“Father truly oversteps. Bringing in a guest, of all people, for a ghoul hunt? Are we so incompetent?” Lyra Volkov’s voice, sharp as a fresh-broken flint, cut through the morning chill. She stood, not in silken finery, but practical leather and woven bone-linen, a hunting knife sheathed at her hip. Head-on, she met her cousin Torvin’s gaze. “Not criticizing our guest,” she added, a dismissive flick of her wrist toward Kael. “Just saying Father makes too much of a fuss.” “Calling the Lord of Stonehaven ‘fussy,’ noona? You venture too far.” Torvin’s tone was hushed, but his eyes, sharp and dark, promised a deeper argument. He wore similar attire, though his seemed less lived-in. Sparks seemed to fly between them, a familiar family friction. Yet, Torvin turned, a practiced smile easing onto his face as he addressed Kael. “First time we’re formally meeting, isn’t it? I’m Torvin Volkov. Please, watch my back out there.” “Kael.” A simple nod was all Kael offered. He wasn’t here for pleasantries. Behind the Volkov kin stood a dozen wardens, their leather armor scuffed, bone-splinted shields resting at their feet. Unlike the nobles, whose easy banter filled the air, the wardens’ nervousness was a palpable chill. Their eyes darted, their hands fidgeted on spear shafts. Hunting a shale-ghoul, especially one that had already claimed several lives, was no leisurely outing. Moments later, the small party, three nobles and a dozen wardens, marched toward the northern gate of Stonehaven. The city, carved into the petrified ribs of a sky-serpent titan, loomed around them, gray and ancient. Passing residents knelt, bowing deeply as the Volkov kin strode by. Only those clad in the grayer, less ornamented armor of the city guard merely lowered their heads, hands on their sword hilts. Kael watched them, the silent protectors of the inner strata. They were good for keeping order, but against the raw, jagged power of a shale-ghoul, they would be little more than kindling. Out beyond Stonehaven’s great northern arch, a brick road, ancient and worn by millennia of passage, stretched into the Ossuary Peaks. It was built upon the flattened vertebrae of an immense land-beast, its stone ribs forming distant crags. The path was empty. No traders, no travelers. The ghoul had cleared it, a testament to its ferocity over the past tenday. “I just want this done so I can warm myself by a hearth.” Lyra kicked a loose pebble, sending it skittering across the petrified bone road. Her voice was a low grumble. Kael walked a pace behind her, his gaze drawn to the distant peaks, where the remnants of colossal limbs clawed at the sky. Torvin sidled closer to Kael, dropping his voice. “Kael, you… have any particular interest in my noona?” “No.” Kael’s reply was immediate, unburdened by thought. Lyra’s easy manner, her flippant humor, held no appeal. And the thought of binding himself to a house, even one with a library as rich as the Volkovs’, was anathema. “That’s a relief.” Torvin’s face visibly brightened. Kael didn't quite grasp the full implication of the question, but his answer clearly pleased the young noble. --- An hour passed in the rhythmic crunch of boots on the petrified road. Then, a sharp glint caught Kael’s eye. A shattered cart, its timber splintered like kindling, lay overturned. Blood-soaked rags, dark against the pale stone, clung to a jutting shard of petrified tree root beside the wreckage. Evidence of the attack. Fresh enough. “Was it that thing?” Lyra’s voice had lost its earlier flippancy, a taut edge now in its place. “Must be. We’ve sealed the northern routes. They must have been traveling south.” Torvin knelt, examining the wreckage, his brow furrowed. Kael moved past them, his fingers brushing the torn fabric. The scent of drying blood, metallic and sharp, prickled his nose. Not overwhelming, meaning the attack hadn't been long ago. The cart's planks were not merely broken; they were gouged, as if raked by immense, jagged claws. A sickeningly large imprint on one side, rough with stone dust, showed five thick, blunt digits, like a brutish hand. These weren't common predators. This was something that moved stone, that tore flesh with hardened mineral. A shale-ghoul, precisely as described in the Volkov archive. “It’s a ghoul,” Kael stated, his voice low. “It moved quickly, then melted into the peaks.” “A ghoul? You can tell?” Lyra’s eyes, keen and direct, fixed on him. “Its work. The way the stone is shattered here.” Kael pointed to a deep abrasion, where the ghoul’s raw aether had imbued the rock with temporary malleability, allowing it to rend the cart with ease. “Its trail likely follows a vein of weaker stone, or an old titan-bone line.” “Tracking… I’m not well-versed in that kind of subtle aether. Torvin, you?” Lyra glanced at her cousin. “Not my specialty. Perhaps one of the wardens could—” “Let me try.” Kael stepped forward. