In our group sessions, Kaelen was professionally distant, his focus razor-sharp on the task at hand, his contributions as brilliant as ever. But I could feel the energy of his attention like a physical weight, a constant awareness that never quite focused on me but never quite looked away. He was observing me, analysing every word, every gesture, searching for a crack in my story, a hint of deception that would allow him to dismiss everything.
I was simply Giana, the knowledgeable student, offering insights that were just a little too perceptive, a little too rooted in a worldview that predated Descartes and Newton. I had dressed carefully that morning—a soft cashmere turtleneck in pale cream that hugged my curves without being obvious, paired with tailored wool trousers in a deep charcoal that made my legs look endless. The outfit was professional, understated, the kind of thing a serious academic might wear to present at a conference. But the fabric was luxurious, draping in ways that caught the light and drew the eye. I had left my hair down, dark waves cascading over the cream-colored wool, and added a thin gold bracelet—another relic from another lifetime, subtle enough to pass unnoticed but weighted with centuries of meaning.
The bracelet was a delicate thing, hand-woven in a style that had been old even when it was made, each strand of gold twisted and braided by fingers that had long since turned to dust. It had been given to me in 1587 by a woman named Aoife, an Irish peasant I had stumbled upon during one of my darkest centuries. Her family was starving—the crops had failed three years running, English soldiers had taken what little they had, and she had watched two of her children waste away before my path crossed hers.
I had arrived at their hovel on a winter night along with my steward at that time, Alistair. He was twenty years old then, a stark contrast to the grizzled servants who had served me in centuries past. Where his predecessors had been weathered and wary, Alistair was fresh-faced and open, with features that spoke of his Northern heritage—fair skin that flushed easily in the cold, hair the colour of wheat straw that fell across his brow no matter how often he pushed it back, and eyes the pale blue of a winter sky. He was tall for his age, still growing into his frame, with the broad shoulders and long limbs of someone built for labour but the gentle hands of a soul unsuited to violence.
His father, Magnus, had been my steward for five decades before age and illness forced him to yield the position to his son. Magnus was seventy then, a bear of a man gone grey, his face a roadmap of wrinkles earned through years of loyal service across three countries. He had served me faithfully since Alistair was a babe in arms, and though his body was failing, his mind remained sharp as a blade. It was Magnus who had insisted Alistair accompany me on that journey.
"The boy needs to learn," he had said, his voice a rasping whisper from his sickbed. "He needs to see the world like I did while serving you. Not just the duties, but the heart of it. Take him with you. Teach him what I cannot anymore."
Beside him sat his wife, Elspeth, a woman whose quiet strength had anchored the family through decades of service. She was sixty-eight, with silver-streaked auburn hair pulled back in a neat bun and eyes the colour of heather in bloom—the same eyes she had passed to her son. She had been Magnus's wife since he was thirty-two, when he was still a young man learning the ways of service, and she had stood by him through every posting, every journey, every long separation when duty called him away. Together, they had built a life in the small village that served as my base in that region—a cluster of stone cottages nestled in a Scottish glen, so remote that travellers passed through perhaps once a season.
Elspeth reached out and took my hand in both of hers, her grip surprisingly strong for a woman her age. Her fingers were rough with years of spinning wool and tending vegetables, but her touch was infinitely gentle.
"We've no other children," she said softly, her Scottish burr wrapping around each word like a warm blanket. "The Lord saw fit to give us only our Alistair, after trying so long, and we've treasured every moment with him. But we've also known, since the day he was born, that he wasn't meant to stay in this village forever." She glanced at Magnus, and I saw the silent communication between them—the language of a couple who had shared a lifetime of joys and sorrows. "This glen is all he's known. These hills, these faces, these same stories told by the fire winter after winter. It's a good life, but it's a small one. And you—" She squeezed my hand. "You've shown us a world beyond it. The things Magnus has seen serving you, the places he's gone, the people he's met—he's come home with stories that have filled this cottage with wonder for forty years."
Magnus nodded, a tear escaping down his weathered cheek. "I never wanted him to follow me into service. I wanted him to be a farmer, a shepherd, something simple and safe. But the lad's got my blood in him—he's restless, curious, hungry for something more than these hills can give." He paused, gathering strength. "When I was his age, my own father—his grandsire, Duncan—sat me down and told me I was leaving. He'd served you before me, you ken, back when you first came to Scotland. He trusted you with his only son, and that trust was never misplaced. Now it's our turn to do the same."
