Dawn came pale and clean, washing last night's embers to chalk. Aurelian woke to the quiet pressure of the mountain—the sense of something older than law listening, but not speaking back. Gust still hummed low in his bones—tamed now, not a bucking thing, but a guardian watching his hands, waiting for a sign.
Fayte stretched his wings in the chill air, each feather ticking softly as it set. Aurelian felt the unfamiliar warmth in his feathers and coat as they leaned together in the morning hush.
"Rajin, may I ask a question?"
The voice was silent, but he felt affirmation.
"Eden said you and the phoenix offered power, yet I feel… normal. Why?"
"A healthy curiosity, Starbriar," Rajin said, approval threading the words. "A sapling must live long enough to sink its roots deep in rich soil before it can bear the weight of snow. Would you not agree?"
"It makes perfect sense." He chuckled softly. "Honestly, I'm relieved. I'm new to this world and still finding my feet. I don't need to slam face-first into the pavement before I've even learned to walk."
Eden stood already, hair braided tight, eyes angled toward the higher ridge. "Eat," she said.
He took the dried meat strips that bled a little sweetness when he chewed them.
"Today, strength meets patience."
"The Dragalian Moose," Aurelian said, and felt the words settle like a weight in his stomach.
Eden dipped her head. "His crown adorns the horizon at first light. He is neither predator nor prey. He is monarch—and he remembers. If you are to carry this mountain, even a little, you must carry a piece of him."
"Both you and Eden call me Starbriar. May I know what that means?"
Rajin was silent for a breath, as if weighing the cleanest truth.
"Look upon thy mother, Starbriar. A regal daughter of the Darkfall, as art thou. Her skin bears the luster of polished ebony, her grace marked by the Noctian line, and her ears—softly tapered—speak of ancient Elven blood."
For the first time, he studied Eden beyond the surface of her role as Keeper.
"Thy complexion is olive rather than ebony, thy ears less keen, yet the eyes are the same—golden, as most Darkfall. She is Echomancer, and thou art Starbriar: a title once given only to the eldest and most learned of her kind, yet thine from birth. It is the shared language between thee—the understanding of the echoes' song—that binds you beyond blood."
Aurelian looked at Fayte. He cocked his head, bright eyes keen, then leaped after the shadows and vanished into the air.
"Ahh…" Aurelian's voice trailed into understanding.
"A mystery in thy thoughts?"
"Not a mystery, but an understanding. I signed a contract that brought me here. Part of it was that I would possess magic—of a quality that reflected the station of my first life."
Eden came to his side and sat. She collected a few pieces of dried meat and cheese, and ate. "You are quiet this morning, Aurelian. Would you feel comfortable talking to me? I know this is all scary and new."
He looked down. Rajin had explained their commonality, but sharing what he was experiencing felt daunting. She wasn't wrong—everything was strange and new—yet she was the only one who seemed to understand what he was going through.
"You notice we haven't seen the qirin this morning?"
"You feel disappointed."
He chuckled. "No. We might see him again—but he's still here." He touched the side of his head.
Eden's arms encircled him, drawing him close. "I share the same bond with Sunir," she whispered.
"The phoenix?"
She nodded, eyes bright. "He watches over me, as yours does you."
"The qirin's name is Rajin," Aurelian said softly.
"Rajin," Eden repeated, the word barely more than a prayer. Her smile held quiet pride. "Then truly, we are mother and son."
They sat arm in arm. Aurelian looked at Fayte while he dashed and played. He dropped his voice low. "Do you think he is ready?"
"He is ready for you to be ready," Eden said. She tipped her chin toward the east. "We will track sign. And when we find him, you will give commands. Say what you mean and say it once. Fayte will listen."
He swallowed. "And if he doesn't?"
"He will. And if it's too much—" She slid a leather thong from her wrist and twined it around two fingers, then snapped it loose. The air made a hollow, resonant sound, like a drum skin flicked. "—I will call Augustus. He will steady the field."
Aurelian knew better than to ask how.
They went up.
The ridge rose in broad shelves, each ledge scored by fall's teeth. Aurelian found signs by the instruction of her fingers—there, bark flayed down to gray, sap dried in gnash-marks that matched no wolf. The trunk bore antler gouges too high for any deer he knew. In a hollow where the wind pooled, a dark patch of earth steamed, sweet with the tang of crushed fern and musk.
"Fresh," Eden murmured. "He passed before dawn."
Fayte took to the air, a blade flashing as he banked. They crested a final shelf, and the world opened into a wide basin of char-scorched grass and scattered black pines. Beyond, a split in the cliff showed an old river's work, a gap where wind walked freely between two worlds. Aurelian didn't need Eden's hand to show him what mattered. The ground itself announced him. Hooves like small anvils had hammered this place into memory.
He heard the moose before he saw it, a low, steady exhale like bellows feeding coals. He stepped out of the screen of pines.
Massive shoulders, a dark wall. Antlers rose in a crown of twisted bone, blade edges grown by storms. Heat-haze rolled from his nostrils; ember-threaded shadow clung to his flanks, lifting when the wind did, settling when it stilled.
Aurelian's vision cooled.
