Childhood in Eltharion was a collection of first names.
The first name of the rain—which smelled different depending on the wind that brought it.
The first name of bread—there was morning bread, farewell bread, and bread of fortune.
The first name of Eírhan—which was not a word, but an encounter: the meeting between will and what the world keeps beyond the visible.
I was three years old when the village held its harvest festival, and I received a simple amulet—a chip of stone hung on a leather cord. They said it was a gift from old Aunt Haruh, who believed children needed something to bite when life bit back.
"Stones are good teachers," she said, offering me a smile with few teeth.
I bit the stone and tasted nothing but earth; yet that night I slept with it in my hand and dreamed of a clear stream flowing beneath an arch of rock. The water sang, and the stone, satisfied, answered with silence. I woke with the feeling that I had learned something without words, like discovering you can whistle.
From that day on, I began to perceive the edges of Eírhan as if they were changes in temperature: certain places were warmer, others cooler; some were dry and insistent, others damp and patient. There was a clearing behind the house where the leaves always seemed still, even when the wind came down from the hill with force. It was the wind that does not move the leaves—not because there was no wind, but because there it was occupied with something else: crossing the world as one reads an ancient text, page by page, unwilling to turn any of them quickly. I would go there, sit, and stare at nothing with the kind of focus only children and mystics understand.
My mother thought it was charming. My father thought it was intriguing. Aunt Haruh thought it was dangerous, which for her was the same as interesting. She was the one who taught me to stay still on the outside and moving on the inside.
"Listening is the first spell," she said. "People want to learn how to speak to the world's force, but first they must learn not to interrupt it."
I, who preferred observing to being observed, obeyed—not out of discipline, but curiosity. Silence is a door.
The next spring, we saw goblinoid tracks near the rye field. They were small, crooked, and hurried in a way that was almost comical. My father and a few neighbors followed the trail and returned with two sacks missing and a cut on his arm. It was nothing serious—goblinoids in that region were rarely more than opportunistic thieves—but it was enough for the village to arrange light watches and reinforce fences. That night, I overheard the adults debating whether the road guard would send someone, but no one seemed truly worried.
"The world is changing," my father said, stirring his tea.
"It always has," Aunt Haruh replied. "The difference is you're noticing it now."
I began to train with wooden sticks more for play than out of vocation: the blacksmith's son had a practice sword and challenged me for the informal title of "alley guardian." I lost, of course, but learned to stand after falling. There was pleasure in the repetition—in the steps, the stance, the arc of the arm—that reminded me of the clearing where the wind became distracted. I didn't know then, but these games were the foundation of a path that one day would bear more solemn names.
The first sign that there was something more in me than curiosity came on a summer afternoon, when a dust whirlwind rose out of nowhere in the yard and spun around me like a happy dog. I laughed. My mother, sweeping, stopped. Aunt Haruh, under the porch, narrowed her eyes. I reached out, and the whirlwind seemed to understand, approaching gently, tugging playfully at the edges of my shirt. Then, as if embarrassed at being seen, it dispersed. My mother crossed herself discreetly. My father whistled two low notes and smiled—I'm not sure if at me or at the invisible that accompanied me.
"Affinity," Aunt Haruh said that night, while hanging herbs to dry. "Most people have one, clear as water in a clay jar. One in a thousand has two, like two streams joining and making noise. Three… three is a bedtime story for children. But stories, you know, sometimes wear out their disguise and become day."
She didn't ask anything. She just taught me to breathe in a way that seemed to expand the windows of my chest. "Breathe below the ribs," she instructed, resting a light hand on my belly. "And when you feel the air leave, follow it. Don't hold on to anything." I discovered that when I breathed like this, things that before were only faint sensations at the back of my mind would come closer and take shape: I could trace a thread of Eírhan passing over the table, another circling the window, a third touching the hearthstone as if tuning an instrument.
At the market, I began to notice people with small, invisible marks: an old man with vital Eírhan brighter than usual; a young woman whose eyes reflected elemental air even when the afternoon was still. And there were the rare ones who carried a heavy silence: astral Eírhan flowing like an underground river, requiring care not to spill over its banks. I didn't speak of this, because no one had asked me to. And also because it was good to keep a secret I barely understood.
One morning, a traveler stopped in the village. His skin was darkened by a thousand roads and he carried a long sword wrapped in cloth, the kind of person who respects their own blade. He spoke with my father at the door, looked at me for a long moment, and before leaving, offered me advice paid for with nothing:
"If one day the stone sings in the water, don't run. The song is for those who stay. And if the wind passes without touching the leaves, don't speak. Silence answers better than the tongue."
I kept those phrases as if they were an accidental prophecy. The following week, a long rain made the river behind the fields swell and sing deep. The log bridge grew slippery, and children were forbidden from going near. I went anyway—not out of defiance, but because the song seemed to call me by a name no one knew. Under the bridge, there was a natural arch, and on the moss-grown stones, droplets kept a patient rhythm. I sat on a low rock and closed my eyes.
At first, only the water spoke. Then, something else—a deep, stony tone that seemed to come from inside my chest. I breathed as Aunt Haruh had taught me and felt the elemental Eírhan of the water touch the essential of the place, both wrapped in an astral so ancient it seemed unconcerned with time. I reached out until my fingertips touched a smooth stone. The sensation was of fitting—neither cold nor hot; it was… right. Like a word finally finding its sentence.
Then I heard it. A single, sustained note, coming from the stone, from the river, from me—and from somewhere deeper still, where names lose their shapes and remember they were once silence. It was not a spell. It was not a miracle. It was recognition. I cried, not knowing why. And when I opened my eyes, the world seemed aligned in a new way, as if I had cleaned a lens no one had realized was dirty. I went home with wet clothes and a certainty—not verbal, but whole—that I was made of paths leading to places I had yet to dare enter.
That night, I dreamed of the nameless figure who had offered me a hand among shadows and stars. It did not speak of destiny or glory. It spoke of choices and memory. And before vanishing, it touched my chest with two fingers, as if signing a pact on invisible paper. I woke with the mark of the gesture still warm and Aunt Haruh's stone in my hand. The river's song continued, a little quieter; now I knew: when I returned, it would not be to listen, but to answer.