Twelve years before wolves howled in the dungeon’s forest and a boy hid in a tree, two children were about to be born beneath different skies.
Far to the west, where forests breathe in silence and caste is law, a girl was about to be born beneath a great elven tree—in a house carved from soil and bark.
Far to the north, where stone holds the last heat of broken forges, a boy’s first breath drew near—beneath a roof already beginning to crack under the weight of war.
All three were born in the same season.
One has already stepped into legend.
Now we turn to the others—
Who, though shown from the very beginning, will stand beside him by the end.
Three children.
All twelve when their journey truly starts.
One will emerge—the first human to survive a dungeon in ten thousand years.
One will rise—the first dwarf with two skills since the First King of Karr-Galdran, four hundred thirty thousand years ago.
The other will awaken—the first half-fae, half-elf born in over eight hundred thousand years.
One to prove his people’s worth.
One to save his civilization.
One to break hers.
******
Interlude Part 1 The great elven city of Sylthelenar
The storm dragged itself across Sylthelenar in slow, stuttering breaths. Rain hammered the bridges, made the vinepaths slick and dangerous, turned the upper leaves into drums. Somewhere near the temple, a lightning fork split open the sky—and above it, beyond the clouds, the stars began to move.
In the Hollowborn tunnels far below, Siraen's mother screamed.
High above, where no Hollowborn ever walked, the Temple of Aelira stood still beneath the storm.
No bells rang. No wind moved the lantern threads. But the stars—
—the stars began to slide.
In the observatory spire even higher still, wrapped in goldlight and breathwoven glass, a Silvermarked priest dropped his quill. Ink bloomed across the edge of his chart.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
It had moved.
Not much. A fraction. But enough.
One star dimmed. Another flared.
The thread, once straight, curled slightly at the edge—like the beginning of a spiral.
“The ink of heaven,” whispered the first priest, voice dry as bark, “has moved.”
The priest stepped back from the glass. His voice barely rose above the storm’s breath.
“It has not moved in eight hundred thousand years.”
Behind him, the second didn’t answer. He was already walking—quick steps over the prayerglass, down toward the inner sanctum. To send the summons.
The King and Queen were to be notified.
***
The Queen was already awake when the summons came. She stood alone in her tower chamber, watching the rain trace silent rivers down the glassleaf windows. Her eyes never left the storm, even as the priest bowed behind her.
“The stars have shifted,” he said.
No one had spoken that sentence in eight hundred thousand years.
By the time she reached the sanctum, the King was already there—robed, unreadable, pacing slow behind the reflection pool.
The high priest unrolled the chart with shaking hands.
“This matches the verse. The one they said—”
“Seal it,” the King cut in.
The priest faltered. “But—”
“Seal it,” he repeated, sharper now. “Speak no further. Not to your scribes. Not to your kin. This is not a prophecy—it is a fluke.”
The Queen said nothing at first.
Then, softly, she asked, “What if it’s not?”
The King turned to her. And for the first time in years, he looked like he didn’t know what to say.
***
Below the roots, the storm was just water.
It leaked through the barkstrung ceilings, hissed into the firepit, soaked the cloth mats where the midwife knelt. Siraen's mother gripped the edge of the stone basin, jaw clenched, breath coming sharp and fast.
Her father crouched beside her, holding her hand—his other fist pressed tight against his own thigh. Not from fear. From reverence.
The moment she arrived, the midwife whispered a word he hadn’t heard in years: clean.
No blood. No cries. Just a girl with silver-dark eyes and pale fingers curled like she’d grasped something on the way down and let it go just before arriving.
They wrapped her in mosscloth. Held her close.
And somewhere down the corridor, one of the ward-keepers bowed—not to her, but to the air around her.
“She didn’t cry,” the midwife said again, quieter now. “She just… looked at me.”
They left the birthing ward slowly, Siraen bundled in mosscloth, her breath steady, her fingers still curled.
The tunnels pressed close around them. No windows here—only pulsing rootveins and the faint glow of water-fed lamps swaying from low ceilings. The air smelled of warm ash and burned lichen. Somewhere ahead, someone was boiling fungus broth—sharp and sour, the smell of dinner or sickness depending on the day.
They passed other Hollowborn. No one spoke.
