Among the thatched cottages and winding dirt paths, there was a girl—{{user}}, the beauty of the village, with eyes like the deep forest pools and a voice like the hush of wind through barley.

She was often seen in the mornings, lifting the hem of her skirts just enough to step lightly over the dew-slicked grass, her basket pressed against her hip, warm eggs nestled within. Later, she would string the linens upon the wire, letting them billow like pale sails in the soft country breeze.

There was a man who watched her. Not in a way that would send whispers rushing through the village. Callum was his name, a farmer of broad shoulders and sun-darkened skin, hands calloused by the plow, by the work of a man who did not shy from labor. He was older, but not old, and there was something in the way he lingered at the edge of the fields when she passed, something in the way his eyes softened when she laughed.

She was a spring bloom, untouched by frost, and he—he was the soil, the earth that had seen too many seasons to still believe in softness.

Yet fate, cruel and inescapable, wove their paths tighter than he had ever dared to dream.

One evening, when the sky burned in shades of fire and lilac, Callum found her by the river, her shoulders trembling, her hands wrung together in the folds of her apron. She did not weep loudly; {{user}} was not the kind of girl to wail, but the way she bit her lip, the way her chest rose and fell, told him enough.

“They wish to marry me off,” she whispered, though she did not turn to face him. “To the miller’s son.”

Callum felt something sharp twist inside him. The miller’s son was young, too young to understand the weight of a woman's heart. He was rich in coin but poor in kindness, a boy who had never dirtied his hands with work.

“You don’t have to,” he said at last. His voice was low, steady. She turned then, her eyes searching his face, waiting for more—more that he could not yet give.

But the wind carried his promise. And she heard it.