Morning mist curled through the valley like a living veil, drifting along the river and threading between roots and stone. Birds stirred in the trees, wings wet with dew. The air held the scent of moss, cold rock, and the faint metallic tang of Vitalis crystals buried deep beneath the soil.
Stoneheart Clan's domain rested in a fold of mountains, a natural cradle funnelling the main caravan road through its heart. From the cliffs the valley almost seemed alive. Terraced wooden houses clung to the slopes, rooftops curved like folded wings. Bridges arced over narrow streams. Trees leaned into the town, branches winding through balconies and trellises as though the settlement had grown around them instead of the other way around.
Whitewashed roads wound between gardens and courtyards, their surfaces smoothed by countless feet and cart wheels. Smoke from hearths mingled with resin and wet stone.
At a glance the place seemed untouched, peaceful, but those who lived here understood its value. This route was the gentlest path between mountains and plains. Whoever held Stoneheart held trade, influence, and wealth. Rival clans watched from distant ridges, banners flickering in the sun.
A banner flapped above the terraces, gray as weathered stone. At its center a silver mountain rose within a perfect golden ring. Thin streaks of blue and green traced its edges like veins of Vitalis catching the light. Beneath the symbol, a single word shone in careful script: Perpetua.
A quiet promise. Stoneheart will endure.
Today, that promise would meet a new generation.
The shrine lay tucked just beyond the town, in a clearing where roots braided through the soil and moss softened every stone. Sunlight fell in shifting lattices of gold and green. Birds perched above, shifting with small, impatient movements.
Parents gathered along the rim, their voices low. A man muttered that sixteen was barely old enough. Someone else said sixteen was what the world demanded, and clans that waited longer fell behind. A woman at the edge rubbed her son's shoulder, whispering reassurances meant as much for herself as for him.
Thalen sat on a smooth stone bench beneath the canopy. White hair framed his face, and his beard lay like frost on his chest. Age had carved shadows beneath his eyes. His muscles had thinned, his hands trembled if he reached too quickly, and his breath carried a small rasp.
Yet he held himself with the quiet authority of someone who had carried a clan for decades. His gaze drifted across the clearing, the caravan road, the distant banners. When his eyes reached the children lined up before the pedestal, a subtle weight settled in the air.
Stoneheart had not obtained lifespan relics in years. Once, the clan had traded aggressively, refining relics that promised stronger bodies and longer lives. Some elders had pushed to burn stores of wealth for a chance at such Relics again.
Thalen had refused. Refinement without patience was the quickest path to ruin. Lifespan Relics were rare and unpredictable, a promise only made when craft, timing, and discipline aligned. He would not hollow the clan chasing vanity.
He felt worry pinch lightly beneath his ribs. "Irondusk watches again," he muttered. "They always watch."
Beside him, Averith held a quill over a scroll. Silver streaks threaded her hair, catching the light whenever she turned. She looked young for an elder, but her gaze was sharp. Studying each child's posture, how their breath moved through shoulders and spine.
Hadrin leaned against a mossed trunk, arms folded. Half his hair had turned white, but the strength beneath his calm expression remained unweathered. "If only the world allowed them longer," he thought. "Sixteen is still a child."
Orven lingered in the shade, expression unreadable. His eyes scanned parents and children alike, measuring without comment.
Above the carved pedestal, the Mindwill Relic floated, a clear orb with a faint violet pulse. Its presence demanded reverence. Parents glanced at it with hope sharpened by fear.
Daren stepped forward first.
Dark brown hair shaded clever eyes. His patched clothes spoke of streets that taught harder lessons than books. He moved with the posture of someone who took only what the world allowed. When he placed his hands on the relic, warmth pulsed beneath his palms, slow and steady, like a heartbeat trying to find him.
Three breaths.
Warmth climbed his wrists.
Five.
Pressure gathered behind his eyes.
Six.
The orb brightened, its glow steadying. It had found his depth.
The elders murmured.
A low D grade.
Daren's shoulders dipped. His father breathed once, sharp, resigned.
Others approached next. The orb answered each with different tones. Brittle hums for shallow potential, deeper resonances for those with more.
A mother comforted her son, voice soft but steady. "It is enough that you are here. Aptitude is not the whole road."
The boy blinked away embarrassment.
Hadrin's jaw eased; "some fires burned small but strong. A mortal could still live well, if not powerful like a cultivator."
Aurella approached.
Dark hair, poised steps. Her storm-gray eyes held a quiet precision, cool but never cruel, eyes that felt as if they peeled truth apart and examined its bones. A stillness moved with her, shaping the air.
Her hands touched the orb.
Five.
Her hair lifted though no wind passed.
Ten.
A thin, glasslike ring trembled around the pedestal.
Fifteen.
Runes brightened in steady strokes.
Seventeen.
A middle B grade.
She stepped back with a pleased, thoughtful smile, and glanced toward the other kids before turning away.
Seryn followed.
