Back in the North
The snow had fallen silent again.
Inside the hut, Kalen sat alone before the hearth, staring into cold ash. The fire had died, but the boy did not shiver. He never did.
Eryk hadn't spoken since the figure in the woods. Something had changed in him—fear had nested behind his emerald eyes.
And Kalen…
Kalen had begun to hear things.
Not just whispers.
Not just voices.
But blood.
He could hear it moving—pumping, flowing—within everything alive. He could feel its rhythm, its fear, its history.
And sometimes…
He could touch it.
---
That night, a wounded fox crawled into the clearing. Its leg twisted, bone exposed.
Kalen walked out barefoot into the snow. He looked at the animal.
Its blood was loud. Agonized. Begging for stillness.
He raised a hand.
And the blood inside the fox responded—shifting, tightening, healing.
The bone snapped into place. The wound closed. The fox blinked in confusion and fled.
Inside the hut, the air had changed.
Eryk stared, pale.
> "What did you do?" he whispered.
Kalen's red eyes glowed brighter than ever before.
> "It listened," the child said.
"And I answered."
---
Far above, in the heavens no prayer reached, an ancient presence opened its eyes for the first time in eons.
The stars trembled.
Something long buried in Divine Blood began to stir.
The Watcher Observed
It drifted beyond mortal sight—the Silent Witness, an ancient divine entity without temple or name.
Older than the Three Thrones.
Outside the strands of fate.
It had watched empires rise, children die, gods fall.
But this child—Kalen—was something else.
It did not speak.
It only saw.
Its countless eyes turned slowly toward the earth, toward the broken hut in the north, toward the fire that now danced not by magic, nor aura, nor divine command—
—but by blood.
In the heart of the Silverwoods, the wind did not howl that day.
It whispered.
Soft and low, like the voice of a grieving mother, it passed through the snow-covered trees and over the lonely hut—an old place now marked by magic, memory, and mourning.
Inside, a man sat beside a cold hearth, unmoving.
His name was Eryk Vaelen, once a soldier, once a hunter, once a lover.
Now… just a father.
And barely that.
---
The walls of the cabin bore his desperation.
Carvings. Names. Dates.
A child's height scratched into the frame of the door.
A lock of golden hair sealed in wax.
A woman's voice that still echoed in his dreams.
She had died in blood and beauty, giving birth to the thing that now sat silently on the floor—
Their son.
---
Kalen.
Three winters old.
Red eyes like fire beneath snow.
Skin pale as ash, his hair black like evernigth untouched by the cold.
He rarely cried. Rarely spoke. He only watched. And listened.
There was intelligence in his gaze—too deep, too ancient.
And it frightened Eryk.
Not because Kalen was unnatural.
But because he wasn't.
> "You look like her," Eryk whispered, voice ragged from drink and sleeplessness.
"Your eyes and hair are mine, but the rest… it's all her."
Kalen tilted his head but said nothing.
Eryk stared into the hearth.
It hadn't burned in days. He couldn't remember why.
---
Eryk Was Splintering
Grief has many forms.
His was silence.
Some days, he didn't speak at all.
Some days, he sharpened his axe until the blade gleamed, then left it on the table untouched.
He buried her alone.
He had screamed into the frozen soil when she died, fists bloodied from digging, throat raw from begging the gods who no longer listened.
He had prayed to them all—
To the Three Thrones of Heaven, to the World Tree, to the Hollow Mother.
None answered.
Only the boy had cried.
Only Kalen.
---
That night, the fire lit again.
Not by flint. Not by Eryk.
Kalen had touched the logs.
His fingers glowed faint red, and blood within the old wood pulsed, reacting to something primal.
It burned, hot and clean.
Eryk watched, stunned.
> "How…?"
Kalen looked up.
> "She's cold," the child said.
He pointed to the floorboards beneath the hearth—where her ashes had been buried.
> "She sleeps better when it's warm."
Eryk's heart cracked.
Tears fell from his eyes, but no sob escaped his throat. His body shook, but his hands remained clenched.
He didn't embrace his son.
He didn't thank him.
He just sat there, as if mourning had carved out something vital from his soul and left nothing but a hollow flame.