The snow came in sheets, not flakes. Thick and wet, like a shroud thrown across the world.

  Wyatt stood at the edge of the column, wrapped in his weathered cloak, boots sunk ankle-deep in cold slush. Behind him, banners were being lowered. Shields checked. War chants began to rise low and deep among the dwarves. The scent of oil and steel hovered in the air. Elven horns blew once, sharp and silver, from somewhere down the ridge.

  He was walking away from it all.

  “You sure of this path, lad?” came the low growl beside him.

  King Sindras Stormguard towered even in silence, cloak made of winter wolfhide, frost caught in his greyish beard. The crimson glint of his eyes, a rare dwarven trait, fixed Wyatt with quiet judgment.

  “I have to be,” Wyatt replied, gripping the haft of the warhammer slung across his back. “If the Hermit truly knew my father, then… he’s the only one who might know how to wake this thing.”

  Sindras nodded, but slowly—like a man watching someone step onto a frozen lake.

  “The Hermit won’t coddle you. He takes once, and if you survive, he gives after.”

  Wyatt didn’t answer.

  “Then listen well,” the king said, reaching into his belt. He handed Wyatt a heavy shard of obsidian ice, bound in braided silver wire. “This came from the upper rim of the Shattered Crag. Keeps its cold, no matter the fire. It'll point true when the winds lie. You head north, past the Crag. Climb westward once the sun disappears by midday. Follow the frozen teeth—look for jagged stone that bites the sky. That’s the Lonely Mountain.”

  Wyatt took the shard. It stung his palm with unnatural chill.

  “And when I find him?”

  Sindras looked away, toward the northern peaks—gray ghosts in the snowstorm.

  “Then may the Forgefather remember you. And your father, too.”

  The dwarven army moved on, leaving him behind.

  The wind swallowed the sound of marching feet within minutes. Wyatt crested a ridge and glanced back once—but the army was gone, nothing but smudges in the white. The road ended here. The wild began.

  However, that was but a moment from a week ago.

  Snow deepened with every mile. The world blurred into one long stretch of cold and silence. Only the warhammer, strapped tight across his back, offered weight that felt real. Everything else felt like memory or dream.

  By the eighth day, he was walking through knives.

  The Shattered Crag was worse than he imagined.

  It rose like a broken jaw from the frost, crooked spires and split chasms, stone blackened with soot from a time before memory. The wind screamed through the gaps. Once, Wyatt saw bones in the ice—a frozen corpse fused to the wall of a narrow pass. The eyes were gone. The expression was not.

  At night, he made fire from moss and dead roots. He killed a snowwolf with his dagger, the blade dull from the cold. He bled his hand dressing the beast, fingers numb. The meat was tough, but warm.

  Every few nights, the storm came back—blind white, air so sharp it tore his throat when he breathed. During one such night, Wyatt took shelter beneath a jagged outcrop and curled tight around the hammer.

  It was then he felt it.

  Heat.

  Not from the fire, but from the hammer itself—just a faint pulse, like a heartbeat against his spine. It only came when he whispered their family name.

  “Blackwood…”

  A flicker of warmth. Then gone.

  The days blurred. The shard of obsidian ice in his pack never melted, even as he held it near flame. But on the eleventh day, it trembled in his palm. The wind had shifted.

  He looked up and saw it at last: the Lonely Mountain, framed by clouds. It wasn’t a peak so much as a fortress of stone, veiled in mist and shadow. Its ridges twisted skyward like gnarled fingers, crowned in blue fire from the setting sun.

  Wyatt staggered forward, weak but resolute.

  By the time that unknown figures had found him, he had eaten nothing for a day and a half. His strength was long gone. He didn’t even raise his hands.

  ***

  Wyatt awoke to firelight and murmured voices.

  The world was blurred at the edges, like half-melted ice. Heat pulsed beneath his skin, not from warmth, but from fever. His body ached like stone cracked too many times. Something soft—fur, maybe—was wrapped around his shoulders.