One elder nodded, eyes lingering too long on Siraen's face. Another stepped aside entirely, as if clearing the way for something larger than them.
Neither parent noticed.
They were watching the light above—just faint glimmers from the higher bridges, filtered through centuries of bark and stone. The great city of Sylthelenar towered above them: wind-song courts, skybridges, garden-crowned spires.
But from down here, it was just… ceiling. And weight.
Their home was two turns down, built low into the roots of an old ashgrove. Mud-packed walls, a door of stripped bark, mossblankets folded on stone shelves.
Her father opened it with his elbow, still cradling Mira.
“She’s warm,” he said.
Her mother said nothing. Just stared at the way the rootlight caught her daughter’s eyes—
—and made them shine like things that didn’t belong underground.
***
Siraen didn’t babble.
Other Hollowborn children, once they could sit up, made noise—clicks, throat-hums, bark-syllables their parents turned into jokes. But Siraen listened. Quietly. Eyes always tracking.
She watched water drip from the ceiling and tried to follow it with her head, back and forth, until it fell.
She watched smoke curl from the firepit, and once mimicked the shape with her fingers.
She watched her father cough after a long day hauling ash, and the next day—when he did it again—she copied the sound, pitch-perfect.
He froze.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
Her mother had. But she only said, “She’s clever.”
He didn’t reply. That night, after Siraen slept, he wrapped three small ward-knots and left them near the fire.
It was mid-season when Elder Nuhlan came.
Not for Siraen—just passing through, carrying spore jars for the roothealers above. He walked with the slow-footed rhythm of those who’d outlived their own family names, fingers stained from years of ashwork.
Siraen was sitting by the firepit, barely toddling, watching the flames like they were whispering.
“She’s quiet,” Nuhlan said.
Her mother smiled. “Too quiet.”
“She watches too long.”
Her father shifted. “She’s just early. Observant.”
Nuhlan knelt beside her.
Siraen didn’t crawl away. She didn’t reach for him either. Just stared, head tilted, like she was weighing him against something only she could see.
The old man squinted.
“…Too big,” he said.
Her mother frowned. “What?”
“The eyes.” He leaned closer again, studying them with the slow precision of someone who’d spent his whole life noticing things no one else did. “Too wide. Too still. And that color…”
He trailed off.
Her father shifted. “Silver runs in the Roottongue sometimes. The highbloods.”
Nuhlan shook his head. “Not like this. Not silver. This is ink. Stormsilver. Like moon-water lit from behind.”
He sat back on his heels. Looked at them both.
“I’ve seen three hundred winters,” he said. “I knew a woman who tended the ashroots when the Queen was a girl. I’ve never seen eyes like that. Not in any Hollowborn. Not in any elf.”
"And I don’t think I’d want to.”
He didn’t stay for stew. Didn’t leave his usual blessing.
Just bowed once toward Siraen, slow and low, and walked out into the tunnels.
***
“She’s two now?” the neighbor asked, folding mosscloth near the fire. “Still not loud, is she?”
Her mother shook her head. “No. But she’s… clever.”
That was what she always said.
***
That morning, Siraen had spilled roottea across the stone floor.
Her mother turned at the sound. Siraen froze—palms up, lips parted like she was about to cry.
Then the stain vanished.
Not soaked up. Not cleaned. Gone. The bark was dry, whole, untouched—except it wasn’t.
Her mother stepped forward slowly. Pressed her fingers to the place.
It felt wrong. Too smooth. Like she was touching a lie.
Siraen stared up at her, waiting.
“no mess,” she said smiling.
It started happening more often.
A second spoon when no one had set one down.
An unlit lamp that looked lit—until someone reached for it.
Once, a flicker of a moth near the ceiling, bright and silver, glowing without flame.
Each time, Siraen watched. Calm. Like she was studying her own hands from the outside.
Her parents stopped inviting neighbors to supper.
They spoke softer at night. Argued less—but didn’t speak more.
“She’s doing it again.”
Her father spoke quietly, watching the lamp across the room. It was lit, gently flickering—except it wasn’t. No wick. No oil. Just shimmer.
He reached toward it. His fingers passed through.
“It’s not light,” he said. “It’s… a story.”
His wife didn’t answer.
They sat beside the fire while Siraen slept across the room, curled into a mossblanket, one hand still faintly raised like she was finishing the spell in her dreams.
