The memory of Iscarius's fall was a stain on Kaelen's soul, a ghost that haunted the edges of his concentration. For two days, he could not bring himself to touch the stone. The Warden did not force him, allowing the silence to be its own lesson. Kaelen spent the time staring at the glowing pebble, turning it over and over in his hand. A great light had shattered the world. A small one was trying to mend it. The paradox was a knot he could not untie.
On the third morning, the Warden led him to the far northern edge of the Sky-Anvil, where the mountain fell away into a sheer, mist-shrouded cliff. The song here was different—not the deep, centered hum of the Heartstone, but a thin, soaring melody of wind and empty space.
"You have learned to sing with the stone," the Warden's voice cut through the swirling mists. "But a song that stays in one place becomes an echo, then silence. The Fourth Note is the Note of Conduction. It is the art of carrying the song across a distance, of making the Weave itself your messenger and your tool."
Kaelen watched the mist curl around the Warden's stony form. "You mean… to use my power without touching the stone?"
"Without your hands touching it," the Warden corrected. He gestured to the cliff face across a twenty-foot chasm. A single, sharp pillar of rock jutted from the opposing wall, its song a lonely, isolated spike in the vastness. "Your task is to sever the tip of that pillar."
Kaelen stared. The distance felt immense. "How? I can't reach it."
"Your body cannot. Your song can." The Warden pointed his staff not at the pillar, but at the cliff face at their feet. "The mountain is not a collection of separate stones. It is a single, interconnected being. The song you hear is its voice. The Weave is its nervous system. You will sing your note here," he tapped the rock at their feet with his staff, "and ask the mountain to carry it there." He pointed across the chasm.
The concept was dizzying. It was one thing to join his will with a stone he held; it was another to send that will on a journey through the living body of the mountain itself.
He knelt, placing his palms on the cold, damp rock of the cliff edge. He reached for the song of the mountain, not as a listener, but as a traveler. He felt the immense network of it, the threads of power connecting every stone, every layer, from the deep roots to the highest peak. It was a map of unimaginable complexity.
He focused on the lonely pillar across the chasm, fixing its distinct, sharp melody in his mind. Then, he turned his attention to the stone beneath his hands. He formed the intent of the Second Note—the clean, precise separation—not as a command to the rock he touched, but as a message. He poured the essence of that intent into the Weave, a single, focused packet of will, and then he released it, asking the network to deliver it.
Nothing happened.
He pushed harder, straining. He visualized the note flying like an arrow through the stone. A headache began to pound behind his eyes, the familiar drain of misspent energy. The pillar remained stubbornly whole.
"You are shouting at a messenger," the Warden observed, his voice calm. "You must hand him the letter and trust him to deliver it. You are forcing the energy on the journey yourself. Let the mountain carry it. You are only the scribe."
Kaelen took a shuddering breath, forcing himself to relax. The analogy resonated. He wasn't throwing the note; he was entrusting it. He closed his eyes again, finding the pillar's song. He formed the intent of the cut, clean and sharp. But this time, instead of pushing it away, he simply offered it to the network of stone beneath him. He placed the intent into the Weave, a gentle, respectful request.
Carry this for me, he thought. Bring it to that lonely stone.
For a long moment, there was only the howl of the wind. Then, he felt it. A subtle shift, a vibration that was not his own traveling through the stone. It was the mountain itself, accepting his missive and conducting it along the paths of its own power. It was a faint, almost imperceptible hum moving away from him, flowing through the bedrock, crossing the chasm not through the air, but through the deep, connected roots of the mountain.
Across the gap, the sharp pillar shivered.
Then, with a clean, crisp snap that was swallowed by the wind, its top third sheared off. It tumbled silently into the mist-filled abyss below. The cut was perfect.
Kaelen stared, his breath caught in his throat. He had not felt the drain of the Second Note. He had only felt the gentle effort of the request. The mountain had done the work. He had merely asked it to.
"The Blight seeks to sever these connections, to isolate each stone into silent, defenseless oblivion," the Warden said, his voice pulling Kaelen back. "The Fourth Note is the answer. It is the reminder that we are not alone. That no stone is an island. The strength of one is the strength of all."
Kaelen looked down at his hands, then across the chasm at the newly flattened pillar. The ghost of Iscarius seemed to shrink in the face of this revelation. Iscarius had sought to centralize power, to make himself the sole source of the world's song. The true power, Kaelen now saw, was not in concentration, but in connection. It was in the humble, profound act of trusting the world to help you mend it.
He was not a solitary hero carrying the entire weight. He was a single note, finding its place in a symphony so vast it could mend even the deepest wounds. For the first time since the vision, the weight felt bearable.
He looked at the Warden, a new understanding dawning in his eyes. "It was never about being worthy of the power, was it?"
The Warden's obsidian gaze was deep and knowing. "No. It is about being worthy of the connection."