Echo padded silently at Kaelen's side with a state of calm curiosity, and together they rounded an oak to find the source of the grove's power.
She stood with her back to them, tending to a patch of fungi. An older woman will have her form surprisingly wiry and strong. Her long silver hair was intricately braided with living vines and iridescent crow feathers, a testament to a life lived in harmony with the wild.
As she turned, Kaelen saw her skin weathered and tanned, and her eyes sharp, intelligent and holding no warmth whatsoever.
The moment those eyes landed on him, the grove's peaceful atmosphere shattered.
Without a word, she thrust her hands forward, and the air itself became a weapon as a furious gust of wind erupted from her palms in a vortex of leaves, twigs and raw power that screamed toward Kaelen.
Echo snarled, planting his feet and lowering his head, but the blast was too strong; it would tear them both apart.
Panic flared in Kaelen's chest, and he threw his hands up in a desperate and instinctual ward. He felt for the Aether, and he saw it flowing from the world around them being greedily consumed by the woman and shaped into the tempest she wielded. He didn't think. He acted. He reached out with his mind to grab the fuel that fed it.
He pulled.
It felt like uncorking a dam. The torrent of Aether being drawn into her attack suddenly diverted, flooding into him instead. The sensation was overwhelming and made his head spin.
The raging cyclone aimed at him faltered, the wind's roar dying to a frustrated whistle. Leaves that had been spinning with lethal velocity now drifted harmlessly to the ground around him. The storm was gone and was starved into nothingness.
Silence descended upon the grove, and Kaelen stood panting with his hands still raised and the stolen Aether thrumming beneath his skin like a captive bird. Echo let out a low questioning rumble, nudging his hand.
The woman's arms were still outstretched, frozen in the middle of her attack. Her sharp blue eyes, which had been blazing with fury, were now narrowed into slits of unnerving focus. The aggression had vanished, replaced by a dawning, dangerous recognition.
"What… are you?" she asked. It wasn't exactly a question of identity but of species. Of nature.
Kaelen lowered his hands, slowly trying to calm his racing heart.
"I… I'm just…" He didn't know how to finish. An outcast? A survivor? A freak?
"Don't lie to me, boy," she snapped, taking a measured step forward. She ignored Echo completely with her gaze fixed on Kaelen as if he were a puzzle she was determined to solve. "That wasn't a spell. You didn't block my magic. You ate it!"
"I don't know what I did," Kaelen said honestly with his voice shaking slightly. "It was instinct."
Her eyes roamed over him, then to the massive Glimmerfang standing loyally at his side. A flicker of… disbelief perhaps… crossed her face.
"There have been whispers carried on the winds from the borderlands in the last few days. Stories of an outcast who walks with a monster. A 'Beast Tamer' they call him." She let out a short laugh devoid of humor. "I dismissed it as campfire nonsense. Another tall tale to scare greenhorn patrols. The Conclave has taught for centuries that beasts cannot be tamed, only caged or killed."
"I didn't tame him" Kaelen insisted, placing a hand on Echo's powerful neck, and the beast leaned into his touch. "We… have an understanding."
"An understanding," she repeated, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "You have an 'understanding' with a Glimmerfang alpha, and you can drink an Archmage's gale like it's well water. You are either the most dangerous liar in the known world or…"
Her voice trailed off as she stared at him, truly seeing him for the first time.
"Or you're the truth behind the myth. And that is far, far more dangerous."
Kaelen felt a surge of defiance.
"Who are you to attack me on sight? This is my first time in this grove."
The woman straightened with a flicker of old authority settling over her like a mantle.
"My name is Tiara. And I once held the title of Archmage within the Arcane Conclave."
Kaelen's breath caught in his throat. An Archmage? Here? The Conclave was the rulers of Luminis, the untouchable mages who lived in towers and wielded magic that could level mountains. They were legendary figures of immense power and political might. But they didn't live in the wilds braided with vines and feathers.
"You were exiled," Kaelen stated as the pieces clicked into place. It was the only explanation.
"Sharp boy," Tiara conceded with a wry twist of her lips. "Exiled for heresy. For radical theories. For the crime of speaking the truth."
"What truth?"
"The very truth you just demonstrated," she said, gesturing toward him. "I told them their understanding of magic was a lie. They believe magic is a force to be commanded, a tool to be bent to their will through complex incantations and rigid formulas. They draw it through crystalline conduits, filter it, refine it until it's a pale, predictable imitation of its true self."
She paced before him now with her energy restless.