Finally, her mother said it.
“It’s illusion magic.”
The word hung there, dry as rootdust.
“No one learns that,” her father muttered. “Not in the tunnels.The Roottongue barely believe it’s real.”
His voice lowered.
"No elf’s had it since…”
He didn’t finish.
His wife turned to look at Siraen, asleep beneath the roots, silver-laced hair clinging to her brow.
She didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. Just looked.
"She’s two,” her mother whispered.
And that was all they said.
***
The ashfields were open above the lowest tunnels—where the smoke cleared just enough to grow things that didn’t need light.
Siraen walked between the rows barefoot, three years old now, tiny satchel slung across one shoulder, hands stained from berries she wasn’t supposed to eat. Her mother let her pick them anyway. Her father said it taught patience.
On the vinepath above, two voices cracked through the quiet.
“I said now, not after dusk—do you think the Queen eats when you’re ready?”
“I said I was sorry—my sister’s sick—”
A Roottongue overseer, gold pin gleaming at his collar, stood over a younger ashworker Siraen didn’t know. The younger elf bowed low, dirt still on his palms. The overseer hissed something about delays and lineage and “born with moss for a spine,” then walked off, robes trailing just high enough to show he didn’t know how to walk dirt.
Siraen's father turned her away.
“You don’t listen to words like that,” he said.
She didn’t answer. She was looking at the man across the field.
Not the overseer—he was gone.
This one wore silver.
He stood just beyond the next grove—silver-trimmed cloak, barksteel circlet around his brow, and a staff marked with seven knotted glyphs. Wyrdsong caste. A priest.
He wasn’t walking. He wasn’t praying.
He was staring.
Straight at her.
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At first she didn’t notice. She was reaching for a berry too high on the vine. Her father stepped forward to help—then stopped. His eyes narrowed.
The priest didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t breathe.
Until she looked up.
Their eyes met across the ashplants. Hers wide, silver as stormlight. His—old, full of a thousand rites and names and things he believed he’d never see.
She tilted her head. Said nothing.
The priest turned.
And ran.
Back toward the lifts. Up. Out of the Hollowborn lands entirely.
He didn’t remember turning. Just the cold lurch in his chest.
Not her face. Her eyes.
Too large. Too still.
Silver like moon-reflection in still water—not the silver of elven blood, not even of the Silvermarked robes.
Stormsilver.
Alive silver.
“Where ink runs deep and silence breathes…”
He’d studied the verse. All Wyrdsong priests had.
But not to believe it.
Just to know it.
Just to bury it properly.
He moved fast through the grove. Past ashworkers and their rusted tools, past mosswives wringing out drying satchels. One Hollowborn elder looked up as he passed—recognized the panic in his face—and crossed her arms like a warding sign.
He reached the lift breathless. Slammed the signal branch. Didn’t wait for a greeting.
The roots groaned as the platform lifted.
And Sylthelenar opened up around him.
The Hollowborn tunnels fell away like smoke.
Above, the Roottongue quarters glistened with polished resin and fireleaf banners. Tranquil gardens, shaped wind-paths, woven bridges lit by flame-lanterns that never sputtered.
Higher still, the Wyrdsong sanctums—clean, cold, elegant.
White bark pillars. Sky altars. Silence that was curated, not earned.
He climbed fast, robes catching once on the stair-vines. His breath came sharp in his chest, like he’d outrun something older than fear.
Two initiates bowed as he passed.
He didn’t bow back.
The Temple of Aelira sat above the highest branchline—whitewood spires woven into the crown of the city’s oldest living tree. No sigils marked the outer doors. No banners. Only stillness.
Inside, light filtered through crystalleaf windows, casting quiet glyphs across the floor—symbols meant only for those who knew how to read breath, not books.
He walked the outer path of silence. Past the mural of the first library. Past the sealed well of unspoken verses.
He stopped before a door with no name.
Not locked. Just heavy.
He knocked once.
And from within, a familiar voice—calm, dry, and slightly amused.
"Come"
The door creaked inward.
Books. Shelves. Ink. The quiet dust of knowledge too old to trust.
And at the center, Elarion—aged now, slower with his quill, but eyes still sharp.
He looked up when the priest entered.
“You ran,” he said.