  He shifted, groaning, and the voices hushed. One figure stepped closer, a silhouette rimmed by flame. Wyatt blinked against the haze.

  A woman.

  Scarred cheeks, red hair braided down the side, skin marked with ink and ash. She knelt beside him and held out a wooden bowl. The scent of smoked meat and bitter herbs hit his nose like a prayer.

  He reached for it with shaking hands.

  “You’re lucky we saw you before the scavengers did,” she said. Her accent was strange—clipped, rhythmic, half-song. “Though some of us wished we hadn’t.”

  Wyatt drank. It burned. He coughed.

  “You walk alone,” the woman continued. “And carry a stranger’s hammer.”

  He rasped, “It was my father’s.”

  She stared at him for a long, long time. Then she stood and walked away, vanishing into the shadows beyond the fire.

  Wyatt stared into the shadows where she had vanished. Her footsteps made no sound.

  “Wait—” he croaked, but the word barely made it past his lips.

  Silence answered.

  He shifted again, limbs leaden. A flickering ache curled through his chest as he sat up and took stock. The fire still crackled beside him, low and steady. His cloak had been cleaned of snow and blood. His boots rested near the edge of the flames, steaming faintly.

  He was in a cave.

  Jagged rock arched overhead, ribs of stone inked black with soot and time. Scorch marks licked the walls, old and faded, like the breath of forgotten fires. A narrow opening lay behind him—wide enough to crawl through, but choked with drifted snow.

  The obsidian ice was still in his pack. He checked with one trembling hand. Cold bit his fingertips the moment he touched it—but now, its weight seemed less important. The Lonely Mountain was no longer a mystery on the horizon. It loomed just beyond this cavern, silent and waiting.

  And yet... something tugged at him.

  The red-haired woman. Her voice, her eyes—those scars and the strange tattooed marks curling down her neck. She hadn’t just stumbled across him. She had been waiting. Or watching.

  Wyatt stood, slowly, every joint protesting. The warmth from the food she’d given him hadn’t left. It clung to his bones, a strange vitality that hadn’t faded with sleep. His legs held firm. His breath came easier.

  Time wasn’t pressing. Not yet.

  But curiosity was.

  ***

  The climb resumed.

  Wyatt emerged from the cave and pressed onward. The path to the mountain’s base was brutal. Sheer ridges of frost-slick rock, gullies carved by wind and avalanche, ravines where shadow pooled and eyes sometimes glinted in the dark.

  He fended off threats from left and right. A slick-scaled serpent hissed from a glacier crack, jaws wide—he buried his dagger in its skull. Once, he awoke to find a black-feathered bird perched near his fire, staring at him with unnatural stillness, a silver ring tied to its leg.

  He dared not take it.

  And through it all, his strength held.

  He was not whole—but the food had kindled something inside him. A slow-burning energy. Not just physical—something deeper, crawling beneath his skin, whispering through his dreams. He heard his father’s voice once in a dream, too soft to make out the words.

  On the thirteenth day, the storm broke. The sky opened to an amber dusk.

  He reached the base of the Lonely Mountain.

  Wyatt stood at the foot of the mountain, his breath visible in slow, heavy clouds. The mountain loomed before him—less a peak, more a monolith. Its ridges curved like ribs, its cliffs jagged as a giant’s broken crown.

  He dropped to one knee, exhausted. Snow flurried around him like ashes.

  “I made it,” he whispered.

  But the words had barely left his mouth when the ground trembled.

  A low growl rippled through the stone beneath his boots.

  From the misted ridge ahead, something moved—huge, silent, and wrong.

  It stepped from the white fog like a nightmare carved from winter.

  The direwolf stood taller than any beast he’d ever seen. Muscles rippled beneath charcoal-grey fur. Its fangs were long as daggers, its paws heavy enough to crush bone in a single strike. One of its eyes was blind and milk-white. The other burned gold, bright with hunger.

  Wyatt froze.

  Then he ran his hand along the haft of the warhammer strapped to his back.

