Before he could understand what was happening, the world returned in agonizing fragments, and pain was the first anchor that resonated in his very bones.
Kaelen groaned as he tried to push himself up, but his muscles screamed in protest, weak and trembling as if he'd run for days without rest.
"Stupid," he muttered. He pressed a palm to his forehead, feeling the thrum of too much power that had nearly torn him apart. "Arrogant, reckless and stupid."
He had demanded power from the Aether, and the Aether, in its infinite and impartial might, had given him exactly what he'd asked for. It had poured into him a river bursting its banks, flooding every cell until his consciousness fractured under the strain.
He remembered the world twisting and the forest itself seeming to scream as the ancient sleeping mind below turned its gaze upon him. The memory sent a shiver of fear upon him that had nothing to do with the morning chill.
He sat up, fully ignoring the protesting groan of his body. He would not be broken by his own folly. He had survived. That was the first lesson. The second was respect.
He extended his left hand palm up. With his right he carefully drew the sharp edge of a flint stone across his palm, opening a thin, shallow cut. Blood welled against his skin as the old Kaelen, the bitter and vengeful boy who had stumbled into these woods, would have cursed, but this Kaelen only watched.
"Alright," he whispered. "Not a demand. A request. Not a flood. A thread."
He closed his eyes and reached out with a gentle curiosity. He didn't pull at the Aether. Instead, he invited it in, and he felt it respond, trickling into his fingertips.
It was warm, and he guided the stream towards the cut on his palm, picturing the skin knitting itself together, the severed cells finding their partners, the flow of blood ceasing. He didn't force it; he coaxed it, weaving the energy like a master weaver mending a priceless tapestry.
He opened his eyes, and the bleeding had stopped, but the skin was still tender with a faint pink line remaining where the gash had been, but it was whole.
A small, shaky breath escaped his lips of profound relief. He could do this. He just had to listen.
Days turned into a week in the marshes, then two, and Kaelen's practice became his ritual. He learned to extend his senses to close his eyes and feel the world around him through the Aether.
At first, it was the heartbeat of a rabbit hiding in its burrow, the slow, patient pulse of an ancient oak or the gurgle of a hidden spring deep underground.
"Too much," he'd grunt, clutching his head. "Focus. One thing at a time."
He started with the spring. He followed its Aetheric signature until he broke through a thicket and found it bubbling up from the mossy ground. He knelt and drank with a genuine smile touching his lips for the first time in memory.
His constructs were clumsy at first. He tried to weave a wall of energy to shelter himself from the nightly winds. The first attempt shimmered and collapsed into sparks before it was a foot high.
"No, no, no! It needs a foundation," he chided himself, pacing back and forth. "You can't just hang threads in the air. They need an anchor."
He tried again, this time drawing Aether from the ground itself, weaving it into the trunks of two sturdy trees. He pulled the strands between them, layering them, twisting them into a lattice of shimmering light.
It was crude, uneven and flickered, but it held. It blocked the wind. He slept soundly behind his glowing shield with a quiet confidence beginning to bloom in the space where bitterness had long held root.
One afternoon, he was tracking a herd of deer not to hunt but to practice. He wove a new construct, a snare of calming energy. He cast it over a young buck that had strayed from the group.
The moment the shimmering net settled, the deer, which had been ready to bolt, simply stopped. Its ears relaxed its tail stopped twitching. It looked at him with wide eyes before the net dissolved, and it trotted calmly back to its family. It was a power that soothed, and it felt… right.
It was this newfound sensitivity that led him to the monster…
He felt it as a spike of pure agony in the Aetheric field, a loud screaming wound that ripped through the forest's gentle hum. It was sharp and familiar. His own wounds had sung a similar, if much fainter song.
"What in the blazes was that?" he said aloud, his head snapping in the direction of the disturbance.
Against his better judgment, he moved towards it, and the feeling of pain grew stronger, accompanied by the scent of blood in the air.
He moved cautiously, his hand glowing with a low light, ready to form a shield or a blade at a moment's notice. He pushed aside a large fern frond and froze.
There, lying in a small bloody clearing, was the Glimmerfang. Not just any Glimmerfang—it was the alpha!
The alpha that had led the pack that had torn him to shreds, that had left him for dead, that had inadvertently awakened the Aether within him.
It was dying. A massive gaping wound tore across its flank from shoulder to hip, and the injury wasn't from claws or teeth; it was a brutal crushing wound as if it had been smashed against a rock by something immense. Its breaths were shallow, and the light in its intelligent silver eyes was fading.
The old Kaelen roared to life in his mind. Kill it. It tried to kill you. This is justice. End its misery and your fear in one stroke.
He took a step forward, his hand clenching with the Aether beginning to crackle around his knuckles.
The Glimmerfang saw the movement. It summoned the last of its strength, letting out a growl and baring its blood-flecked teeth in a final act of defiance.
