Kaelen felt the city’s pulse, a raw, chaotic thrumming against his senses. The scent of roasted meat, stale ale, and damp stone clung to the air in the tavern’s common room. He watched the swirl of bodies, each a knot of small, insistent desires.
Elara, a young woman with quick hands and weary eyes, wiped down the scarred wooden counter. Kaelen placed a small, polished shard of quartz on the dark wood, a trade from his journey. “Information,” he murmured, his voice low beneath the din. “About the… city’s ledger.”
Elara paused, her rag hovering. “The Stonehaven Registry, you mean?” A soft, surprised laugh escaped her, quickly stifled. “You truly are new to the peaks, aren’t you, traveler? The Registry sits at the city’s heart. Any Warden’s Edict, any official business, it all passes through its halls. And a Registrar, they’re the ones who keep the tallies, the bounties.”
Kaelen felt a familiar, quiet embarrassment bloom in his chest. His world, the shadowed valleys and ancient ruins, held no such constructs. He nodded, accepting her gentle amusement.
“So, what brings you to ask about the Edicts, then?” Elara leaned closer, a flicker of curiosity in her gaze. “Not another chasing the Whisperer’s Folly, are you?”
“Whisperer’s Folly?” Kaelen’s brow furrowed. The term tasted alien on his tongue.
She explained, a sigh escaping her lips. “Some believe if they hunt and kill the wild things – the Echoes – they can steal its power. Become Rune-Speakers themselves. Like the Warden and his Enforcers. Most know it’s just desperate hope, a fool’s errand that only brings more bodies back to the burial cairns. But still, they try.” Her voice held a note of weary resignation.
---
Before Kaelen could reply, a heavy hand clapped his shoulder. He stiffened, the subtle tremor of primordial power answering his alarm. He shifted, a quiet, almost imperceptible movement, and the hand fell away. The man grunted, stepping back.
“Easy there, lad,” the newcomer rumbled. He was a mountain of a man, mid-forties, hair a tangled thicket, beard a wild scrub. Yet, his eyes, like chipped flint, held a surprising, sharp glint. “Elara, the Folly isn’t so foolish. I’ve seen it. Power can be taken. The wild knows it.”
Elara rolled her eyes. “Thorne, you’re alive? We thought you’d finally found a Maw’s gullet.”
“Not yet, girl. Not ‘til I’m whispering the world itself!” Thorne boomed, a raw chuckle vibrating through the floorboards. Behind him, three more men emerged from the shadows, burly figures armed with blunted spears, heavy picks, and thick hunting bows. Seasoned, hardened, desperate. Kaelen recognized the hunger in their eyes.
“You’ve seen it?” Kaelen asked, his voice even, ignoring the interruption. He watched Thorne, seeking truth in the man’s weathered face. “The taking of power?”
Thorne grinned, a flash of uneven teeth. “Aye, young friend. The old tales say the Rune-Speakers drew their might from the very bones of the Sundered Peaks. But the Echoes, they’re fragments of that same raw power. Kill one, absorb its last breath, and its essence stirs something within you. That’s what they say. I’ve seen men change, felt the air hum around them, after a kill. They don’t become full Rune-Speakers, mind you, not like the Warden. But they become… something more.”
“We’ve taken down three already,” one of Thorne’s men boasted, thumping his chest. “Small ones, sure, but three beasts nonetheless!”
“Almost there, we are,” another added, his eyes wide with feverish anticipation. Kaelen absorbed their words, a knot tightening in his gut. The Echoes he’d met in the wilds had been forces of nature, not easily felled. Even a ‘lesser’ Echo was a potent threat to unprepared men.
“And has any of you… become a Rune-Speaker?” Kaelen asked, the question hanging in the sudden silence.
The common room erupted in laughter. Elara, Thorne, and his men, all joined in. “Of course not, lad!” Thorne wiped a tear from his eye. “In all Stonehaven, there’s only the Warden and his three Enforcers who truly command the runes. Four souls in a city of ten thousand. If even one of us found the true words, we’d not be here, scrambling for coppers.”