  He had carried it all this way.

  He remembered the first time he touched it—how the metal had warmed to his grip, how something ancient had stirred when he first held the weapon. Not magic, not will… just power. Waiting. Despite all his time fighting alongside Xhiamas, Cassian, Hawk and even the dwarves, not once did he ever attempt to use this method, out of fear that he too, might harm the ones he cared for the most.

  Wyatt closed his eyes. The wind howled. The direwolf took another step forward.

  He inhaled deeply, and felt something inside him change.

  The hammer didn’t glow. It didn’t sing. It simply shifted.

  Heat surged up the handle. Not soft this time—searing. His veins lit up like fire raced through them, his limbs tightened, and his breath came faster. The fatigue dropped away like a shed skin.

  His boots dug deep into the snow as he stood tall, the hammer now crackling faintly with tension, the mark of the war axe humming with power.

  He felt strong.

  The direwolf lunged.

  Wyatt didn’t retreat. He swung.

  The hammer struck the beast’s shoulder with a bone-snapping crunch. It stumbled sideways, surprised. Wyatt followed with another strike, roaring through gritted teeth. His muscles burned with unnatural force. The hammer felt light—too light.

  But something was wrong.

  Each swing blurred the world. His vision tunneled. His ears rang. His chest pounded like a war drum, but his thoughts scattered like snow in wind. There were no tactics. No control.

  Just rage. And weight. And cold.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The direwolf twisted under his next swing and slammed into him with the force of a boulder. Wyatt crashed into the snow, skidding hard. The hammer flew from his hands.

  He tried to stand—too slow.

  The wolf pounced.

  But before its jaws could close around his throat—

  Shouts. Spears. Firelight.

  Figures descended from the ridge above, cloaks flaring. A spear struck the direwolf’s flank. It yelped and turned, snapping wildly. Two more blades flashed—obsidian-tipped and sharp as dawn.

  Among them, a familiar silhouette.

  Red hair. Scarred cheeks. Eyes hard as frost.

  She moved fast, circling with the others. Their tattoos gleamed faintly in the snowlight.

  The direwolf, outnumbered and wounded, gave a final snarl—and fled into the mist.

  Wyatt gasped, coughing on blood and snow. He looked up at the woman as she approached, spear still in hand.

  “You again,” he said, voice hoarse.

  She stared at him with a guarded look. No recognition. No relief. Only calculation.

  “You’re the one from the cave,” she said. “Still alive.”

  Wyatt forced himself to sit up, chest heaving. His hands trembled. The hammer lay just out of reach, steam rising from the snow where it had landed.

  “You followed me?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “You came too close.”

  One of the others leaned in, a man with matching marks and frost-bitten eyes.

  “He wields a marked weapon,” he muttered.

  The woman’s expression didn’t change.

  “Is it stolen?” she asked Wyatt flatly. “Or do you even know what it is?”

  Wyatt looked down at the hammer.

  And for the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure he had the answer.

  The circle was now closing in.

  Blades drawn. Spears lowered. Cold breath rising like ghosts from every mouth.

  Wyatt could barely hold himself upright. The last surge of strength had already faded, leaving behind nothing but raw will and aching bone. Snow clung to his lashes. Blood crusted at his collar.

  The red-haired warriors moved without words now. Judging. Preparing.

  One of them stepped forward, a curved axe catching the glint of firelight. He raised it over his shoulder.

  And Wyatt, with a faint laugh that caught in his throat, lifted his chin.

  Old Bran sends her regards.

  The words slipped into his mind from nowhere, but they landed solidly in his chest.

  He remembered that moment like it was yesterday—the battlefield of the Emberhold Frontier, Hilda Bransdottir with her old, warm smile, grabbing him by the arm as she thanked him for saving their lives.

  “If you ever need anything from anyone in the North… tell them: ‘Old Bran sends her regards.’”

  At the time, he’d thought it was just a strange joke, some cryptic saying from a warrior too worn by battle to make sense. But now—sitting there, on the edge of life and death—he understood.