[Scan] Dragalian Moose — Sovereign Beast
Status: Territorial, wary
[Potential Echoform Detected]
Fayte hissed a breath.
"Breathe," Eden said, too soft to be a command but still one. "Remember what you learned. Don't push the air. Show it where to go."
Aurelian rolled his shoulders. "Tell me how to coordinate the attack."
"Say what you see," Eden said. "Say it like stone. He will feel the shape of your intent."
The moose turned. His eyes were not cruel. They were deep, old, and tired of being tested. He lowered his head slightly, not a threat yet, measuring.
"Fayte," Aurelian said, and the ardentis' head snapped toward him. "Harass high. Right eye. Keep him turning. No talons in the face."
Fayte chirred and leapt skyward.
The moose pawed once at the earth. Ash-dust lifted in a faint halo around his hoof. He didn't bellow. He didn't need to. Vermilion scales etched his body, glistening like mirrors in the dim light. Was this what looking at an actual dragon would be like?
Aurelian raised a hand and traced the breath. Gust. He did not direct it toward the moose, but to the surrounding air.
The moose moved first, slow, then not at all. He was there and then he came on, a wall breaking into a speed that shouldn't belong to something that size. The ground said remember me under each hoof strike.
"Fayte—now!" Aurelian snapped.
The ardentis swooped at an angle, slicing past the moose's right side, wingtips shaving a burr of air along the beast's cheek. The moose swung antlers like a scythe and nearly caught him. Fayte vaulted on the gust. Aurelian cut beneath him, Redirect flared, turning a straight drop into a safe hook that left the moose striking empty air.
[Redirect: Successful]
Energy coiled in his palm, and transparent color lashed out, striking the sovereign in his side. The moose shifted. Aurelian whistled once, sharp. Fayte adjusted, and harassed the beast's flanks like a lion attacking a wildebeest.
Aurelian slid right. A measured gust met the joint when the moose's front hoof hit dirt and slipped it half a heartbeat. The angle broke the follow-through of the antler sweep.
"Good," Eden called, voice steady as a plumb line. "Say it again. Don't let him write the dance."
"Fayte—clip the ear, then rise."
Fayte moved as if they had been doing this for seasons. He sketched a harassing blur, talons kept scrupulously out of the moose's eyes but close enough to irritate the nerve in his peripheral. Aurelian stitched the space between these motions with air—Redirect here, feathered pushes there, never the full blow that would tumble the beast and end it wrong. He learned a new grammar, commas to pause a charge, a dash to change a line, a period only when it had to come.
The moose bellowed once, finally. Heat roped from his nostrils and tightened into threads of shadow. He stamped twice, and the ground quivered.
"Care," Eden said, and he heard in it what she didn't waste time to say out loud. He'll break the ground to break your balance.
The moose reared. Forehooves hammered the iron-hard earth and a ring of charred grit jolted into the air. A shockwave rolled knee-high, then chest-high, a dirty wave coming to throw him flat.
"Thou has acquired shockwave."
Aurelian felt the echoes of the attack dancing in his bones. His eyes slammed shut as he forced the new power into stillness. It was not the time to be distracted.
Cushion bled into the dirt, and the rising wave hit it like a fist into wool, breaking without force.
[Effect: Cushion] Impact mitigated
"Fayte, blindside!" Aurelian cried.
Fayte took to the sky at a hard angle, then dropped like a hawk onto the moose's left flank. The moose twisted. Aurelian threw a brief Redirect under Fayte's belly, turned, and he slid around the antlers, reaching with a trilling bark of joy.
The moose threw his head and cast a skein of ember-stitched shadow from his antlers. Thin black threads snagged in the air like cobwebs but carried weight. Fayte clipped one and tumbled, wings windmilling. Aurelian swore, flung Cushion where he predicted the crash, and the young ardentis bounced, skidded, rolled, and came up panting, but a cut scored his wing joint.
"No—stay!" Aurelian shouted, rushing to him. Fayte flared his wings stubbornly, ready to launch. Aurelian pressed his palm to the wound, light flaring hot between his fingers.
[Mend — minor injury healed]
[-8 MP]
The bleeding ceased, feathers knitting. Fayte blinked once, then sprang back into the air with an indignant cry, sharper than before.
"Good," Eden called. "Measured. Support him, or he cannot support you."
Sweat already ran down his temples. His magic bled fast, but so did his certainty. He could do all—buff, shield, and mend, command and protect.
"Reset," Eden called suddenly, not to Aurelian. She pivoted, planted her heel, and flicked her leather thong in a pattern, three small loops and a sharp snap.
The air went hollow.
Something answered from the mist along the top lip of the basin. It did not arrive so much as become visible, like it had been there all along, choosing a moment to be noticed.
Augustus stepped down onto the stones.
He was huge and quiet. The fur along his shoulders drank light like evening does. His horns curled back, then forward again, ending in points that felt as if they remembered lightning. His eyes were embers banked low, not promising warmth, only fire if you fed them wrong.
The moose's head swung. The old sovereign saw the older one and hesitated without shame.
"Witness called," Eden said, voice low. "Not rescuer. Witness. The grove keeps its ledger by eyes like his."
