At first, there had been a tower. Of that much, Bruce was certain.
He remembered cold stone, night wind, a terrible drop, and his new mother clinging to the outside of the tower wall like some fearless northern spider. He remembered the strain in her body, the hard beat of her fear around him, and the desperate wish inside himself to help her. Somehow, by that wish alone, he had drawn the white warmth from the strange heart of light inside him and sent it through the cord that joined them.
After that, darkness had taken him. Not sleep, exactly. More like someone had reached into him and switched the whole world off.
When Bruce woke again, he understood one thing clearly.
The light-heart was not a toy. It was not some free miracle he could throw around whenever he felt like being heroic. It was part of him now, bound to the small heart of flesh growing in his chest. When he focused inward, he could feel both of them: the wet little beat of the flesh-heart, and around it, within it, the quiet pulse of something brighter.
From that second heart, pale threads ran through him like hidden veins. They followed the paths of blood but were not blood. It was as if his body had two layers: one made of flesh, and one made of light. The light moved gently through both, mending, guarding, shaping. Around his real heart, it gathered like a small shield.
But whenever he used that light, there was a cost.
The glow dimmed, and if he pushed too hard, he vanished into helpless darkness.
It was like a muscle and a battery at once: something that grew stronger through effort, but only if it was given time to recover. Rest, food, patience—those mattered now. Without them, he would simply burn himself empty.
Good to know, Bruce thought.
Then slowly, his senses returned and he realised that the tower was gone.
There was no echo of stone anymore. Instead, he heard wind moving through leaves, birds calling somewhere overhead, and the soft crunch of footsteps on a dirt road. His mother's breathing came above him, tired but steady. Beneath her steps, the ground sounded uneven and open, not stone, not castle floor.
Somehow, she had made it.
Bruce did not know how long he had been unconscious, hours maybe, or perhaps a day. Time was difficult when a person lived in a warm dark room with no windows, no clock, and no proper body worth bragging about.
However the peace of the forest did not last long, when suddenly hoofbeats sounded behind them.
Lili startled so sharply that Bruce felt her whole body tense around him. For one frightened moment, she seemed ready to run, but then a man called out from the road in the strange old tongue of Albion.
"Rob," he said, or something close to it, tapping his chest as if offering the name before anything else. "Rob."
That made Lili stop.
The man spoke quickly after that, but gently. His language sounded almost like English to Bruce, if English had been buried in mud for a thousand years, dug up again. Bruce caught only fragments, but the tone was plain enough. The man did not sound angry, but worried.
Rob wasted little time. He dismounted, offered his hands, and after only a little hesitation, Lili allowed him to help her onto the horse. Then he climbed up behind her, took the reins, and set them moving down the road.
Bruce disliked this at once.
Not because Rob seemed cruel. That would have been easier. The problem was that Rob seemed helpful, and helpful people were harder to distrust. Still, he was far too close to Lili, one arm around her middle to keep her steady, and Bruce felt her heart beat faster every time the man shifted behind her.
As the self-appointed guardian of the small warm kingdom inside her, Bruce found this suspicious.
Who was this Rob? A bandit? A womanizer? A local policeman? Some kind of medieval Uber driver with suspiciously nice manners? Bruce had no way of knowing, so he listened.
Rob spoke often as they rode. He repeated simple words for Lili, pointing things out as if teaching a child: road, horse, water, tree, cold, warm, good. Between those lessons, he seemed to reassure her again and again, telling her in his soft, stubborn voice that all was well, that she was safe for now, that he would not let them take her.
Who "they" were, Bruce did not know. The bad tower man's soldiers, probably. Whoever owned the locks and sent men searching.
Rob's words were difficult to understand, but his tone was not. There was patience in it. Care. A kind of careful steadiness that reminded Bruce, painfully, of Frank speaking to frightened witnesses after a bad night.
Rob was helping, so Bruce made a cautious note in his mind. Rob: good Samaritan, probably.
The road carried them onward through a land older than anything Bruce had ever known. There were no engines, no sirens, no phones, no hidden hum of electricity beneath the world. There was only the horse beneath them, the creak of leather, the rustle of birds in the hedgerows, distant sheep, carts with complaining wheels, and now and then the voices of people walking roads that had never heard of asphalt.
For long stretches, the world was peaceful. Wind moved through leaves. The horse breathed. Lili stayed quiet, and Rob filled the silence with gentle words she barely understood. Sometimes someone passed with a squeaking cart. Sometimes birds startled from the grass. Sometimes Lili gave a small laugh when Rob said something foolish or kind, and Bruce, despite himself, began to relax.
Then the horse picked up speed.
