The dark sky hung heavy with clouds. Every star was veiled, and rain poured ceaselessly upon the Land of Ostland. The night was thick and long, soaked through with thunder's growl. Most of the houses lay drowned in darkness, their lamps long extinguished—save for one distant western mansion, whose single light yet burned.
Within that chamber, the air was stifling. It was crowded with maids, thick with the copper tang of blood, the sour scent of sweat, and the restless shifting of feet on wet floorboards. Shadows danced against the walls, drawn by the flicker of candles guttering in their sconces.
"Keep breathing, my Lady," urged one of the servants, clutching her mistress's hand in desperate encouragement.
"Ahh—ah!" A scream tore from the Lady's throat, raw and sharp as glass. Her face was pale, her hair damp against her brow, her breath shallow. The storm outside howled as though echoing her cries.
Outside the chamber, the Marquess himself paced the corridor, fingers tightening against each rumble of thunder. Every cry from behind the door made him stiffen; every silence made him fear the worst. He had waited for this moment for years, and now that it had come, he could do nothing but stand powerless in the flickering dark.
Hours passed in struggle—moans and murmurs, orders hissed and prayers whispered—until silence fell. It was a silence so complete that every maid held her breath, eyes drawn to the figure at the foot of the bed.
The old woman, whom they called the Midwife, moved with steady hands. Dressed all in white, her face half-hidden behind a linen mask, she seemed a phantom of ritual rather than flesh. Beneath the thin silk sheet she worked, and the Lady in the twilight of her forties, trembling, lay half-upright, eyes glassy with exhaustion.
For a heartbeat, no one dared move.
Then—at last—a sound split the stillness.
"Uwah! Uwah! Uwah!"
The chamber flooded with jubilation when a loud, mournful wail pierced the entire mansion.
A cry coming from a tiny human.
Outside, the Marquess closed his eyes and exhaled a long, trembling breath—half relief, half prayer—before entering to meet the child he had feared he would never see.
And so, on the fourth of April, the heir of the Marquess's household was born. The babe was given the name Heal Hazem, after the day and month of his birth—a name chosen in haste but destined to linger on the lips of generations. That same night, a tempest broke across the skies—a downpour in the midst of drought. To the people of Ostland, it was a sign.
A child born beneath storm and tempest shall grow strong, the priests declared. He shall be blessed with vigour, generosity, and the spirit of heroes.
By dawn, news of a Storm Baby suddenly arose, circulated within a day from the highland estates to the market roads, and tongues whispered of omens and prophecy.
The Land of Ostland was vast and affluent—a kingdom rich in ore and grain, its ports a lifeline of the western seas. Yet of all its noble houses, none stood higher than the Marquess of the Hesperian Welsh Marches. The family's influence stretched far beyond mere inheritance or taxation, but also through their investment in business and industry. Their trade fleets tied nations together, and their coin flowed through guilds and ports from Rhovar to Aglar.
To the common folk, they were the stewards of prosperity. To the lesser nobles, they were a force to appease. And now, with the Marquess's long-awaited heir born beneath thunder and rain, the people rejoiced as though fortune itself had been reborn in human form.
Yet in Ostland, fortune often walked hand in hand with peril.
Seasons came and went, and the manor's halls echoed with stories of that storm-born child. Servants spoke of his quiet eyes, his strange attentiveness, and the way he watched the world not like a child absorbing it—but like one studying its pieces.
But before the Storm Baby became a symbol, before titles and expectations shaped his every step, there was a quieter chapter known only to the household walls.
In those early years, the Mansion housed only two children—Heal Hazem, the heir.
And Jasver, the younger son of Mrs Kysa, one of the household's most trusted keepers and once a nanny to Heal himself.
The boys grew like twin shadows across the estate. Heal walked with strange, deliberate eyes; Jasver trotted beside him with an exasperation far too old for his age. Where Heal wandered, Jasver followed—sometimes willingly, more often out of sheer fear that his young lord would fall into a fountain or start dismantling a suit of armour "to see how it worked."
Heal was different from the other noble children who visited the Mansion. He was quiet, thoughtful, drawn not to toys or sweets but to oddities—unusual stones, strange birds, the sound of metal humming in the wind. The servants whispered that he had an uncanny sense for things "out of place," though no one could agree on what that meant.