“I saw something,” the priest replied. “A child.”
Elarion didn’t speak.
The priest stepped closer. “Her eyes. They weren’t silver. Not like the nobles. Not like the old Roottongue line. They were—”
He struggled for the word.
“Stormlit,” he said at last. “Like silver that burned. Like water that remembers lightning.”
Elarion leaned forward.
“That color doesn’t exist.”
"I know.”
A silence stretched between them.
“She didn’t blink,” the priest added. “She looked at me like I’d read her name aloud.”
Elarion didn’t answer right away.
He folded his hands. Thought. Then stood—slowly, robe trailing like a closing curtain.
“We will not speak of this again,” he said, voice low, final. “Not to the Queen. Not to the Silvermarked. Not even among Wyrdsong.”
The priest opened his mouth.
Elarion cut him off with a glance.
"Not until I’ve seen the girl myself.”
***
Down in the Hollowborn tunnels, the ashlight had started to fade.
Siraen was picking berries again, juice staining her fingers, cheeks smudged with soil.
Her mother called her.
She turned once—just for a second—and looked back toward the upper canopies, where no light ever reached them.
Not in three years had she ever looked up like that.
***
He didn’t wear his formal robes. Not down here.
Elarion walked the ashpaths like a ghost—hood drawn, eyes low, staff silent against the moss-damp stone. Few Hollowborn looked up when a Wyrdsong passed. Fewer dared speak.
He didn’t announce himself to the family. He waited.
Found her by accident.
She was sitting near the tunnel bend, not far from the berry fields. Alone. One hand open, palm raised.
And above it—
A moth.
Not real. Not possible.
A shape of light. Thread-thin wings. Body made of shimmer and shadow. It hovered—fluttered—dimmed, and flared again.
The illusion should’ve collapsed when she looked away. But she didn’t look away.
She smiled at it.
And when she whispered something too soft to hear, the moth spun in a circle, then landed gently on her open hand.
Elarion stood frozen.
Then her eyes turned to him.
Silver. Bright. Too big. Too deep.
Like they’d seen him before he arrived.
He stepped forward slowly.
Didn’t call her by name. Didn’t invoke the temple.
He just let his voice carry—soft, careful, shaped like a teacher’s greeting.
"Hello there.”
The moth didn’t vanish.
Neither did the girl.
***
She’d been trying to make the wings stay even.
They always dipped on one side—like the light didn’t know how to hold itself yet. But this one was better. This one was almost real.
She whispered the sound of leaves turning. The moth danced.
Then she felt it.
A shape behind her. Tall. Old. Heavy with thought.
She turned slowly.
The man was watching her—but not scared. Not like others. Not angry, either.
Just… waiting.
“Hello there,” he said again.
Siraen blinked.
The moth landed softly on her wrist.
***
He’d expected a trick. A parlor rite. Some family skill passed down in secret, half-formed and flickering.
This wasn’t that.
He could see the structure of it. The cohesion. The precision of it—fragile, yes, but deliberate. It responded to her. Matched her mood. Held together not by spell, but by will.
She didn’t speak.
She just looked at him with those impossible eyes.
Not frightened. Not proud. Just curious.
“What are you?” he asked before he could stop himself.
She tilted her head. The moth shimmered gently on her wrist.
“I’m Siraen,” she said. “Hollowborn.”
Elarion said quietly.
"the elves kneel low, and call her Flame.
For she is lore the gods forgot—
the keeper, the chooser, the turning thread."
He hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
But the words slipped past thought, like something remembered too late.
Then, after a pause—
“Who are you?”
The words weren’t proud. Just honest.
Before he could answer, the door behind her opened.
Her mother stepped out—basket on her hip, braid half-loosened from the morning’s work—and stopped cold when she saw him.
Her eyes widened.
And then she bowed. Full. Deep. Almost to the stone.
Elarion didn’t move for a moment.
Then he looked at the girl again—her eyes, her calm, the flickering light that still hadn’t vanished.
“Elarion,” he said at last. “Named for the celestial sign. Elarin.”
He stepped past Siraen—slowly, respectfully—and approached her mother.
“We need to speak.”
***
Interlude Part 2 The warforged city of Hammerhall.
They didn’t ring the bell when Bramund was born.
There were no bells left.