Kaelen stopped. He looked into its eyes, and he didn't see a monster. He saw a cornered creature fighting to the last. He saw the same desperation he had felt. He saw a survivor.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, his voice surprisingly steady. He unclenched his fist, letting the aggressive energy dissipate. He took a slow, deliberate step forward, holding his empty hands out where the beast could see them.
The Glimmerfang's growl softened to a wary rumble. It watched his every move, its head too heavy to lift.
"You're a mess," Kaelen continued. He knelt a few feet away, close enough to smell its blood. "Looks like you picked a fight with something bigger than you. I know how that feels."
He reached out with the Aether, and he touched the edge of the wound with a tendril of energy gently, and the beast flinched
"Shh, easy now," Kaelen soothed. "I know you remember me. The pathetic little human you left for the crows. Funny how things turn out, isn't it? Just… just be still. Let me see."
He poured more of the gentle healing energy into the wound, starting with the smallest, most ravaged blood vessels, coaxing them to seal. He pictured the Aether as a thousand tiny needles stitching the torn muscle fiber back together, cleansing the wound of dirt and infection.
The Glimmerfang whined but it didn't snap at him. It lay still, its silver eyes locked on his with a flicker of disbelief warring with the instinct to fight.
It could feel the warmth spreading through its flank, the agonizing throbbing beginning to recede, replaced by a dull, manageable ache.
"See? It's not so bad," Kaelen murmured.
Sweat beaded on his brow. This was far larger than a simple cut on the hand. It was taking nearly everything he had, but his control born of his near-disaster was precise.
He let the forest's own vitality flow through him, guiding it, shaping it.
"What should I call you? You can't just be 'the beast that almost ate me.'" He paused, watching as a significant portion of the wound sealed over the bleeding, finally stopping. "Echo. I'll call you Echo. Because you're what's left after the crash. Just like me."
He worked for what felt like an hour, and when he was done, the massive wound was a sealed seam of newly formed tissue. It was a crude, ugly scar, but it was closed, and the Glimmerfang's breathing was deep and even, and the light of life had returned to its eyes.
Kaelen slumped back exhausted, with the Aetheric flow ceasing. He was spent.
The Glimmerfang Echo slowly and painfully pushed itself onto its feet. It stood on trembling legs, swaying slightly. It was still weak, but it was alive.
Kaelen watched it, his heart pounding. This was the moment. It could tear his throat out for his trouble, or it could simply vanish back into the woods.
Instead, Echo took a hesitant step towards him. It lowered its massive head and nudged his shoulder gently, a gesture so unexpected it stole Kaelen's breath. Then it sat down beside him and became his first true ally.
For weeks, they traveled together. An odd pair—the boy touched by an impossible power and the moon-furred alpha beast that followed him like a shadow. Kaelen talked to him constantly, filling the silence of the Marches.
"You see that ridge, Echo? I think there's a cave system up there. Might be drier than sleeping under the stars every night."
Echo would respond with a low chuff or a flick of his ears, his silver eyes constantly scanning their surroundings.
One day, Kaelen felt it. A new sensation in the Aether. It wasn't the clear life-giving energy of the forest nor the sharp spike of pain he'd felt from Echo. This was a deep, resonant pulse. A hum low and powerful that seemed to vibrate in his teeth.
"Do you feel that?" Kaelen asked, stopping mid-stride. Echo was already on alert, his ears pricked forward, a low growl rumbling in his chest. "It's… thick. Like drinking honey. What is it?"
Drawn by a curiosity that overrode his caution, Kaelen led them toward the source of the pulsing, and he closer they got, the stranger the forest became. The trees were greener, the flowers more vibrant.
They broke through a final curtain of hanging moss and stopped staring. Before them lay a circular grove bathed in a soft internal light. Life flourished here with an impossible vibrancy. The Aether hum was so strong here that it was almost audible.
"Incredible," Kaelen breathed.
But Echo did not seem to agree. The Glimmerfang's hackles were raised, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a silent snarl. His gaze was fixed on the very center of the grove.
At the heart of the sanctuary stood a single, impossibly large tree, its bark as black as obsidian and its leaves the color of silver. It didn't pulse with the vibrant life of the rest of the grove. Instead, a coldness emanated from it, a void in the riot of Aether surrounding it. It was a pocket of deep, ancient darkness in a sea of unnatural light. It felt… wrong. It felt like it was waiting.
Kaelen took a step into the grove, his hand outstretched, wanting to feel this bizarre confluence of energies. Echo whined, but Kaelen was mesmerized. As his foot crossed the invisible threshold into the clearing, the vibrant hum of the Aether didn't just intensify. It changed. It became a whisper, a voice that was not a voice, sliding directly into his mind.
'So…'
The word was not spoken. It was formed from silence and shadow in a thought that was not his own, ancient and vast and cold. Kaelen froze with his blood turning to ice.
'The little spark has found its way to the flame…!'