  Old Bran wasn’t just a name. It was a claim. A bond. Something beyond just a title.

  Wyatt gritted his teeth against the cold. The warriors were getting closer. He was out of options.

  And yet, the words rang out of him like they’d been waiting to be said for years.

  “Old Bran sends her regards.”

  Silence.

  The axe froze mid-swing.

  The wind seemed to die.

  The name hit like a thrown stone in still water—rippling through the gathered Kin. Several looked to one another. One muttered a curse. Another paled.

  The red-haired woman narrowed her eyes.

  “What did he say?” someone whispered.

  Wyatt didn’t repeat himself.

  He didn’t need to.

  The woman stepped forward, slow, deliberate.

  She studied his face, then turned to the others.

  “Stand down.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  Weapons lowered, uncertain but obeying.

  Wyatt swayed on his knees, exhaustion threatening to drag him under again. But before it did, he caught the faintest flicker of surprise—maybe even respect—in the woman’s eyes.

  “Bring him,” she said. The young man, gathered what little strength he had left and slung the hammer onto his back.

  ***

  Wyatt had barely regained enough strength to keep his head up when they arrived. The mountain pass had swallowed them up entirely—dark stone walls rising like jagged teeth to either side, and the snowstorm’s fury seemingly halted by some unseen force.

  They entered a narrow, sheltered gorge, where the wind didn’t howl so much as whisper. The faintest glow of light flickered from within the rocks ahead. As they neared, the tight opening in the stone widened, revealing a hidden vale. It was smaller than Wyatt had expected, but there was life here. A community of red-haired people—warriors, traders, and farmers—moved around a bustling settlement carved into the very stone of the mountain.

  There was little sound save the crackling of hearths and the clinking of iron against iron. The settlement was small in numbers, but its heart beat strong. A few buildings, some of them crude, others impressively hewn into the mountain’s natural shape. But what stood out was how alive it felt—everyone had a purpose, and each face was steady, worn by the harsh conditions, but unbroken.

  Wyatt was led through this strange little world with wary eyes on him from every corner. Red-haired children ran barefoot, their laughter ringing through the air as they darted between huts. Men and women stood at the forges, hammering steel into shape with precision, the clang of metal in harmony with the low rumble of the mountain.

  The warriors didn’t speak, but their gestures were precise. They guided Wyatt through the village, past curious glances, to the center—a large stone structure half carved, half built, with a massive fire pit blazing in the middle. The warmth hit him like a wave, making him want to collapse, but he stayed upright, his eyes tracing the markings and runes carved into the stone.

  Then, he was brought before the chief.

  The man who stepped forward was older, his face a weathered map of battle, his beard flecked with gray, but it was his eyes—striking, pale like snow under the mountain sun—that caught Wyatt’s attention. His hair was the same shade of red as Wyatt’s, longer than most, falling to his shoulders in thick waves. He wore furs and leather armor, the craftsmanship elegant but clearly designed for utility.

  As he studied Wyatt, there was a flicker of recognition, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

  The chief raised his hand, and the warriors stepped back, leaving Wyatt alone before him.

  “You carry the name of Old Bran,” the chief said, his voice deep and steady. “Explain yourself, outsider.”

  Wyatt, still feeling the last echoes of weakness, straightened, trying to gather his thoughts. “I... My nation is in peril. I thought I would die today, but I was saved by the words of a person I call a friend.”

  The chief’s gaze didn’t waver. “A friend?”

  Wyatt nodded. “Hilda Bransdottir. She—”

  At the name, the chief’s expression shifted, a flicker of something more human crossing his face, though it was quickly masked by his usual sternness.

  “I know her,” the chief said softly, almost to himself. “She passed through here years ago.”

  The others in the village had gathered by now, a few murmurs passing through the crowd. Some were curious, some skeptical.

  Wyatt glanced around, feeling the weight of their gazes on him. He cleared his throat. “She told me if I ever needed help in the North, to tell them… ‘Old Bran sends her regards.’”

