The Breath of Warmth
The first thing Caelum felt was warmth.
It seeped into him slowly, like ink through paper, chasing the frost from his bones. For a long moment he lay still, afraid that if he moved, the warmth would vanish and the cold would come rushing back.
He opened his eyes.
Light spilled across a timbered ceiling, soft and golden, broken by the slow sway of a lantern. Shadows curled in the corners like sleeping cats. The air smelled of cedar smoke and crushed herbs, sharp enough to cut through the fog in his head.
Warmth came first—the cedar‑smoke kind that settles in timber and prayer books. Light pooled along a lintel carved with bead‑sized sigils: breath‑runes the sisters traced at dawn to coax heat from stubborn stones. When he tried to sit, pain raised its hand; he listened.
A sound stirred nearby: the whisper of cloth, the clink of glass. A figure moved into view, haloed by the glow of a hearth. She was tall, her hair a spill of silver fire braided down one shoulder, her robe the color of midnight frost. Her hands were bare, long-fingered, steady as they arranged vials on a low table.
When she turned, her eyes caught the light. They were not cold, though they held the stillness of deep water.
The woman who crossed the room carried apothecary glass and a steadiness honed by too many winters. Silver fire braided down one shoulder; the robe marked her Order of the Crystal Flame—not court mages with their proud discs, but healers who never stopped counting how many breaths a body could afford.
"You're awake," she said. Her voice was soft, but it carried the weight of someone used to being heard.
Caelum tried to answer. The sound that came out was a rasp, dry as old parchment. She crossed the room before he could try again, kneeling beside the bed with a cup in her hand.
"Slowly," she said, and the word itself moved like a blessing. Ether touched water. Mint and something older climbed his throat and melted there.
When the cup was empty, she eased him back against the pillows.
"You'll feel heavy for a while," she said, setting the cup aside. "Ether does that when it's mending what the world tried to take."
Ether. The word snagged in his mind like a hook. He wanted to ask what she meant, but his tongue felt thick, his thoughts heavier still.
The woman—Elira, though he did not know her name yet—smoothed the blanket over him with a gesture that was almost tender. Then she rose, moving with the quiet grace of someone who had learned long ago how to keep her steps from waking the wounded.
Beyond the walls, a bell tolled once, low and distant, its note trembling through the floorboards like a breath held too long.
Caelum closed his eyes, not because he wanted to, but because the weight of warmth and exhaustion dragged him under again.
And in the dark behind his lids, the bell kept ringing.
When he woke again, the light had changed.
It slanted through a narrow window now, pale and cold, painting the floor in bars of silver. The fire had burned low, but the room still held its warmth, clinging like a promise.
Elira sat in a chair by the hearth, a book open on her lap. She looked up when he stirred, closing the book with a soft thud.
"How much do you remember?" she asked.
Her voice was calm, but there was something beneath it—a thread drawn tight, humming with questions she did not speak.
Caelum searched the fog in his head. He found fragments: snow, steel, a sky full of burning signs. The weight of two blades across his chest. The taste of blood.
"Nothing," he said, though the word scraped his throat raw.
Her gaze lingered on him, steady as a blade laid flat. "Not even your name?"
He shook his head. The motion sent a ripple of pain through his skull.
She rose, crossing to the table where vials glimmered like trapped rain. "Memory loss isn't rare after a fall like yours," she said, her tone almost gentle. "But some things… they don't leave so easily."
She turned, holding something in her hand. His swords.
They gleamed in the dim light, one pale as frost, the other black as a starless sky. Even sheathed, they seemed to hum, a sound too low for ears, felt more than heard.
"These were with you," she said, setting them on the bed beside him. "Do they speak to you?"
He stared at them. The hum crawled up his bones, familiar and foreign all at once. His fingers twitched, aching to close around the hilts.
"I don't know," he whispered.
Elira studied him for a long moment, then nodded as if that answer was enough. She drew the blanket higher over his chest.
"Rest," she said. "There will be time for questions later."
But her eyes told him the questions had already begun.
The Weight of Twelve
Night came softly, on feet of snow.
The fire burned low, throwing long shadows across the walls. Caelum lay awake, listening to the hush of the wind beyond the shutters, the slow tick of cooling iron. His body ached less now, but the emptiness in his mind yawned wider with every breath.
He turned his head. Elira sat by the window, her face silvered by moonlight. She seemed carved from stillness, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze fixed on something far beyond the glass.
When she spoke, her voice was barely more than a breath.
"You are one of twelve."
The words fell into the quiet like stones into deep water, sending ripples he could not see but felt all the same.
Before he could ask what, she meant, the bell tolled again—soft, distant, and full of promise.
And the dark closed over him like a tide.
The bell's echo faded into the rafters, leaving the chamber hushed. Elira stood by the hearth, her silver‑braided hair catching the glow, when a monk entered—robes dark with melted snow, his face shadowed by the lantern's swing.
"Elira," he said quietly, bowing his head. "The boy stirs. But the matter of his arrival… it cannot be spoken of lightly."
