hesitation. In the way ordinary hands lingered too long on ordinary tasks. The awakening had begun, and the world, in its quiet way, had started to rearrange itself around the child who now carried it.

None of them spoke of fear aloud. Fear, once named, became real. And reality, once acknowledged, demanded action.

CHAPTER 2 — THE FRACTURE 

Episode 2.01 — Morning After

Pennybount woke gently, as if mercy were still possible.

Frost clung in delicate veins across window glass, softening the edges of rooftops and fences. The morning bells rang later than usual, their sound hesitant, as though even metal understood something had shifted during the night. Smoke rose from chimneys in thin, uncertain lines. Nothing appeared broken. Nothing appeared wrong. Yet the town moved with the quiet caution of something that had survived without understanding why.

Across the narrow street, Mrs. Elowen Harth stood outside her small apothecary, broom in hand. She swept her doorstep once, paused, and swept it again. The second pass was slower. Unnecessary. Habit born not of dirt, but of unease. Her eyes lifted briefly toward the Wilde residence before she forced her attention back to the stones beneath her feet. She had heard nothing. That, more than anything, unsettled her.

Inside the house, Junior lay motionless beneath wool blankets, his breathing shallow but steady. His skin held a pallor that did not belong to sleep. The mark at his neck remained dark and silent, neither fading nor worsening. Waiting.

Luna sat beside him, her fingers resting lightly on his wrist as if afraid he might vanish if she let go. She had not slept. Her eyes followed every rise and fall of his chest.

“They’ll notice,” she said quietly.

Mr. Wilde stood near the window, watching the street through a narrow gap in the curtain. He had already seen them. Two men in grey coats stood near the lamplighter’s post, speaking in low voices. Their posture was calm. Patient. Observant. The crest stitched onto their sleeves caught the morning light—a chained lantern burning within a perfect circle.

Auditors.

Not guards. Not soldiers. Worse.

He let the curtain fall.

Behind him, Junior did not stir. He slept through their arrival, through their watching, through the beginning of whatever came next.

That frightened Luna more than any scream ever could.

Episode 2.02 — What Staying Costs

By midday, the pain returned.

It began quietly, with small signs that might have gone unnoticed on another day. Junior’s hands trembled when he tried to lift a cup. His breath shortened after only a few steps. Even sitting upright seemed to drain him, as though gravity itself had grown heavier overnight. The strength he had briefly regained in the early morning hours faded with cruel precision, leaving behind a frailty that did not belong to a child.

Mr. Wilde noticed everything.

He adjusted blankets. He opened windows, then closed them. He spoke softly, offered water, offered food, offered silence when neither helped. Nothing held. Nothing restored what had been taken. Junior endured without complaint, but endurance itself had begun to cost him more than he could afford.

Mrs. Elowen Harth arrived in the afternoon carrying her leather satchel and the careful expression of someone who already feared what she would find. She examined the boy without speaking at first, her hands steady even as her eyes betrayed her. When her fingers brushed the darkened mark at Junior’s neck, she paused.

Not from uncertainty.

From recognition.

“This isn’t illness,” she said quietly at last. “And it isn’t injury.”

She withdrew her hand.

Outside, the town had begun to respond.

A notice appeared on the wooden post beside Old Bran’s bakery, its parchment stark against the familiar grain. People slowed as they passed it, reading without stopping. No one lingered long enough to be noticed.

ARCANE IRREGULARITIES UNDER REVIEW MCAO — DISTRICT AUTHORITY

By evening, two healers closed their doors without explanation. Their windows remained dark long before nightfall.

Inside the house, Mr. Wilde sat beside Junior and counted each breath as if numbers alone might anchor him to the world. Across the room, Luna packed quietly, choosing only what could not be replaced—old letters, worn cloth, fragments of a life that still belonged to them.

Outside, Pennybount continued to function.

Inside, they had already begun to leave.

Episode 2.03 — The Leaving

Luna left before dawn.

The house remained silent behind her, its walls still holding the warmth of lives that had not yet fully accepted their own ending. She closed the door carefully, ensuring the latch fell into place without sound. It was not secrecy she sought, but dignity. Leaving quietly felt like the last kindness she could offer the life she was abandoning.

Pennybount watched her go.

Shutters remained half-drawn. Curtains shifted just enough to confirm what eyes could not openly admit. The town had always prided itself on warmth, on familiarity, on the illusion that nothing important ever changed without permission. Now it pretended not to notice her passing, as though silence itself might preserve whatever fragile balance remained.

She followed the eastern road without hesitation.

