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Chapter 3: The Stranger
The night air in Eldrith carried a chill that slipped through the cracks of the village-city's wooden walls. Smoke from chimneys curled toward the stars, and the faint scent of roasting meat mixed with the tang of iron from the blacksmiths' forges. Most children were asleep, their dreams light and unburdened. Raph, however, lay awake, staring at the ceiling of his small room, feeling the pulse of the Embers thrumming beneath his skin. Fire, water, earth, space, gravity, light, darkness—all of them alive, restless, whispering.
He had tried to focus on small exercises earlier that day, lifting stones, bending water into spirals, and testing gravity in subtle ways. Nothing had prepared him for the feeling he now carried: a weight, cold and insistent, pressing at the edges of his mind. Something—or someone—was near.
A sharp knock echoed at the window. Raph froze. He glanced toward the shadows of the room. No one should be outside. The village was quiet.
"Who's there?" he whispered, voice taut.
Silence. Then, a figure emerged from the darkness. Cloaked, tall, and moving with a grace that made the air itself seem to bend, the stranger landed silently on the roof across the street. His eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight, just enough for Raph to feel the pulse of energy radiating from him. It was a presence that tugged at the Embers within Raph—a mirror of power, but darker, sharper, more dangerous.
Raph's chest tightened. He had never seen anyone like this. Not a knight, not a merchant, not even the traveling mages the village had whispered about. This… was something else. Something beyond.
The stranger's eyes met his across the distance, and in that silent exchange, Raph felt a thread of recognition. You are like me… but not like me.
Raph stepped back, hands curling into fists. Fire flared faintly at his fingertips, water shimmered along his wrist, shadows coiled behind him. He hadn't intended to display power, yet it happened anyway, almost instinctively.
The stranger tilted his head, as if studying him, and then disappeared into the darkness, leaving nothing but a faint ripple in the air, like the echo of a storm yet to come.
Sleep fled Raph entirely that night. He sat by the window, knees drawn to his chest, trying to make sense of the figure. Was it a friend? A teacher? Or something far worse?
When dawn broke, he ventured into the streets. Merchants were setting up, and children chased each other across the cobbles. Yet Raph could feel it—something had shifted. The stranger's presence lingered in the air, in the pulse of the Embers, in the way shadows seemed to bend just slightly toward him.
By mid-morning, whispers started. Farmers and merchants muttered about a cloaked figure glimpsed near the fountain the night before. Nothing harmful had happened, yet fear had begun to seed itself in the hearts of the villagers. Raph's pulse thrummed at the thought: if the stranger had been here, then there were forces beyond Eldrith watching. Forces that knew he existed.
Leron found him near the fountain, balancing a small stone levitating above his palm. "You look like hell," he said, eyes darting around nervously. "What happened last night?"
"Nothing," Raph replied. His voice was calm, but inside, his heart raced. He wanted to tell Leron about the stranger, about the dark pulse that mirrored his own, but words failed him. Some things, he realized, could not be shared. Not yet.
Instead, he smiled faintly, letting the stone fall back into place. "Just practicing."
Leron narrowed his eyes. "Yeah… right."
Raph didn't argue. He knew Leron was right. He was different. Too different. And the stranger's arrival had only proven that the world he thought he knew was far more dangerous—and far darker—than he had imagined.
As the day wore on, Raph felt the Embers stir in response to the stranger's presence. A whisper of gravity tugged at the stones he walked past; light flickered unnaturally on the fountain water; shadows stretched longer than they should. And in the deepest core of his being, a quiet voice echoed: You are not alone. And the world will never forgive you for what you are.
That night, he stood once again by the window, staring into the dark streets. The stranger was gone, but Raph knew it was only a matter of time before their paths would cross again. And when they did, the spark of his destiny—tiny and flickering now—would have to grow into a blaze strong enough to withstand what was coming.
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