Winter's roaring winds battered against our small wooden house on the outskirts of the village, seeping through the cracks and chilling me to the bone. Even inside, the cold was relentless, burrowing into my skin and settling deep into my bones. Normally, Father and I would have already left for the hunt, our bows slung over our backs, our boots crunching through the frostbitten underbrush. But today was different. Today, we stayed home. And I had no idea why.
The silence was suffocating. Not even Mother, usually so warm and talkative, had spoken a word. Her hands trembled slightly as she gripped the edge of the wooden table, her knuckles turning white. The fire crackled weakly in the hearth, doing little to chase away the eerie stillness that had settled over us. I swallowed the growing unease in my chest and finally broke the quiet.
"Father, aren't we going hunting today?"
Something was wrong. I could feel it, an instinctive dread creeping up my spine.
Father didn't meet my eyes. His golden ones, the same shade as mine, stayed fixed on the wooden floor. "Not today, my son. Today is... a special day."
His words were heavy, forced, as if they carried a weight too great for him to bear. His fingers twitched at his sides, and for a brief moment, his gaze flickered toward Mother. She gave him a weak nod, her expression unreadable.
A special day? Then why did it feel like the world was caving in?
Father hesitated before adding, "I'm going to visit a friend. He offered us some food from today's hunt."
A lie. A blatant, obvious lie. My father didn't have friends. He never asked for help. My heart pounded against my ribs as I watched him wrap himself in his old, tattered cloak, the fabric barely thick enough to withstand the storm raging outside. He lingered in the doorway, as if waiting for something, but after a long pause, he stepped into the night and was gone.
I turned to Mother, expecting answers, but she only smiled at me. An awkward, almost forced smile before retreating to her bed, feigning sleep. Something wasn't right. Something was terribly, wrong. My gut screamed at me, but I didn't know what to do. So I did the only thing I could. I lay down, forcing my eyes shut, hoping sleep would make sense of things.
I didn't get to rest for long.
A sudden noise jolted me awake. Horses, metal clanking, and then, pounding knocks at the door. My blood ran cold. The room felt suffocatingly hot despite the freezing air outside. Fear settled in my stomach like a stone, a thick, crushing weight that made it hard to breathe.
Mother stepped into the living room, her movements eerily calm. I swallowed hard, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Mom? ...Who is it?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she opened the door.
The wind howled through the doorway, bringing with it a swirl of snowflakes that danced in the flickering firelight. And then I saw him. Father, sitting atop his horse, but he wasn't alone. Behind him, lined up in perfect formation, were forty men clad in white armor, their armored horses snorting clouds of mist into the frigid air. In front of them stood a nobleman, his presence suffocating, his gaze razor-sharp as he looked straight at me. He was a fat man, his long brown beard barely concealing the smirk playing at his lips. Unlike his men, he wore no helmet he wanted me to see his face, to remember it.
My chest tightened, my eyes darting between the soldiers, the nobleman, and finally, my father. My father, who should have been protecting me. My father, who was standing beside that fat bastard.
The nobleman took a slow step forward, his boots crunching against the icy ground.
"Is this the one you're selling me?"
he asked, voice smooth and composed, yet dripping with hunger. Father stood motionless, his face carved from stone. No regret, no hesitation, just an empty
"Yes."
My breath caught in my throat. My fingers curled into the fabric of my shirt, my nails digging into my skin. This couldn't be real. It had to be a nightmare.
The nobleman licked his lips before waving a hand. A knight moved forward, carrying four small bags, the heavy sound of clinking metal unmistakable. Gold. He handed them to the nobleman, who, without even glancing at them, tossed them toward my father. My father caught them without effort, his grip tightening around the bags.
"Eighty thousand gold, as promised,"
the nobleman said, amusement flickering in his dark eyes.
"And in three days, you'll have your house in the capital."
My father's lips twitched into a grin, one I had never seen before. It was wrong, unfamiliar. It was the smile of a man who had gotten exactly what he wanted.
My throat went dry. I turned to Mother, pleading silently, but her face was blank. Cold. Distant. She had already let go of me in her heart.
Two cavalrymen dismounted and approached me. My feet refused to move. My mind screamed at me to run, to fight, to do something, anything. But I was frozen, drowning in the horror of betrayal and shock.
Before I knew it, before I could even register what was happening. Cold metal snapped around my wrists. Hands gripped my shoulders, rough and impersonal, like I was nothing more than cargo. And then, pain. A sharp prick in my neck. My vision blurred, my head growing heavy. My father's face was the last thing I saw, his greedy hands clinging to those bags of gold as darkness swallowed me whole.