The house wasn’t really a house.
It was a reinforced caravan frame expanded with wood and canvas, built to be dismantled in under an hour and hauled with the next shift in the battle lines. The wheels were still attached beneath the flooring, half-hidden by skirts of heavy cloth that kept the wind from crawling underneath.
It smelled faintly of oil, parchment, and something sweet Seren had insisted on hanging near the door.
Nick pushed it open with his shoulder.
The late afternoon light followed him inside.
“Kaia?” he called.
There was a crash.
Then a pause.
Then—
“It wasn’t my fault!”
He closed his eyes briefly and bit back a laugh.
Seren didn’t look up from the low table where scrolls were spread in careful rows. “If it’s broken, you’re fixing it.”
“It’s not broken!” Kaia shot back.
There was a pause.
“…badly.”
Nick stepped further inside.
Kaia crawled out from beneath the narrow bed, her hair full of dust. She held up a wood practice blade like evidence at a trial.
“It’s the sword’s fault,” she said quickly. “I barely hit it.”
The blade was split clean down the middle.
“How many times did you barely hit it?” Nick asked.
She squinted at the ceiling.
“Not that many.”
“How many?”
“…four.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Maybe five,” she muttered. “Or twenty. But it shouldn’t break like that. That’s the point.”
Seren made a soft sound that was either a sigh or a laugh.
Nick crouched in front of Kaia. Up close, he could see the faint shimmer in her eyes where light caught strangely.
“You’re not supposed to test your sword inside,” he said.
“That wasn’t testing. I just wanted to… evaluate it.”
“Outside.”
She looked offended. “There’s mud outside.”
“And?”
She huffed.
Nick reached forward and brushed the dust off her cheek. She went very still under the touch, like she was afraid to breathe wrong and lose it.
“This one’s useless,” she said abruptly, holding up the broken blade again. “I need something better.”
“For what?”
She hesitated.
Then, casually, “For when I’m not small anymore.”
Seren’s pen paused.
Nick studied her.
“You’re eleven.”
“I won’t be eleven forever,” she snapped, then immediately looked annoyed at herself. “I mean, think about it.”
She kicked lightly at the floor.
“I can’t always wait here.”
The words hung there.
She rushed to fix it.
“I mean—not here-here. Just—you know.”
Nick stood and walked to the back shelf. He pulled down a wrapped bundle and set it on the table.
Kaia’s eyes locked onto it.
He unrolled the cloth.
It was a short practice blade, well-balanced, made of reinforced steel. The edge was dull, perfect for a young child.
Kaia didn’t move at first.
Then she stepped closer.
“Is that—”
“It’s not a toy,” Nick said. “And it’s not a decoration.”
Her gaze flicked to Seren.
Seren didn’t look up. “If he’s giving it to you, then you should take it.”
Kaia looked back at Nick.
“It’s mine?”
“It’s yours if you listen.”
She bristled slightly at that.
“I listen.”
He waited.
She grimaced. “Fine. I don’t always listen. But I can.”
That was more honest.
Nick handed her the blade.
Her fingers closed around it carefully… almost reverently.
“You don’t have to be the strongest person in the room,” he said.
She frowned at him.
“But you are.”
“That’s not the goal.”
“It should be.”
He almost smiled.
“It isn’t.”
She studied him, then tilted her head.
“You didn’t leave again, right?”
“I just walked in.”
“I know,” she said quickly. “But I still had to check.”
He met her eyes.
“I’m here.”
She nodded once, satisfied, and went outside.
***
Later, in the narrow yard behind the caravan, Seren adjusted Kaia’s stance with gentle precision.
“Your weight is too forward.”
“I’m attacking.”
“You’re falling.”
“That’s different.”
“It isn’t.”
Kaia tried again.
The blade moved faster than it should have for her size. It was too fast. The air made a sharp sound as it cut through.
Seren’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Again,” she said.
The blade flashed.
Inside, Aurelia appeared without knocking.
She never knocked.
“Where is she?” she asked immediately.
“Outside,” Nick replied.
Aurelia stepped past him.
“Kaia!”
Her head snapped toward the door.
“Aunt Lia!”
She dropped the blade and ran straight into Aurelia’s arms.
Aurelia lifted her easily and spun her once before setting her down.
“You’re taller,” Aurelia declared gravely.
“That’s not my fault,” Kaia said defensively. “I can’t stop it.”
“How tragic.”