  A ripple passed through the villagers, and several of them nodded, as if they had heard the phrase before.

  The chief turned back to Wyatt, his gaze narrowing. “Hilda was no ordinary guest. She was one of the greatest warriors to ever walk this land. She fought for everyone, whether they were friend or foe. Her name is known in many places, but here, she was more than just a warrior. She was a healer, a protector.”

  Wyatt blinked, surprised. “A healer? Hilda?”

  The chief nodded. “She didn’t just fight. She brought medicine—rare herbs from your lands, potions to cure the sick and wounded. And for a time, she stayed with us. She gave what she could, taught what she knew. She earned her place among us, and we respected her for it. She became more than a guest. She became honored.”

  The chief stepped closer, his gaze sharp but thoughtful. “That is why you stand here today. Old Bran’s words are a bond, a mark of respect. You carry her name, in a sense. And for that, you are no longer an outsider.”

  Wyatt shook his head in confusion. “But I’m not… I’m not her. I’m just some soldier with a hammer.”

  The chief’s lips twisted into the faintest of smiles. “Maybe. But you came here for a reason, and you followed a path that was set long before you ever crossed into this land. It is no small thing to carry a weapon like that and to survive the way you did.”

  He paused, studying Wyatt, before continuing, “Hilda Bransdottir was not just a warrior. She was a symbol. A living legend. And if she trusted you, then you are worth something more than just your bloodline.”

  The fire crackled softly, casting long shadows across the stone walls of the gathering hall. The villagers remained tense, some skeptical, others curious. The chief’s gaze didn’t waver.

  “You wear our fire in your hair,” he said. “That is not a trait born in the lowlands.”

  Wyatt straightened, though his body ached.

  “It came from my mother.”

  Murmurs stirred, faint but sharp.

  “She was one of us?” the chief asked.

  “I don’t know,” Wyatt admitted. “She died when I was a baby. In Rosetown, a place in the southern lands of Primera.”

  A pause.

  “She and my father settled there as the war began tearing everything apart. He never told me much. Never even gave me her name.”

  He exhaled through his nose, eyes locked on the fire.

  “I used to think it was grief. But now I realize it wasn’t. Not just that.”

  He glanced at the warhammer across his back.

  “He was a smith once. Or... training to be one. To be the best there ever was. He came north, passed the Hermit’s trial. Was close to something few ever reach. But as the dwarves and Old Bran had told me, he left it behind. All of it. For her.”

  A few villagers looked to the chief, whose eyes had narrowed.

  “He wasn’t supposed to pick up the hammer again,” Wyatt went on. “But when the civil war broke out, he had no choice. Rosetown was being overrun. He fought to protect everyone, her… and me.”

  His voice grew quiet.

  “There was a moment. The enemy had surrendered. The fighting was done. But he… wasn’t. The hammer doesn’t just give strength—it takes clarity. He was still deep in it. Lost. I felt the same when he first gave it to me.”

  Wyatt swallowed hard, his eyes distant now.

  “She ran to him. Tried to pull him back. Tried to speak to the man she loved.”

  The silence that followed was hollow and sharp.

  “He struck her,” Wyatt said. “Not a wild blow. Not even a full swing. Just… a motion. A turn of the wrist. But the edge of the hammer caught her.”

  He looked down at the weapon now.

  “There’s a line of red that never left the steel. Not rust. Not paint. No matter how much I had cleaned it, it stayed. A mark.”

  The hall was silent.

  “He told me he didn’t hear her voice until it was too late. Said he was swinging at shadows. And when he finally saw her, she was already on the ground.”

  The chief's face remained unreadable, but something in his posture shifted—a subtle stiffening, like a man who had seen such loss before.

  “He tried to blind himself,” Wyatt continued. “Both eyes. Said the world without her wasn’t worth seeing. That he couldn’t bear to look at a world stained by his own hands.”

  A long pause.

  “But I cried. I was only a baby, but I cried. And that sound pulled him back.”

