Five winters came and went, weaving changes into the fabric of Silverleaf.
Aael was now five years old. He had grown, but not in the way the village expected. While other Sylvarian children sprouted like sturdy saplings—thick-limbed and bursting with vitality—Aael grew like a willow in winter. He was tall for his age, lanky and fragile, with skin that refused to take the sun's color, remaining a stark, ghostly white. His hair, black as the void between stars, fell over eyes that were too quiet, too deep.
He looked like a Sylvarian, yet he looked like a mistake.
The contrast was never sharper than when he stood next to Rian.
Rian was everything a Chief's son should be. At five, he already had knots of muscle on his arms. His skin was a rich, healthy bronze, his hair the color of polished oak. He laughed loud, ran fast, and when he fell, he bounced back up.
The village loved Rian. They tolerated Aael.
It was late afternoon near the village square. A group of children had gathered near the water well, playing a game of "Stone Heaving"—lifting heavy river rocks to prove their strength.
"Look at Rian!" a boy shouted, pointing.
Rian, with a grunt of effort, hoisted a rock half the size of his torso over his head. The other children cheered, clapping their hands. Elders passing by stopped to nod approvingly.
"Strong like his father," a blacksmith whispered to his neighbor. "That is the blood of a Chief."
Rian dropped the rock with a thud, grinning, wiping sweat from his brow. "Your turn, Aael!" he called out, genuinely encouraging. Rian saw no difference between them; to him, Aael was just his brother.
Aael stepped forward. The cheering stopped. The air grew heavy with unspoken judgment.
He approached the same rock. He gripped the cold stone, his pale, slender fingers straining. He pulled. The rock shifted, scraping the dirt, but it did not rise. He gritted his teeth, his face flushing pink with exertion, but his arms trembled and failed.
A giggle rippled through the crowd of children.
"He can't even lift a pebble," a larger boy sneered. "Why is he so weak?"
"He's not a real Sylvarian," a girl whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. "My mama says he's a ghost. Look at his skin. He looks dead."
Aael let go of the rock. He stood up, dusting off his hands, his face burning not from exertion, but from shame. He didn't look at the other kids. He looked at the ground.
"Shut up!" Rian snapped, stepping between Aael and the bullies. "He's stronger than you think! He's... he's fast!"
"Fast at running away," the big boy laughed. "A Chief needs strength, Rian. You are going to be the Chief. He is going to be nothing."
The words hung in the air like smoke. Aael turned and walked away. He didn't run—he wouldn't give them the satisfaction—but his pace was brisk, heading away from the laughter, away from the square.
He found solace where he always did: in the weaving room of his home.
Elara sat at her great loom, her fingers dancing across the threads of glowing silk. She didn't need to look up to know who had entered; she knew the rhythm of his footsteps—light, almost silent.
" The stones again?" she asked softly, not stopping her work.
Aael climbed onto a stool beside her, pulling his knees to his chest. "I couldn't lift it. Rian lifted it easily."
Elara stopped the loom. She turned, her face full of a warmth that melted the coldness of the village square. She reached out, cupping Aael's pale face in her hands.
"Rian is the earth, Aael. He is solid and strong," she said, brushing a strand of black hair from his eyes. "But you... you are the wind. You cannot ask the wind to be a stone. It does not mean the wind is weak. It just has a different kind of power."
"The others say I am a ghost," Aael whispered, his voice trembling. "They say Thorne made a mistake bringing me here."
"Thorne makes no mistakes," a deep voice rumbled from the doorway.
Thorne filled the frame, his presence commanding. He walked in, still smelling of the forge and the forest. He looked at his wife, then down at the pale boy on the stool. Thorne's expression was stern, hard to read. He had heard the whispers in the village. He knew the Council questioned his judgment. Why feed a runt? Why raise a rival who cannot even lift a sword?
Thorne placed a massive hand on Aael's shoulder. It was heavy, grounding.
"Let them talk," Thorne grunted. "Wolves do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep. You are my son. You eat at my table. That is all that matters."
He looked at Aael, his eyes narrowing slightly, searching for something inside the boy.
"But they are right about one thing, boy. This world is hard. If you cannot be strong like Rian, then you must be something else. You must be smarter. You must be faster." Thorne squeezed his shoulder, not gently, but firmly. "Find your way, Aael. Or the world will break you."
Aael looked up at his father, then at his mother. He nodded slowly.
That night, lying in bed next to a snoring Rian, Aael stared at his own hands in the dark. He clenched them into fists. I will not be broken, he promised the silence. I will find my way.
While the village whispered, the house of the Chieftain became Aael's fortress. Inside those copper-wood walls, he was not a ghost; he was a son, a student, and a brother.
The Mother's Lesson: If the world outside was a storm, Elara was the hearth that kept the cold at bay. She knew Aael's body was frail, so she fed his mind.