Aurelian swallowed and acknowledged without letting his attention slide to worship. Augustus's regard crossed him like a tide, assessing, not judging, as if adding him up against himself rather than against any standard.
"Continue," Eden said, calm as snow.
They did.
The moose charged again, faster now, as if agreeing that only forward would answer this pressure. Fayte went high, drew left, then veered sharply right on Aurelian's whistle. Aurelian timed the next Redirect late on purpose, learning the angle by almost failing.
The beast reared and twisted its head. Shadow budded from the horns and flung forward. Aurelian pulled too hard on Gust, not shaping a push but spreading it wide, a thin wall of air that bloomed in front of him.
The lance struck.
Air buckled around his makeshift wall and kicked the shadow sideways.
Up it tore and burst six meters overhead in a rain of sparks.
[Improvised Cast: Gust — Air Wall]
Result: Hostile energy redirected
Stability: Failed
The backlash stole his breath. His hands shook. Gust wasn't for that, and it exacted a penalty on him for trying. He stayed on his feet.
Cold and electric echoes of shadow danced down his spine. He sucked in air, sharp with wintergreen sap, and readied again.
"Thou has learned Shadow Bolt."
Pressure narrowed the world. A blade like a arrowhead budded before him. Just him and the hook of an antler, and the knowledge that if he missed this next motion, he would learn what it felt like to be folded in half.
He didn't meet it with force. Strands of air wove through the aether as he set the angle for his spell.
Gust hinged at the moose's shoulder, a brief, precise insistence at the instant hoof struck rock. The shoulder slid a hair outward. The antler missed his head by the thickness of mercy and took a slice from the stone where he had been.
Fear touched his tongue, iron and pine resin smoke.
"Again!" Eden's voice didn't rise. It carried exactly enough.
Fayte's beak rapped the hock, a stinging pinprick that would hum for minutes and make the limb deny perfect obedience. The moose bellowed, and for a moment the sound didn't feel like anger. It felt like—I am old and you are many, and we both deserved better.
"Let him give you the kill," Eden said, almost in his ear though she stood thirty paces away. "Don't take what he doesn't offer."
They closed again, slower now, not letting the fight get small. Aurelian presented himself, spine straight, shadow bolt swirling with energy, not at the throat, at the heart. The moose understood. He snorted, not in derision, not in fear. Agreement.
He came.
Heat slicked the ground, running like a fuse. Augustus stepped forward, horn catching the light. His claws burned, four strokes and a hook cut into the air, fire handwriting itself across the ground. The moose checked, forced wide. No hoof struck.
The ember strokes lifted and curved back into Aurelian's palms. Lines burned into his skin, searing but alive.
Pain bloomed in precise bands, a lattice across his palms. He felt the pattern of Augustus's strike, four strokes and a hook, flame taught to behave. Breath didn't quench it. Breath showed the heat where to lie down.
"Fayte, blind him to my right," he ordered.
Fayte stooped and snapped the moose's vision. Aurelian surged forward, bolt ready to strike. From the snap in its tendons, the moose pranced, and he released the spell. The dark bolt, the beast's own power, buried deep in its chest.
Once, the moose bellowed, short and final. He knelt, a king conceding. Antlers dipped.
"Wait," Eden whispered. "Let him finish speaking."
The moose's eyes found the boys, then Aurelian. His breath sighed. He lowered further, exposing the plate at the throat. Aurelian readied the spell once more and sent it flying clean. It drove deep.
[+175 XP] (267/200)
[Level Up] 1 → 2 | 67/400 to next level
Health: 25 → 26 | Mana: 50 → 52 | Stamina: 20 → 21
STR 8 → 9 | DEX 9 → 10 | VIT 8 → 9 | INT 12 → 13 | WIS 9 → 10 | CHA 8 → 9
Reward: Fire Mote, Sovereign Soul Gem
[Echoform Acquired] Dragalian Moose
Role: Travel Form | Affinity: Shadow/Fire | Passive: Sure-Footed
He felt his body answer that pane. Ethereal energy swirled around him, half-moon blazing on his forehead, antlers as grand as the once-been majesty of the mountain. When he looked down, he saw translucent black energy forming his moose feet.
Fayte shrieked his pride, then pretended he hadn't. Eden stood close, eyes warm. "Now you carry stone in your marrow. Walk like it."
Aurelian touched his ethereal antlers to the moose's brow. "Thank you."
The old sovereign's breath went quiet. They covered his eyes with moss, crowned him with stone, and balanced the account. Augustus stepped forward, touched horn to antlers with a sound like metal, then lowered it to Aurelian's brow. Heat brightened the lattice in his palms, then softened.
"You learn fast. Too fast can make for arrogance. Don't buy it."
"I won't."
"Good. Then remember this. Storms pass, fire consumes. Both have their place. What matters is how you carry them."
Night came, and Fayte curled against him like a comma. The fire burned low. Wind brushed his cheek like a hand again, and under it he felt hooves in ash, antlers against morning, patience that had nothing to prove and everything to allow.
The ridge gave a lesson that offered tomorrow—at least for one of them.