The grim discovery in the scarred meadow cast a long shadow over the following days. The hopeful energy Finn's sacrifice had given them was gone, replaced by a grinding, silent dread. Every patch of discolored soil, every wilted plant, sent a jolt of fear through the group. The Blight was no longer just a distant army; it was the ground beneath their feet, the air in their lungs, a sleeping sickness in the world.
Kaelen felt the weight of their silent accusations. He was their guide, their dowser, and he was leading them through a poisoned land. The constant, low-grade use of his power to navigate was a relentless drain. The vibrant connection he'd felt at the Sky-Anvil was a fading memory. Here, the Weave was thin and sickly, and every note he sang felt strained, like shouting into a gale.
The cold void in his chest, the legacy of the Blight-knight's touch, seemed to grow hungrier, a numb spot that leeched the warmth from his spirit. It was in this state of exhaustion and despair that the whisper returned.
It didn't come as a shout, but as a quiet, logical thought in his own voice. You are starving yourself for them. They will die anyway. They are weak. The land is weak. Only strength remains. You felt it in Morwen's touch. It is a tool. A sharp, clean tool. You would not be breaking the stone; you would be… streamlining it. Making it efficient.
He tried to shut it out, to focus on the memory of Finn's cleansing light or the Warden's steadfast patience. But those memories felt distant, theoretical. The whisper was here. It was practical. It promised an end to the gnawing fatigue, the power to simply carve a safe path through the rot, to no longer be a trembling, helpless guardian.
The test came on the third day after the meadow. They reached a narrow pass blocked by a recent rockslide. It was a chaotic jumble of boulders, their songs a pained, discordant jangle of recent trauma. To clear it with his current strength would take hours, maybe a full day of meticulous, draining work.
Or, the whisper suggested, you could simply ask the stone to be gone.
As the others watched, their faces hollow with exhaustion, Kaelen approached the landslide. He placed a hand on a large, blocking stone. Instead of singing the First Note to carefully mend the fractures and gently shift the rocks, he listened to the whisper. He reached for the memory of Morwen's power—not the corrosive Blight itself, but the intent behind it. The will to unmake.
He pushed.
It was not a song, but a command. A single, sharp pulse of negation.
The result was instant and shocking. The large boulder didn't move; it simply dissolved. Not into dust, but into a fine, grey sand that poured away between the other rocks, creating a clear path in moments. It was effortless. He felt no drain, no sympathetic pain. The void in his chest even seemed to quiet, sated by the act.
A collective, sharp intake of breath came from behind him. He turned to see Elara staring, not at the newly cleared path, but at his hand, which was now stained with a faint, grey film. The same grey as the Blight's residue.
"What did you do?" Roric asked, his voice low and wary.
"I cleared the path," Kaelen said, his own voice sounding strange to him. Cold. "We can pass now."
He saw the horror dawning in Elara's eyes. She wasn't looking at a savior. She was looking at someone who had just used the enemy's weapon. The very thing Finn had died to cleanse.
Old Man Hemmet, however, looked at the clear path with grudging admiration. "Well… it's about time. Efficient."
That single word, "efficient," from the man who had feared him most, was more damning than any accusation. It meant the whisper was right. This was a power that got results.
They passed through the defile in silence. Kaelen walked ahead, his mind a storm of guilt and a terrifying, shameful thrill. The path was clear. He was not tired. He had solved the problem.
That night, as he took first watch, he looked at his palm. The grey stain was gone, absorbed. But he could still feel the echo of the act, the clean, cold satisfaction of it. He had touched the power Morwen offered, and a part of him had liked it.
He looked over at the sleeping forms of the survivors, at Elara's face, tense even in sleep. He had protected them today. But he knew, with a chilling certainty, that the person he was truly endangering was himself. The question was no longer if he would use that power again, but when—and what would be left of him when he did.