“Father truly oversteps. To involve a guest in a quarry hunt? Are we truly so incompetent?”
Lyra Vance’s voice, sharp and edged with disbelief, cut through the chill air. She wore practical leather and trousers, not the silken gowns of the Vance manor, and spoke to Alden, her cousin.
“No offense to our guest, Kaelen. It’s just… Governor Thorne is making a mountain out of a Stone-Hare.”
“Calling the Governor ‘overstepping’ is quite a claim, cousin,” Alden murmured, his tone low.
Their gazes locked, a silent, flickering challenge passing between them. Soon, Alden turned, offering Kaelen a practiced smile.
“Our first meeting, I believe? Alden Vance. A pleasure.”
“Kaelen.” His reply was a quiet knot of sound.
After a brief nod, Kaelen’s attention drifted to the dozen House Guards arrayed behind the two nobles. Unlike Lyra and Alden, whose postures suggested a leisurely excursion, the guards’ unease was a palpable tremor in the air. Their faces were taut, eyes scanning the road ahead with a fearful vigilance.
He understood their apprehension. Four Wardens had already fallen to the Stone-Hare, leaving no survivors. This was no casual hunt.
---
Moments later, the small party strode confidently towards Veridia’s northern gate. Citizens along the thoroughfare knelt, heads bowed low as the noble retinue passed. Only the City Watchmen, clad in their dull iron, stood merely lowering their eyes, a stark reminder of their place.
These were the armed commoners, tasked with maintaining order. Kaelen knew they were utterly useless against anything truly potent, a mere shield against petty squabbles, easily overwhelmed by the city’s deeper threats.
Past the weathered stone of the gatehouse, the cobbled road stretched north, a cracked vein from a forgotten age. Not a soul stirred on the path. The Stone-Hare’s recent attacks had ensured the northern route remained deserted, a ghost road winding into the scrublands.
“Just want this over with,” Lyra muttered, kicking a loose pebble from the path. “I’m already tired.”
Trailing slightly behind, Kaelen watched her. Alden, sensing a quiet moment, leaned closer.
“Kaelen, have you any… particular interest in my cousin?”
“No.” Kaelen’s rejection was immediate, firm.
Lyra’s casual, almost playful flirtations had been consistent since his arrival at the Vance manor. But her carefree, almost frivolous manner grated against his own quiet solemnity. Beyond that, the thought of being tied to a noble house, bound by blood and expectation, felt like anathema.
“A relief.” Alden’s face subtly brightened, a fleeting shadow lifting from his expression.
Kaelen didn’t fully grasp the implication, but his answer clearly satisfied the young noble.
---
An hour blurred into the next as they pressed north. They found it abruptly: a splintered merchant’s cart, its timbers cracked like old bones, slumped in the middle of the road. Bloodied, shredded cloth, dark and matted, lay scattered nearby.
“That thing, then?” Lyra’s voice had lost its earlier flippancy.
Alden surveyed the wreckage. “Likely. We’ve sealed our end of the road. These poor souls must have been traveling south.”
Kaelen moved towards the wreckage. The coppery scent of drying blood was faint, suggesting the attack had occurred only hours ago. Shredded garments pointed to something sharp, tearing, rather than a blunt impact. Near the cart’s shattered axle, a series of irregular gouges marred the packed earth, each impression like a blunt, powerful claw that had dragged through stone.
His connection to the earth thrummed, a low vibration beneath his skin. The ground here felt agitated, subtly disturbed.
“A Stone-Hare.” His voice was soft, barely audible.
Alden turned, a question in his eyes. “How can you be certain?”
Kaelen knelt, touching the gouges. “These marks. The way the earth itself is disturbed. No other beast leaves this particular scar.” He’d seen similar descriptions in the Deep Archives, vague etchings of a monster that carved the land, though the old texts called them 'Earth-Hunters.'
“It probably attacked the merchants, then retreated into the scrubland,” Kaelen continued. “We can follow its trail.”