She folded her hands. "I know. He fell from the sky, carried by signs none of us can name. The hunter who found him has already asked for silence."
The monk's brow furrowed. "And payment. Hunters do not risk storms for charity. He demands coin, and more—assurance that his part in this remains hidden."
Elira's gaze lingered on the swords resting near Caelum's bed. "He will be paid. Generously. But secrecy is worth more than gold. If word spreads that a child of the heavens lies under our roof, the Concord will come. And with them, questions we cannot answer."
The monk stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Then it is agreed? Only three shall know—the hunter, you, and I?"
"Yes," she said firmly. "The boy's origin must remain sealed. Even the sisters of the Flame will hear only that he was found wounded, nothing more."
The monk hesitated, then nodded. "But secrets weigh heavy. What if the boy himself remembers?"
Elira's eyes softened. "Then we guide him gently. Memory is a river; it may choose its own course. Until it does, we guard the banks."
The monk exhaled, relief mingled with unease. "Very well. I will see the hunter receives his due. And I will keep my tongue bound."
Elira turned back to the fire, its embers whispering like old vows. "Let it be so. For now, the boy belongs to silence."
Elira's voice carried softly through the chamber. "Send for a healer. Our hands have done all they can with ether and prayer."
Eric, the elder monk, inclined his head. "Agreed. Magic has its limits. The boy needs care beyond our rites. One of the sisters should be assigned to him—someone we trust."
Elira's silver‑braided hair caught the lantern light as she nodded. "Yes. Sister Miriam. Her hands are steady, and her silence is stronger than most vows."
Before Eric could reply, the door creaked open. A younger monk stumbled inside, snow clinging to his robe, his face grim with the stench of bad news. He bowed quickly, breath clouding in the cold.
"On my way from Bellowoods," he said, voice tight, "I passed travelling merchants. They spoke of raids—villages struck not by men, but by goblins. A horde, they claimed, sweeping through the forest paths."
Eric's eyes narrowed. "Merchants speak of demons in the woods and miracle cures to reverse age. Their tongues are quick, their tales quicker. Do not mistake stories for truth."
The young monk shook his head, urgency sharpening his words. "I tell you what they told me. And they swore it was no tale. Smoke on the horizon, families fleeing. Goblins, not shadows."
Eric raised a hand, cutting him off. "Enough. If goblins trouble the roads, they are nothing the local hunters cannot handle. Do not dress them in demon's robes. Fear makes monsters larger than they are."
The boy's jaw tightened, but he fell silent.
Elira, who had listened without interruption, finally spoke. Her voice was calm, but it carried the weight of command. "Go. Help Sister Miriam prepare for the boy. Leave the matter of goblins to those who walk the forests."
The young monk bowed, though unease lingered in his eyes. He turned and left, his footsteps echoing against the stone.
Eric exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Merchants and their tales. If we chased every rumour, the sanctuary would never sleep."
Elira's gaze lingered on the door. "Perhaps. But sometimes even rumours carry a shadow of truth."
The fire cracked, sending sparks into the silence.
Eric's voice was low, steady, but edged with unease. "Yes, you are right, Priestess. If what the boy says is true, then we must keep our eyes close on the horizon. Storms do not always announce themselves with thunder."
Elira's gaze lingered on the fire, its embers pulsing like hidden warnings. "Then I shall write to an old friend of mine. She has weathered darker nights than these. I will leave the matter in her hands."
Eric inclined his head. "A wise choice. Better to trust one who knows the forest's silence than to chase merchants' tales."
The chamber fell quiet, the bell's last toll still trembling in the stone. Outside, snow pressed against the shutters, muffling the world into calm.
But far from the sanctuary's warmth, calmness had no place.
Across the Reach, a village burned. Flames licked timbered roofs, turning prayers into smoke. Roads ran red, the snow melting into rivers of blood. Bodies lay in pieces, scattered like broken offerings.
A horde of goblins marched through the wreckage, their shrieks cutting the night like rusted blades. Each village they touched fed their numbers—like rot spreading through wood, fast and merciless. The dead were fortunate; their suffering ended in fire and steel.
The prisoners were not.
Dragged in chains, they stumbled through ash and snow, eyes wide with terror. The goblins jeered, their claws slick, their teeth gnashing in hunger. Some prisoners were beaten until silence claimed them. Others were herded into pits where shadows writhed, waiting.
One woman screamed until her voice broke. The goblins laughed, a sound too sharp, too eager, echoing like mockery in the burning streets.
The flames rose higher, painting the sky in a sickly orange. Smoke curled into shapes that seemed to watch, to listen, to hunger.
And in the heart of the ruin, the goblin chieftain raised a spear crowned with bone. His eyes gleamed with a feral light, reflecting the fire as if it were his own.
He turned toward the horizon, toward the sanctuary that still slept in silence.
The prisoners saw his smile.
It was not joy. It was promise.
And in that promise, horror walked.