Frost cracked softly beneath her boots. Fields stretched wide and pale, their winter stillness undisturbed by wind or bird. Farmhouses appeared at measured intervals, their windows dark, their doors closed. She did not stop. She did not turn back. Each step carried her farther from safety, but also farther from certainty.

By the second day, the land began to change.

The soil darkened beneath her feet, thickening into something older and less forgiving. Trees gathered closer to the road, their branches leaning inward as though drawn by quiet curiosity. The air grew damp, heavy with the scent of rot and memory. Magic lingered here, not openly, but in the way the ground held weight longer than it should.

She slept poorly and ate little.

On the third day, she passed a Ministry marker driven deep into the earth. An iron spike, its surface engraved with the seal of the Ministry of Civic & Arcane Order. The warning carved beneath it remained simple and absolute.

Containment Zone. Authorized Presence Only.

She walked past it anyway.

By the fourth night, lanterns appeared ahead through the trees, flickering like cautious eyes.

Bramblewick waited at the forest’s edge.

Luna did not come seeking shelter.

She came seeking a name she had once trusted with everything.

End Note

Departures rarely announce themselves as endings. More often, they disguise themselves as necessity—one step taken because there is no other step left to take. Luna did not leave Pennybount because she believed she would succeed. She left because remaining had become its own form of surrender.

Behind her, the town adjusted with unnatural ease. Notices appeared. Healers withdrew. Doors closed sooner than they should have. Institutions older than mercy had begun to observe, to measure, to wait.

Ahead, Bramblewick waited at the forest’s edge, where old names carried weight and forgotten debts could still be called upon. Luna had not come seeking comfort. She had come seeking defiance.

And far behind her, in a quiet room guarded by ordinary walls, Junior continued to change.

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Links for other chapters!

Click to explore the Realm of Rimbelton or Click here !

Links for other chapters!

Foreword

These chapters mark the moment when fear becomes personal. Until now, the danger has moved at the edges—through rumors, strange wounds, and half-seen shadows. Here, it steps directly into the home. Nasul does not arrive as a monster, nor as a savior. He arrives as something far more unsettling: a figure who knows exactly what is happening and chooses restraint. For Mr. Wilde and Luna, this is the first time they understand that Junior’s suffering is not accidental. It is part of something measured, watched, and timed. These episodes are about power that does not need to shout, about love tested by helplessness, and about choices that are offered only after most alternatives have already been taken away.

Episode 1.10 — Grandfather

No one answered Nasul’s question.

The room remained suspended in a fragile stillness, broken only by Junior’s shallow breathing and the faint drip of blood from the edge of the bed to the floor. The scent of iron clung to the air, heavy enough to taste. Nasul did not repeat himself. He stepped forward instead, boots making no sound as they crossed the blood-darkened boards. With each step, the pressure in the room seemed to tighten, as though the walls themselves were drawing inward. Junior whimpered softly and curled deeper into Mr. Wilde’s arms, fingers clutching fabric as if it were the last solid thing in the world.

Nasul stopped beside the bed.

For a long moment, he only looked.

Not with anger. Not with triumph. With something colder, heavier—an attention so focused it bordered on reverence. The scar on Junior’s neck pulsed faintly, raw and distorted, veins dark beneath pale skin. It throbbed with a rhythm that did not belong to the boy alone. Nasul’s jaw tightened, just briefly, before he mastered it. His gaze traced the shape of the wound, the tremors in Junior’s limbs, the exhaustion etched into every fragile breath.

“So,” he said quietly, “it has begun.”

Mr. Wilde shifted instinctively, pulling Junior closer, his body responding before thought could intervene. Every lesson he had ever learned screamed at him to move, to shield, to flee, to fight. His grip tightened around his son as if strength alone could defy destiny. Luna, however, did not retreat. She stepped forward instead, placing herself between Nasul and the bed, her shoulders squared despite the tremor running through her frame.

“You will leave,” she said hoarsely.

The words were not loud. They were not confident.

They were desperate.

Nasul’s eyes slid to her, cool and unreadable.

“You do not give orders anymore,” he replied.

The sentence landed without cruelty, without heat. It was simply stated, like a fact long settled.

And yet—he did not reach for the child.

His hand remained at his side. His power remained restrained. He did not touch the scar. He did not claim what lay trembling before him. Instead, he stood there, unmoving, watching Junior as one might watch a storm forming on the horizon—aware of its inevitability, calculating its path.

The silence deepened.

In that quiet, Luna understood something that frightened her more than his presence ever could.

He was not here to take.

He was here to witness.

And to remember.

Episode 1.11 — Terms

Nasul raised one hand.