Seren leaned against the doorway. “She’ll never grow up if you keep treating her like that.”
“I don’t want her to grow up.”
Kaia tugged at Aurelia’s sleeve.
“Show me the light thing.”
“It’s not a ‘thing’.”
“Everything is a ‘thing’.”
Aurelia sighed theatrically and held out her palm. Warm gold bloomed there, steady and contained.
Kaia leaned closer.
The light reflected strangely in her eyes, picking up a faint undertone.
Nick noticed.
He looked away first.
“Can I do that?” Kaia asked.
Aurelia hesitated.
Seren answered evenly. “Not yet.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, but it is a complete sentence.”
Kaia made a face.
“What am I supposed to learn, then?”
Nick stepped closer and rested a hand on her shoulder.
“You can learn whatever you want to learn. For now, focus on growing up. There will be room for magic when you’re older.”
She leaned into him.
“That’s vague. You always say ‘when I’m older’, but aren’t I always getting older?”
He squeezed lightly.
“You’ll grow whether I like it or not,” he said. “That’s how this works.”
***
That night, Kaia fell asleep half on top of Seren, one arm wrapped loosely around the hilt of her practice blade like it might run away without her.
Nick sat across from them, watching.
He couldn’t take his eyes off them.
Like if he blinked, something would vanish.
The war had taken cities.
It had taken gods.
It had taken Shinhwa’s certainty.
But it had not taken this.
Kaia shifted in her sleep, her brow tightening as if she were arguing with someone in a dream. A small sound escaped her—more breath than word—then she went still again.
Nick didn’t move. He didn’t reach for her, either.
He just counted her breaths until his own slowed to match them.
Seren shifted slightly but didn’t wake.
Her hand moved instinctively, tightening around Kaia’s shoulder.
Outside, somewhere beyond the darkened lines of the camp, a horn sounded.
It was closer than it had been yesterday.
Nick held his gaze where it was—on the rise and fall of Kaia’s back, on Seren’s fingers curled into fabric, and let the sound pass through him instead of pulling him toward the door.
Only when the camp quieted again did he lean forward and tug the blanket up over Kaia’s feet.
Then he sat back down.
And stayed.
***
The first time Kaia tried to pretend she wasn’t afraid, Nick almost believed her.
She came back from the yard with the practice blade tucked under her arm like it belonged there, like she hadn’t been staring at it a few minutes ago with the intensity of someone studying a prophecy. Mud clung to the hem of her pants. Rainwater had darkened her hair into messy strands that stuck to her cheeks. She made a point of not wiping them away.
Nick was sitting on the step of the caravan’s back entrance, sharpening a real blade. A lantern hung above him, swaying faintly with the wind. Every so often, a distant horn would ripple across the camp in short, coded bursts that meant things had shifted somewhere out in the dark.
Kaia stopped at the edge of the lantern light.
She didn’t say his name.
She didn’t have to.
Nick glanced up anyway.
“What?” he asked.
Kaia lifted the practice sword a little. “I’m training.”
Nick looked at the blade. He looked at the mud on her knees. He looked at the stubborn tilt of her chin.
“Training is outside.”
“It was outside.”
“Then why are you hovering in my doorway like you’re about to confess to a crime?”
Her eyes narrowed, offended at the accuracy. “I’m not hovering.”
“You are absolutely hovering.”
She huffed sharply through her nose and stepped closer, her boots making soft, wet sounds on the wood. She sat down two steps above him and swung her legs with exaggerated casualness, like she hadn’t just placed herself at exactly the distance where his shoulder was easy to reach.
For a while, the only sound was the quiet scrape of steel.
Then, like she couldn’t hold it anymore, Kaia blurted, “Did you ever get scared?”
Nick didn’t look up right away. “No.”
Kaia turned her head slowly. “Really?”
Nick dragged the whetstone along the blade one more time, letting the sound stretch. “No. Never. I was born fearless. That’s why they let me into the Hero’s Party.”
Kaia stared at him for a long moment.
Then she snorted. It came out too fast, like she’d tried to hold it in and failed.
“You’re lying.”
Nick finally looked up. “Am I?”
“Yes.”
“How can you tell?”
Kaia squinted like she was reading a difficult sentence. “Because you’re smiling like you want me to believe you.”
“That’s just my face.”
“It’s not.”
He lowered his eyes again and resumed sharpening.
Kaia watched him for another few seconds, then asked, quieter this time, “When you’re scared… what do you do?”