Kaelen felt a pang of understanding. The scarcity of true power. Keorn, his mentor, had often lamented it, the weight of a broken world resting on too few shoulders.
---
Thorne’s gaze swept over Kaelen, lingering on his simple traveler’s clothes. “By the way, you seem light, lad. What’s your tool, if you’re looking for Edicts?”
Kaelen reached into his pouch, pulling out a smooth, river-worn stone, palm-sized and cool to the touch. It was no weapon, but a focus, a touchstone for his thoughts, a link to the earth beneath his feet. He often used it to steady his Rune-Speaking, to feel the flow of the world’s currents.
Thorne’s men peered at it, then at each other. “A sling-stone?” one asked, a hint of admiration in his voice. “Seen many a fox-Echo felled with a well-aimed rock.”
“Good weight to it,” another mused. “Enough to crack the skull of a transformed badger, aye.”
They assumed he hunted the smaller, less dangerous Echoes – creatures that might once have been rabbits or squirrels, now twisted by the Sundering’s lingering touch. Kaelen let them assume, the misunderstanding a comfortable cloak.
Thorne clapped Kaelen on the back again, this time a lighter touch. “Look, we’re a man short for our next hunt. How about you join us? A keen eye for targets like yours would be a boon.”
Kaelen shook his head gently. “My path lies elsewhere, Thorne. My quarry is… different.” He couldn’t risk revealing his true abilities, not here, not now. His loyalty was to his kin, not to this city’s chaotic order.
Thorne shrugged, a flicker of regret crossing his face. “A shame, lad. But the offer stands, should you change your mind.” He turned back to his men, a new plan already forming in his eyes.
---
Later, Kaelen found his way to a small room on the second floor, the inn’s cheapest. The straw mattress rustled beneath him, unfamiliar and stiff. Sleep, however, would not come easily. The muffled voices from below drifted through the thin floorboards, Thorne and his men still talking.
“That scrawny runt,” one of them scoffed. “He’d be a hindrance, Thorne. One blow and he’d be weeping for his mother.”
Another agreed. “Couldn’t lift a full pack, let alone an Echo’s hide.”
Kaelen heard Thorne’s sigh, heavy with resignation. “Just reminded me of myself, boys, when I first came down from the northern ridges. Head full of dreams, pockets full of nothing. He won’t last a week out there with just a river stone to his name.”
“You’re too soft, hyungnim.”
“Who’s arguing?” Thorne’s voice was gruff, but Kaelen sensed the quiet pity within. He closed his eyes. The world, he mused, was always a tapestry of kindness and cruelty, of misjudgment and unexpected grace. He knew their dismissiveness came from their own fear and struggle, a reflection of their harsh lives.
---
The next morning, Kaelen broke his fast on thin broth and hard bread, the inn’s meager offering. He then navigated the bustling morning streets, drawn by the Registry’s imposing façade. It was a blocky structure of dark, unyielding stone, taller than any other building, radiating a somber authority. Citizens thronged its entrance, a river of petitioners and officials.
Inside, the air hummed with hushed voices and rustling parchment. He found the Registrar’s office, a small, crowded chamber. The Registrar, a balding man with pinched features, barely looked up from his ledger. “Next. State your business.”
Kaelen stepped forward. “I seek the Warden’s Edict, concerning the Echoes.”
The Registrar finally lifted his head, his eyes sweeping over Kaelen’s plain clothes with a dismissive glance. A silent judgment, clear as the mountain air: *another hopeful fool, another mouth to feed, another body for the wilds.* Kaelen felt the sting of it, but held his tongue. He could reveal his power, yes. Watch the man’s disdain evaporate into fawning deference. But then would come the questions, the pleas for aid, the endless formal courtesies that would bind him, wasting precious time. His purpose here was simple: find a specific Echo, dispatch it, and move on.