Lyra frowned. “Tracking isn’t a Vance specialty. Alden, you?”
“Not my forte, cousin. Perhaps a guard could—”
“I’ll try.” Kaelen stepped forward, his palm resting against the parched ground.
Lyra’s eyes widened slightly. “You have a talent for that, Kaelen?”
“It’s a connection I’ve nurtured,” Kaelen replied, a partial truth. The words were simple, yet carried the weight of something deeper, something still unfurling within him.
He closed his eyes, drawing a deep breath. The world, already subtly shifting under his touch, sharpened. He reached out with his senses, not just listening, but feeling the earth itself. Faint echoes of movement, like stones shifting beneath a river, pulsed outward from the wreckage. A specific tremor, almost a rhythm, began to define itself, leading away from the road, deeper into the tangled scrub.
“This way,” Kaelen directed, his eyes still half-lidded. He moved with an intuitive grace, navigating through thorny bushes and over loose shale. The Vance party followed, leaving the shattered cart behind.
Proper paths vanished quickly. But the House Guards, though apprehensive, were agile. Even the nobles moved with a supernatural ease, clearing three or four meters in a single bound, their movements testament to their inherited magical vitality.
After thirty minutes of silent pursuit, the trail led them to a winding, shallow stream. Deer, startled by their approach, exploded from the banks, vanishing into the foliage in a blur of brown and white.
“The trail ends,” Kaelen announced, his hand sweeping across a patch of damp earth. “It cleansed itself here.”
“A beast intelligent enough to mask its scent?” Alden scoffed, disbelieving.
“It’s simply its nature to grind away loose earth, to dust itself clean,” Kaelen clarified. The ancient texts mentioned the Stone-Hare’s habit of rolling in fine earth and minerals, a form of self-grooming that incidentally obscured its passage.
Kaelen opened his senses once more, focusing not on a precise trail, but on any persistent, unnatural vibrations in the earth, any lingering resonance of raw, unrefined power. He sought the Stone-Hare’s essence, not its path.
Then, a sharp, grinding tremor jolted through the soles of his boots. Not beneath him, but to his right, behind a cluster of gnarled, wind-bent trees. A low growl, like grinding stone, vibrated through the air.
Kaelen spun, a warning forming on his lips.
“Behind us!”
A guttural roar ripped through the stillness. A monstrous form exploded from the dense undergrowth. The Stone-Hare, a hulking mass of compacted fur and rock, stood nearly two meters tall. Its eyes glowed with an unnerving, dull orange light. It hurled a storm of sharpened stones, torn from the very riverbed, at the group. Each projectile whizzed with an unsettling force, infused with a primitive, raw power.
“Watch out!”
“Wardens, shield!”
Several guards cried out as the barrage struck. Kaelen dove to the side, feeling the wind of a passing stone brush his ear. He saw, in a flash of horrified clarity, Lyra and Alden both push a Warden in front of them, using their own men as living shields against the sudden onslaught.
“U-ugh, my arm!”
Lyra’s voice was cold. “Attack! Don’t just stand there!” She roughly shoved the injured Warden aside. The remaining eight guards, their faces pale, drew their blades and charged.
The Stone-Hare let out another earth-shaking roar. Then, with an impossible burst of speed for its bulk, it bounded into the trees. It moved not just quickly, but with a strange, ground-skipping motion, like a skipping stone, vanishing between the trunks faster than the eye could follow. The guards, though swift, were simply outmatched by its unnatural agility.
Everyone stood momentarily stunned.
Kaelen acted. He reached down, fingers digging into the loose earth. A fist-sized chunk of shale lifted, humming with a borrowed energy. With a flick of his wrist, he sent it flying. He poured his focus into it, urging the earth’s own force to bind, accelerate, and guide the projectile. The stone shot through the trees, a blur of grey, curving through the branches as if drawn by an invisible thread.