The question made him pause.
It didn’t sound purely curious, and it definitely wasn’t childish.
It was practical, like she’d already been scared, already tried to handle it alone, and now she was asking for help.
Nick set the whetstone down and rested the blade across his knees.
“Depends what kind of scared,” he said.
Her fingers tightened around the practice sword. “The kind where you don’t want to say it out loud because then it’s real.”
Nick’s gaze flicked up to her face.
Her eyes were too bright in the lantern light.
“You been having nightmares?” he asked.
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug that didn’t move her arms. “Everyone has nightmares.”
“That’s not an answer.”
She looked away, her eyes gazing past the camp and the lantern glow, toward the dark where the war waited.
“I didn’t say yes,” she muttered.
Nick nodded.
He tapped the step beside him with two fingers. “Come here.”
She hesitated, immediately suspicious. “Why?”
“So I can throw you into the mud and steal your sword,” he said. “Come on.”
Her eyes narrowed further, but she slid down a step and then another until she was sitting beside him, her shoulder nearly touching his. She kept her practice blade across her lap like it might protect her from questions.
Nick didn’t reach for her or the sword.
He just sat there with her, letting the silence settle between them.
After a moment, he said, “There’s a trick.”
Kaia turned her head. “A trick?”
“Yeah.”
“Like magic?”
“No. Better.”
She looked unconvinced, which was fair. Nick had never once said the words better than magic and meant them.
He lifted a hand and held it between them, his palm facing her.
“What do you see?” he asked.
Kaia blinked, confused. “Your hand?”
“Good. Now count.”
“Count what?”
“Anything.”
“…one,” she said slowly, still staring at his palm.
“Again,” Nick said.
She huffed. “Two.”
Nick nodded. “Again.”
Kaia’s frown deepened, but she did it. “Three.”
He dropped his hand and leaned back against the caravan wall.
Kaia stared at him like he’d just performed a miracle, and she couldn’t figure out the mechanism.
“That’s it?” she demanded.
Nick shrugged. “That’s it.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “That doesn’t do anything.”
“It does,” he said. “It makes you do something small that isn’t panicking.”
“That’s stupid.”
“It’s simple.”
“Those are the same words.”
“It’s not.” He glanced at her. “When you’re scared like you said—when the fear is big—your brain tries to become the fear. It wants to be nothing but that. Counting gives it a shape it can’t swallow.”
Kaia stared down at her practice sword, tracing a finger along the dull edge. “I can count without you.”
“Sure,” Nick said. “But then you’ll forget. Or you’ll try it once, decide it didn’t work, and never do it again.”
Kaia didn’t deny it.
Nick shifted slightly, lowering his voice without meaning to. “So we make it a rule.”
She looked up. “A rule?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Like a ritual.”
That word caught her attention. Rituals made sense to her. She’d seen people cling to them like armor.
“How?” she asked.
Nick thought for a second.
Then he reached out and tapped two fingers against the inside of her wrist, lightly, right where Seren had grabbed him earlier, right where a pulse could be felt if you cared enough to look.
Kaia jolted at the unexpected contact.
Nick didn’t pull away.
He let his fingers rest there, steady.
“Whenever you get scared,” he said, “you do this.”
Kaia stared at his fingers on her wrist.
Then she whispered, “You touch my wrist?”
Nick gave her a look.
Her cheeks flushed faintly. “I meant—”
“I know what you meant.” He lifted his fingers and demonstrated on his own wrist. “You find your pulse. You feel it. You count three beats.”
Kaia copied the motion, pressing her fingers to the inside of her wrist.
Her brows knit in concentration.
“I don’t feel it,” she complained.
“You do,” Nick said. “You’re just impatient.”
Kaia pressed harder.
Nick winced on her behalf. “Not like you’re trying to choke it.”
She eased up, scowling.
After a few seconds, her eyes widened.
“Oh.”
“There you go.”
Her fingers stayed on her pulse.
She stared at nothing in particular as she counted silently, her lips barely moving.
When she finished, she looked back at him.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
Nick’s throat tightened a little. He didn’t let it show.
“It means you’re still here,” he said.
Kaia blinked. “That’s obvious.”
Nick smiled faintly. “It’s not.”
She tilted her head, studying him like she was trying to catch him lying again.
Nick tapped his own chest once. “Here.”
Then he tapped the caravan wall beside them. “Here.”
