A guttural crack echoed through the frosty air, a sound of bone against stone. Kaelen’s arm, still tingling from the forceful release, hung loose. The mountain cat’s skull, once a menacing crown of fangs and sinew, lay utterly pulped. He stared at the mangled heap, a strange quiet settling over the scene. Yet, unease pricked at his skin. Lysander, the silver-haired stranger, remained rigid, eyes fixed not on Kaelen, but on the inert form of the beast. Kaelen knew the risk he took. Offering succor to a wayfarer was ancient custom, a duty of the hearth-keeper. But Lysander carried the scent of the world beyond Kaelen’s lonely pastures, a world his mother had painted in shades of deceit and danger. Should word of Kaelen’s peculiar talents reach the ears of those in Veridian, his quiet existence might shatter. He’d be hunted, a curiosity for mages, a weapon for nobles. Still, Lysander had shown courtesy, a rare grace in the wilds. “Watch!” Lysander’s voice, a sudden, sharp rasp, cut through the quiet. No need to ask what. The headless corpse, a grotesque mound of fur and muscle, stirred. A sickly, pale green radiance began to pulse from the shattered remnants of its neck, a phosphorescent glow against the fading light. Muscle fibers twitched. The massive body heaved. Then it lunged. Kaelen reacted on instinct, a surge of earth-force through his boot, sending a powerful kick into the beast’s side. The corpse, headless and ethereal, tumbled across the frozen ground, skidding dozens of lengths before shuddering to a halt. It rose again, unharmed, the green light now blazing, more intense than before. “Undead, these spirits cannot be felled by mere brute force!” Lysander shouted, clutching his wounded arm. “How, then?” Kaelen’s voice was tight, a cold dread creeping into his bones. “Fire, or a bolt of the sky’s fury!” Kaelen raised a hand. He called upon the primal warmth within him, a heat that often manifested as a flicker, a small flame. But the ethereal green light of the beast seemed to siphon it, devouring the burgeoning spark before it could bloom. It died, a helpless wisp of potential. Lysander, watching Kaelen’s failed attempt, understood then. This shepherd had indeed slain the cat before, yet understood nothing of its essence. To any attuned, the direct application of primal power to a spiritual entity demanded more than mere will. It required understanding, a causality of intent. Kaelen, uninitiated, knew nothing of such principles, nor of dispersing a slain beast’s lingering energies. “Do not merely conjure the spark,” Lysander urged, his breath coming in ragged gasps. “Shape it. Hurl it!” Lysander’s words held a hint of doubt. Igniting a flame was child’s play for an awakened spirit-weaver. But to command its form, to launch it with precision? That required years of disciplined practice, a control Kaelen should not possess. Yet, Kaelen did not hesitate. A ball of crimson fire blossomed above his palm, drawing heat from the very stones beneath his feet. It spun, a miniature sun in his grasp. He drew his arm back, the familiar motion of a slingshot hurl, and unleashed the burning sphere. It whistled through the air, a burning ember flung from the forge of his will. With a sound like tearing silk, the flame clung to the mountain cat’s spectral form. The beast shrieked, a sound of agony beyond physical pain, and thrashed upon the ground. It rolled, attempting to snuff the magical fire against the dirt, but the crimson heat clung, feeding on the pale green essence, consuming the spirit from within. Lysander’s attacks had proven useless, but Kaelen’s fire, raw and potent, demonstrated a clear superiority of power. Kaelen focused, a tunnel vision of scorching heat and dying green. He poured his will into the flame, ensuring its relentless devourment. After what felt like an age, perhaps thirty heartbeats, the spectral form let out a final, shuddering wail. Its body, consumed, dissolved into motes of ash, leaving only the mundane corpse behind. Both men sagged, a shared breath of relief escaping their lips. “Is it truly done?” Kaelen asked, the lingering scent of ozone and burnt fur in the air. “For now, yes,” Lysander nodded, pushing himself up. “Now, draw the remaining essence into yourself. Else, another