"I argued that magic isn't a tool. It's the lifeblood of the world. A living, breathing current that connects all things. They called it Aether in the old tongue, but they've forgotten its meaning. They see it as a raw resource, something to be exploited. I saw it as a symbiotic force. To truly wield it, one must not command it but commune with it. Become part of its flow."
She stopped and pointed a finger at him.
"You. You don't use formulas. You don't chant ancient words. You feel it. You are connected to the source. My theories got me cast out. Your existence proves me right."
Kaelen was reeling. Everything she said resonated with his own recent discoveries, giving words to feelings he couldn't articulate.
"So… what did you do? The wind?"
"A crude application by their standards," she admitted. "But effective. I was testing the Grove's intruder. What I did not expect was for the intruder to be an anomaly that defies every law of thaumaturgy the Conclave holds dear."
She looked him up and down again with a calculating glint in her eyes.
"You have no control. I can feel it. The Aether clings to you, wild and untethered. The power you just siphoned is churning inside you like a storm. Without guidance, it will kill you. It will tear you apart from the inside out, or you'll unleash it by accident and wipe this entire grove from the face of the earth."
The memory of his near-fatal accident and the searing pain of the Aether overloading his body flashed through his mind. She was right. He was walking on a knife's edge.
"I can teach you," she said, her voice dropping to a serious and conspiratorial tone. "I can teach you the control you so desperately need. Not the Conclave's rigid nonsense but the true way. The symbiotic path. How to breathe with the Aether, not just drink from it."
Kaelen hesitated, suspicion warring with a desperate need for answers.
"Why would you help me? You just tried to kill me."
"Survival boy. Yours and mine," Tiara stated flatly. "You are a walking catastrophe. I live here. I'd rather not be vaporized because you sneezed. Beyond that," she added, her gaze turning distant, "perhaps you are the weapon I've been waiting for. A living refutation of everything the Conclave stands for. Helping you could be the ultimate revenge."
The honesty, however cold, was more convincing than any gentle promise. Kaelen looked at Echo, who seemed to be watching the woman with an intelligent gaze, offering no sign of aggression.
He trusted Echo's instincts. He then looked back at Tiara at the decades of wisdom and bitterness carved into her face. She was dangerous, yes, but she was also his only hope.
"Alright," Kaelen said firmly. "I accept. Teach me."
A faint thin smile touched Tiara's lips.
"Good. The first lesson begins now. Follow me."
She turned and walked not back toward her simple camp but deeper into the Marches away from the life-giving heart of the grove.
Kaelen and Echo followed, leaving the sanctuary of the ancient tree behind. They walked in silence for what felt like an hour, and the hum of Aether that Kaelen had grown so accustomed to began to fade, replaced by a terrifying hollow emptiness.
Tiara stopped at the edge of a precipice, and below them, the land was a nightmare. The ground was gray and cracked like sun-baked clay. Trees stood as skeletal, twisted husks, their branches brittle and bare.
There was no grass, no moss, not even the buzz of an insect. The silence was profound, the silence of a tomb. It was a dead zone, a patch of utter desolation carved into the heart of the forest.
"What is this?" Kaelen whispered. He could feel the void here, a gaping wound in the world where the Aether should be. It felt like a part of him had been amputated.
"I call it the Blight," Tiara said. She kicked a loose gray stone, and it tumbled down the slope, making a dry clattering sound in the dead air. "Another one has appeared. They're spreading faster now."
"Spreading? What causes it?"
Tiara turned to him with her eyes filled with a cold rage that seemed ancient.
"The Conclave boy. This is the cost of their glorious city, Luminis."
Kaelen stared at her uncomprehending.
"Luminis? How? They're hundreds of miles away."
"Do you think their floating spires and eternal lights and magical conveniences run on good intentions?" she scoffed. "They require a colossal amount of power. More than they could ever draw from their immediate surroundings. So they created the Crystalline Conductors' massive relays buried deep within the earth, designed to drain Aether from distant lands and channel it back to the capital."
She pointed a trembling, angry finger at the dead landscape below.
"This is the result. This is a place that has had its very soul siphoned away to keep the lights on in Luminis. The Blight is spreading because their power demands are growing. They are bleeding the world dry to fuel their ambition."
A horrifying understanding dawned on Kaelen, a truth so monstrous it felt unreal. The Conclave, the supposed guardians of magic and order, was the source of this decay. They were a cancer on the world.
As he stood there frozen in horror, Tiara delivered the final terrifying secret, her voice barely a whisper.
"And soon you will learn the darkest part of it all, boy. They aren't just using it as a last resort. The Conclave's very existence, the magic that sustains every man, woman and child in Luminis… it all depends on this. They cannot stop. They are devouring the world and soon there will be nothing left but the bones…!"