One spring afternoon, the two wandered past the orchard and slipped into the forest edge. Jasver knew immediately that this was beyond the allowed grounds.
"Heal," he hissed, pushing aside branches, "your mum's going to have both our hides."
"I said we won't be long," Heal replied without looking back.
Jasver quickened his pace. "You always say that."
Heal stopped.
A faint blue glow pulsed between the ferns—slow, steady, like breathing. He crouched, brushing aside leaves to reveal a shard of crystal half-buried in the earth.
"It's humming," Heal whispered.
"Rocks don't hum," Jasver protested, though he leaned closer despite himself.
"This one does."
Heal lifted it. The shard was ice-cold, but the air around it felt strangely heavy, almost vibrating. Unsettling. Alive.
Something inside Heal tightened—a strange recognition he could not name. As though the world's breath shifted when his fingers closed around the crystal.
"We should leave it," Jasver urged, rubbing his arms.
"I'm keeping it."
"Heal—"
"It's calling," Heal said simply.
Jasver looked horrified. "Stones don't call!"
Heal's gaze stayed fixed on the crystal, solemn and unblinking, as if he understood something Jasver did not—or as if something understood him.
They headed back through the trees.
But as they approached the manor grounds, both froze.
Maids and house guards scattered across the lawn in a frantic search. Mrs Kysa stood near the steps, pale as linen, wringing her hands to pieces.
The Lady Marchioness nearly collapsed when she saw her son.
"Heal Hazem! Saints above, where—"
Mrs Kysa rushed forward, dropping into a deep bow and pulling Jasver down with her.
"My Lady—my most humble apologies. I should have watched him—please forgive us—"
Jasver swallowed. "My Lady, I swear it wasn't him—I just—"
"To both of you," she said sharply, "no wandering beyond the veranda. Not ever again."
Only then did she notice Heal hiding the blue shard behind his back.
"What are you holding?"
Heal froze. "A rock."
"You will throw it away."
But that night, long after the manor quieted, Jasver slipped into Heal's small chamber.
Heal sat cross-legged on the floor, threading a thin cord through the crystal.
"You're going to get scolded again," Jasver whispered.
"Probably."
"Why'd you keep it?"
"Because it feels… different." He paused, fingers tightening on the shard. "Like it came from somewhere else."
"That sounds bad," Jasver muttered.
"It didn't feel bad," Heal said softly. "It felt like it was meant to be found."
He tied the cord and held the makeshift pendant toward Jasver.
"For you."
"Me? Why?"
"You didn't tell," Heal said. "And you were scared too."
Jasver's ears reddened as he took it. He clutched the crystal awkwardly, then held it to his chest with unexpected care. He wouldn't take it off again for years.
Heal rested back on his hands, gaze drifting to the moonlit window. A quiet breeze brushed the curtains, and for a fleeting moment, the crystal hummed again—a resonance only he seemed to notice.
The boys would never speak of the crystal to anyone else.
Not the fear of being found.
Not the strange cold it carried.
Not even the quiet hum that Heal alone seemed able to sense in the stillness of certain nights.
Life in the Mansion resumed soon enough—lessons, patrols, and the steady rhythm of noble routine. Yet a subtle current lingered beneath the calm. The servants often found Heal pausing mid-stride to listen to things no one else heard, or staring a few moments too long at places where the air felt heavier, stranger. As though he recognised something the rest of the world overlooked.
Jasver, meanwhile, kept the blue crystal hidden beneath his tunic, tucked close to his heart. He told himself it was simply a childhood token, yet whenever he removed it—even for a moment—he felt inexplicably uneasy, as if letting go of a promise he didn't know how to voice.
The two children grew side by side—one quiet and perceptive, the other loud and steadfast. Together they wandered the halls, the gardens, the training yard, their presence a familiar sight to every maid and guard.
But time does what it always does.
Their steps grew longer. Their voices are deeper. And the world began to expect more from the storm-born child.
Soon, even childhood itself became a memory carried in silence.
Years passed.
By the time both boys crossed the boundary from childhood into youth, the manor had already begun shaping them in different ways. Expectations gathered like storm clouds around Heal, while Jasver's path wound silently beside him, steady as a shadow. But whatever else changed, one truth remained constant: Heal seldom acted without reason, and Jasver seldom left him to face anything alone.
And it was on a night governed by such silent understandings that everything shifted.