Valerium City never truly slept.
Even past midnight, its docks still groaned under the weight of trade — lanterns swaying above the water, shadows spilling like ink across the pier. The air reeked of salt, oil, and flux dust — the scent of progress and decay tangled together.
Kaelen ir'Solarys tightened the rope around a crate marked with strange blue sigils. The runes shimmered faintly under the auroral glow above, pulsing like veins of light through old wood.
"Careful with that one," his foreman barked from behind. "Came all the way from Elarion. Expensive as sin, that is."
Kaelen nodded, jaw tight. "Aye, sir."
The man had already turned away, muttering about deadlines and quotas. Kaelen exhaled through gritted teeth. His arms burned, his back ached, and his stomach hadn't known a proper meal since yesterday. But he kept moving. There was no other choice. The docks didn't pay for pity — only for labor that bled.
Behind him, a familiar voice called out, loud enough to cut through the din.
"Kaelen! If you keep scowling at the crates, one of them might scowl back!"
Roric emerged from the fog — taller, broader, and wearing the kind of grin only fools and friends could afford. He tossed Kaelen a canteen of water.
"You look like death, mate. Been up all night again?"
Kaelen drank gratefully. "Someone has to. Mother needs medicine. Father still hasn't—"
"—gotten out of bed," Roric finished for him, gentler now. "Yeah. I know."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It was familiar — the kind that lived between two people who had shared too many small tragedies.
Kaelen set down the canteen and turned back to the crate. The runes along its surface seemed to shimmer brighter the longer he looked at them — intricate spirals etched in silver, like veins running beneath the wood. Each symbol hummed faintly, a vibration just at the edge of hearing.
"Hey, Roric… these markings. You ever seen anything like them?"
Roric squinted. "Probably magitek stuff. Elarion cargo's always weird. Don't touch it too long — last time Jareth did, he puked sparks for a week."
Kaelen almost smiled. Almost.
But something about the crate tugged at him — not curiosity exactly, but something deeper, stranger. As if the wood itself were whispering.
He brushed his fingertips along the sigil.
A pulse.
Cold.
Then — a voice.
"Please… don't close it yet… she's still inside…"
Kaelen froze. The world tilted, sound dropping away. His hand felt glued to the wood as the dock vanished into shadow.
He saw — no, felt — the image of a woman kneeling beside a sealed chest. Her tears fell onto it, glowing faintly before fading into the grain. Around her, darkness gathered, pressing closer until she vanished.
Then, silence.
Kaelen gasped and jerked his hand back. The runes flared bright blue, then went dark, leaving only the smell of scorched wood.
Roric's voice cut through the ringing in his ears. "Kael! What the hell was that?"
Kaelen staggered back. "I— I don't know. It spoke."
"What spoke?"
"The crate. It said—" He stopped. Even saying it aloud felt wrong.
Roric frowned. "You're pale as a ghost, man. Sit down before you drop."
But Kaelen couldn't move. The echo of that voice still reverberated inside him — a whisper lodged behind his ribs. The world around him seemed… thinner. He could hear the hum of flux engines in the harbor, the creak of the ships' ropes, the heartbeat of the city itself.
And beneath it all… more whispers.
Faint. Mournful. Endless.
"Kael!" Roric's shout jolted him back. The crate he'd touched was trembling — the sigils flickering erratically. "Move!"
Before Kaelen could react, the crate burst open with a thunderous crack. A surge of energy erupted — a blinding wave of blue-white light that knocked them both backward. Splinters flew like daggers; lanterns shattered, spilling fire across the dock.
Workers screamed. Someone pulled the alarm bell.
Kaelen hit the ground hard. Pain flared through his arm — sharp, searing. When he looked down, his skin was marked with faint blue fissures running from wrist to elbow, glowing like cracks in glass.
He stared, breathless. "What… what is this?"
Roric crawled over, coughing. "We need to get out before the foreman—"
"—too late!" a voice roared.
The foreman stomped toward them, fury written across his face. "What did you idiots do? That crate was worth more than your lives!"
Kaelen opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. The man's words were just noise, drowned out by a chorus of whispers that weren't there moments ago — sorrowful voices rising from the wrecked crate, from the smoke, from everywhere.
Help us… find us… remember us…
Kaelen clutched his head. The world was spinning.
"Out!" the foreman bellowed. "You're done here, boy! Don't come back!"
Roric grabbed his shoulder. "Come on, Kael. Let's go."
They walked in silence through the sleeping streets, past flickering flux-lamps and shuttered stalls. The city felt different now — too alive, as if every stone and windowpane breathed in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Roric finally spoke. "You gonna tell me what that was?"
Kaelen stared at his bandaged arm, faint blue light still seeping through the cloth. "I… heard something."
"Heard what?"
He hesitated. "A voice. A woman's voice. Begging. I think she was— inside."
Roric's expression softened, then hardened again. "You hit your head, didn't you?"
"Maybe." He forced a weak smile. "Feels like it."
But when they reached the crossing where the alleys met, Kaelen stopped.
A figure stood at the far end of the street — still, half-shrouded in mist. A woman in a gray cloak, motionless beneath the flickering lamplight. Her face hidden, her hands clasped around a wooden staff that pulsed faintly with inner light.
For a moment, the air around her shimmered — a faint distortion, like heat above a flame.
Kaelen blinked.
When his eyes cleared, she was gone.
Only the echo of her voice lingered in his mind, not spoken but heard within.
"The world remembers its wounds, child. You just happened to listen."
At home, the walls felt too close.
His mother slept at the table, head resting on folded arms, the candle burned down to wax tears. He didn't wake her. The sound of her breathing — steady, fragile — grounded him. Reminded him that the world still had simple things left.
He cleaned his hands, bandaged his arm again, and sat by the window.
Outside, Aurora Fluxalis spread its ribbons of color across the night — green, violet, and gold. Beautiful. Tragic.
The whispers hadn't stopped. They hovered at the edge of hearing, like memories not his own.
He closed his eyes, hoping for silence.
Instead, he heard his mother's voice — but not her words. Her fear. Her worry.
And beneath it, something older. A pulse. A rhythm.
Like the heartbeat of the world itself.
He opened his eyes sharply, breath catching.
The reflection on the window was wrong.
For just a moment, he didn't see himself — he saw light spilling from the cracks in his arm, spreading through the veins of his reflection like blue lightning, illuminating a figure behind him.
The woman in gray.
He turned. Nothing.
Just the hum of the flux-lamps and the sigh of the city.
But he knew now — the voice wasn't a hallucination. The mark wasn't an accident.
Something inside him had awakened.
And in the depths of Valerium City, something had answered.
At the edge of the dock, long after Kaelen had gone, a single fragment of the shattered crate floated in the black water — its sigil still glowing faintly.
Three runes, intertwined like a woven thread.
The mark of the Weavers.