Then he nodded toward her fingers still resting on her wrist. “Here.”
Kaia’s gaze dropped to her hand again.
The lantern light painted her knuckles gold.
Her fingers trembled, just slightly, like the fear had been waiting underneath her skin the whole time and finally had permission to exist.
Nick didn’t say it’s okay.
He didn’t say don’t be scared.
He knew better.
Instead, he said, “Now you add the second part.”
Kaia looked up quickly. “There’s more?”
“There’s always more,” Nick said. “Say it.”
She hesitated. “Say what?”
Nick met her eyes. “Say: Are you still here?”
Kaia’s expression twisted. “That’s… weird.”
“Say it,” Nick repeated.
She rolled her eyes so hard it almost looked painful. But she did it anyway, because even when she fought him, she listened.
“Are you still here?” she said, voice flat with sarcasm.
Nick didn’t smile.
He answered immediately, without hesitation, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
“I’m here.”
The words landed heavier than she expected.
Her sarcasm fell apart mid-breath.
Kaia stared at him.
Then, much quieter, she asked again—this time without the armor.
“Are you still here?”
Nick’s chest ached.
He answered the same way.
“I’m here.”
Kaia swallowed.
Her fingers tightened against her pulse.
For a moment, she looked like she might cry.
Instead, she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against his shoulder, quick and clumsy, like she’d decided without permission from the rest of her body.
Nick froze.
Then his hand lifted and rested against the back of her head.
Her hair was damp with traces of smoke and rain.
She stayed like that for a few seconds, breathing slowly, counting against his shoulder.
When she pulled back, she looked annoyed with herself.
“Don’t tell Seren,” she muttered.
Nick’s mouth twitched. “Tell Seren what?”
Kaia glared. “You know.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
Nick held up both hands in surrender. “My lips are sealed.”
Kaia studied him like she didn’t trust that for a second.
Then she said, softly, “Can we do it again?”
Nick tilted his head. “You want to practice being scared?”
“I want to practice… the rule,” Kaia corrected, as if that made it different.
Nick nodded.
He held up his hand again.
Kaia pressed her fingers to her wrist.
Her eyes fixed on his palm like it was an anchor point.
“One,” she whispered.
Nick waited.
“Two.”
The camp was quiet around them, but the quiet wasn’t safe.
“Three.”
Kaia lowered her hand.
She looked up at him and asked, “Are you still here?”
Nick answered, “I’m here.”
Her shoulders dropped, just a fraction.
Like something inside her had unclenched.
Like she’d been holding her breath for a year and didn’t realize it.
Footsteps sounded behind them.
Seren appeared in the doorway with a blanket draped over one arm, pausing when she saw them sitting together.
Her gaze flicked between Kaia and Nick.
Then, with infuriating accuracy, she said, “What did you break this time?”
Kaia’s head snapped toward her. “Nothing!”
Seren raised an eyebrow.
Kaia scrambled to her feet and grabbed the blanket from Seren like it was a victory banner. “I’m going to bed.”
Seren’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Your hair is wet.”
“It’s rain,” Kaia snapped, as if ‘rain’ was an insult.
She turned to leave, then hesitated.
She held Nick’s gaze for a beat too long, like she wanted to say something and didn’t have the language for it yet.
Then she lifted two fingers, pressed them against the inside of her wrist, and gave him a look that clearly meant don’t forget.
Nick nodded once.
Kaia disappeared into the caravan.
Seren stepped down onto the step beside him and sat.
She didn’t ask what had happened.
She didn’t tease.
She just leaned her shoulder lightly against his.
After a long pause, she said, “You’re making rituals now?”
Nick kept his eyes on the darkness beyond the camp.
“Someone has to,” he murmured.
The gods were dying. Someone had to make smaller promises.
Seren didn’t respond right away.
Then she said, very quietly, “If you teach her that… you can’t ever fail it.”
Nick’s jaw tightened.
“I won’t,” he said.
Seren’s breath was warm against his shoulder. “You promised…”
His fingers brushed the whetstone again, mindlessly, like he could grind an oath into the blade.
In the distance, the horn sounded—one long note this time.
A call.
Nick closed his eyes for half a second.
And in his head, like a promise written in blood, he heard Kaia’s voice again.
Are you still here?
Nick stood.
He answered it anyway, even though she couldn’t hear him.
“I’m here.”
He said it like it was something he could control.
Project Knightfall 