Chapter 2 – The Bark Beetle King
By mid-day, the sun stood mercilessly above the peaks, a white-hot hammer striking the land again and again. Heat rippled across the red earth, turning the horizon liquid. Even the cicadas had fallen quiet, retreating into shadow as if the light itself had teeth.
Aeloria wiped sweat from her brow and left the open grasslands behind. Her steps slowed as she climbed toward a granite outcrop veined with pale quartz, its surface cool where the sun had not yet claimed it. She pressed her back against the stone and slid down to sit in its shade, grateful for the brief mercy it offered.
The land exhaled.
At first, the whispers were faint—no more than the soft tick of cooling rock and the distant murmur of water far below. Then they grew clearer, threading through her thoughts with a lighter touch than the morning's warning. Curious. Almost playful.
Aeloria closed her eyes. "I'm listening," she murmured, unsure whether she spoke to the land or to herself.
Something moved.
From a narrow crack in the granite, a tiny shape emerged, its body glossy and dark as polished onyx. A bark beetle crawled into the light, its segmented shell catching hints of amber where the sun struck it just right. It paused, antennae twitching, then climbed with surprising confidence onto the toe of her boot.
She held her breath.
The beetle continued upward, its delicate legs tickling her skin as it made its way onto her finger. It stopped there, balanced and steady, as if it had always belonged.
When it spoke, the sound was not truly a voice. It was the tremor of stone dust falling, the whisper of roots pushing through soil.
"You heard the mountain," it said. "Good. Few still listen."
Aeloria's eyes flew open. She stared at the tiny creature perched on her hand, sunlight glinting off its wings.
"And who are you," she asked carefully, "to speak for it?"
The beetle tilted its head, as though amused.
"I am King Motharu," it replied, "ruler of what lies between root and rock. The smallest things often carry the oldest truths."
A chill ran through her, despite the heat. Her grandmother's stories stirred awake in her memory—tales told by firelight of creatures no one saw anymore, guardians overlooked because they were too small, too quiet, too strange.
"The Bark Beetle King," Aeloria whispered. "My grandmother said you carved paths beneath mountains and whispered warnings into trees."
"Stories fade," Motharu said softly, "when hearts grow loud with fear."
Aeloria swallowed. "Why come to me?"
The beetle's wings fluttered once, slow and deliberate. "Because the Highlands have chosen you, daughter of the farm. Because you still kneel when the earth speaks."
The air grew heavier. The playful tone vanished, replaced by something older and sharper.
"Dark ones come from beyond the ridge," Motharu continued. "Men with iron in their hands and hunger in their eyes."
"The poachers," she said, the word bitter on her tongue.
"Yes," the beetle replied. "And not all of them are men."
Aeloria frowned. "What do you mean?"
"The skies are not loyal," Motharu said. "The eagles listen to other masters now."
Her gaze lifted instinctively to the open blue above the peaks. She had always trusted the birds. They were watchers, messengers, keepers of the high places. The thought of them bending to darker wills tightened something in her chest.
"What must I do?" she asked.
The beetle spread his wings, and for a moment they caught the sunlight like molten glass, glowing gold and amber and deep rust. The sight was so beautiful it stole her breath.
"When the night calls," Motharu said, "follow the sound of stone singing. There you will find allies—creatures of horn and hoof who remember their oaths."
"Horn and hoof," Aeloria repeated. The waterbuck. The old herds. The ones her father said were growing scarce.
"Yes," said the king. "They have not forgotten the first promises. Neither must you."
With that, Motharu leapt from her finger and vanished into the crack in the granite, as though he had never been there at all.
The silence that followed was immense.
Aeloria remained still, her hand suspended in the air, her skin tingling where the beetle had stood. Slowly, she lowered it and pressed her palm to her chest, steadying her breath.
When she rose, her legs felt unsteady—but her resolve had hardened.
She stepped out from the shade and scanned the distant ridges. Far beyond the familiar slopes of Monte Highlands, a thin line of smoke curled into the sky, dark against the bright blue. Too straight. Too deliberate.
A warning.
The land had spoken again—not only to caution her, but to send her forward.
Aeloria turned back toward home, the heat no longer pressing so heavily on her shoulders. The Highlands had given her a mission.
And this time, she would not walk it alone.