Echo padded silently at Kaelen's side with a state of calm curiosity, and together they rounded an oak to find the source of the grove's power.
She stood with her back to them, tending to a patch of fungi. An older woman will have her form surprisingly wiry and strong. Her long silver hair was intricately braided with living vines and iridescent crow feathers, a testament to a life lived in harmony with the wild.
As she turned, Kaelen saw her skin weathered and tanned, and her eyes sharp, intelligent and holding no warmth whatsoever.
The moment those eyes landed on him, the grove's peaceful atmosphere shattered.
Without a word, she thrust her hands forward, and the air itself became a weapon as a furious gust of wind erupted from her palms in a vortex of leaves, twigs and raw power that screamed toward Kaelen.
Echo snarled, planting his feet and lowering his head, but the blast was too strong; it would tear them both apart.
Panic flared in Kaelen's chest, and he threw his hands up in a desperate and instinctual ward. He felt for the Aether, and he saw it flowing from the world around them being greedily consumed by the woman and shaped into the tempest she wielded. He didn't think. He acted. He reached out with his mind to grab the fuel that fed it.
He pulled.
It felt like uncorking a dam. The torrent of Aether being drawn into her attack suddenly diverted, flooding into him instead. The sensation was overwhelming and made his head spin.
The raging cyclone aimed at him faltered, the wind's roar dying to a frustrated whistle. Leaves that had been spinning with lethal velocity now drifted harmlessly to the ground around him. The storm was gone and was starved into nothingness.
Silence descended upon the grove, and Kaelen stood panting with his hands still raised and the stolen Aether thrumming beneath his skin like a captive bird. Echo let out a low questioning rumble, nudging his hand.
The woman's arms were still outstretched, frozen in the middle of her attack. Her sharp blue eyes, which had been blazing with fury, were now narrowed into slits of unnerving focus. The aggression had vanished, replaced by a dawning, dangerous recognition.
"What… are you?" she asked. It wasn't exactly a question of identity but of species. Of nature.
Kaelen lowered his hands, slowly trying to calm his racing heart.
"I… I'm just…" He didn't know how to finish. An outcast? A survivor? A freak?
"Don't lie to me, boy," she snapped, taking a measured step forward. She ignored Echo completely with her gaze fixed on Kaelen as if he were a puzzle she was determined to solve. "That wasn't a spell. You didn't block my magic. You ate it!"
"I don't know what I did," Kaelen said honestly with his voice shaking slightly. "It was instinct."
Her eyes roamed over him, then to the massive Glimmerfang standing loyally at his side. A flicker of… disbelief perhaps… crossed her face.
"There have been whispers carried on the winds from the borderlands in the last few days. Stories of an outcast who walks with a monster. A 'Beast Tamer' they call him." She let out a short laugh devoid of humor. "I dismissed it as campfire nonsense. Another tall tale to scare greenhorn patrols. The Conclave has taught for centuries that beasts cannot be tamed, only caged or killed."
"I didn't tame him" Kaelen insisted, placing a hand on Echo's powerful neck, and the beast leaned into his touch. "We… have an understanding."
"An understanding," she repeated, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "You have an 'understanding' with a Glimmerfang alpha, and you can drink an Archmage's gale like it's well water. You are either the most dangerous liar in the known world or…"
Her voice trailed off as she stared at him, truly seeing him for the first time.
"Or you're the truth behind the myth. And that is far, far more dangerous."
Kaelen felt a surge of defiance.
"Who are you to attack me on sight? This is my first time in this grove."
The woman straightened with a flicker of old authority settling over her like a mantle.
"My name is Tiara. And I once held the title of Archmage within the Arcane Conclave."
Kaelen's breath caught in his throat. An Archmage? Here? The Conclave was the rulers of Luminis, the untouchable mages who lived in towers and wielded magic that could level mountains. They were legendary figures of immense power and political might. But they didn't live in the wilds braided with vines and feathers.
"You were exiled," Kaelen stated as the pieces clicked into place. It was the only explanation.
"Sharp boy," Tiara conceded with a wry twist of her lips. "Exiled for heresy. For radical theories. For the crime of speaking the truth."
"What truth?"
"The very truth you just demonstrated," she said, gesturing toward him. "I told them their understanding of magic was a lie. They believe magic is a force to be commanded, a tool to be bent to their will through complex incantations and rigid formulas. They draw it through crystalline conduits, filter it, refine it until it's a pale, predictable imitation of its true self."
She paced before him now with her energy restless.