Clan Rhukhaz had ruled Hammerhall for generations—hard and deep, like everything they built.
Stone walls carved with teeth. Doors thick as vaults. The air smelled of ash and hot iron.
And beneath it all—curled somewhere in the deep tunnels—slept the dragon they named themselves after: Rhukhaz the Gluttonous.
They didn’t pray to him. They followed his hunger. Endless war. Endless hoarding.
Even in peace, they trained like it wouldn’t last.
But lately, it had.
His mother bled quiet. His father kept one hand on the axe even while he cut the cord.
No midwife. No prayers. No breathless waiting for the name.
because in dwarven culture, there was no peace. Only war.
The last time the clans stood as one was under the First King of Karr-Galdran—
—when the first forge-city still burned blue with magical fire.
Their home sat two levels up from the warfoundries, just far enough that the floor didn’t shake when the siege drills turned.
Walls were bare stone, dark and dry. One dented shield hung above the hearth. Not a family crest—just a piece his father liked the shape of.
A broken helm sat in the corner. Still had the Vorhend symbol carved into the side.
“He’s thick through the shoulders,” his father muttered, still wiping the blood from his hands. “He’ll take to the axe early.”
His mother didn’t answer. Just kept staring at Bramund’s face like she expected him to vanish if she blinked.
From the next room, the grandfather spoke—voice rough, lungs scorched from years in the forge smoke.
“Good time for a birth,” he said. “Tunnels’ve been quiet. Vorhend’s licking wounds after that last raid. Might get a year. Maybe two.”
“Good,” his father said, setting the axe back on its hooks. “We need time to repair the defenses anyway. Lower gate’s still scorched from the last hit.”
He sat down hard, shoulders cracking. Looked over at Bramund like he wasn’t sure if the kid was a victory or a gamble.
“Dragon’s been down a week now. Slumbering time. Means Vorhend’s dragon is too.”
He exhaled through his nose, slow.
“Might get peace, if only ‘til they wake. War comes when the dragons get hungry.”
His mother laid him on the stone shelf near the fire—just for a moment—and reached for a clean scrap of forgecloth.
“We should name him,” she said.
His father grunted. “We name him when he holds something. Can’t give a name to bare hands.”
The grandfather coughed. “Then give him your belt clasp. He’s already reaching.”
His father leaned down to lift him—then paused.
The boy wasn’t crying. Wasn’t reaching. Just staring.
At the shield above the hearth. The old one—dented, scorched, hung there like a warning.
“He’s looking at it,” his father muttered. “Like he knows what it’s for.”
The grandfather huffed. “Then give him the name.”
Bruk nodded once.
“Bramund.”
“I need to get back to the gate,” Bruk said, stretching his shoulder until it cracked again. “They’ll need another brace before nightfall.”
His wife nodded. Didn’t argue. She wiped her hands, leaned down, kissed Bramund’s head once, and walked to the back room.
“I’ll rest while I can.”
The old man settled by the fire, bones popping as he lowered himself to the stone bench.
“I’ll watch the boy.”
Bruk stepped out into the corridor. The heat hit first—furnace heat, rising off the lower tunnels. Then the sound. Hammers, shouting, iron wheels on granite.
Hammerhall lived like a wound that never closed.
The deeper you went, the older it felt. But Bruk went up. Past the outer drills, past the broken liftshaft, toward the gate.
The gate was carved straight into the mountainside—three stories tall, ribbed with steel braces, blackened from the last firebreach.
Bruk climbed the outer stairs, hand on the railing, boots echoing in the silence.
No scouts. No warnings. Just wind.
He stepped up onto the watchledge.
And there it was.
The world.
A gray-green sprawl of jagged hills, ash-stained valleys, and broken ridgelines that ran for miles.
Far beyond, half-shrouded in smoke, the distant peaks of the Vorhend range clawed at the clouds.
Bruk squinted. Watched for movement. Nothing.
Just wind. Just quiet.
He leaned on the outer brace, fingers tapping the iron. Wind tugged at the loose edge of his cloak.
He watched the Vorhend range and didn’t speak.
Just thought.
He’s not ready for this.
Not the kind of ready the warbands talk about. Not shield-ready. Not oath-ready.
Not ready to raise a boy in a world that eats softness like ash.
