The sky over Gravenreach was still a pale gray when Caelan stood atop the manor's ruined tower, arms crossed against the biting wind. The snow from the night before had softened the jagged corners of the world, burying hardship in a deceptive peace. But beneath that quiet stillness, change was moving.
And change required vigilance.
Caelan had begun to establish a routine. Mornings were spent reviewing the daily work done in the village—checking in on lumber distribution, food stores, structural repairs. Midday, he trained alone in the ruined courtyard. Not with sword or spell, but with motion: balance, positioning, observation. He had no aura, no magic. But he could still master awareness. Power wasn't only in the body.
He had read that once.
The village of Velmire, though meager, had begun to breathe. Fires burned in hearths again. The smithy had been repaired partially—just enough for the forge to sputter to life under an old blacksmith's reluctant return. Food remained scarce, but the stores were stable.
The villagers had stopped avoiding his gaze. They now offered brief nods, awkward thanks. It wasn't loyalty, but it was a start.
He kept to his ledger, updating its phases, refining their objectives.
Phase One: Veritas had officially begun the moment he sealed the underground chamber with his blood. But completing the ritual would still take time. Several of the ingredients he needed were nearly impossible to find legally—especially the powdered starglass, a crystalline mineral said to have fallen from ancient celestial bodies, which when ground fine, acted as a conduit for ambient mana in the absence of a core, and the soulroot shard, a rare root known to grow in mana-drenched regions where magic stone veins once intersected. The root was brittle, dark violet, and said to amplify the user's capacity to store foreign mana. Both were difficult to acquire—and even more difficult to identify in the wild.
Then came the ashbark resin, a rare alchemical substance harvested from trees scorched by spectral flame. The resin secreted only during the tree's death throes and needed to be stabilized quickly with saltpeter or it would dissolve into ash. It was believed to carry a binding property that would help anchor the erratic nature of foreign mana.
Next ingredient was the Beast Oathbone, a brittle fragment of a mana beast's skeleton, said to retain the creature's innate magical affinity long after death. Without it, the Runestone would remain inert to any foreign resonance. Caelan had spent days contemplating which Oathbone to use, knowing that the affinity it carried would shape the nature of the mana the Runestone absorbed. For someone like him—without a core and thus no natural affinity—this was his only opportunity to align with a magical aspect, to choose rather than inherit. It was a rare freedom, and a heavy decision.
And most elusive of all were the Mirrorbloom petals—translucent, silver-tinted flowers that only bloomed beneath moonlight, known to reflect not just light but mana. Caelan had already found them, in a shrine hidden in the northeastern edge of the village, growing in quiet defiance among crumbling stone. He had harvested them carefully, knowing they would serve as the final key in harmonizing the Runestone's absorption pattern with his essence.
For all this, he'd need to reach beyond Gravenreach.
A week into his planning, Caelan ventured farther than before—northwest of the manor, into lands less traveled. The snow grew deeper there, and signs of old settlements rose from the frost like grave markers. He followed the twisted remnants of a cobbled road until he came across a fallen statue—its features eroded but the wings and blade still visible.
An old boundary marker.
Beyond it, nestled between ridges, he discovered the remains of an abandoned outpost. Most of it had collapsed, but a few stone vaults and cellars remained. Inside, he found fragments of ledgers—names of traders, obscure routes carved into the back of old shields.
There it was again: the old black market trail.
If he could make contact, he could trade discreetly. Not just for ingredients, but information.
That night, he summoned Mirelle again.
"I'll be needing a courier," he said.
She studied him. "To where?"
"South. A coded letter. It must reach the circles beyond Kyrrhyn."
"You mean the black markets?"
He gave no confirmation. He didn't need to.
"I'll speak with the pelt trader," she said. "His niece makes the run during spring thaws. She's quiet. Loyal."
"Payment will be offered."
She nodded. "And what if the Duchy intercepts it?"
"They won't."
That was the second moment she looked at him differently—not with suspicion, but with recognition.
In the days that followed, Caelan returned to the chamber of the Runestone. He sat in its dim, icy silence and studied the script again.
Power is the first crown.
He understood it more now. The Runestone was not a relic of judgment—it was a vessel, designed to absorb and store ambient mana. A forgotten construct for those like him, born without the natural ability to wield magic. It did not judge—it enabled. Created in the lost age of myth, the Runestone was made for the forsaken.
No one in the empire had unlocked it. Not even the protagonist of the novel Caelan had once read. The relic had been found—and left behind. Its function remained a mystery to even the greatest champions of that story.
But Caelan knew more.
He recalled a side story, one rarely mentioned, where the High Sovereign himself had recounted the activation ritual in a veiled passage. It required five rare materials—powdered starglass, soulroot shard, ashbark resin, the Beast Oathbone, and the Mirrorbloom petals—combined in a specific sequence and placed before the Runestone under moonlight.
The ritual would allow the runestone to attune to a new bearer, drawing mana from the environment to fill a reservoir deep within.
The preparations continued. He kept notes in a coded ledger. He created false ledgers for courier to carry back to the Duchy administration—just simple numbers, inventory details, population counts.
Caelan, officially Baron of Gravenreach, was now just another forgotten noble with no military relevance, no mana, no danger.
Let them believe it.
A trader from Kyrrhyn soon arrived under the guise of selling pelts and preserved herbs. In truth, she carried satchels sewn with rare reagents and news of covert exchanges in the south. Caelan met her discreetly near the forest edge.
He passed her a list of ingredients—coded and inked with invisible script.
"You'll need coin," she said.
"I have it."
"And time?"
He looked toward the manor. "Not much."
She nodded. "Then I won't linger."
One night, he stood before the statue again. The Runestone hovered in his hands now, reacting more to his presence each time he returned.
He whispered, "You were meant to be used. You were meant to be wielded."
The stone pulsed once in reply.
He smiled.
Let the world sleep. Let the court forget. Let the vultures circle the wrong corpse.
Here, in silence, the quiet war had already begun.