It struck the Stone-Hare’s flank. A sharp yelp, a sound of pain, echoed through the forest. The beast stumbled, crashing to the ground in a shower of dust and fragmented rock.
“Now!” Lyra shrieked, her hand thrust forward. Flames, vivid orange and crimson, erupted from her fingertips, twisting and coiling. They coalesced into a serpentine form, thick as a boar’s trunk, roaring through the air. The fiery serpent lunged, biting deep into the writhing Stone-Hare, consuming it in an inferno. The heat was immense, scorching the surrounding earth and crisping the nearest foliage.
Alden followed, conjuring a dozen miniature fireballs that streaked downwards, impacting the still-burning beast with sharp detonations. In moments, the Stone-Hare was reduced to a smoking, crumbling pile of ash and charred stone.
A collective sigh of relief swept through the guards.
“Gods, that was a close one!” Lyra exclaimed, brushing imaginary dust from her tunic. “Those stones packed a punch.”
“Scared, cousin?” Alden teased, a smirk on his lips.
“Don’t be absurd. You were the one who squawked like a startled sea-gull.”
Kaelen ignored their bickering. He moved past them, towards the injured House Guards. One clutched a shattered arm, another had a nasty gash on his temple, blood still oozing sluggishly.
“Easy now,” Kaelen murmured, examining the broken arm. “The impact was severe, but not fatal.” He produced a small pouch of herbs, a simple poultice for swelling and pain. As he applied it, the memory of Lyra and Alden using their men as shields flashed through his mind. Their magical vitality made them many times sturdier than any guard, yet their own safety had come first. His mother’s words echoed in his thoughts: *To many nobles, their retainers are little more than animated tools, to be broken and discarded as needed*.
Alden’s voice broke Kaelen’s thoughts. “Is something amiss?”
“Nothing,” Kaelen replied, his gaze returning to the injured guard. A flicker of something unreadable passed through his eyes as he glanced at the cousins.
Lyra waved him over, her tone imperious. “Guest! Over here! Time to absorb the power!”
Kaelen joined them. The three stood beside the smoking, half-burnt remains of the Stone-Hare. They extended their hands, palms open. A pale, shimmering green essence began to rise from the beast’s ashes, like mist drawn by an invisible wind, seeping into their bodies.
A familiar rush of pleasure, cold and deep, surged through Kaelen as the magic entered him. He felt the subtle expansion within his core, the faint strengthening of his connection to the earth. The Stone-Hare’s power felt ancient, raw, yet it didn’t offer the profound surge he’d felt from the city’s deeper magical echoes. It was a modest, but definite, growth.
Lyra sighed, a sound of mild annoyance. “Ah, I can’t take any more.”
“Me neither,” Alden echoed, retracting his hand.
As they spoke, faint tendrils of pale green light began to leak from their bodies, dispersing back into the air. This was the process of ‘dispersal,’ the inability to hold any more magic once one reached their innate capacity.
Kaelen, however, continued to absorb. The green light still streamed towards him, drawn by his unique connection. The remaining essence of the Stone-Hare flowed into him, a silent, unseen feast. He felt the two nobles’ envious gazes upon him, their surprise at his continued absorption a palpable pressure.
---
On the journey back to Veridia, Lyra and Alden recounted the skirmish, embellishing their heroics with theatrical flair. Their voices carried on the wind, weaving tales of courage and power, of the formidable Vance bloodline.
Kaelen walked in silence, the lingering taste of the Stone-Hare’s magic on his tongue, the echo of its raw power deep within the earth. He listened, observed, and silently judged the true cost of their 'heroics.' The faint tremor beneath his feet, the ever-present hum of the ancient magic beneath Veridia, felt more substantial than ever before.
His own power, quiet and potent, was a secret he guarded closely. Its growth was slow, deliberate, unlike the fiery bursts of the Vance. But it felt deeper, more fundamental, connecting him to the very bones of the world, to the forgotten heart of Aethelgard itself.