The walk back to Maplewood was quiet, filled with the rustle of autumn leaves and the distant call of crows. Silver's leg throbbed with each step, the makeshift bandage already stained dark. Elara walked beside him, her usual chatter subdued, while Kael trailed a few paces behind, his gray eyes thoughtful.
"You should see the village healer," Elara finally said, breaking the silence. "Rat bites can fester."
"Aunt Mara has poultices," Silver replied, though his mind wasn't on the wound. It was on the heat that had flooded his left eye, the sudden surge of predatory instinct, the way the world had shifted into shades of shadow and pulse. "I'll be fine."
Kael moved up to walk alongside them. "That was no ordinary combat reflex," he said, his voice low and measured. "The ocular change, the physiological enhancement—I observed a forty percent increase in your swing velocity and a sixty percent increase in reaction time. These are not within normal human parameters."
Silver glanced at him. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you exhibited traits consistent with documented cases of latent magical heritage or... other planar influences." Kael adjusted the strap of his spellbook. "The black iris with a vertical golden pupil is particularly distinctive. It's mentioned in bestiaries describing certain demonic subspecies."
Elara shot Kael a sharp look. "He's not a demon."
"I'm not suggesting he is. I'm suggesting he may have inherited something... unusual." Kael met Silver's gaze. "Do your parents have any known magical lineage?"
"They died when I was a baby. I don't know anything about them." Silver's hand went unconsciously to the pendant he always wore beneath his tunic—a simple silver teardrop on a leather cord, the only thing left with him when Mara found him.
They reached the outskirts of Maplewood as the sun began to dip below the treeline, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple. The Guild Hall's lanterns were already lit. Guild Master Thorne looked up from his ledger as they entered.
"Miller's rats dealt with?" he grunted.
Silver placed the bundle of six rat tails on the counter. "Cleared out."
Thorne counted them, then pushed five silver coins across the worn wood. "Payment. And an extra." He added a small, blue potion vial. "Healing draught. On the house. You look like you need it."
"Thank you," Silver said, surprised.
"Don't thank me. A wounded adventurer is a dead adventurer." Thorne's storm-cloud eyes studied him. "Miller came by an hour ago. Said you moved like nothing he'd ever seen. Got a strange look in your eye, he said."
Silver's throat tightened. "It was just the heat of the moment."
"Maybe." Thorne leaned forward, his voice dropping. "Maplewood's a peaceful place. We like it that way. Whatever you've got stirring in your blood, you keep a lid on it. Understood?"
"Understood."
Outside, the three split ways—Elara to her family's cottage near the mill, Kael to his uncle's house on Scholar's Row, and Silver to the small, cozy home he shared with Mara.
---
Mara was in the garden, harvesting the last of the late-season herbs when Silver arrived. She took one look at his bloodied leg and ushered him inside without a word. In the warm light of the kitchen, she cleaned the wound with practiced efficiency, applied a pungent green poultice that stung then soothed, and wrapped it in fresh linen.
"Rat bite," she murmured, more to herself than to him. "Nasty things. You're lucky it didn't hit the bone."
"Aunt Mara," Silver began hesitantly, watching her face as she worked. "Did my mother... or father... ever have anything unusual about them? Magical, I mean?"
Her hands stilled for a fraction of a second before resuming their work. "Why do you ask?"
"Something happened today. In the cellar. My eye changed color. I felt... stronger. Faster. Different."
Mara tied off the bandage and sat back, her walnut-brown eyes full of a sadness Silver had seen only a handful of times in his life. She wiped her hands on her apron and stood, moving to the hearth where a small, iron-bound chest sat on the mantel. She retrieved a key from around her neck, unlocked it, and pulled out a folded parchment, yellowed with age.
"I hoped you'd never ask," she said quietly, returning to the table. "But I suppose I always knew you would." She unfolded the parchment, revealing elegant, flowing script. "This was with you when you were left at my door."
Silver took the letter, his fingers trembling slightly.
"My dearest Mara,
If you are reading this, then the worst has come to pass, and I have entrusted our son to you. His name is Silver. Protect him. Love him. But know this—he is not entirely of this world. His father was a being of immense power, and I... I am of another kind. Our union was forbidden, and there are those who will seek Silver if they sense what he is.
He may exhibit strange abilities as he grows. Visions. Strength beyond his years. Changes to his form in moments of duress. Do not fear them. They are part of him. But teach him to hide them, for his own safety.
We love him more than life itself, which is why we must leave him. Do not let him seek us. It would mean his death.
Your sister,
Liora"
Silver read the words twice, three times, the letters blurring before his eyes. "Not entirely of this world." "Beings of immense power." "Forbidden union."
