Prologue
The mountain spoke to him in his dreams.
Not in words – but in tremors. Echoes in bone. Whispering beneath the stone-laced marrow of his being.
He stood atop a crumbling granite spire, suspended between earth and sky. Below him, the world fractured – rivers of molten gold running between the cracked plates of the land. Above, storm clouds churned like bruised flesh. In the center of it all was a figure.
She stood at the edge of the world, veiled in mist. Her face hidden. Her hair, a tangle of midnight strands blown by a wind that knew no direction. Around her, the elements bent – stone rising in silent spirals at her feet, water flowing like ribbons defying gravity.
He tried to speak. To step forward. But his limbs were lead, his mouth sealed by silence.
Then – her voice, quiet and aching:
“The land will bleed before it heals, Thane Corren.”
Lightning flashed. The earth shattered.
The sky rained shards of crystal.
And from the broken basin of the world, a song rose – half-forgotten, ancient as the roots of the mountains.
“When stone meets water at the heart of the flame,
the Veil shall part, and the bound shall be named.
One born of silence, sealed from the storm,
Shall carry the weight of what was and transform.”
As the last word echoed, her eyes met mine.
They were not mortal eyes.
They were lake water and mountain shadow. They were home – and they were everything he had sworn to protect.
He woke with a gasp, heart pounding, skin slick with a cold sweat despite the heat of the hearthstone. His fingers twitch with dormant power, aching like they’d been etched by prophecy.
He didn’t know her name.
But the mountain did.
And it was only a matter of time before she found the stone meant for her hand.