Elspeth released my hand and cupped her son's face instead, drawing him down so she could kiss his forehead. "You go with her, my brave boy. See the world for us. Learn what's beyond these hills. And when you come home—if you come home—you'll have stories to tell your own children someday." Her voice cracked, but she held firm. "This opportunity isn't the kind that comes to village lads like you. Most never leave, never know what's out there. But you—you'll walk roads your father walked, see things he only described. That's a gift, Alistair. Don't waste it."
Alistair knelt beside her, his tall frame folding awkwardly to bring himself to her level. "I'll make you proud, Mam. I swear it."
"You already have," she whispered, stroking his hair. "Every day since the moment you were born, you've made us proud. Now go. Be her eyes, Be her ears and hands where we cannot. And know that every night, we'll be here, thinking of you, praying for you, loving you across whatever distance lies between."
Magnus held out a trembling hand, and Alistair took it, gripping tight. "Remember what I taught you, Lad. Be loyal. Be true. And when you're scared—and you will be scared, lad, that's part of it—remember that fear is just the price of courage. Feel it, then do what needs doing anyway."
That was the last time Alistair saw his parents alive. Magnus passed two years later, in his sleep, with Elspeth beside him holding his hand. She followed him within the season, as sometimes happens with couples who have loved so long and so deeply that one cannot bear to remain without the other.
Alistair received the news while we were passing through the hills of Gwynedd in North Wales, a rugged landscape of ancient slate and mist-shrouded peaks that seemed designed for grief. We had been making our way westward, following that inexplicable pull that would eventually lead us to Aoife's valley in Ireland, and had stopped to rest our horses in the shadow of a mountain the locals called Yr Wyddfa—a name that rolled off the tongue like thunder. The messenger had found us there, at a small wayfarer's inn nestled in a valley where sheep grazed on slopes so steep they seemed to defy gravity. He was a lad of perhaps sixteen, red-faced and winded from riding hard across the border, and he carried a letter sealed with Elspeth's distinctive wax—a simple cross pressed into amber, the same mark she had used on every letter she'd ever sent her son.
I knew what it contained before Alistair broke the seal. I had seen that particular shade of sorrow on too many faces across too many centuries to mistake it. The way his hands trembled slightly. The way he turned the letter over twice before opening it, as if delaying the inevitable by mere seconds could somehow change what was written within. The way the world seemed to hold its breath around him, the wind pausing mid-gust, the inn's wooden sign creaking to silence on its hinges.
He read it standing in the inn's yard, the grey Welsh light falling soft on his wheat-straw hair, and I watched the words hit him like physical blows. His knees buckled slightly—just a fraction, just enough for me to see—and I crossed the distance between us without thinking, my arms catching him before he could fall.
"My mam," he whispered, his voice breaking. "She's gone too. A fortnight after Da. The innkeeper's wife wrote—she found them, she said. In each other's arms, like they'd just fallen asleep. Like they'd just... decided to go together."
I held him as he wept, there in that muddy inn yard in the shadow of the Welsh mountains, and the weight of his grief pressed against my chest like something solid and alive. He was nineteen then when he'd received the news, this boy who had become a man in my service, and he was utterly alone in the world—orphaned in a foreign land far from the only home he had ever known, with nothing left but the clothes on his back and the duty he had sworn to his father.
The innkeeper's wife, a stout woman named Betsi with kind eyes and flour-dusted apron, brought out a cup of something warm and pressed it into Alistair's hands without a word. She had seen grief before, I could tell—had probably buried her own share of loved ones in this harsh mountain country—and she knew that sometimes the only comfort was the simple presence of another soul bearing witness.
We stayed there three days, in that inn at the foot of Yr Wyddfa. I let Alistair set the pace, let him weep and rage and fall silent by turns, let him tell me stories of his childhood—his mother's hands spinning wool by the fire, his father's laugh echoing off the glen's hills, the way they would argue gently over the best way to salt meat for winter, then make up with such tenderness that young Alistair would pretend to be absorbed in some task just to give them privacy. He spoke of them as if they were still alive, still waiting in that small stone cottage in the Scottish glen, and I let him. I let him because I knew that soon enough the finality would set in, and these stories would become treasures he would hoard against the long years ahead.
