The blighted mend in the cave wall became the group's new, terrifying focal point. It was a ticking clock made of stone, its faint green pulse a constant reminder of Morwen's ultimatum. They could not stay. The corruption was spreading, a slow stain that made the very air taste of metal and decay. Kaelen tried to contain it, singing the First Note of mending to the surrounding stone, reinforcing it with a plea to resist. It was like trying to heal a fever with a cool cloth—it slowed the spread, but the sickness remained, festering just beneath the surface.
They had to move. With Roric still too injured to walk without support and supplies nearly gone, the situation was dire. Hemmet advocated for scattering, every person for themselves. It was Elara who, with a stubborn practicality that reminded Kaelen painfully of Corbin, insisted they stick together. "A single thread is easily snapped," she'd said, her voice brooking no argument. "A cord has a chance."
Their only hope was to find a settlement the Blight had missed, or a source of clean water and game. Trusting the land was all they had left. For three days, they traveled northeast, guided by Kaelen's ability to sense the health of the earth. He avoided the deep silences of the Blight-scarred lands, leading them along subtle ridges and veins where the song of the world, while faint, still held a thread of vitality. He was their dowser, their compass, his own exhaustion a price he paid for every step that took them further from Morwen's poison.
On the fourth day, the land began to change. The grey, skeletal trees gave way to a lush, green valley. The air lost its stale quality, filled instead with the scent of damp moss and pine. And most importantly, Kaelen could hear it—the clear, chattering melody of flowing water.
"The river," he croaked, his parched throat aching with hope. "It's close. And it's... it's clean."
A renewed energy surged through the group. They stumbled down the slope, breaking through a final line of ferns to see it: a wide, swift-moving river, its water crystal clear, dancing over stones of polished granite and basalt. It was the first truly living thing they had seen in weeks. The survivors fell to their knees at the bank, drinking greedily, splashing water on their gaunt faces.
But Kaelen stood frozen, his head cocked. The river's song was clean, yes. But it was also... sad. A deep, thrumming note of sorrow ran beneath its cheerful surface melody, a lament of profound weariness.
"Something's wrong," he said, his voice low.
Roric, cupping water in his hands, looked up. "Wrong? The water's good. Best I've tasted."
"It's not the water," Kaelen murmured, his senses stretching out, following the mournful thread in the song. "It's the river itself."
His gaze was drawn upstream, to a series of whitewater rapids that churned around a bend. And there, in the midst of the raging current, he saw it. A figure.
A man was standing waist-deep in the furious water, his back to them. He was not struggling against the current; he seemed to be a part of it. His hands were moving in slow, graceful arcs, and where they passed, the raging whitewater smoothed into gentle, swirling eddies. The rocks beneath the surface were subtly shifting, their sharp edges rounding, their positions altering to guide the flow rather than resist it. He wasn't fighting the river. He was persuading it.
He was a Weaver. A Water-Whisperer.
As if sensing their presence, the man slowly turned. He was older than Kaelen, perhaps in his early twenties, with hair the color of wet sand and eyes the pale, clear blue of a winter sky. His face was etched with a deep, soul-level exhaustion that mirrored the river's lament. He looked at the bedraggled group of survivors on the bank, his expression not one of surprise, but of a weary, resigned sadness.
His eyes found Kaelen, and a flicker of something—recognition?—passed through them.
"You should not have come here," the man said, his voice as calm and steady as a deep pool, yet carrying easily over the river's roar. "This place is under a sentence of death."
Elara stepped forward, shielding the children. "Who are you?"
"My name is Finn," he said, his hands still moving, his attention divided between them and the water he was calming. "And I am this river's warden. Its last guardian." He looked back at Kaelen, his gaze intense. "You carry the song of stone. I can hear it, even over the water's grief. You are the one they are looking for."
Kaelen's heart stuttered. "Who? The Blight?"
Finn gave a slow, grim nod. "They come for the last places of power. The great Heartstones are their primary targets, but they are thorough. They send their… harvesters… to poison the minor veins. A corrupted river will blight the land for a hundred miles downstream." He gestured to the water around him. "I have held them at bay for a season. But I am one man. My song grows tired."
He looked at Kaelen, and for the first time, a spark of desperate hope lit in his weary eyes. "They come with the next moon. In two days' time. I cannot stop them alone." His gaze swept over Kaelen's depleted form, taking in his trembling hands and the shadow of pain in his eyes. He didn't see a savior. He saw another tired soldier. "But perhaps… together…"
The offer hung in the air. An alliance. A fellow Weaver, not a bitter relic like Morwen, but a guardian like the Warden, fighting a losing battle. A potential friend.
But the cost of Kaelen's last battle was a fresh wound. He looked at the survivors—at Roric leaning on a crutch, at the hollow-cheeked children, at Elara's watchful, fearful eyes. To fight here was to risk them all. To draw the Blight's attention directly to this last, clean refuge.
Finn saw his hesitation, his gaze flicking to the group. The hope in his eyes dimmed, replaced by a profound understanding. "You have your own to protect," he said, his voice soft with resignation. "I understand. The world asks too much of the few who can still hear its song."
He turned back to the river, his shoulders slumping. "Then take your water and go. Find what shelter you can. I will sing this river's final lament. And when the harvesters come, I will ensure its death is not a quiet one."
He was giving them an out. A chance to flee. But as Kaelen watched Finn stand alone against the relentless current, a mirror of his own futile struggle, he knew there was no real choice. To abandon another guardian was to become like Morwen—to see the world as a series of assets and losses, not a living thing worth saving, piece by precious piece.
The Blight sought to isolate and destroy. The only answer was connection.
Kaelen took a step forward, his voice firm despite the fear coiling in his gut. "We're not leaving," he said.
Finn paused, his hands stilling in the water. He didn't turn around.
Kaelen looked at Elara, who met his gaze and gave a single, grim nod. Roric grunted in approval. Even Hemmet was silent, for once too terrified to argue.
"We'll stay," Kaelen said, the words a vow that settled his trembling soul. "Tell us what to do."
Finn slowly turned, the ghost of a grim smile on his lips. The weary Water-Whisperer and the battered Stone-Singer. It was not an army. It was a prayer.
"Then we have two days," Finn said, his blue eyes hardening with a renewed purpose. "Two days to turn this river into a fortress."