  Wyatt met the chief’s gaze again.

  “He spared one eye. Buried the past. Became a smith again—only this time, in silence. And he never touched the hammer again.”

  Now the weight hung heavy in the room.

  The chief’s voice came low. “There was a stranger, many winters past. Black-haired. Carried a wound deeper than flesh. He passed the Crag. Reached the Hermit. And after a while, had turned back.”

  He looked at Wyatt. “That was your father.”

  Wyatt nodded. “And now I’m here to finish what he couldn’t.”

  He touched the haft of the warhammer—carefully, reverently.

  “This weapon is incomplete. Dormant. I need to awaken its true power. My land is bleeding, the dwarves need help, and I’m not strong enough without it. If there’s a path through this mountain to save what’s left—I’ll take it. I have to.”

  The chief studied him for a long moment, then turned to the others.

  The fire crackled low, shadows dancing along the stone walls. The chief’s voice carried the weight of memory.

  “There was a child once. My daughter.”

  The circle around the flames went still.

  “She left with Hilda Bransdottir—headed south as Hilda decided to return home. I fought it, gods know I did. But in the end… I gave her my blessing. And a gift. An emerald, pulled from the river caves beneath our village. Told her it was the mountain’s heart. To remember where she came from.”

  Wyatt reached behind his shoulder, slowly unslinging the warhammer. He turned the head gently toward the firelight.

  “Was it this one?”

  Embedded in the steel opposite the carved war axe sigil, the emerald gleamed dully—green as pine needles, deep as the forest heart.

  The chief stepped forward, breath caught in his throat.

  “…Yes.”

  He stared at the stone as if it were a ghost.

  “You… you’re her son.”

  The weight of that truth hit harder than steel. The murmurs around the fire rose—a mix of surprise, recognition, and disbelief.

  Wyatt didn’t move. “I never knew her. She died when I was a baby. My father never told me her name.”

  Behind them, a voice spoke. Low. Cautious.

  “You really didn’t know?”

  Wyatt turned.

  The red-haired woman—the same one who’d found him in the snow, who’d saved his life and stood guard over his rest—stepped into the light. Her eyes were wide, searching. Her expression unreadable.

  “I thought you were just another outsider who made it farther than most,” she said. “But that emerald… if it’s truly the one my grandfather gave…”

  She turned toward the chief. “That makes him…”

  “My grandson,” the chief said, the words reverent. “And your cousin.”

  She exhaled, stepping back a half-pace, eyes fixed on Wyatt.

  “I’m Sif,” she said at last. “Daughter of Torren, son of the chief.”

  Wyatt offered a faint smile. “So, the one who saved my life and threatened it all in one night. Good to finally get a name.”

  Sif didn’t return the smile, not quite—but her posture eased.

  The chief looked from one to the other. “You were brought together for a reason. Blood recognizes blood—even in the storm.”

  Then he turned to Wyatt. “You’ll eat. Rest. And tomorrow, we shall speak of how to help you in your journey. Of the Hermit. And of the forge your father once stood before.”

  Wyatt looked down at the hammer in his lap—at the emerald that now felt heavier, older, somehow warmer.

  And for the first time in what felt like forever, the storm inside him began to settle.

  He had come seeking answers, chasing shadows and whispers across frozen miles. He had lost his father, buried in both guilt and silence. For so long, that grief had felt like a chain—heavy and lonely.

  But now… now there were threads being rewoven. A mother he’d never known had once walked this same snow. A grandfather who carried her memory in every line of his face. A cousin—one who watched over him when he couldn’t stand.

  Wyatt exhaled slowly, and in that breath, something changed.

  He wasn’t just the son of Dale Blackwood.

  He was part of something older. Wilder. Rooted.

  He thought of his friends—those still fighting in the war, counting on him. And he realized, with surprising comfort, that he wasn’t walking toward destiny alone anymore.

  He had kin. Blood. A name that stretched further than he knew.

  And maybe… just maybe, it would be enough to carry him the rest of the way.