The fifth night in Eldridge Reach tested Aelric more than any day of labor had. The wind had turned vicious after sunset, howling through the gaps in the keep walls like a living thing. The small fire he had managed to keep alive sputtered and threatened to die every few minutes. His ankle, still tender from the earlier slip, throbbed in time with the gusts. Hunger gnawed at his stomach because the bread from Mila had run out that morning, and he had found no new work before dark.
He sat with his back against the cold stone, wrapped in the thicker cloak his mother had secretly given him. The faint hum of mana inside his veins felt restless tonight, rising and falling with the wind as if it, too, was searching for something stable. Aelric closed his eyes and focused on that hum, letting it spread through his chest and down his arms the way Seraphine had suggested. A gentle warmth answered, easing the ache in his ankle and steadying his breathing.
But warmth alone would not fill his belly or keep the fire going.
He stood, ignoring the protest from his leg, and stepped outside into the biting wind. The valley lay dark under a thin sliver of moon. In the distance, a few faint lights glowed from the village hovels. Closer by, the scrubland stretched toward the river. Aelric remembered Lio mentioning that rabbits sometimes came out after dark near the water's edge where the grass was still green.
He took the dull knife from his supplies, wrapped a strip of cloth around the hilt for grip, and started down the rocky path. Every step sent small stones skittering. The mana hum sharpened, guiding his balance on the uneven ground. He moved slowly, keeping low, letting instinct and the faint inner warmth show him where to place his feet.
Near the riverbank the ground softened. Aelric crouched behind a cluster of boulders and waited. The wind carried the scent of wet earth and something alive. Minutes stretched into what felt like hours. His hands grew numb, but he stayed motionless, observing the patterns of shadow and movement.
Then he saw it: a small shape darting between tufts of grass. A rabbit, thin but quick. Aelric's heart quickened. He had never hunted before, only watched castle hunts from afar. Now there was no one to watch, no one to impress, only the need to eat.
He waited until the rabbit paused to nibble. Then he moved. Not with grace, but with the desperate focus of someone who understood that missing this chance meant another empty night. He lunged, knife flashing in the moonlight. The blade caught the rabbit across the back leg. It squealed and tried to bolt, but Aelric was already on it, pinning it with his body and ending its struggle quickly.
His hands shook as he carried the small carcass back to the keep. Blood stained his fingers, but he felt no disgust, only a raw, grounding satisfaction. This was survival stripped to its bones.
Inside, he skinned and cleaned the rabbit with the dull knife, working by the light of the struggling fire. He roasted the meat on a sharpened stick, the fat hissing as it dripped into the flames. The smell filled the hall, rich and real. When it was cooked, he ate slowly, savoring every bite. The meat was tough and gamey, but it filled the hollow in his stomach and gave him strength.
As he ate, the mana hum surged warmly through his body, as if rewarding the effort. Aelric closed his eyes and let the feeling spread. For the first time since the Altar, he deliberately reached for it. He pictured the fire burning steadier and pushed a thread of that inner warmth toward the flames. The fire responded. The flames rose higher, burning cleaner and brighter for several long minutes before settling back to normal.
A small, quiet smile touched Aelric's lips. It was not much, but it was proof. The power that had overwhelmed the sacred crystal could still answer him here, in the dark, when no one was watching.
He slept better that night, the rabbit bones saved for tomorrow's broth.
Dawn on the sixth day brought a new kind of test. A thick fog had rolled in from the river, turning the valley into a world of gray shapes and muffled sounds. Aelric woke early, his ankle much improved, and decided to explore farther than he had gone before. He needed better firewood and perhaps something to patch the worst leaks in the roof.
He followed the river upstream, the fog swirling around his legs. The mana hum acted like a quiet compass, warning him when the ground grew too soft or when loose stones waited to turn underfoot. He found a fallen pine that had died years ago, its wood still solid in the core. Using the knife and a heavy rock, he broke off manageable branches, tying them into a bundle with strips of tough grass.
On the way back, the fog thickened suddenly. Aelric paused, listening. A low growl sounded from the mist ahead. Not a wolf, something smaller but desperate. A wild dog, ribs showing, eyes gleaming with hunger. It had smelled the blood still on Aelric's hands from last night's kill.
The dog circled, hackles raised. Aelric stood still, knife ready. Fear tried to rise, but he pushed it down and reached for the mana hum instead. He let the warmth flow into his limbs, sharpening his senses and steadying his grip. When the dog lunged, Aelric stepped aside at the last moment and brought the flat of the knife down hard on its snout. The animal yelped and retreated, disappearing into the fog with a final snarl.
Aelric's heart pounded, but he did not run. He stood there until the mist swallowed the sound of retreating paws, then continued back to the keep with his bundle of wood.
That afternoon Lio appeared at the keep, carrying a small basket. "Heard you got a rabbit last night. Word travels fast in the valley. Mila said you cleared more rocks than she expected. She sent some turnips."
Lio's eyes widened when he saw the fresh firewood and the patched sections of roof. "You did all this alone? In the fog?"
"I had help," Aelric said, tapping his chest lightly where the mana hum still lingered. He did not explain further.
They shared the turnips roasted in the fire. Lio talked about the coming winter and how the villagers were already worried about stores. Aelric listened, asking quiet questions about how they stored food, how they repaired tools, how they predicted the mana flickers. Each answer painted a clearer picture of the problems that plagued the settlement.
As evening fell, Aelric stood on the low wall again, looking out over the valley. The fog had lifted, revealing the struggling fields and the stubborn lights of the hovels. His body ached from days of hard labor. His hands were rough and scarred. But his mind felt sharper, and the mana inside him felt more like a partner than a mystery.
He opened his journal and wrote:
Day six. Hunted in the dark. Faced the fog and a wild dog. Patched the roof and gathered real wood. The land does not give easily, but it gives when you refuse to quit. The mana answers when I need it. Not with grand power, but with steadiness. I am learning to survive on instinct. Soon I will learn to do more.
He closed the journal and added another log to the fire. The flames rose strong and clear, pushing back the night.
For the first time since leaving Thornhold, Aelric felt something close to hope, not the fragile kind tied to approval, but the quiet, stubborn kind born from proving he could endure.
The discarded child was no longer just surviving.
He was beginning to fight back in the only way that mattered: one hard-won day at a time.