His father had done it. Watched it happen. Watched Bruk learn to fight before he could read.
And now here he was. Same boots. Same wind. Same war still circling the mountain.
At least I’ve got three years, he thought.
Three years before the rites. Three years before the weight starts.
Three years to treat him like a child.
Back in the home, the forge-light had dimmed.
The old man sat near the fire, Bramund bundled in a wrapped cloak across his chest. The child had stopped squirming. Just blinked, slow.
The grandfather hummed low in his throat—rough and tuneless at first. Then the words came.
“Stone don’t weep, and stone don’t break—
it just remembers every weight.
Flame runs cold, and iron bends—
but stone keeps names until the end.”
He didn’t sing loud. Didn’t finish the next verse. Just rocked a little, one hand pressed gentle against Bramund’s back.
“You don’t have to be stone yet,” he said. “Not yet.”
A year passed, but nothing changed. Not really.
The forges still roared. The warbands still drilled. The dragon still slept.
Bramund started walking somewhere between the start of repair season and the first black-ice frost.
No one remembered the day. Just that he didn’t crawl anymore.
His mother caught him one morning dragging a steel-tined rasp across the floor—like he was sharpening the stone.
“That’s my boy,” Bruk had grunted.
She took it from him anyway.
“I wish we still had schools,” his mother muttered one night, watching Bramund stack forge-plates by weight, not color.
Bruk grunted without looking up.
“Here you go again.”
“The scholar told me about them. Said they used to teach dwarflings in halls lined with ironbooks. Called it structural memory.”
Bruk spat on the stone.
“We haven’t had schools in thirty thousand years. We’re not elves. Or humans. Or—” he spat again—“gnomes.”
“Still would’ve been nice,” she said.
Winter passed. The tunnels held. The dragon slept.
Bramund turned two with no ceremony—just a new pair of boots and a larger scrap-sling to keep him from wandering too far.
He still didn’t talk. But he listened.
Watched the way smoke curled out of vent-cracks. Traced lines in the soot like he was trying to follow something.
“He’s two now,” his mother said one morning, folding straps on his harness. “Still doesn’t speak much. But he watches everything.”
Bruk didn’t answer. Just checked his tools.
“I’m heading up to the liftwork. Might be gone all day.”
She waited until he was gone.
She wrapped Bramund tight, slung him in the cloth-harness, and walked him down five levels to the scholar’s hall.
Hall was generous. It was just a room, really. One of the old mining offices, half-collapsed, with a split beam across the ceiling and cracked schematic board.
But the door had a mark above it. A broken quill inside a gear. Meant someone remembered things here.
The scholar Haldrik was older than he looked. Lighter build than most Rhukhaz, beard bound in a double twist, fingers stained with soot and ink.
He smiled when he saw her.
“Another repair request?”
“Not this time.” She adjusted the sling. “He’s two now. Thought it was time he saw something other than forge-halls and drill chants.”
“And you brought him here?”
“He doesn’t cry,” she said. “Just stares.”
“Sounds like a dwarf already.”
Haldrik rummaged under his workbench and pulled out a carved warbeast—thick-limbed, stone-toothed, marked with the sigil of an old Rhukhaz siege-unit.
“Here. Built this years ago to keep the apprentices occupied. Teaches ‘em form and aggression.”
He handed it over, gently.
Bramund looked at it. Didn’t take it.
Then turned.
Reached—without hesitation—for a rusted, split-handled shaping tool half-buried under parchments.
Haldrik blinked. “That’s…” He leaned forward. Picked it up. “From Old Gul-Kurund,” he murmured. “Broke before I was even born”
Bramund touched the edge. Turned it. Let his hand settle on the grip like he’d done it before.
The room went quiet.
“Most dwarflings bite it,” the scholar said. “He’s studying it.”
Haldrik set the shaping tool down carefully. Watched Bramund’s eyes track it, not like a toy—but like a question.
“This isn’t normal,” he said, quieter now. “Even for two.”
“He’s always been like this,” she replied. “Quiet. Watching. He doesn't—”
“He didn’t reach out of instinct…,” Haldrik cut in. “He reached for memory.”
She didn’t answer. Just glanced at her son, who was now dragging his thumb along the broken seam like he could feel what the tool used to be.