of its kind may rise.” Drawing essence. Kaelen stretched out a hand over the cooling carcass. He envisioned an invisible, vital current, pulled into his very core. A pale green aura, mirroring the beast’s own, rose like mist and seeped into his skin. A strange chill ran through Kaelen, a sensation he had never known. Something was gathering within him, a silent reservoir, making him stronger, yet subtly alien. The thrill of it, cold and exhilarating, sent a shiver through his frame. “Has this truly been your first time absorbing a spirit’s essence?” Lysander’s eyes, wide with disbelief, met Kaelen’s. “It has,” Kaelen confirmed, still processing the foreign power humming beneath his skin. “Unbelievable.” Lysander shook his head. Primal power typically matured with age, after its initial awakening. Without actively consuming the essence of other awakened creatures, its growth was slow. Had Kaelen’s raw display of power truly stemmed from innate strength alone? The potential for growth, Lysander knew, was always proportional to one’s inherent capacity. Kaelen’s potential seemed boundless. Lysander cleared his throat, a light cough. His tone, when he spoke again, was respectful, almost deferential. “I have been discourteous, young hearth-keeper. May I ask of your lineage?” Kaelen stiffened. Lysander’s sudden deference unsettled him. He couldn’t articulate why, but he disliked seeing the old man, a warrior, humble himself so. “Your wounds first,” Kaelen stated, deflecting the question. “Then we speak.” A gash above Lysander’s eyebrow, where the cat’s claws had raked him, still bled freely. --- “Ugh…” Lysander groaned softly. Kaelen pressed a poultice of crushed hemlock and comfrey leaves to the gash, then bound it tightly with strips of clean linen. Kaelen’s hearth-home, humble as it was, held an ample supply of such provisions, readied for the scrapes and bruises of a shepherd’s life. Proper first aid, at least. How he wished he could mend flesh with his primal power. But healing another, he knew from past attempts on his mother’s occasional bumps, drained his reserves almost entirely. Mending this raw tear on Lysander’s brow would likely exhaust him. “My apologies, young master,” Lysander said, his voice softer now. “To impose such a task upon one of your… distinction.” “I am not ‘distinguished’,” Kaelen retorted, his gaze sharp. He wanted Lysander to truly understand. “I am a shepherd. I know not my father’s name.” Their eyes locked. After a tense moment, Lysander relented, a small shake of his head. “Very well. Cease that look.” A small, involuntary laugh escaped Kaelen. A rare lightness in the aftermath of such a confrontation. “But why,” Lysander continued, his curiosity undimmed, “does one with such formidable primal power, a true spirit-weaver, tend sheep in this forgotten place? No disrespect to the shepherd’s honest craft, but it ill suits you.” The question mirrored Kaelen’s own, posed yesterday, about Lysander’s solitary hunt. Kaelen could not answer with the same quiet pride Lysander had displayed. He held no such pride for his solitary life. “It is a lengthy tale,” Kaelen began, his voice flat, recounting his childhood. The strange awakening of his power, his mother’s fearful stories of the grasping nobles in Veridian, tales of blood and ambition, of how power corrupted and consumed. Lysander listened, a solemn expression upon his aged face. When Kaelen finished, a slow nod. “She was wise.” “You believe so?” Kaelen’s brow furrowed. He had expected Lysander, a man of evident noble bearing, to scoff at his mother’s fears, to dismiss the world beyond the pastures as less brutal than she had described. “Some two decades past, the House of Stone, whom I served, clashed with the warlords of the Crimson Guard,” Lysander recounted, his gaze distant. “From three thousand loyal blades, over nine hundred perished. A third, gone.” “Nearly a third,” Kaelen murmured, the scale of such a loss difficult to fathom. “The cruellest truth: every soul I held dear was among them. My two closest companions, my beloved wife, my son. All fallen. Only I remained.” Lysander’s face held a grief so profound, a shadow so deep, Kaelen could not find words. It must have been akin to the void left by his own mother’s