"Who were they?" he whispered, the question tearing from somewhere deep in his chest.
"Your mother was my half-sister," Mara said, her voice thick. "We shared a mother, but her father... no one ever met him. She was beautiful, kind, and she could make flowers bloom in dead soil with a touch. She left home when she was young, saying she had to follow her destiny. She returned once, years later, pregnant and terrified. She stayed just long enough to give birth, then vanished with you. A month later, you were on my doorstep with that note."
"And my father?"
"She never spoke of him, except to say he was 'a king in a distant realm.' I thought it was a metaphor." Mara reached across the table, taking Silver's hands in hers. "I swore to protect you, to give you a normal life. But this," she gestured to his leg, to his face, "perhaps a normal life was never possible."
That night, Silver lay awake long after the house fell silent. The moon cast silver bars across his floor through the window slats. He replayed the moment in the cellar—the fear, the heat, the transformation. He thought of the letter, of parents who were "not of this world," of a father who was a king and a mother who could make flowers bloom.
He slipped the silver teardrop pendant from beneath his tunic, holding it up in the moonlight. For the first time, he noticed infinitesimal markings etched into the metal—swirling symbols that seemed to shift if he stared at them too long. A key? A seal? A warning?
A soft knock came at his door.
"Come in," he said, sitting up.
Mara entered, holding a small, cloth-wrapped bundle. "I should have given you this years ago," she said, placing it in his hands.
He unfolded the cloth to reveal a sheathed dagger. The hilt was wrapped in black leather, the pommel set with a single, milky moonstone. He drew the blade—it was dark, almost black, and seemed to drink the moonlight rather than reflect it. Along the fuller, faint silver runes glimmered.
"This was your mother's," Mara said. "She left it with you. I hid it, thinking it might draw attention. But if you're to be an adventurer... you should have it."
Silver tested the balance. It was perfect, as if made for his hand. "Thank you."
Mara cupped his cheek, her eyes glistening. "Whatever path you walk, whatever you discover about yourself, remember this is your home. You are my son in every way that matters."
After she left, Silver dressed quietly, strapping the new dagger to his belt beside his sword. He slipped out into the cool night, drawn by a restlessness he couldn't name.
Maplewood slept, but the forest beyond its borders did not. Silver walked the familiar path to the Glimmerfall, a small waterfall where he'd played as a child. The pool beneath it shimmered with phosphorescent algae, casting the clearing in an ethereal blue light.
He knelt at the water's edge, staring at his reflection. The boy who stared back had mismatched hair and eyes that held too many questions. He concentrated, trying to summon the change from the cellar. Nothing happened.
Frustrated, he stood—and froze.
A figure stood across the pool, where no one had been a moment before. It appeared as a young woman woven from moonlight and shadow, her form translucent, her eyes hollow pits of sorrow. She wore tattered robes of a style Silver had never seen, and around her neck hung a broken amulet.
A spirit.
Silver had heard tales—sometimes the unburied dead, or those with unfinished business, lingered near places of natural power. He'd never seen one.
"Can you hear me?" the spirit whispered, her voice like wind through dead leaves.
Silver found his voice. "Yes."
"The seal is breaking," she murmured, drifting closer across the water. "The sleeper in the deep cavern stirs. It hungers for the light of living hearts."
"What seal? What sleeper?"
"Beneath the old ruins, east of the river bend. They dug too deep, the greedy ones. They woke what should have slept." The spirit's form flickered. "It will come for this village next. The quiet ones first. The children."
A cold dread settled in Silver's stomach. "How do I stop it?"
"The heart of the sleeper is a crystal of shadow. Shatter it with light. But beware... it feeds on fear." The spirit began to fade, her form dissolving into mist. "You carry both light and shadow within you, child of two realms. Perhaps that is why I can speak to you. Perhaps that is why you are here."
"Wait! Who are you?"
"Elara," the spirit breathed, her voice barely audible. "My name was Elara..."
Then she was gone.
Silver stood trembling, the spirit's warning echoing in his mind. Elara. The same name as his friend. A coincidence? Or something more?
He knew what he had to do. He couldn't ignore this. But he couldn't do it alone.
As he hurried back toward the village, the first hint of dawn tinged the eastern sky. His path was no longer just about becoming an adventurer. It was about understanding what he was. And about protecting the only home he'd ever known from a threat no one else could see.
The dagger at his belt felt heavier now, not with weight, but with purpose. The strange power in his blood simmered, waiting. And in the depths of the forest to the east, something ancient and hungry began to stir.