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting his inner senses reach out. Not traditional magic, but a whisper to the petrified world around him. He didn’t just sense the blood, but the residual life-force, the terror, the echo of disturbed earth and bone. A unique hum, almost a resonance, lingered in the stone – the ghoul’s aetheric signature. “You have that kind of… Bone-kin ability?” Lyra’s voice was touched with a hint of genuine curiosity now. “Just… spent a lot of time around such things.” Kael opened his eyes. The world shimmered, not outwardly, but within his perception. He saw the faint, shimmering lines of residual aether, like invisible threads, leading off the road and into a patch of petrified forest. “This way.” Kael moved, following the ghost-trail of aether. The hunting party, now more alert, followed. The lack of a clear path meant little to them. The wardens, trained and strengthened, could easily leap over fallen titan-ribs and scramble up weathered bone-spurs. The Volkov kin moved with a grace that hinted at their own inherent physical strength. For nearly thirty minutes, they tracked. The petrified forest, a silent graveyard of colossal flora, pressed in around them. Ancient trees, stone-hard and gray, reached skeletal branches toward the sky. The ghoul’s aetheric trail remained clear, a subtle vibration in the ground beneath Kael’s boots. Finally, the trail ended at a sluggish, petrified stream, its surface a mosaic of flat, polished stone. Several small stone-deer, frozen forever in their drinking postures, stood nearby. They would have been startled, if they weren’t rock. “The trail ends here. It seems it cleansed itself.” Kael ran a hand over the smooth, hard surface of the stream-bed. The ghoul’s aether faded here, dissipated by the flowing (long-stopped) water. “A mere beast, doing such a thing to avoid being tracked?” Torvin scoffed, but a flicker of unease crossed his face. “It probably just wanted to bathe.” Kael disengaged his internal sense, letting the physical world rush back in. Immediately, a rank, mineral-heavy odor, like crushed ore and wet earth, assaulted his senses. He whipped around. Two burning golden eyes, like chipped amber, glared from a tangle of petrified vines and bone-shards. They belonged to something massive, raw and primal. “Behind us!” Kael shouted, his warning a fraction of a second ahead of the ghoul’s screech. The creature, a grotesque mockery of a human form, burst from the foliage. Roughly two meters tall, its body was a patchwork of jagged shale, weathered bone, and glistening rock. Its arms, disproportionately massive, ended in those blunt, stony hands. With a guttural roar, it scooped up handfuls of sharp gravel and small bone fragments, hurling them with unnatural force. Each projectile, imbued with a raw burst of the ghoul’s aether, whistled through the air, faster and deadlier than any flung stone. They tore through the air, aimed directly at the party. “Aaaagh!” “Dodge!” Kael launched himself sideways, rolling behind a thick, petrified tree trunk. He heard the sickening thud of impact, the cries of pain. Peeking out, he saw two wardens collapse, hit by the barrage. Lyra and Torvin, quick as thought, had each shoved a warden in front of them, using their lessers as shields. The wardens crumpled, their screams echoing. “U-ugh, are you alri—” one of the injured wardens groaned. “Attack!” Lyra’s shout cut through his pain. Her face was set, cold. The eight uninjured wardens drew their swords and spears, charging with a primal yell. But the ghoul, a blur of gray and bone, let out another piercing screech. It darted back, a fleeting shadow among the petrified trees, scrambling up bone-crags with incredible speed. It moved like wind, an impossibly agile mass of stone, far too fast for the wardens to pursue on foot. Everyone stood dumbfounded for a moment, watching the ghoul disappear. Then, a sharp *thwack*. Kael hadn’t shouted. He simply *acted*. His hand swept across the petrified ground. A pebble, no, a solidified shard of fossilized tooth, had burst from the earth at his command. Imbued with his own focused aether, it shot forth, arcing