He came to the mountains to disappear.
The sword on his back hadn't been drawn in years, but its weight lingered—in his spine, in his
sleep, in his bones. Once a soldier, a killer by trade — now just a man exhausted by war and the
stench of men.
He'd buried too many brothers. Drank too many barrels dry. Woken beside too many names he
never cared to learn.
The townsfolk whispered the mountains were cursed.
He called it peace.
He built a cabin high above their whispers, fed a stray hound who never left, and rode a steed too
proud to die in a stable. He hunted. He mended. He waited.
And then — she found him
He saw her first by the frozen stream. Cloaked in furs, barefoot in snow, speaking to the air as if
it might answer.
He thought she was mad. Or worse — one of the witches the locals hissed about when the ale
flowed and the fire burned low.
"You're talking to nothing," he said, squinting beneath his hood.
She didn't flinch.
"You're the one talking to me," she said.
She had the look of someone unbothered by cold, by fear, or by men.
He studied her—her wild dark hair falling free beneath her fur, her eyes steady as stone.
"What's your name?" he finally asked, voice low.
She smiled faintly. "I am Alariel. A Balancekeeper."
He hesitated. "I'm Corven."
She nodded, as if she'd known his name before he spoke it.
She told him her people had lived in these mountains long before towns had names—before
kings carved borders into stone.
She spoke of spirits. Not gods. Not demons.
But forces—of life, of death, of the spaces in between.
He called it superstition.
She called it balance.
"A woman is chosen," Alariel said one day, standing where the sun hit the trees just right.
"To be the Balancekeeper. To listen when others forget how.
To make offerings. To remind the world what it owes itself."
He said nothing. Just watched the wind wrap around her like it knew her name.
She never asked why he came to the mountains.
He never asked what would happen if a Balancekeeper died.
But the forest felt quieter, somehow, when she wasn't near.
And sometimes, when she sang by the fire,
even the dead leaves outside his door seemed to pause.