In the quiet afternoons, while Rian was out wrestling or climbing trees, Elara would sit Aael beside her loom. She didn't just teach him to weave cloth; she taught him to weave thoughts. She brought him old scrolls made of dried bark—histories of the Sylvarian clans, maps of the stars, and catalogues of the beasts in the forest.
"Strength fades, Aael," she would tell him, her fingers nimble on the silk. "Muscles tire. Swords break. But a sharp mind is a blade that never dulls."
She watched with pride as he devoured the knowledge. He learned to read before Rian could even tie his sandals. He memorized the patterns of the seasons and the properties of herbs. Under her care, he learned that he didn't need to shout to be heard; he just needed to know what others did not.
The Father's Lesson: Thorne's love was different. It was rough, calloused, and demanding. He did not pity Aael's weakness; he sought to weaponize it.
Every morning before the suns rose, Thorne took both boys to the training grounds. He trained Rian with the hammer and the shield, praising his crushing blows. But with Aael, the training changed.
"You cannot block a hammer, boy," Thorne would growl, tossing a heavy wooden staff at Aael. "If you try to block a blow from a warrior like Rian, your arm will snap like a twig. So what do you do?"
"I... run?" Aael asked, panting.
"No. You flow," Thorne corrected, tapping Aael's legs with a switch. "You make them miss. You make them angry. And when they overextend..." Thorne tapped Aael's chest. "...you strike the throat. You strike the eyes. You fight unfair, Aael. Because nature was unfair to you first."
It was brutal advice, but it was honest. Thorne taught him that honor was a luxury for the strong. For the weak, survival was the only law.
The Brother's Bond: Unity But it was with Rian that Aael truly lived.
Away from the judging eyes of the village and the stern lessons of their parents, they were just two boys. They spent their days at the Whispering River, ankle-deep in the cool mud.
Rian was the force of nature. He would splash into the water, trying to catch slippery silver-fish with his bare hands, laughing loudly when he fell in. He would climb the highest branches to knock down sweet-nuts for them to share.
"Here," Rian would say, cracking a hard nut with his teeth and handing the kernel to Aael. "You eat the big half. You need to grow."
"I am growing," Aael would protest, taking the nut.
"Yeah, up like a weed," Rian grinned. "I'm growing out like a boulder!"
Rian never saw Aael as "The Foundling." He was the one who chased away the bullies with a glare. He was the one who listened when Aael talked about the stars or the strange hum of the Elder Oak. In the privacy of the forest, there was no Chieftain's heir and no outcast. There were just two brothers, back to back against the world.
The day ended as it always did in Silverleaf. The twin suns dipped below the horizon, and the amber glow of the copper-wood houses flickered to life. Families gathered around their hearths, the smell of stew and woodsmoke drifting into the cool night air.
Inside the Chieftain's house, the boys were asleep. Rian was sprawled out, snoring softly, one arm thrown over his head. Aael lay beside him, still and silent, his chest rising and falling in a rhythmic trance. For a moment, the world was perfect. Safe. Warm.
But outside the village boundaries, the forest had gone wrong.
It started with the silence. The usual chorus of night-insects—the chirping crickets, the hooting owls, the rustle of nocturnal prowlers—simply stopped. It wasn't a gradual fade; it was as if a heavy blanket had been thrown over the world, smothering the life out of it.
The air grew unnaturally cold. Frost began to creep over the vibrant ferns, turning the lush green into brittle, grey statues. The flowers that bloomed at night withered instantly, their petals turning to black dust.
From the deep shadows of the northern treeline, a figure emerged.
It floated inches above the decaying grass, its feet hidden by tattered, moth-eaten robes of royal purple and rotting velvet. Where a face should have been, there was only a polished, grinless skull, its eye sockets burning with a cold, malevolent green fire. Around its neck hung chains of heavy gold, tarnished by centuries of the grave.
This was no mindless ghoul. This was a High Lich, a Lord of the Rotting Throne.
It raised a skeletal hand, the fingers adorned with rings of dark iron. In its grasp, it held a staff topped with a cracked human skull that leaked black smoke.
Behind the Lich, the darkness shifted.
Click. Clack. Scrape.
The sound was like dry twigs snapping, multiplied by the thousands. From the gloom, they stepped forward. Skeletons. An army of them. Some wore the rusted armor of ancient knights; others were the bones of beasts—horned wolves and bears stripped of flesh, reanimated by foul sorcery. They marched in perfect, terrifying unison, their empty jaws hanging open in silent screams.
The High Lich stopped at the edge of the ridge, looking down at the glowing, pulsing life of the Elder Oak in the valley below. The green fire in its eyes flared with hunger. The tree was a beacon of pure life—a feast for the dead.
The villagers laughed in their homes. The guards at the gate leaned on their spears, chatting about the harvest, their eyes heavy with sleep. They did not smell the rot on the wind. They did not see the thousands of empty eyes staring down at them from the ridge.
The Lich pointed its staff toward the sleeping village.
The silence broke.