Her braid swung lightly, apron embroidered with simple patterns that caught the sun on her brown hair. Her warm, hazy brown eyes softened everything they settled on. Kindness that made patience feel like strength. She pressed her hands to the orb with a shy smile; a faint scent of warm spices clung to her.
The relic answered gently.
Five.
Soft glow rolled across her arms.
Ten.
Her shoulders stiffened, then eased.
C grade
A low C grade.
She exhaled, satisfied. But her father didn't seem too pleased, he had expected better. Averith noted the score, though her eyes drifted toward the next name with a flicker of unease.
Kaelric stepped forward.
Taller than most. Pale, sharp features softened only by the scar on his cheek. He neither bowed nor strutted. He moved like someone who expected the world to reveal its flaws if he pressed hard enough.
The forest seemed to lean closer.
The orb reacted before he touched it, a quickening pulse, as if it had recognized an old debt.
Light climbed the pedestal. Runes smoldered. Sunlight shifted sharply, scattering across the stones.
One.
Five.
Ten.
Each breath felt like a stone sinking deeper through cold water.
Parents fell silent.
The metallic tang in the air thickened.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
The orb's glow condensed into a halo. A faint ringing emerged, thin, then doubled, two rhythms discordant.
Kaelric felt it answering him… and answering something else beneath his ribs.
A drumming rose in his chest. Soft at first, then pressing harder, out of rhythm with his breath.
Something beneath his ribs was moving, not violently, not painfully, but insistently, as though it had been waiting for this moment and found the signal imprecise.
It did not feel like fear. Nor like pain.
It felt like pressure remembering itself.
Averith's quill hovered mid-air. She saw it then, a second cadence under his aura, faint but wrong. Then it was gone as quickly as it came.
Hadrin unfolded his arms.
Thalen's lips thinned.
Twenty-five.
Twenty-six.
Pressure coiled beneath Kaelric's ribs, tightening past what the orb seemed built to receive. The space inside him constricted, then tore open in a sharp, breathless release, as if something had forced its way through a gate not meant for it.
The rhythm fractured.
The orb's glow wavered.
"Strange," he registered distantly. "It should not have ended like this."
Twenty-seven.
He withdrew his hands
The orb dimmed reluctantly.
He felt a sharp pang around him, like a signal sent. He turned to look at the others, only seeing their awed and frightened expressions
"In my mind" he muttered "I need to calm down."
The forest breathed again, slowly.
A grade.
A high A-grade, unheard of since Thalen's son, who died years ago.
A hush fell.
Some parents pulled their children closer.
Others stood rigid, awe battling fear.
A girl whispered, "Is he blessed… or cursed?"
Her mother shushed her, trembling.
Aurella's eyes narrowed in thought.
Seryn's hands clasped together, uncertain, worried.
Averith met Thalen's gaze, unspoken danger in her expression.
Thalen felt an old fear stir, the kind he thought age had killed.
After the clearing emptied, Thalen approached Kaelric.
Averith examined the boy first. She asked him to sit; her voice was gentle, almost sisterly. Kaelric obeyed. Cool, silent, watching.
He tried to focus inward, to isolate the pressure coiled beneath his ribs.
What answered him was not clarity, but resistance.
A pale knot of light stirred there, translucent and cold, its edges indistinct, pulsing with a faint frost-blue hue that bled into the surrounding darkness. It did not settle when he noticed it. If anything, it pulsed harder, indifferent to his attention.
He had the unsettling sense that it was not revealing itself so much as tolerating his glance.
Perhaps it could hide itself.
Or perhaps it simply did not know that it should.
When Averith placed her hand over his chest, her eyes widened, just a flicker, before she bowed her head and whispered to Thalen:
"Dark-path natural attainment.
Absurdly high. Dangerous."
Thalen dismissed her softly, then faced Kaelric with the weight of decades.
"You will hear the truth from me," he said, voice low. "And you must never speak of this. Not to your friends. Not to your teachers. Not to anyone."
"If Irondusk or any rival learns of something strange, they will call us corrupted. Do you understand?"
Kaelric bowed. "I understand,"
But his inner voice sharpened:
When Thalen spoke only of his dark-path attainment, Kaelric felt a quiet loosening in his chest, a breath released before he realized he had been holding it.
"They noticed something," he thought. "But not enough."
The conclusion followed, not with satisfaction, but necessity.
If they cannot see it yet, that buys time.
Time was not safety.
But it was something.
He stepped away. This... second sphere coiled like a blade beneath his ribs.
Parents watched him pass, some with awe, some with fear, some whispering prayers.
Orven's stare followed him, cold calculation.
Hadrin straightened, posture sharpening unconsciously.
Averith smoothed her scroll, knuckles white.
The town resumed its small noises, creaking carts, barking dogs, distant calls. But the clearing seemed to hold the memory of that pulse.
So how did Kaelric's aperture awaken before his full potential? He could have taken more breaths? Why did that sphere awaken it early?
Later, Kaelric would insist the forest had simply shifted. The sphere under his ribs would pulse patiently, waiting for a command he did not yet have language for.
Later would be enough.
And later was the word he used like a scalpel.