“No touching, no taking. Read and return,” the Registrar grumbled, pushing a heavy, bound document across the counter. Its pages were thick, stained parchment, filled with crude sketches and terse descriptions.
Kaelen scanned the document. Echoes were listed by their twisted forms, locations, and the weight of their bounty. Lesser Echoes, those that posed no direct threat to human settlements, were to be captured alive. The truly dangerous ones, the hunters of men, could be killed, their carcasses brought back for proof. He understood the reasoning: lesser Echoes often resembled common animals, making fraud easy. A living beast, however, was irrefutable proof.
“A word of warning, drifter,” the Registrar added, his voice sharp. “If you fell an Echo, you *must* bring back the remains. If its raw essence is left uncontained, it can fester, coalesce into a Lingering Maw. A ravenous shadow, a true horror. Abandoning a killed Echo is an offense punishable by the Warden’s axe. Keep that truth close.”
Kaelen felt a chill. He had seen the whispers of uncontrolled power, the insidious way it could corrupt and consume. He nodded, the warning settling deep within him.
“Some of these creatures seem… beyond the capabilities of an ordinary hunter,” Kaelen observed, pointing to a description of a particularly vicious Echo. “Do the Enforcers not hunt them?”
The Registrar scoffed, disbelief etched on his face. “The Enforcers? They maintain order, guard the walls, stand against invaders. Their duties are too vital for chasing beasts in the wilderness. That, drifter, is left to those who seek coin, or glory, or a fool’s hope of power.”
A familiar bitterness settled in Kaelen’s gut. Those with the power, those sworn to protect, so often turned their backs on the hardest burdens. It was a pattern he had seen woven through the very fabric of the Sundered Peaks, a tragic echo of the old world’s fall. He returned the Edict, the details of a specific Echo etched in his mind.
---
Leaving the Registry, Kaelen moved through Stonehaven’s outer districts. Buildings thinned, giving way to rough-hewn shacks, then untamed scrubland, the jagged teeth of the peaks looming closer. He breathed in the wild, untamed air, a welcome balm after the city’s confined breath.
His target: the Shard-Wing. A ravenous Echo, a nightmare of feathers like obsidian blades, preying on the city’s fringes. It had a habit of snatching children, of leaving only scattered bone fragments.
He sought a secluded spot, a hollow amidst a stand of gnarled, wind-battered pines. He closed his eyes, his palm resting on the river stone, feeling the world’s quiet hum. He spoke, a whisper of the forgotten language, a Rune-Speak for insight: “*Astra-Corvus, Quaeram Umbra* — Sight of the Flock, Seek the Shadow.”
The world erupted. Hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, distinct thoughts flooded his mind. The sharp hunger of a common crow searching for grubs. The anxious flutter of a nesting pair. The territorial caw of an elder bird perched high on a spire. A cacophony of avian existence, overwhelming, suffocating. Kaelen gasped, his hand flying to his temple, severing the connection.
“Too broad,” he muttered, the taste of ozone on his tongue. He tried again, refining the Rune-Speak. “*Astra-Corvus, Vox-Anima* — Flock-Sight, Echo-Soul.” He sought the signature of primordial energy within the birds, the twist of the Sundering’s power.
Silence. The Rune-Speak did not activate. The very concept of ‘magic power’ as a filter was alien to the language. Power simply *was*; it permeated all things, manifesting differently, but not as a distinct tag.
He tried a third approach, focusing on the Shard-Wing’s grisly diet. “*Astra-Corvus, Gustus-Maw* — Flock-Sight, Maw-Taste.” Crows that had consumed human flesh.
Again, a rush of images, but this time, too many. Scavengers, opportunists. Crows that had picked clean the remains of old battles, of forgotten travelers. The method was still imprecise, drowning him in irrelevant details. Kaelen opened his eyes, a quiet frustration burning. He needed a different key to unlock the Shard-Wing’s hiding place.