he steady thunk of Ember’s pickaxe echoed through the narrow ravine—each strike a dull heartbeat swallowed by the thick, pre-dawn haze. The bite of metal on stone rang once, then fell flat into silence. Her muscles burned in quiet protest, a sour ache spreading across her shoulders and back, thanks to Grant’s absurd idea of “morning calisthenics.” Whatever twisted stretches he’d demanded before dawn had left her stiff as old leather—and twice as grumpy.
Dust motes drifted with every swing, floating lazily in the weak light seeping down from the jagged slit of sky far above. Ember moved on autopilot now—each strike mechanical, not out of drive, but duty. Another swing. Another echo. Another nothing.
Her arms gave out. The pickaxe clanged down, scraping against the moss-slick stone. She exhaled sharply—a breath more felt than heard—before biting it back.
“Just me and the endless grey,” she muttered, her voice raw in the cold air. “Thanks, Dad.”
She kicked a loose shard of shale. It skittered away—and so did her footing. Her heel slipped, the slope tilting beneath her in a blink. She yelped, arms flailing as gravity yanked her down, tumbling in a graceless sprawl until—splash—the icy slap of water stopped her dead.
Cold knifed through her clothes, sharp and sudden. Ember gasped, lungs stuttering against the chill clamping down on her ribs. Every nerve screamed. She forced herself upright, hands scraping slick rock, limbs trembling.
Then she saw it—just beyond her fingers.
A cluster of quartz crystals fanned out along the stream’s edge. Their jagged edges caught the weak light, refracting it into brittle shards of silver and pale gold.
The cold receded. The pain dulled. Something flickered in her chest—quiet, brief. A small flame of wonder.
“Even in this miserable start,” she whispered, “there are moments of... clarity.”
She lingered longer than she meant to, staring at that fragile gleam.
Grant was gone—already vanished deeper into the ravine, his silhouette swallowed by the bend. Only the echo of his too-cheerful grin lingered behind. The others were out there too, scattered like leaves—digging up roots, fungi, maybe even lucky enough to catch a rabbit. But here, in this sliver of stillness, it was just her. Just the stone. The stream biting at her skin. The sky, still more shadow than light.
The air hung cool and heavy—rich with the damp breath of the water and the dry, mineral tang of earth. Ember shifted her satchel higher on her soaked shoulder. It barely weighed anything—empty—and that absence gnawed at her. She’d come expecting burden. Found only the hollow echo of failure.
Memory stirred.
Grant again—earlier, squatting beside a rough stone, polishing it like it was treasure. His expression had gone soft, far-off. Like the rock whispered secrets only he could hear.
Then, his parting words—bright, grating—rattled in her skull:
“Reap the rewards, baby-girl!”
Her jaw clenched. A muscle twitched sharp beneath the skin.
He finds fascination where I find... work, she thought. And “baby-girl”? Her lip curled. What does that even mean?
The words sat strange in her mouth. She still couldn’t unravel the logic behind his speech—those bizarre turns of phrase, the nicknames that never seemed to fit. She wasn’t a child. Wasn’t fragile. And yet, he said it like it was truth. Like it meant something.
Confusion prickled at the back of her mind—persistent, sour.
I don’t understand him. Not really.
Maybe I never will.
Shivering, Ember hauls herself from the frigid pool, each movement stiff and dragging as the cold clings to her skin. She staggers toward the ravine wall, drawn back to the quartz cluster still catching the dim light. Her breath comes shallow and fast, but she forces it steady. No more slipping. No more wild swings. Not this time.
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Her grip tightens on the pickaxe. The memory of her own fury—how it turns her strikes sloppy and reckless—lingers sharp. Rage breaks rock, but never clean. Never right. She inhales, slow. Focused. Then lifts the pick—not toward the quartz, but the dull stone that cradles it.
Chip. Chip.
With every strike, the heat in her chest fades. The tension bleeds out through her fingertips. What’s left is quieter—thin, fragile calm, like frost gathering on a windowpane. Her world shrinks to just this: her breath, the pick, the stone.
Her eyes catch a flicker. A thin vein of violet glints behind the quartz, deep and strange. She leans closer, blinking against the dim light. There, hidden in the stone’s embrace, lies a sliver of amethyst—brilliant against the grey, so vivid it feels unreal.
A rush swells in her chest, fast and sharp. Joy? No—something smaller. Quieter. But it glows all the same, unguarded for a blink before she catches herself.
She works the pick in slow, precise motions, prying gently. Each movement defies her usual impatience, a quiet answer to her own restlessness. The gem slips free with a soft click. That sound—clean, final—feels like a reward.
The amethyst settles into her palm, smooth and cold. Light, but it presses into her skin like a truth. Real. Earned.
Her fingers close around it. A shaky breath slips out.
“I guess… patience…” she mutters, voice low and uncertain, “sometimes it does pay off. Huh, Dad?”
The words hang in the air—part challenge, part confession.
A chill brushes the back of her neck, too sharp to be wind. The air thins, pulled taut like a string. Even the stream seems to hush.
Her spine goes rigid. Muscles coil. She straightens fast, eyes wide.
“What was that?”
The words scrape out—clipped, quiet.
The gem stays clenched in her fist, forgotten now, as her gaze scans the ravine walls.
The rustling doesn’t return. No whisper, no scrape against stone. Just silence—thick, heavy, wrong.
Probably nothing, Ember tells herself. A squirrel. Wind shifting loose gravel.
Still, unease coils tighter in her chest, like a shadow she can’t shake.
She lowers her pick, resumes chipping at the stone. Her eyes keep drifting to the open ravine, scanning jagged walls and empty sky. Too still. Too quiet—even for morning. The silence presses close, her own heartbeat loud in her ears.
Her hands work, but her focus slips. Thoughts flake away like chipped rock. The old question rises again, sharp and unwelcome.
Why am I even out here?
Busting rocks like some clueless gatherer. The woodland folk—talkative, smug little beasts with claws and clever paws—could dig just fine when they wanted to. So why wasn’t this their job? Why was this suddenly important?
Why now?
Because of him.
Her father.
Grant.
Even the name tastes bitter.
She digs at another layer, the pick hitting harder than needed. The questions keep pressing. What changed? What did he change? The timing doesn’t sit right. Too clean. Too sudden.
She stops. Breath tight. Suspicion flickers like flint catching spark.
A shake of the head. As if she could shake the thoughts loose, bury them under routine.
“Probably nothing,” she mutters. Her voice sounds too dry in the quiet.
A brittle smile tugs at her mouth.
Hope hanging around a human doesn’t make me soft and squishy, she thinks, the sarcasm weak but familiar. Armor. Habit.
The tension in her shoulders slips a notch. She exhales slow. Controlled.
Then—another thought sparks.
The amethyst. It had been close to the quartz.
Maybe that wasn’t luck.
Her grip tightens on the pick. A new focus rises in her chest—cool, sharp, sure.
Without a word, she moves. Boots scraping over loose shale, eyes scanning the ravine wall. Searching every crystal glint, every crack of exposed stone.
Her steps shift—subtle, but purposeful. There's a new tension in her stride. A quiet anticipation curling through her limbs.
Maybe those gleaming veins are more than pretty rocks.