Bruce quickly discovered that horseback travel was not majestic from inside a womb. It was shaking. Bouncing. Swaying. A full-body punishment delivered by an animal with no concern at all for unborn passengers. Every jolt tapped his head against his little world, and every rough stretch made him wonder whether knights had ever considered inventing suspension.
Still, he endured, because heroes endured. Also, he had no choice.
When the rocking grew too much, a small ache rose through him, and his light-heart answered without being asked. Not with a grand burst, not like the tower, but with a faint glow that eased the discomfort just enough to bear it. It helped, but it also reminded him of the darkness that had swallowed him after he spent too much.
Sips only, Bruce told himself, only sips.
So he trained between the jolts. Finger open, finger shut. Tiny kicks. Little curls of his half-made body. Careful practice with the light-heart, only enough to feel it stir and no more. The world outside might be strange, dangerous, and medieval, but effort was still effort, and Bruce understood effort better than most things.
If he could do nothing else, he could prepare.
Eventually, they reached a village. Bruce knew it only by sound. The horse slowed. Men spoke near a gate. Wood groaned open, and the rhythm of hooves changed from road to packed earth. Somewhere nearby, sheep complained as if personally wronged by history. Children shouted. Bowls clacked. A woman laughed. A dog barked once and was firmly told to reconsider.
Rob brought Lili to a house.
Bruce briefly hoped "house" might mean something like Frank's house: warm lights, television noise, popcorn, maybe a couch, maybe someone saying "movie night." Instead, there was woodsmoke, porridge, clay bowls, too many people in one room, and animals close enough that Bruce suspected at least one sheep was part of the family.
Still, there was warmth, food and kind people.
Lili although barely spoke, and when she did her words were small and careful, no more than crumbs. Yes, no, thank you, those being her favourite one's. So Rob mostly spoke for her. If anyone wondered who she was, Rob's voice seemed to answer before suspicion could grow teeth.
Bruce listened from within and slowly relaxed. Rob was definitely useful.
Lili ate well, rested for a few hours in a corner of hay and wool, and then they left again.
So the journey went on.
They rode across fields and narrow roads, past hedges, streams, and small farms, through a countryside that sounded quiet enough to be peaceful and poor enough to be honest. Rob kept teaching Lili words as they traveled, pointing things out and repeating them with patient insistence. Lili learned what she could. Sometimes she answered softly. Sometimes she laughed, small and surprised, when he said something foolish or kind.
Bruce did not fully approve of that laugh. Still, he filed no formal complaint, not yet.
By the second day, or what Bruce guessed was the second day, they reached another settlement. Its name came to him through flesh and water as something like Aynesway, Einsway, or maybe Inesway. Whatever it was called, it was larger than the last village, and from the moment they entered, it felt less safe.
Rob brought Lili to what sounded like a tavern or inn. There were clinking cups, rough voices, chairs scraping over wooden floors, and the warm smell of food and smoke. For a little while, it seemed they might rest there.
Then a large group of horse riders arrived outside.
Hooves struck hard, armor clattered, men shouted orders in sharp voices, and the whole place changed at once. Rob's tone dropped, Lili's heart kicked hard, chairs scraped, someone muttered something urgent. Then a door opened somewhere behind them, and Rob was moving her out.
The rest came to Bruce in fragments. They left through a back door, made it to an old wooden wall or gate. There was a gap barely wide enough to slip through. Then came open ground beneath Lili's feet and Rob's breath close beside her.
Bruce could not see any of it, but he understood enough. Men were searching for her. The bad man from the tower had not given up.
Rob led Lili beyond the village, away from the road and into the fields, where the voices of people fell behind and the ground softened beneath her steps. They stopped only when the trees drew near. Rob spoke quickly then, his voice low and urgent. Lili answered with a few quiet words, and though Bruce understood little of the language, he understood the shape of goodbye.
Rob wanted to come with her. Or perhaps he simply wanted to do more, but Lili was already pulling away.
She had to go alone.
Every person beside her was another person who could be questioned, punished, or used against her. Rob seemed to know it too, because after one last desperate sentence, he let her go.
And then it was only Lili and Bruce.
The forest swallowed them quickly. The road vanished behind them, the air grew cooler, and the sound of the world changed. The wind no longer moved freely; branches caught it, broke it, and turned it into whispers. Leaves shifted overhead. The earth softened beneath Lili's feet, and the great quiet of the woods closed around them like a cloak.
As that quiet settled over them, Bruce began to piece things together. Ridiculous as it all seemed, the answer was becoming harder to ignore. This was not a play. It was not a medieval reenactment, not some strange historical village where people pretended to churn butter and speak old English for tourists, and not some mafia boss's private island where a kidnapped woman had escaped into the woods.
No, this was real.
