Winter’s chill had always clung to the stones of Crag’s Edge, a raw, insistent memory. Eight years prior, as the first decade of Kaelen’s life concluded, a different kind of chill had settled, then bloomed into a strange heat within him.
His mother had left to mend fences in the sheepfold, the wind biting at her worn cloak. Alone in their small, stone-walled dwelling, Kaelen shivered, thinking of the banked embers in the hearth. A deep, resonant hum began to vibrate through the very bedrock beneath his feet.
He watched, fascinated, as a subtle warmth radiated from the rough-hewn stones of the fireplace. Not the flickering dance of flame, but a deeper, primal heat, coaxed from the earth itself. It was a silent, powerful bloom, a core of raw energy that responded to his unspoken wish.
Soon, Kaelen understood this silent language. Objects, mundane and heavy, would lighten in his grasp, a gentle upward pull answering his thought. Air currents, usually fickle and untamed, would swirl obediently, carrying a forgotten feather across the room. He felt the very grain of stone beneath his fingers, a profound connection, as if his will could reshape its molecular dance.
“Mother, look!”
That evening, as his mother returned, her shoulders hunched against the biting wind, Kaelen eagerly demonstrated. A small, smoothed river stone, usually heavy, hovered in the air before him, held aloft by an unseen current.
Her eyes, usually steady as ancient bedrock, clouded with a weariness Kaelen had never witnessed. A hand, rough from years of mending fences and shearing wool, did not reach out in awe. Instead, she pressed it against her mouth, stifling a sound that felt like a moan of despair. Resignation etched lines deeper into her face than any harsh weather ever had.
‘Kaelen, we must make a promise. Never use this power carelessly. Especially never in front of others.’
‘Why?’
Young Kaelen, always a quiet, compliant child, pouted. Suppressing such a wondrous, playful discovery felt like a betrayal.
She warmed goat’s milk for him over the quiet hearth. Then, for the first time, she spoke of the world far below their isolated peak.
‘Down in Veridian, nestled against the mountain’s base, live the Sky-Lords.’
These were not mere merchants or artificers, she explained, but inheritors of ancient power, descendants of the Aether-Weavers who first shaped the world. Sky-Lords drew raw essence from the land itself, not through learned incantations. They were like the mountain’s breath made manifest, its slow, inexorable will given form. They ruled as both protectors and sovereigns.
Among them, those born from mingled bloodlines — Sky-Lord and human — were called Stone-Singers. They too could coax whispers from the earth, stir the air with a thought, but their song was muted, a hum compared to the Sky-Lords’ resonant roar. Stone-Singers became tools, extensions of the great houses, living instruments played for another’s gain.
His mother explained Kaelen had inherited the power of a Stone-Singer from his absent father. She warned him. If he ever descended the mountain, cruel Sky-Lords would seize him, force him into servitude.
‘Think of the great foundries in Veridian. The Sky-Lords are the master smiths, forging their empires. The Stone-Singers? They are the hammers, the chisels. Sometimes, a smith might cherish a fine tool, even speak to it with affection. But a tool is still a tool. It can be sold. It can be broken. It can be sacrificed when the work is dangerous.’
Sky-Lords, though they possessed everything, ceaselessly vied for more. In their conflicts, Stone-Singers were often the first tossed into the fray. A smith would stand safe behind the forge, while their favored hammer cracked against the unyielding ore.
Her face, as she spoke, held a desolation Kaelen had never seen.
‘Kaelen, don’t you want to live with Mother for a long, long time?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you must hide this power. Otherwise, bad Sky-Lords will come. They will take you away. You will never see me again.’
‘Okay, I promise! I won’t use it in front of anyone!’
Eight years had passed since Kaelen made that solemn vow. Even after his mother succumbed to the mountain fever, her body resting beneath a cairn of stones Kaelen had meticulously placed, he continued to live on Crag’s Edge, tending their small flock. He avoided the distant city, refusing to become a tool in another’s hand.
—
“Foolish men.”
A low growl rumbled in Kaelen’s chest as he latched the heavy cabin door. Pre-dawn light, cold and grey, had barely touched the peaks. Yet the young men from Wisp-Root Dell had already made their ascent.
Old Thane’s passing, just days before, had been a clear mark of a Glimmer-Stalker’s work – the disrupted earth, the strange, ethereal frost clinging to the rocks. A creature of raw essence, drawn to the mountain’s ley lines. Yet the men from the village, their minds quick to grasp at fear and blame, found reason to accuse Kaelen. He’d harmed the old man, they claimed, then left him for the beast.
A cold, hard knot tightened in Kaelen’s gut. Anger, sharp as splintered flint, flared within him. It wasn’t the blows that stung, but the sheer, deliberate ignorance. He had dispatched the foolish youths easily enough, a few well-aimed shoves sending them tumbling back down the treacherous path.
They would likely find a way to cheat him during the next bartering trip. Perhaps tamper with his goods or argue over prices. He would simply remind them, with a well-placed, subtle tremor in the ground beneath their feet, that fairness was paramount. An annoying cycle, ingrained and familiar.
A sharp rap, a demanding *bang bang*, rattled the doorframe. Kaelen’s sigh was deep, heavy as falling snow. Had they forgotten his lesson so quickly?
He yanked the door open, a growl rumbling in his throat. “Who the hell is it now? Do you seek the cold embrace of a rocky grave?”
Standing beyond the threshold was not a familiar, foolish face. A man, perhaps in his mid-forties, stood framed by the pale morning. His cloak was thick with dust, his face etched with travel. An awkward smile, like a tool left out in the rain, still useful but weathered, stretched across his lips.
