Ash on the Wind
Dawn tasted of iron and old incense. In the courtyard, hoarfrost mapped the flagstones in oath circles—rings the novices sweep but never step across before the bell speaks. The bell itself hung quiet above the gate, bronze veined pale where the cold bit deepest. They say it doesn't ring so much as choose when to be heard.
Snow drifted across the courtyard in slow spirals, settling on stone worn smooth by centuries of prayer. Caelum stood alone, watching the pale threads of the Veinweave shimmer faintly beneath the frost. They pulsed like veins under skin, beautiful and unsettling. He let his breath fog the air, trying to anchor himself in the silence.
A voice came from behind him. "You've found the quiet corner."
Caelum turned, startled. An older monk was already beside him, broad-shouldered, his robe heavy with snow. A scar cut across his cheek, and his eyes carried the weight of someone who had seen too much. Caelum's chest tightened. He hadn't heard the man approach at all. For someone so large, in snow this deep, there should have been sound. Yet there was nothing. The thought stayed in his head, unspoken.
The monk inclined his head. "Eric," he said simply. "I was the one who carried you here."
Caelum's lips parted, hesitant. "Caelum," he said at last. Just the name.
Eric studied him for a moment, then gave a small nod. "So your memory stirs, at least enough to claim yourself."
"Only the name," Caelum murmured.
"That is more than nothing," Eric replied, his tone neither pressing nor dismissive. He gestured for Caelum to walk with him, and together they paced the courtyard's edge, lanterns swaying above them.
"The hunters of Bellowood found you," Eric said after a pause. "They called for us. You were half-frozen, half-dead. Without them, you would not have lasted the night. Without the sisters here, you would not have lasted the week."
Caelum listened, the words heavy, unfamiliar. "I owe them… and you."
Eric's scar caught the lantern light as he shook his head. "Gratitude is enough. But understand—your origin, whatever it may be, is not for others to know. Not here. Not yet."
Caelum's steps slowed. "Why?"
Eric's voice was quiet, but firm. "Because the world is not kind to mysteries. Keep your silence. It will guard you better than steel."
Caelum lowered his gaze, snow crunching beneath his boots. "Then I will keep it."
Eric placed a hand on his shoulder, heavy and steady. "Good. That silence may save you more than once."
The courtyard fell quiet again, only the snow speaking, and Caelum wondered how a stranger's words could feel both warning and mercy.
He set a hand to the doorpost out of habit and felt it—a thread running from lintel to lintel, the kind of ward you only notice when your skin has learned to listen. "When it tolls," Elira said beside him, cloak snapping, "you will walk through." She didn't explain more. In places like this, explanations come last. Bells come first. Caelum stood at the threshold of the chamber; the weight of the cloak Elira had given him pressing like a second skin. Its wool was coarse, smelling faintly of smoke and cedar, but it held the warmth in. Beyond the open shutters, the world was a blur of white and gray, snow sweeping across the courtyard in long, restless strokes. The wind carried ash from the hearths, mingling with the frost until the air itself seemed torn between fire and ice.
He gripped the edge of the doorframe; fingers stiff from disuse. His body still ached, but the pain had dulled into something he could carry. What he could not carry was the emptiness in his mind. It yawned wider with every step he took, swallowing names, faces, reasons. Only fragments clung like burrs: the weight of two blades across his chest, the hum that crawled through his bones when he touched them, the voice that had said—soft as a prayer—You are one of twelve.
Twelve what? Twelve who? The question gnawed at him like a rat in the dark.
The hall behind him whispered with the sound of distant bells—though no bell had rung. He turned once, half expecting to see Elira in the doorway, her silver hair catching the light like frost fire. But she was gone, leaving only the scent of crushed herbs and the memory of her voice.
He stepped into the courtyard.
The cold struck like a blade. It cut through the cloak, through the skin, down to the marrow. His breath smoked in the air, curling like ghosts. The stones beneath his boots were slick with ice, their runes glimmering faintly as if remembering a time when warmth was law. Above, the sky sagged low and heavy, its color the gray of old iron. No stars. No signs. Only the wind, carrying whispers he could almost understand.
He walked to the center of the yard, where a circle of frost marked the ground. It was perfect—too perfect, as if drawn by a hand that did not tremble. He crouched, tracing the edge with a gloved finger. The cold bit deep, but he did not pull away. Something pulsed beneath the ice, faint and slow, like a heart buried under stone.
