THE DAWNBLADE OF KHAEDROTH

Even after many years had passed since the Nine Hundred Warriors of Khaedroth fell upon the battlefield that would forever bear the name of their graves, the people of the Khaedroth Highlanders had never allowed their memory to fade. The names of the dead remained carved into stone, preserved in the songs of remembrance and spoken during gatherings when the elders told the younger generations of the day their ancestors had stood against an army that had come to destroy their homeland. To the Khaedroth, death did not mean that a person had vanished. As long as their names remained upon the lips of the living and their bones rested beneath the mountains, they were still part of the people.

Every year, when the month of Cedron arrived, the entire rhythm of Khaedroth changed. Cedron was known as the Month of Warriors, a period dedicated to courage, sacrifice, remembrance, and the ancient vows passed from one generation to another. Yet among all the days within Cedron, there was one that carried a weight unlike the others. It was known as the Day of Shield, the day when the people gathered at the edge of the Battleplains of the Nine Hundred Graves to honor those who had fallen there.

The first light of morning had barely appeared over the mountains when the people began making their way toward the sacred ground. The weather was harsh, as it often was whenever Cedron arrived. Heavy clouds covered the sky, hiding the highest peaks beneath a thick veil of mist while cold winds swept down from the mountains and moved through the valleys. Rain had fallen throughout the night, leaving the stone paths wet and shining beneath the pale morning light. To an outsider, such weather would have been enough to keep an entire settlement indoors, but to the Khaedroth it was nothing unusual. They had been born beneath those mountains and raised in their cold winds. The weather of Cedron was simply another part of the remembrance.

Men, women, elders, and children gathered in silence as they approached the Battleplains. Warriors came wearing their traditional cloaks, their weapons secured at their sides, while families carried small offerings for the dead. Some brought flowers that could survive the harsh northern climate, others carried small pieces of bread or herbs, while the older families brought objects that had belonged to ancestors who had died on that field generations earlier. No one came merely to observe. Every person came carrying a memory, whether it belonged to their own family or to the people as a whole.

At the mouth of the Nine Hundred Graves stood a massive stone formation that had remained there for generations. The rock rose above the gathered crowd like a natural altar, its surface darkened by years of rain, snow, wind, and countless ceremonies. It was there that High Priest Vaekar Thoryn climbed and stood before the people.

He wore the long ceremonial robes of the Khaedroth priests, their heavy fabric moving in the wind as he faced the mountains. Around his neck hung an ancient silver symbol of the mountain, passed from one High Priest to another. When he reached the top of the stone, he remained still for several moments, allowing the gathering to settle into complete silence.

No drums sounded.

No horns were raised.

Even the warriors who normally stood with their hands upon their weapons remained motionless.

Vaekar Thoryn slowly lifted his arms toward the mountains, and when he began to speak, his voice carried across the gathering and into the cold morning air.

“Ael khaedra vae thoren.

Vael thar en rhae, vael thar en stone.

Khaed vae rhaen, khaed vae thalen.

Rhaevan dor vae, rhaevan dor khaed.”

The ancient words of Old Khaedryn were spoken slowly, each phrase carrying the weight of generations before him. Then his voice changed into the language understood by everyone gathered before the graves.

“Let their blades rest, let their blood be still. Let the mountains remember their names, and let the spirits of the Nine Hundred find peace beneath the eternal stone.”

The people lowered their heads.

Some closed their eyes.

Others placed their hands against the ground beneath them, touching the same earth that had received their ancestors.

For several hours they remained there, mourning the dead and remembering the lives that had existed before the battle. The names of warriors were spoken one after another, while the elders told stories of their courage, their families, their victories and the sacrifices they had made. The Nine Hundred were not remembered merely as bodies that had fallen upon a battlefield. They were remembered as fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, husbands, wives and friends whose lives had been taken before their time.

When the ceremony finally ended, the people slowly began returning toward their homes, carrying their grief with them but leaving the sacred ground in silence.

Yet for Zhaevira Dhorak, the Day of Shield had never been only about the Nine Hundred.

Every arrival of Cedron reopened wounds that time had never managed to close. She mourned her father and brother, both of whom had been taken from her during the tragedy, but beneath that grief lived another memory, one she had guarded for years without allowing it to disappear.