“Ah… my apologies, young friend. I am a traveler. I sought shelter for a while, but it seems I’ve chosen an inopportune moment.”
A traveler. For the first time in his eighteen years, Kaelen encountered such a person. His mind, accustomed to the predictable rhythms of the mountain, momentarily froze. Who would wander such desolate heights purely for leisure?
Kaelen, unmoving for a beat, stepped aside. “No, not at all. Please, come in. Some unpleasant company had just departed.”
The formal tone, a memory of his mother’s lessons for addressing elders, felt strange on his tongue. When had he last spoken with such deference? It must have been before he realized the villagers, including Thane and the others, were merely petty, squabbling stones.
“If you’ll permit me.”
Truthfully, to maintain his hidden life, Kaelen should have sent the stranger away. Yet, a quiet yearning had bloomed in his chest. A desire for even a brief, peaceful conversation, one without suspicion or resentment. And if this man held ill intent, Kaelen felt a cold certainty he could handle it.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
“Nor have I. Join me.”
Kaelen indicated the scarred pine table. Warm goat’s milk, still steaming from the pot, appeared. Hard-cured jerky, cheese yellowed with age, and a coarse grain porridge, slow-cooked over banked embers, followed. His mother had taught him: treat a guest with utmost hospitality, and they would seldom think to harm their host.
“A humble offering for such a meager dwelling.”
“Humble? This is a feast! My thanks for the meal.”
The man ate with genuine enthusiasm, as if he hadn't tasted food in days. Yet, even in his hunger, he displayed a quiet decorum Kaelen had never witnessed from the villagers. He did not speak with a full mouth. He turned his head slightly when drinking. Small, observed details.
Perhaps the traveler noticed something similar in Kaelen. After a sip of the milk, he offered a kind remark. “You possess fine manners. Your parents must have taught you well.”
“My mother taught me.”
Sensing Kaelen’s omission of a father, the traveler paused. “And… is your mother in the village? This dwelling seems fit for one.”
He must have noticed the single, neatly made bed.
Kaelen nodded. His voice was calm. “She passed from illness a few years ago.”
The traveler’s face briefly clouded. He bowed his head, making a gesture Kaelen had never seen, a slow sweep of his hand across his chest, as if clearing dust from a hidden path. “My condolences. Having raised such a fine young man, she must surely dwell with the Aether-Weavers, among the celestial peaks.”
“I hope so.”
Back then, simply thinking of her had been enough to turn his stomach, to bring tears to his eyes for days. To speak of it now, with a faint smile, did it mean he had grown into an adult? Or had time, like wind-worn rock, simply softened the sharp edges of his grief?
A sudden, quiet gloom settled. Kaelen changed the subject, forcing it. “More importantly, sir, what brings you to such a remote place?”
“I passed through Ashfall Hamlet. Heard whispers of an Aether-Hound, disturbing the local essence flows. A concern for the Sky-Lords, even if they don’t yet know it. I decided to investigate. I’m quite capable in such matters.”
“Alone?”
A middle-aged man, not yet past his prime but clearly not in the flush of youth, attempting to face a creature of raw, wild essence without so much as a proper weapon? Kaelen’s astonished expression drew an awkward smile from the traveler.
“I am a Stone-Singer. I served House Aeridor for sixty years. Most such creatures are merely a nuisance.”
At the word ‘Stone-Singer,’ Kaelen’s eyes widened. His body tensed, rigid as frozen stone. A being he had only heard about in his mother’s fearful tales, a servant to the Sky-Lords.
His tension quickly dissipated. A quiet calm radiated from the man. No malice, no grasping intent. Kaelen gradually relaxed his stiffened frame.
“Is something amiss?”
“It’s just… this is my first time meeting a Stone-Singer. But more than that, you don’t look as if you’ve served for sixty years.”
“Our kind ages slowly, lives longer than ordinary folk. I’m seventy-five this year. For a Stone-Singer, I’ve aged like this, but powerful Sky-Lords can easily live for two or three centuries.”
This revelation, spoken so casually, amazed Kaelen. He carefully observed the man, one of his own kind. Outwardly, aside from a healthy, robust build, he seemed no different from any other weathered mountaineer. He couldn’t be distinguished from an ordinary person.
This was critical information. It meant Kaelen could stand in the throng of Veridian, as long as he refrained from conspicuous displays of power, and no one would discern his true nature. A sudden, quiet relief bloomed in his chest, a loosening of the invisible bonds he hadn’t known he wore.
“Being a Stone-Singer is truly incredible.”
“Incredible? Not at all! I think people like you are far more incredible. Living in such a rough place, where creatures of raw essence appear, without relying on such gifts? I couldn’t imagine it.”
Contrary to Corvan’s assumption, this was the first time an Aether-Hound, a creature of genuine threat to humans, had appeared in the area. At least, since Kaelen had been born. If that hadn’t been the case, no matter how extraordinary his mother, she wouldn’t have been able to live here alone as a shepherd.
Indeed, his mother, who raised her child on this desolate peak without any innate power, was the one truly deserving of praise. A deep ache, sharp as freshly broken rock, flared in Kaelen's heart.
“Now that I think of it, I didn’t introduce myself. Corvan of Aeridor,” the man stated, his voice carrying a faded resonance. “Or simply Corvan the Wanderer, these days. And you?”
“I’m Kaelen. The sole shepherd of Crag’s Edge.”
“A wonderful name.”
“You mentioned earlier that you ‘served’ a house. Does that mean you no longer do?”
“My vassal contract concluded a month ago. House Aeridor offered to care for me until my dying breath, if I wished, but… I wanted to spend my later years traveling, seeing the world. After all, I’ve been tied to a single house ever since I was indentured at the age of fifteen.”