“Old Gul-Kurund was a crafting city,” Haldrik said. “Before it fell. Before Rhukhaz swallowed it. They say the forgeminds there could make armor that sang.”
He tapped the desk. Not harsh. Just enough to bring her eyes back.
“Most kids his age would’ve picked the warbeast and tried to break it against the wall.”
“So what does that mean?”
Haldrik stayed quiet. Then, finally:
“It means you watch him,” he said finally. “Not like a mother. Like someone who still remembers what we used to be.”
Haldrik watched Bramund reach for the tool one more time—slow, careful, like he was trying to see it to remember how it used to move.
“Take it,” he said.
“What?”
“The tool. Let him keep it. I don’t know what it was for anyway.”
“Are you sure?”
Haldrik gave her a tired look. “If I was worried about losing it, it wouldn’t be on my desk.”
***
Bruk came home late. Shoulders covered in frost and lift grease. He dropped his belt on the wall hook, cracked his neck, and stepped into the warm of the fireroom.
“Sheared pin on the west gear,” he muttered. “Could’ve lost half a ton of ore if we hadn’t braced it in time.”
He sat down hard. Pulled off his gloves. Reached for the bowl of rootmash cooling near the coals.
Then stopped.
Bramund was already there—sitting on a folded cloth square, holding the tool in both hands like it was something alive.
“What’s this?” Bruk asked, not sharp. Just tired. Curious.
His wife wiped her hands. Sat down beside him.
“I took him to see Haldrik today. Figured maybe the boy should see something besides forge-halls and war drills.”
Bruk glanced sideways.
“And?”
“Haldrik gave him a war toy. Carved siege beast. Bramund didn’t touch it. Just stared. Then reached for that.”
She nodded toward the tool.
“Didn’t hesitate. Like he knew what it was.”
Bruk didn’t say anything. Just looked at his son—small hands turning rusted iron like it meant something.
“I’m not angry,” he said at last.
“I know.”
“Just…”
He looked back at the fire.
“It’s not normal.”
***
Haldrik sat alone after they left.
The toy still sat on the bench where Bramund hadn’t touched it.
He picked it up. Turned it in his hands. The seams were rough. Teeth uneven. He’d carved it quick, years ago, back when the miners brought their sons to the forge halls and needed them distracted.
He set it down.
Picked up a tool instead—one similar to the one Bramund had chosen. Rusted, split-handled, but still honest. A thing meant for making, not killing.
He leaned back. Exhaled.
Then reached for a book he hadn’t opened in years.
The spine cracked. Pages yellowed and brittle.
Chronicle of the Deep-Halls, Volume II.
A line near the top caught his eye—one he’d underlined a long time ago.
“In those days, a dwarfling’s first test was not battle, but blueprint.”
“To build, they said, was the first vow of strength.”
Haldrik closed the book. Let his hand rest on the cover.
“Going to be a rough road for you, boy,” he muttered.
“Real rough.”
***
Bramund was three now. Taller. Still quiet.
He liked to line up bits of scrap by shape—smooth, rough, sharp, curved—then knock them over with his hand like a falling wall.
That morning, he was doing just that. Sitting cross-legged near the hearth.
His mother was setting out fresh bread. His grandfather had just finished strapping his knees.
Bruk was sharpening a wedge-blade.
Then the stone shifted.
Just a breath at first—like the whole mountain had inhaled.
The fire snapped. The floor rumbled. A low sound, deeper than the forge tunnels.
They froze.
“He’s waking,” the old man said.
Bruk stood fast, already reaching for his mailshirt.
“No tremor line that deep unless he’s turning.”
Then the roar hit.
Full force, no echo. Just a sound that shook the marrow.
The fire flared sideways. A clay bowl cracked clean in half.
And then—
The blast.
Distant. Muffled. But too sharp to be stone settling.
Bruk was already pulling down the wall-axe.
“That was the southern vent line. Must’ve dug for weeks to get that close.”
“How many?” his wife asked, voice tight.
“Doesn’t matter. They’re inside the wall.”
The old man pulled a shortblade from under the stone bench. Bruk slammed the lock bar into place.
Then the door blew inward.
Bruk didn’t flinch when the door shattered.
He was already moving—blade raised, feet braced, voice low and full of venom.
“Vorhend.”
He spat.
