Morning came slower than usual.
Varen sat at the edge of his bed long after waking, elbows resting on his knees, eyes locked on his hands. Nothing about them looked different. But they felt different. Lighter. Sharper. Like something humming just beneath the skin, waiting to be heard.
He flexed his fingers. No sparks. No glow. Just flesh.
But deep inside, there was something new: a quiet tension—not fear, not pain, but the pressure of knowing. He could still feel that pulse from the night before. Still hear that silent word:
Echo.
He whispered it once under his breath.
The floorboard beneath his heel creaked in reply. His breath left him in a short, nervous laugh. He shook it off, pulled on his coat, laced his boots. Same routine. Same layers.
But it wasn’t the same.
Not anymore.
Duskmere stirred with the same groggy rhythm as always—fog drifting low along rooftops, shutters creaking against the wind, boots crunching over frost-slick stone. But as Varen moved through its morning rituals, something shifted.
They looked at him.
Just a little longer than usual. Just enough to notice.
The baker’s boy, always red-faced and too tired to bother with politeness, blinked at him twice when he stepped up to the stall.
“You want the usual?” the boy asked. Then paused. “You look… I dunno. Taller or something.”
Varen was not taller. He said nothing.
The boy shook his head and handed him the wrapped loaf. “Maybe it’s just the coat.”
Two old men by the well stopped mid-conversation as he passed. One of them—Garn, the one who limped from a bad knee and always pretended not to see him—narrowed his eyes.
Varen nodded politely.
Garn didn’t nod back. He tilted his head slightly, and said to no one in particular, “Air feels strange today.”
The woman who usually sold dried fruit hesitated as he approached. She handed him his parcel a little too quickly, fingers brushing his as if by accident. Her hand recoiled a half second too late.
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Her lips thinned. “You feel different, Varen.”
The way she said it wasn’t cruel. Just curious.
“Did you get taller?” she added.
That again.
Varen blinked, took the parcel, and walked away without answering. His breath fogged in the cold—but somehow the air around him didn’t feel quite as cold as it had yesterday.
He made his way to the forge, drawn by habit more than will. The blacksmith was out, again, so Rael stood by the anvil with sleeves rolled high and soot smeared across his cheek.
Varen approached, silent.
Rael noticed. He glanced up, frowned, then looked again.
“You get new boots?” he asked, half-sarcastic.
Varen looked down. Same boots.
Rael squinted. “No. Just… something’s off. You look like you got better sleep than usual. That’s rare for you.”
He turned, grabbed the wrapped blade, and handed it over. “You’re early.”
“I’m always early.”
Rael’s frown deepened.
He leaned in, voice lower. “Alright, what is it? You catch something out near the cliffs? The mist out there’s been heavy. You breathing ghost air?”
“I don’t feel sick,” Varen said carefully.
“You don’t look sick either. That’s the weird part.”
Rael laughed once, short and humorless. “Probably nothing. Still. Just… watch yourself, Drossel. Sometimes strange air makes people start seeing things.”
Varen gave a half-nod and left.
His satchel was full today—three deliveries. One to the reed fields, one to a miner’s cabin up near the ridge, and the last… from the old apothecary, a man named Sern who spoke like he hated being heard.
“Take it to Ferin Hollow,” Sern muttered, his eyes half-glassed with age. “North path. Drop it at the door. No questions. No handling it, neither.”
He handed Varen a small cloth-wrapped bundle tied with black thread. It was light, cool to the touch, and something about it buzzed faintly in the back of Varen’s teeth.
He tucked it away, nodded, and said nothing.
By midday, the sun had burned the mist thin, and he was halfway to the Hollow when it started.
A sensation. Not heat. Not sound.
Pressure.
Like a thread pulling tight in his chest, in sync with his heartbeat.
He slowed. Unbuckled the satchel. The bundle inside—Sern’s parcel—was vibrating gently. Not shaking. Not rattling.
Humming.
Varen pulled it free.
The black thread that tied it unraveled on its own, curling mid-air like smoke caught in a breeze. His breath caught.
The cloth fluttered, and beneath it—a glyph flared to life. Glowing, green-gold, marked in shapes only meant to awaken when touched by resonance.
“No,” he breathed.
The glyph shimmered again, brighter this time.
It was reacting to him.
Only someone with active Auralith should’ve been able to trigger it. Only a trained hand, a House bloodline, someone who had awakened.
Not him.
The parcel floated a full inch off his palm—defying gravity—then gently lowered itself again, the glyph fading.
He dropped it.
The cloth struck the grass and lay still, dim once more.
He looked at his hand.
Then at the parcel.
Then—at the woods around him.
Nothing moved. But something watched. He felt it.
He crouched, hands still trembling, and carefully rewrapped the cloth. His fingers felt too warm, like they’d held fire. He double-knotted the thread. Tighter than before.
No one could know.
Not yet.
He stuffed it into the deepest pocket of the satchel, cinched the flap, and stood up with a new kind of dread crawling in his ribs.
He wasn’t supposed to change. Not now. Not after all this time.
And yet—
He had.