The movement was small, almost careless, yet the air responded instantly. The pressure that had been crushing the room loosened, like a fist slowly opening. Junior’s cries faltered mid-sob. The violent tremors running through his body softened into uneven shudders. His breathing, still shallow, found a fragile rhythm. The scar on his neck continued to pulse, but the fury within it dulled, retreating as if pressed beneath an invisible weight.

Mr. Wilde felt the change at once.

Relief surged through him before he could stop it, sharp and shameful. His arms loosened slightly around Junior’s thin frame as the boy’s pain eased. He hated himself for it. Hated that any part of him welcomed Nasul’s interference. Hated that comfort, however brief, had come from the man standing in their doorway.

Luna staggered on a breath she had not realized she was holding.

“What do you want?” she asked.

Her voice shook, but it did not break.

Nasul did not look at her.

“Time,” he replied.

The word fell into the room like a stone into deep water.

Mr. Wilde let out a short, broken laugh, more a reflex than a choice. “You took that from us,” he said. “Years ago. You don’t get to ask for it now.”

Nasul finally turned his head.

“I preserved it,” he answered calmly.

There was no defense in his tone. No plea for understanding. Only certainty.

Silence followed.

It pressed in from every side, filling the spaces between heartbeats. Outside, somewhere far away, a wind moved through bare branches. Inside, nothing moved at all.

“He cannot stay here,” Nasul continued. “Every hour marks him. Every day sharpens what is forming.”

Luna’s hands curled into fists at her sides. “You will not take my son.”

For the first time, something like irritation flickered across Nasul’s expression.

“I am not taking him,” he said.

He stepped backward, toward the doorway, his presence retreating even as his authority remained.

“I am allowing you,” he added quietly, “to choose how long you keep him.”

Then he turned.

The shadows folded around him. The pressure vanished. The door did not open. He simply was not there anymore.

The house seemed to sag in his absence.

Walls creaked. The air thinned. The weight he had carried into the room lingered like a bruise.

Mr. Wilde lowered his head over Junior’s hair, breathing in the faint, familiar scent of soap and smoke and childhood.

Luna sank slowly to her knees.

Neither of them spoke.

They already understood.

This had not been mercy.

It had been a deadline.

Episode 1.12 — What He Did Not Take

Junior slept.

Not peacefully, not deeply, but with the exhausted stillness of a body that had burned through everything it possessed. His skin was damp with fever, pale beneath the thin blanket pulled to his chest. Each breath rose and fell unevenly, shallow but steady enough to promise survival for another hour. The violent convulsions were gone. The screams had faded. What remained was fragile quiet, stretched thin across the room like glass.

Mr. Wilde did not release him.

He remained seated on the floor beside the bed, back against the frame, arms locked around his son as if loosening them might undo the fragile balance keeping Junior alive. His muscles ached. His hands were numb. He did not notice. His attention never left the slow movement of Junior’s ribs, the faint flutter at his throat where the scar had finally stilled.

Luna knelt beside them.

Now that the danger had retreated, her body betrayed her. Tremors ran through her arms and shoulders. Her breath hitched without warning. She pressed one hand to her mouth, trying to hold herself together.

“He touched it,” she whispered at last. “The curse.”

Mr. Wilde nodded slowly. “He slowed it.”

“And he could have—” Her voice fractured. She stopped, swallowing hard. “He could have taken him.”

“Yes,” Mr. Wilde said.

The word carried no comfort.

“He could have.”

They sat with that truth in silence.

Nasul had entered their home, subdued something ancient and violent, and left without claiming what he had come for. He had eased the pain. He had stabilized the storm. And then he had walked away.

Not out of mercy.

Out of calculation.

Outside, the night resumed its ordinary sounds. Wind brushed against shutters. Somewhere down the street, a dog barked once and fell quiet. Pennybount continued to exist, unaware that anything had changed.

Inside the house, everything had.

Luna stared at the doorway long after Nasul had vanished. Her eyes burned, but she did not blink.

“He’s counting,” she said softly.

Mr. Wilde tightened his arms around Junior.

“I know,” he replied.

Whatever came next would not arrive suddenly.

It would arrive prepared.

End Note

If these chapters feel quiet, it is because they are standing in the shadow of something enormous. Nasul’s visit is not a resolution. It is a warning. He does not take Junior, not because he cannot, but because he is waiting. What he leaves behind is more frightening than violence: certainty. A deadline. A future that has already been calculated. For Luna and Mr. Wilde, this is the moment innocence ends. They now understand that their son is no longer just theirs to protect. He exists inside a larger system of blood, lineage, and consequence. From here, the story will begin to move outward—toward flight, secrecy, pursuit, and resistance. The clock has started. And every choice that follows will be shaped by this night.

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