A sound broke the silence.
Not the wind. Not the creak of timber. A hum—low, patient, older than the walls around him. It came from the blades strapped across his back. He reached for them without thinking, his fingers closing around the hilts. The hum deepened, threading through his bones, pulling at something inside him that had no name.
And then the bell tolled.
It was not loud. It did not need to be. The sound rolled through the courtyard like a tide, heavy and slow, bending the air, bending him. He sank to one knee before he knew why, his breath tearing from his lungs in a cloud of frost.
The bell tolled again.
And the world changed.
Lessons in Silence
The chamber smelled of ink and iron.
Elira stood at the far end, her hands folded behind her back, her gaze fixed on the scrolls spread across the table. The light from the high windows fell in pale bars, striping the floor like the bars of a cage. Caelum stood in the center, his cloak heavy with melted snow, his breath still ragged from the bell's toll. The swords lay on the table before him, their hilts gleaming like the eyes of beasts that had never learned to sleep.
"Sit," Elira said.
Her voice was calm, but it carried the weight of command. He obeyed, lowering himself onto the bench with a stiffness that was not all pain. She unrolled a scroll, the parchment crackling like dry leaves. Symbols crawled across it—lines and curves that seemed to shift when he tried to follow them, as if the ink itself were alive.
"Do you know what this is?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"It is a binding," she said. "A thread drawn through the Veinweave. Every spell is a knot. Every knot has a cost."
Her fingers traced the lines, slow and deliberate. "The Rite that brought you here cut thirty threads. The world is still bleeding from those cuts. You feel it, don't you?"
He hesitated. Then nodded.
"Good." She looked up, her eyes catching the light like shards of ice. "Because if you cannot feel the weave, you cannot survive what comes next."
She placed a small stone on the table. It was smooth, gray, veined with silver. "Focus," she said. "Not with your eyes. With your breath."
He stared at the stone. Nothing happened.
"Again," she said.
He closed his eyes. Drew in a breath. Let it out slow. The hum of the swords crawled up his spine, threading through his ribs, his skull. He reached for it—not with his hands, but with something deeper. The air thickened. The stone shivered.
"Good," Elira murmured. "Again."
He opened his eyes. The stone was glowing faintly, a pulse of light like a heartbeat.
And for the first time since he woke in this world, Caelum felt something that was not fear.
The Thread Between Shadows
Night draped the hall in velvet silence.
Caelum moved like a ghost, his boots whispering against the stone. The air smelled of wax and old wood, of secrets pressed between pages. Lanterns burned low in their brackets, their flames crouched like tired animals. Shadows pooled in the corners, thick as ink.
He should have been in bed. Elira had said as much. But the questions would not let him sleep. They prowled his mind like wolves, their teeth bright in the dark. One of twelve. What did it mean? Why him? Why now?
He turned a corner and stopped.
Voices. Low, urgent, braided with the hush of secrecy. He pressed himself against the wall, breath shallow, listening.
"…the Concord moves too slowly," a man's voice said. "They think the breach can be mended with words."
"And if it can't?" another replied—a woman, her tone sharp as glass.
"Then the world burns," the man said. "And the stars choose anew."
A pause. Then the scrape of chairs, the rustle of cloaks. Footsteps receded into the dark.
Caelum stepped out, his pulse hammering. The words clung to him like frost. The stars choose anew. He did not know what it meant. But he knew this: whatever path lay ahead, it was already written in threads he could not yet see.
And somewhere in the dark, something watched.
When the Bell Speaks
The courtyard was a wound of white.
Snow lay in drifts against the walls, soft as ash, hiding the scars of old battles. The bell hung above the gate, its bronze skin veined with frost. It did not move. It did not need to. Its silence was heavier than sound.
Caelum stood at the circle's edge, the swords strapped across his back, their weight a promise and a threat. Elira stood beside him, her cloak snapping in the wind, her eyes fixed on the gate.
"When it tolls," she said, "you will walk through."
"What's on the other side?" he asked.
Her gaze did not waver. "The beginning."
The bell tolled.
The sound rolled through the courtyard like thunder slowed to a whisper. The gate shuddered. Light spilled from the seams, gold and cold at once, painting the snow in hues that did not belong to this world.
Caelum stepped forward.
The light touched his face, his hands, his heart. It burned without heat, seared without pain. The hum of the swords rose, threading through his bones, pulling him toward the gate.
He crossed the threshold.
And the world changed.