through the air with impossible speed, bending around the ancient trees. The stone-shard struck the ghoul’s waist with a sickening crunch. A shriek of agony ripped from the creature. It tumbled, a mass of jagged rock and bone, from the high crag, crashing to the ground. Its body writhed, spine seemingly shattered, unable to stand. “Die!” Lyra screamed, extending a hand toward the thrashing ghoul. Flames, hot and orange, erupted from her fingertips. They coalesced, forming a serpent of pure fire, thick as a tree trunk. The fiery serpent struck the ghoul, biting deep, incinerating the creature in a furious conflagration that engulfed a dozen meters of the surrounding petrified forest. It was a terrifying, beautiful display of raw power. This was the Volkovs’ Hearth-fire Bloodline, an ancient Gift of elemental command. ‘So that’s what it is…’ Kael thought, the heat washing over him. Starting a fire was simple, but shaping it, controlling it with such devastating force, was an entirely different scale of power. Following Lyra’s display, Torvin conjured a volley of smaller, blazing spears, sending them raining down, reducing the ghoul’s charred remains to little more than ash and smoking fragments. A collective sigh of relief swept through the wardens. The danger had passed. “Wow, I got chills when those stones came flying at us for a moment there.” Lyra leaned back, catching her breath, a faint glow still clinging to her hands. “Were you scared, noona?” Torvin teased, his own features still flushed with the afterglow of his power. “Shut up. You’re the one who screamed like a little girl…” “I did not!” While the two nobles bickered, Kael moved to the injured wardens. They lay groaning, their armor cracked, blood seeping from head wounds and torn limbs. “Ugh, I think my arm’s broken…” “His head is still bleeding, what should we do?” Another warden, pale and shaken, called out. “For now, apply this paste.” Kael knelt, offering a small pouch of healing poultice he carried. Miraculously, none had died. The ones used as shields by Lyra and Torvin were the most injured, suffering severe head trauma and shattered bones. Kael clicked his tongue, a soft sound lost in the rustling of ancient, petrified leaves. The Volkov kin, with their Marrow-Gifts enhancing their physical forms, were several times sturdier than these wardens. Yet, they had feared for their own safety enough to sacrifice others. It was a stark echo of something he’d heard whispered in the archives: to some highborn, common folk were merely tools, to be discarded without a second thought. Noticing Kael’s silent scrutiny, Torvin looked over. “Hmm? What’s wrong?” “Nothing.” Kael brushed it off, his eyes betraying no emotion, only a quiet, deep-seated observation of the two powerful cousins. Lyra waved a hand, beckoning. “More importantly, guest, come quickly! Time to absorb the aether!” “Yes.” The three of them stood side by side next to the half-burnt, ash-covered remnants of the shale-ghoul. Extending their hands, they began drawing forth its residual life-force. A now-familiar pale green glow emanated from the ghoul’s core, seeping into their bodies. Kael shivered, a pleasurable rush of energy flooding his veins. He felt the subtle strengthening, the deep hum of vitality. It was a primal, potent sensation. The growth from the ghoul was significant, a potent surge. He knew from his studies that the energy drawn from a creature was not divided; up to four individuals could absorb the full potency. This was why noble hunting parties often numbered four, though never with a warden taking the fourth spot. “Ah, I can’t absorb anymore.” Lyra sighed, a wisp of pale green light already leaking from her fingertips, dispersing into the air. This was the aether efflux, the body’s way of shedding excess energy once its innate capacity was met. “Me neither.” Torvin echoed, his own body shimmering faintly as excess aether drifted away. Kael continued, his own limits not yet met. He felt the envious glances of the two nobles as he drew the last lingering tendrils of aether from the ghoul’s remains, every last drop consumed by his hungry core. --- On the journey back to Stonehaven, Lyra and Torvin repeatedly recounted the battle, their voices growing louder with each retelling. They exaggerated their heroics, downplaying the ghoul’s initial ambush, glossing over the fallen wardens. Kael walked silently beside them, a quiet observer of the ebb and flow of power, both physical and social. He simply absorbed.

Jagged Harvest