The people here spoke that strange old language because it was their language. They wore wool and iron because that was what they had. They rode horses because there were no cars. They cooked over fires because there were no stoves. There were no phones, no electricity, and probably no Frank, no Sarah, no children calling him Uncle Bruce, and no Amber stealing his credit card, none of that anymore.
This was not the twenty-first century.
Maybe it was the past. Maybe it was another world. Maybe it was somehow both. Bruce was not sure which answer was worse.
The thought frightened him, though if he was honest, it thrilled him a little too. A real medieval world. A land of castles, forests, strange tongues, armored men, dangerous roads, and possibly dragons, though he sincerely hoped not. A place where a person might become a knight, or a healer, or a wandering hero, or at the very least the inventor of indoor plumbing, which seemed just as important.
Then Bruce remembered that he was currently an unborn baby with no mouth, no eyes, no useful legs, and a mother hiding in the woods from a nobleman with soldiers.
Right then. First grow up, survive, then plumbing.
Lili walked until even the forest seemed to grow quieter. At last she found water: a little fall spilling down a stony hill, cold and bright, with moss gathered thick around it. There she rested beneath the trees with one hand over her belly, her breathing slowly easing from fear into exhaustion. When she shivered, Bruce gave her a careful sip of warmth. When a scratch stung, he eased it with another small sip of healing light.
The next day, they moved deeper.
By evening, the forest opened beside a lake. Bruce knew it by sound before anything else. Frogs boasted in the reeds. Wind slid flat across the water. Fish struck the surface with small wet slaps, and leaves rustled along the shore. Lili drank there, ate what little food she had left, and followed the water's edge until the trees finally revealed what they had been hiding.
A cabin stood near the lake.
It was small, old, and abandoned, with a steep mossy roof, weather-worn timbers, and a door that hung crooked in its frame. Inside, the floorboards complained beneath Lili's feet. One wall had gaps where the wind had learned to enter, and dust and old leaves had claimed the corners. But there was a roof, mostly. There were dry places. There was a stone hearth, and that mattered most of all.
To Lili, it must have looked like a miracle. To Bruce, it sounded like headquarters.
She set to work at once. She gathered wood, found dry leaves, and knelt before the hearth with stubborn patience. Sparks came and failed, came again and failed again, until her hands ached and her temper began to fray. When one sharp stone scraped her knuckle too deeply, Bruce sent a little warmth toward the hurt and felt the pain fade from her pulse.
Lili paused, touched the healed place, and then tried again.
This time, the dry leaves caught.
A small flame rose, shy at first, then stronger. Lili fed it carefully until it settled into the hearth as if it had always belonged there. That night, she ate beside the fire: hard bread, cheese, a little meat, and whatever else Rob had managed to send with her. Then she made herself a poor bed of grass, old cloth, and whatever dry things the cabin offered, and lay down with one hand over her belly.
For the first time since the tower, her breathing softened into something close to peace.
Bruce listened to the fire. He listened to the lake. He listened to the wind moving through the gaps in the walls, exploring their new home like a curious animal.
This, he thought, might be where it begins.
Morning brought chickens.
He had heard them in the night, small feet and soft clucks moving around the cabin as if inspecting new tenants. At dawn, a rooster announced himself with the confidence of a general declaring war on sleep, and several hens followed him inside with the solemn authority of landlords.
Lili startled, the chickens startled, and for a moment, there was confusion on both sides. Wings beat, feet scrambled, the rooster objected loudly to the entire situation. Then, after everyone had remembered their dignity, an arrangement seemed to be silently accepted.
They had a cabin, a fire, and, apparently, a flock of chickens that had already claimed one corner of the place as their own kingdom.
It was not much compared to Frank's house, or his old city apartment, or civilization in general, but it was something. More than that, it was a beginning.
In the days that followed, Lili worked with the tired determination of someone who had lost nearly everything and refused to lose the rest. She cleaned the cabin, gathered food, strengthened the fire, patched holes with mud and grass, and coaxed the crooked door into remembering how to be useful. Little by little, the place changed. A gap closed here. A draft quieted there. The hearth grew warmer. The floor became cleaner. The cabin stopped feeling abandoned and began, slowly, to feel claimed.
And all the while Bruce trained while she worked.
He did not know when birth would come. Nine months, probably. That was how it worked, right? Unless medieval babies had different rules. Unless reincarnated babies had different rules. Unless all babies were secretly reincarnated adults and simply forgot everything because being born was too embarrassing to remember.
That thought bothered him for longer than it should have, but in the end, it did not matter.
He was here with his new mother Lili. The world outside was old, dangerous, and strange. And Bruce, who had died trying to be useful and failed, had been given another chance in a small cabin beside a lake, with a brave mother, a glowing heart, and a rooster who sounded like he had never lost an argument in his life.
He tightened his tiny fists in the dark and swore that once he was born, he would become a tiny useful miracle healing baby.