The silence of the highlands was a living thing, and it screamed.
It screamed of death in the absence of crow-call, of emptiness where the lowing of cattle should have echoed. Kaelen walked, his boots crunching on frost-rimed grass, the sound obscenely loud in the void. He kept to the high ridges, a small, dark figure against the bruised purple and grey of the dawn sky. Below, in the valley, a thin, black scar of smoke still rose from Oakhaven, a funeral pyre for a life he would never know again.
Every snap of a twig, every rustle in the gorse, sent a jolt of terror through him. His mind painted green light in every shadow. He was a rabbit caught in an open field, expecting the hawk's shadow at any moment.
By mid-morning, the cold had seeped deep into his bones. The journey-bread in his satchel felt like a stone, his throat too tight to swallow it. He found a shallow depression behind a tumble of boulders, a meager shelter from the wind, and slumped down, his back against the cold rock. Exhaustion, deeper than any he'd ever known, pulled at him. It was the drain of using his power, yes, but more than that, it was the weight of being utterly, completely alone.
He pulled the two runestones from inside his tunic. The simple one he'd always had felt cool and familiar. The new one, Master Corbin's stone, was still warm. He held it in his palm, tracing the complex rune with a grimy finger. When the time comes, it will guide you.
"How?" he whispered, his voice hoarse and alien to his own ears. "What do I do?"
He closed his eyes, trying to quiet the frantic drumming of his heart. He thought of Corbin's lessons, spoken in the warm, safe darkness of the workshop after the lamps were doused. "The stone does not shout, boy. It whispers. You must become quiet to hear it."
He focused on the runestone in his hand. Not with a push of will, but with an offering of attention. He let his awareness sink into its smooth, cool surface, past the physical sensation, seeking the hum of the Aether-Weave within it.
At first, there was nothing. Just the whistle of the wind and the ache in his muscles. Then, a flicker. A faint, almost musical vibration, like the ghost of a struck chime. It was coming from the stone. And it was pulling him. Not with a force, but with an inclination, a subtle tugging in his blood, like a needle drawn toward the north.
North. Deeper into the Ironveils.
He opened his eyes, a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold running down his spine. It was real. The stone was a compass, and its needle was pointing toward the "Sky-Anvil," toward the hope Corbin had died to give him.
A sharp crack from the valley below shattered his concentration.
It wasn't the sound of breaking wood. It was the distinct, sickening sound of stone being unmade. The same sizzling pop he'd heard in the village, followed by a rumble of collapse. The Blight-Knights weren't gone. They were still nearby, scouring the valley.
Panic returned, cold and sharp. He scrambled to his feet, peering cautiously over the boulders. A mile down the slope, he saw them. Three black specks moving along the riverbank. A plume of grey dust rose as a small, ancient wayside shrine—a pile of rocks shaped by generations of pilgrims—dissolved into nothingness. They were systematically destroying anything touched by the old ways, any place where the Aether-Weave might have gathered.
They were between him and the path north.
He had to go around. That meant crossing the high pass known as the Stonemaw—a treacherous, narrow defile feared by shepherds and traders alike. It was a place of landslides and sudden storms, a place where, it was said, the wind sang with the voices of the dead.
The choice was a stark one: the known evil of the knights below, or the unknown dangers of the mountain above.
The runestone in his hand pulsed with a gentle warmth. The pull was upward. Gritting his teeth, Kaelen turned his back on the valley and began to climb.
The way grew steeper, the air thinner. The gentle whispers of the lowland stone gave way to a louder, more chaotic chorus. Here, the rock was raw and young, fractured by ice and time. He could feel its pain—the ache of ancient splits, the groan of immense weight. It was overwhelming, a symphony of pressure where he could pick out no single melody.
As he entered the mouth of the Stonemaw, a narrow canyon with walls that soared hundreds of feet high, the wind began to howl. It whipped through the narrow passage, carrying with it a fine, abrasive dust. Corbin's words came back to him: "Listen to the songs, Kaelen. The mountain will tell you where it is strong, and where it is weak."
He pressed a hand against the canyon wall, seeking a steadier song beneath the wind's shriek. He felt the deep, solid bass note of the mountain's core. But closer to the surface, he felt a different rhythm—a precarious balance, a section of the cliff face high above that was strained, its weave frayed by centuries of erosion. It was a sword hanging by a thread.
An idea, born of desperation and a dawning understanding of his power, took root. He couldn't fight the knights. But the mountain could.
He climbed a short way up a scree slope to get a better view back down the pass. The three Blight-Knights were entering the far end of the canyon, their black armor unmistakable against the pale stone. They moved with that same relentless, unhurried pace.
Kaelen's heart hammered against his ribs. This was not like mending a wall. This was not like cracking a slab to escape. This was an act of violence. He pressed his palms flat against the rock, his forehead touching the cold stone. He poured his awareness into the mountain, seeking the specific, strained section high on the canyon wall. He found the critical fracture, the "thread" holding the immense weight in check.
He could feel the knights approaching, their presence a foul stain on the natural weave, a dissonant chord that made his teeth ache.
Now, he thought. For Oakhaven. For Corbin.
He didn't push. He didn't shove. He simply… plucked the thread.
He sent a single, precise pulse of energy into the fracture, a vibration that matched the stone's own frequency. He asked it to let go.
For a terrifying second, nothing happened. Then, a deep, groaning shiver ran through the entire canyon. A crack like a thunderclap echoed between the walls. High above, the entire section of cliff face shuddered. Then, with a roar that drowned out the wind, it broke free.
It was not a landslide of loose rock. It was a single, colossal slab of the mountain itself, shearing off and falling in a terrible, graceful arc. The knights looked up. They had time to raise their hands, green light flaring around them, before several thousand tons of stone consumed them.
The impact shook the ground beneath Kaelen's feet, sending a cloud of dust billowing through the pass that blotted out the sun.
When the dust settled, the entrance to the Stonemaw was sealed under a mountain of fresh rubble. The dissonant hum of the Blight was gone. Silence returned, deeper and more profound than before.
Kaelen slid down the scree slope, his legs giving way. He sat on the ground, trembling not with fear, but with a terrible, hollow exhilaration. He had used the song of the stone as a weapon. He had killed.
He looked at his hands. They were just the hands of a mason's apprentice, dirty and scraped. But they had just commanded the power of a mountain.
The runestone felt warm against his chest, its pull northward stronger than ever. He had survived the knights. He had passed his first, brutal test. But as he stood and continued his journey, the echoing silence of the Stonemaw seemed to whisper a new question, one more frightening than any he had faced before.
What would he become when he reached the end of this path?