"I argued that magic isn't a tool. It's the lifeblood of the world. A living, breathing current that connects all things. They called it Aether in the old tongue, but they've forgotten its meaning. They see it as a raw resource, something to be exploited. I saw it as a symbiotic force. To truly wield it, one must not command it but commune with it. Become part of its flow."
She stopped and pointed a finger at him.
"You. You don't use formulas. You don't chant ancient words. You feel it. You are connected to the source. My theories got me cast out. Your existence proves me right."
Kaelen was reeling. Everything she said resonated with his own recent discoveries, giving words to feelings he couldn't articulate.
"So… what did you do? The wind?"
"A crude application by their standards," she admitted. "But effective. I was testing the Grove's intruder. What I did not expect was for the intruder to be an anomaly that defies every law of thaumaturgy the Conclave holds dear."
She looked him up and down again with a calculating glint in her eyes.
"You have no control. I can feel it. The Aether clings to you, wild and untethered. The power you just siphoned is churning inside you like a storm. Without guidance, it will kill you. It will tear you apart from the inside out, or you'll unleash it by accident and wipe this entire grove from the face of the earth."
The memory of his near-fatal accident and the searing pain of the Aether overloading his body flashed through his mind. She was right. He was walking on a knife's edge.
"I can teach you," she said, her voice dropping to a serious and conspiratorial tone. "I can teach you the control you so desperately need. Not the Conclave's rigid nonsense but the true way. The symbiotic path. How to breathe with the Aether, not just drink from it."
Kaelen hesitated, suspicion warring with a desperate need for answers.
"Why would you help me? You just tried to kill me."
"Survival boy. Yours and mine," Tiara stated flatly. "You are a walking catastrophe. I live here. I'd rather not be vaporized because you sneezed. Beyond that," she added, her gaze turning distant, "perhaps you are the weapon I've been waiting for. A living refutation of everything the Conclave stands for. Helping you could be the ultimate revenge."
The honesty, however cold, was more convincing than any gentle promise. Kaelen looked at Echo, who seemed to be watching the woman with an intelligent gaze, offering no sign of aggression.
He trusted Echo's instincts. He then looked back at Tiara at the decades of wisdom and bitterness carved into her face. She was dangerous, yes, but she was also his only hope.
"Alright," Kaelen said firmly. "I accept. Teach me."
A faint thin smile touched Tiara's lips.
"Good. The first lesson begins now. Follow me."
She turned and walked not back toward her simple camp but deeper into the Marches away from the life-giving heart of the grove.
Kaelen and Echo followed, leaving the sanctuary of the ancient tree behind. They walked in silence for what felt like an hour, and the hum of Aether that Kaelen had grown so accustomed to began to fade, replaced by a terrifying hollow emptiness.
Tiara stopped at the edge of a precipice, and below them, the land was a nightmare. The ground was gray and cracked like sun-baked clay. Trees stood as skeletal, twisted husks, their branches brittle and bare.
There was no grass, no moss, not even the buzz of an insect. The silence was profound, the silence of a tomb. It was a dead zone, a patch of utter desolation carved into the heart of the forest.
"What is this?" Kaelen whispered. He could feel the void here, a gaping wound in the world where the Aether should be. It felt like a part of him had been amputated.
"I call it the Blight," Tiara said. She kicked a loose gray stone, and it tumbled down the slope, making a dry clattering sound in the dead air. "Another one has appeared. They're spreading faster now."
"Spreading? What causes it?"
Tiara turned to him with her eyes filled with a cold rage that seemed ancient.
"The Conclave boy. This is the cost of their glorious city, Luminis."
Kaelen stared at her uncomprehending.
"Luminis? How? They're hundreds of miles away."
"Do you think their floating spires and eternal lights and magical conveniences run on good intentions?" she scoffed. "They require a colossal amount of power. More than they could ever draw from their immediate surroundings. So they created the Crystalline Conductors' massive relays buried deep within the earth, designed to drain Aether from distant lands and channel it back to the capital."
She pointed a trembling, angry finger at the dead landscape below.
"This is the result. This is a place that has had its very soul siphoned away to keep the lights on in Luminis. The Blight is spreading because their power demands are growing. They are bleeding the world dry to fuel their ambition."
A horrifying understanding dawned on Kaelen, a truth so monstrous it felt unreal. The Conclave, the supposed guardians of magic and order, was the source of this decay. They were a cancer on the world.
As he stood there frozen in horror, Tiara delivered the final terrifying secret, her voice barely a whisper.
"And soon you will learn the darkest part of it all, boy. They aren't just using it as a last resort. The Conclave's very existence, the magic that sustains every man, woman and child in Luminis… it all depends on this. They cannot stop. They are devouring the world and soon there will be nothing left but the bones…!"