The week after I climbed the hills, life tried its best to pretend nothing had changed.Mother hummed while cooking, Father scolded me for leaving his chisels out in the rain, and Mira still stole half of my lunch when she thought I wasn't looking. On the surface, Tirna moved to its usual rhythm.
But beneath that rhythm, I felt the tremor.It wasn't sound or sight, not even intuition. It was the subtle pull of awareness, like a dream's echo you can't shake off. Every so often, I would turn my head and know something unseen had just passed through the world.
I started noticing patterns—small, fragile things, but patterns all the same.When the wind brushed through the barley fields, it carried a faint shimmer. The clouds over the eastern hills curved in spirals instead of lines. Even the sound of the village bell, if you listened long enough, contained a strange undertone—a note too deep to belong to metal.
The world was humming again, and this time I could almost hear the words.
At school, I tried to act normal.Master Havel was lecturing about history that day—something about the founding of the western provinces. I should have been taking notes, but my mind was elsewhere. The symbols I'd seen in the hills wouldn't leave me alone.
When class ended, I stayed behind."Master," I asked, "where do our oldest stories come from? The ones about the Elders?"
He looked surprised, then thoughtful. "Ah, curiosity! I'm glad to see it. Most of those stories come from the northern archives. Fragments, mostly—songs and carvings. Why do you ask?"
I hesitated. "I saw something strange in the hills. A… carving. Symbols I didn't understand."
Havel rubbed his chin. "The hill shrines? Mmm. That would be ancient work indeed. You should be careful, Gray. The old magic sleeps lightly."
I nodded, pretending to agree.But the phrase old magic sleeps lightly stuck in my head like a seed dropped into soil.
That evening, Mira came to my house with a grin."You skipped lunch again. You owe me berries."
"You already stole my bread," I said, smiling despite myself.
"Then we're even," she replied, plopping down beside me on the porch. She watched me trace patterns in the dirt with a stick. "You've been weird lately," she said after a pause. "Like you're listening to someone I can't hear."
I froze. "Do you think so?"
"Yeah. You look at the hills like they're talking to you."
I stared at the horizon. The clouds were moving slower than usual, curling like smoke."Maybe they are."
She snorted. "You're strange, Gray. But if you ever figure out what they're saying, tell me first."
I promised I would.
That night, the rain returned.The sound of it against the roof usually calmed me, but this time it carried a pulse. A rhythm. I sat up in bed, heart beating in sync with it. The pendant at my neck glowed faintly, as if waking from a dream.
I whispered into the dark, "Are you there?"
The air shimmered. No figure appeared—only a faint whisper, neither voice nor thought.
"Listen."
Then the room fell silent again, the glow fading.But I had heard something beyond the words. A pattern. A melody half-remembered.I hummed it softly, matching the rhythm with my breath. And as I did, the pendant pulsed again—once, twice, in perfect time.
A thrill ran through me. The connection was real.
I began to experiment quietly in the following days. Not magic, not exactly—more like communication. If I focused on a candle's flame while remembering the rhythm, the fire swayed toward me, no wind needed. When I hummed the tune near the well, the water rippled outward, even when still.
Each success was tiny, but each left me trembling. I didn't tell anyone. The world was already wide enough without adding another secret.
A few days later, on my walk home from the market, I heard something impossible.A low, distant sound—not thunder, not wind. A hum like metal against metal, rolling through the sky. It came and went in a heartbeat, leaving the air electric.
I stopped dead in the road, groceries forgotten.The villagers didn't react. To them, nothing had happened.
But I knew.That was no storm. That was the rails singing.
That night, I dreamt of the winged deer again.Its antlers glowed like constellations, its wings folded in light. When it spoke, the world rippled.
"The rhythm grows stronger. The seventh cycle breathes."
"You listen well, child of gray blood. Soon, the song will need a voice."
I reached toward it. "A voice for what?"
It looked past me, eyes fixed on something far beyond the dream.
"For the ones crossing the sky."
The dream shattered like glass, leaving only one sound behind—the faint, melodic hum of a train gliding through stars.