Vaelkris Khaedryn.

Even after all those years, his name remained alive within her.

He had been only sixteen when the war came to Khaedroth, yet even at that age he had stood among warriors on the battlefield and fought while the world around him collapsed. He had watched his family disappear into the violence, watched the homeland he had known become a field of death, and survived a day that had changed him forever.

After the dead were buried and the surviving Khaedroth began rebuilding what had been destroyed, Vaelkris was taken away from the people and sent toward the Mountains of the Nine Banners. It was there that he would be tested by the mountains themselves, separated from the life he had known and forced to endure the ancient trial that would determine whether he was worthy to return and ascend to the position that awaited him.

The old prophecy had promised that he would return when the sun turned northward, and though nearly ten years had passed since he disappeared into those mountains, Zhaevira had never allowed herself to believe that he would not return.

She had hope.

Sometimes it was the only thing she possessed.

Every day she remembered him. Every Cedron she looked toward the northern mountains and wondered whether somewhere beyond those peaks Vaelkris was still alive, still enduring the trials that had kept him away from his people.

Their story had never truly been finished.

Before the war, Zhaevira and Vaelkris had been preparing to marry. They had exchanged their vows before their families, standing together in accordance with the traditions of their people, but the ceremony had never reached its conclusion. The war had arrived before the remaining rites could be completed, turning a day that should have marked the beginning of their life together into a memory neither of them had been given the chance to finish.

For the Khaedroth, marriage was more than a promise between two individuals. It was a joining witnessed by the mountains, and because their ceremony had been interrupted, Zhaevira had never considered herself completely separated from Vaelkris.

She still remembered the day they had stood before the mountain.

She remembered the words they had spoken.

She remembered the feeling of his presence beside her.

And she remembered how quickly everything had been taken from them.

After the tragedy, Zhaevira did not become alone. The Khaedroth had an ancient custom for those who lost their surviving blood relatives. Their people believed that no one should be left without belonging merely because death had taken their family. A person who no longer had a household could be welcomed into another, and the community itself could become an extended family.

During the ceremony of acceptance, the person placed a hand upon the household's hearthstone while the head of the family welcomed them with the traditional words:

“Blood may give us birth, but the mountain gives us belonging.”

Those words had carried Zhaevira through years when her own family had been broken by war.

She lived with her mother, Vaeltheris Dhorak, within the same household as Varkharel Khaedryn, the uncle of Vaelkris, and Zhaerik Khaedryn, Vaelkris's brother. They had become more than relatives bound by blood and grief. They had become a household held together by everything they had lost and everything they still hoped to preserve.

Their home carried memories of the family that had once been larger. Weapons belonging to the dead remained carefully preserved. Old pieces of clothing were folded and stored rather than discarded. Names were carved into small stones and placed in places where the family could see them. Nothing that belonged to their past was treated carelessly.

And somewhere among those memories remained the unfinished promise between Zhaevira and Vaelkris.

On the Day of Shield, after the people had begun returning from the graves, Zhaevira remained behind for a little longer.

The battlefield stretched before her beneath the gray sky, its distant edges disappearing into mist. She could still remember stories of the place from before it became sacred, before nine hundred Khaedroth warriors had given it a name that would frighten generations of soldiers.

She looked toward the mountains.

The same mountains that had witnessed the death of her family were also the mountains that had taken Vaelkris away.

For a moment she wondered whether they were keeping him from her or protecting him until the time of his return.

She lowered her eyes and held the small stone she carried in her hand.

It had been taken from the place where her marriage ceremony had begun.

She had kept it all these years.

The other half belonged to Vaelkris.

Until the two halves were joined again, she believed the mountain itself had not yet given its answer.

The wind moved across the battlefield, carrying the cold scent of rain and stone. Zhaevira closed her fingers around the piece of rock and whispered his name beneath her breath.

“Vaelkris.”

Far beyond the visible mountains, beyond the settlements and the familiar paths of the Khaedroth, the Mountains of the Nine Banners remained hidden beneath the clouds.

And somewhere within them, the man she had promised herself to was still waiting for the day when the sun would finally turn northward.