Two stepped through the smoke—lean, fast, marked in ashline warpaint. Not tunnel crawlers. Not scouts.
Assassins.
“We’re here to end it,” the first said, voice smooth behind the iron mask. “This war. This clan. Your leadership.”
“All of you are being cut down as we speak.”
The second assassin stepped forward, blade reversed. Eyes locked on Bramund.
“Start with the bloodline.”
Bramund screamed.
Not a loud cry—just raw, high, helpless. His mother clutched him tight, stumbling back toward the wall.
And then—
The air cracked.
A ring of pale-blue force bloomed out from the boy’s outstretched hands—no focus, no words, just need. It wrapped around them like a shell—his mother, himself, and the old man behind her.
The assassin’s blade struck it.
Bounced off.
“What is that?” the first one hissed.
He struck again. No give.
Bruk’s eyes went wide.
Then narrowed.
“Doesn’t matter,” he growled.
“You took your swing.”
The first one moved fast—low slash toward the knees. Bruk pivoted sideways, caught the blade with the flat of his axe, sparks skidding off the stone.
Second one was already circling—dagger reversed, going for the spine.
Bruk dropped low.
Let himself fall—not out of panic, but calculation.
His shoulder slammed into the floor. His axe came around in an upward sweep—caught the second one off-balance. Carved deep through thigh muscle.
The assassin screamed.
First one lunged in, fast and reckless. Mistake.
Bruk caught his wrist mid-swing. Drove his forehead straight into the assassin’s jaw—once, twice—until teeth cracked and blood hit the floor.
The blade dropped.
Bruk kicked it aside.
The second assassin—bleeding now, limping—threw a handful of iron dust into Bruk’s eyes.
He staggered back, coughing, vision smeared red.
Felt movement to his left—ducked. Just in time. The dagger glanced off his shoulder plate.
Bruk spun, using the weight of the axe to drag himself back into motion.
Wide arc. One-hand grip. He wasn’t aiming to kill. Not yet.
He was herding them.
The second assassin slipped trying to backpedal—blood soaking into the stone, boot catching.
Bruk stepped in.
Drove his axe down—angled, hooked—dragged it through collar and rib. Didn’t stop until bone gave.
One down.
The first was scrambling now, grabbing for the lost blade.
Bruk let him.
He waited. Watched. Measured.
The assassin came at him wild—fear now in the strike, not discipline.
Bruk sidestepped. Fast. Efficient.
Slammed the axe into the assassin’s ribs—flat-side. Cracked them loud.
The dwarf dropped to his knees.
Bruk lifted the blade.
And stopped.
Turned slightly.
Looked back at the barrier—at Bramund, staring wide-eyed from behind it, both hands still outstretched, the glow flickering like it cost something.
Bruk exhaled.
“You don’t get to see the worst of me,” he muttered.
And brought the axe down clean.
The barrier cracked.
Not loud. Just a flicker at the edges, then a soft shimmer—like frost melting under forge heat.
Bramund’s hands dropped. His head lolled forward against his mother’s chest.
“He’s asleep,” she whispered. “He just—he just fell.”
The old man stepped forward, staring at the space where the shield had been.
“That wasn’t a combat skill,” he muttered. “That was a ward. A full protection cast.”
He looked down at the boy—barely three, breathing slow.
“Dwarves don’t get those anymore. Not real ones. Not like this.”
He knelt. Touched Bramund’s arm.
“Held off a Vorhend assassin’s blade.”
A pause.
“He’s unlocked a skill. Has to have. No wonder he dropped. That would’ve drained a grown man.”
Bruk was still standing.
Covered in blood. Axe loose in his grip. Eyes locked on his son.
“He protected you all,” he said, barely above a whisper. “Not me. Him.”
He looked at the assassins. Then at the doorway—half-collapsed, blood pooling around the hinge.
“If he hadn’t… I don’t know if I could’ve stopped both.”
The mountain roared again.
Deeper this time. Closer.
Rhukhaz was moving.
Bruk tightened his grip. Straightened.
“It’s not over.”
He looked at his wife, at the old man, at the boy slumped in her arms.
“Get to the vault room. Lock it. Don’t open for anyone but me.”
“Bruk—”
“Go.”
He turned to the door—
—toward the coming battle—
—and ran.