On the third day, he came to me as I stood watching the sunset paint the mountains in shades of purple and gold. His eyes were red-rimmed but dry, and something in his bearing had shifted—a weight settled into his shoulders that had not been there before, the weight of a boy who had finally, irrevocably, become a man.
"I want to go on," he said quietly. "I want to continue with you. It's what they would have wanted—what they asked of me." He paused, swallowing hard. "I've no home to return to now. The cottage will go to the next family in need, and that's as it should be. But you—you're all I have left. You and the duty I swore."
I reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling the solidity of him, the strength he had grown into over these months of travel and hardship. "You honour them, Alistair. In everything you do, you honour them."
He nodded, a single tear escaping despite his efforts. "Then let's keep moving. That service isn't just about duty. It's about being something good in a world that's so often cruel. That's what they taught me, in the end. "
And so, we rode on, leaving the shadow of Yr Wyddfa behind, carrying Magnus and Elspeth with us in the way the living carry the dead—not as a burden, but as a foundation. Their love, their sacrifice, their trust in me—all of it lived on in their son, and in the work, we would go on to do together.
That work led us, eventually, to Aoife's valley.
We had been drawn to that particular valley by something I couldn't name—a pull, a whisper on the wind that had guided my steps for centuries whenever the world grew too heavy. We found Aoife huddled with her remaining children—a boy of seven and a girl of five—sharing the last scraps of leather they were trying to boil into something edible. The fire had nearly died, and the children's faces were grey with cold and hunger. Aoife looked up as we entered, and I saw in her eyes not fear or suspicion, but a weary resignation that cut me deeper than any plea for help.
I stayed. I helped. I used resources accumulated across lifetimes to ensure they did not join their siblings in the cold ground, and at the same time, I taught Alistair about humanity and compassion in ways no instruction from his father could ever convey. I watched him shed his boyish awkwardness as he carried water from the stream, chopped wood until his hands blistered, and sat with the children for hours, telling them stories to distract from the growling of their empty bellies. He had a gift for it, I realized—a natural warmth that put people at ease, that made them forget he was a stranger in their midst. Aoife's son, Declan, followed him like a shadow, and even the girl, Siobhan, who had stopped speaking after her siblings died, would occasionally lean against his leg and close her eyes while he talked.
Aoife never asked who we were or where we came from. She simply accepted us, fed us what little she had, and let us become part of their survival. On the day her family was finally safe, Aoife pressed the bracelet into my hands. Her fingers were gnarled now, aged beyond her years by hardship, but her eyes held a fire that reminded me of why I kept going.
"This was my grandmother's," she said, her Irish lilt wrapping around each word like a blessing. "And her grandmother's before that. I've no gold to give you, no wealth to repay what you've done. But this—this is all I have that's worth anything. Take it. Remember me. Remember that you are loved."
I tried to refuse. She would not hear of it.
"You saved my bloodline," she said firmly. "My children's children will live because of you. The least I can do is give you something to carry with you, so you know that somewhere in this world, there are people who breathe because you existed."
Before we departed, she turned to Alistair, who stood waiting by the horses with the quiet patience he had developed over those months. She crossed to him and wrapped her arms around him in a fierce embrace that seemed to startle him—he stood rigid for a moment, then softened, his arms coming up to return the hug with a tenderness that made my heart ache.
"Look after her," Aoife whispered to him, loud enough for me to hear. "She carries more than you know, more than any soul should. Be her strength when she forgets her own. Be her eyes when she cannot see the good she does." She pulled back and cupped his face in her gnarled hands, studying him with the keen gaze of a woman who had learned to read people through years of hardship. "You've grown into a fine young man, Alistair. Your father would be proud—is proud, I should say. Don't you forget that. The world needs more men with your kind of heart."
Alistair's pale blue eyes glistened, and he nodded, unable to speak. When he finally found his voice, it was thick with emotion. "I'll look after her," he promised. "I'll do my father proud. I swear it."
I have worn the bracelet ever since, a tangible reminder that even in my endless existence, I can still be someone's miracle. And Alistair, true to his word, served me faithfully for another forty-seven years, until time finally claimed him as it claims all mortals.