passing, perhaps deeper, for it encompassed so much. After a long, shared silence, Lysander visibly brightened, shifting the heavy mood. “Your mother spoke much wisdom, Kaelen, but on one matter, she erred. The gift you wield, it far outstrips the abilities of a mere blade-sworn knight.” “Does it?” “It shames me to admit, in my current state,” Lysander gave a rueful chuckle, “but I was once a knight of no small renown. Yet you, without proper mastery, easily vanquished a creature that would have strained my every skill. A deed of true power.” Lysander took a long draught of goat’s milk from the horn Kaelen offered him. He set it down, then spoke with conviction. “Such power qualifies you as a noble. And not some minor, forgotten lineage. One of the highest standing.” Kaelen felt a disconnect. His mother’s constant reassurances that his strength was merely that of a knight, that his power, while potent, was no mark of the highborn, had been ingrained. Perhaps Lysander, still dazed, simply overestimated him. “My mother said my father was a knight,” Kaelen ventured, a question he had never truly voiced. “Could she have… misspoken?” “Life knows myriad exceptions,” Lysander affirmed. “Not every child of tall parents grows tall. So too, a spirit-weaver of noble potential can arise from a knightly line, or a noble house yield one less gifted than a commoner. Such occurrences are rare, yet they happen.” Kaelen thought of the villagers. The short carpenter and his wife, whose first son was a dwarf like them, but whose second son grew to towering height – though, that second son bore an uncanny resemblance to the burly woodcutter from the village’s edge. “For this reason,” Lysander continued, pulling Kaelen from his thoughts, “I believe it would serve you well to venture beyond this hill.” “Why so?” “Because humankind requires more nobles, more protectors. We are not yet the unchallenged masters of Aeridor. The beasts of the wilds, and the many forgotten races cast aside by the Elder Gods, they stir, they gather strength, awaiting their moment to reclaim what was once theirs. And meanwhile, our so-called nobles bicker and war among themselves. A strong and principled leader like yourself, even one more, is desperately needed.” Forgotten races. Kaelen had heard of them only in his mother’s ancient tales, fantastical beings as unreal as gods or demons. But in the world Lysander spoke of, they were a tangible, lurking threat. “Besides,” Lysander added, his eyes keen, “it is a waste for a young spirit-weaver of your calibre to languish here. You are not truly content, are you, living solely as a shepherd?” Lysander remembered, then, Kaelen’s evasive answer from yesterday. Kaelen remained silent for a long moment, then gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. “Your mother’s fears were understandable,” Lysander offered, his voice gentle. “Yet largely unfounded for one such as yourself. Ordinary knights may risk much, but even the great houses extend a measure of respect to their fellow highborn. And one as powerful as you? There is no question.” “So I need not fear being seized, dragged off by some house against my will?” Kaelen asked, the old, ingrained fear clawing at him. “As with all things in this world, Kaelen, absolute guarantees are but a dream.” A torrent of conflicting thoughts coursed through Kaelen. A part of him longed to believe Lysander’s words, to shed the lifelong shadow of his mother’s warnings. Yet, the deep-seated dread of the nobility, of their grasping ways, refused to vanish entirely. Two opposing currents, swirling within him, creating a heavy, internal tension. Lysander, bandaged and weary, sat patiently upon the pallet, allowing Kaelen his space, awaiting a decision. After many silent moments, Kaelen finally spoke, his voice low, almost a whisper. “What then, might I gain, if I were to go down?” Lysander’s face softened, a genuine smile replacing his weariness. He recognized the flicker of determination in Kaelen’s question, the nascent desire to step into the greater world. “That, young Kaelen,” he answered, “depends entirely on what you truly seek. Wealth, renown, true power… or perhaps a family, the bonds of friendship, and other such treasures.”

A Spark Against the Shadow