The sun crested the Spine of Adiarqa, its light a pale gold that drank the cool damp from the earth of the World Above the Scar. Today was the proving ground for the lessons learned in the dark. The target was a Silent Hoof—a creature that was little more than skittish grace and ears that could hear a leaf decide to fall.
Xeno watched his father's face, seeing the deep weariness etched there like grooves in ancient stone. I will bring back food, he promised himself silently. I will ease that burden from his shoulders.
Othniel led them to the edge of a vast field of Whisperbloom. The low-lying plants emitted a constant, high-frequency hum, a living veil of sound that defined this new land. "The bloom is your enemy and your ally," Othniel whispered, his voice carrying the same patience he'd used when teaching Xeno to mend nets as a child. "A heavy step makes it scream, and the Hoof will be gone. You must move across it like a change in pressure. Like a ghost."
The task was a direct challenge to his physique. His body had mass and power; this required their absence. The old frustration simmered, not as shame, but as the familiar friction of a problem yet to be solved. The ground here is like wet clay on the riverbank. My weight is my hand. I must press without leaving a print.
"Forget the frustration," Othniel commanded, his voice low but firm. "This is not about being small. It is about being absolute. Your density is a fact. Use it to command the very ground you touch. This is a greater test of will than any climb."
Xeno nodded. He stripped the charcoal from his arms, becoming a study in light and shadow, and began to crawl.
It was more grueling than the cliff. This was not a battle against gravity, but against his own substance. He had to place his hands and knees without displacing the air beneath them. He moved by isolating muscles, transferring his immense weight in tiny, calculated shifts, his mind a map of pressure points and vectors. The Whisperbloom's hum was a tripwire for his soul. A twitch, a sigh too deep, and its pitch would rise to a shriek of betrayal.
He spent an eternity on a single forward push of an elbow, inching across a dry root he prayed would hold. Sweat painted cold trails through the grime on his face. His muscles didn't burn; they screamed from the inside out, strangled by the exhausting tyranny of restraint.
As Xeno crawled, Othniel watched his son's every strained muscle, his breath catching each time Xeno's thigh trembled. Breathe, lad, he thought, sending the strength through the silence between them. You are my son. You are strong enough.
He saw the Shadow Cat's print in the mud—a ghost of his past failure. The memory hardened his resolve. He was not a boy struggling, but a force being refined. He was learning to be the forest's own stillness.
The final stretch was a patch of soft, wet earth. His right thigh betrayed him, trembling with a life of its own. He locked his jaw, forcing the rebellion down with pure mental force, holding his body in a suspended agony until the tremor died. The effort left him light-headed, but silent.
He reached the tree line. The Hoof grazed, unaware, fifty paces away. Othniel had given him a single Hollow Reed spear.
The last obstacle was a mossy ridge scattered with loose stones. To use his hands was to risk a cascade of noise. Instead, he leveraged his core, shifting his weight onto his shoulder, using the friction of his tunic against the damp moss. He was a bridge, a human lever inching forward.
A small stone dislodged under his boot.
It was a final, tiny betrayal. It should have clattered down the ridge. But Xeno's body, trained to its new purpose, reacted. His calf muscle compensated with a micro-adjustment, a piston of controlled force. The stone settled back into its bed. The silence held.
When the small stone dislodged, Othniel's hand tightened on his knife, not for the Hoof, but for the heartbreak he knew would follow if Xeno failed now, when he was so close.
He was there.
"Now," came Othniel's voice, a thought on the wind. "The Unleashing."
Xeno rose. The coiled potential of the last hour unwound in a single, silent, vertical motion. He did not throw the spear. He launched it, a kinetic extension of his entire being. It was not a toss, but a release of stored force.
The spear flew true, a blur of hardened reed that found its mark before sound could catch up with it. It struck the Silent Hoof just behind its front shoulder, the fire-hardened point punching deep into vital flesh. The creature made no sound. Its head jerked up once, eyes wide with a surprise that had no time to become pain. Its legs buckled, and it fell to the moss without a cry, its life ended in the same silence it had lived in.
The hunt was over. Clean. Silent.
Xeno stood over the fallen Hoof and pulled the spear free. A clean wound, precise and merciful. No thrashing, no wasted suffering. The frustration was gone, replaced by a cold, hard understanding. This was the first thing he had truly earned in this new world, and he had earned it not with luck, but with a mastered will. His first thought was to look back, to find his father's eyes in the trees.
Othniel emerged from the trees, his face marked by a profound, quiet relief. He placed a hand on Xeno's shoulder. The touch was warm, solid, and said more than words ever could. "It yielded," Othniel said, his voice thick. "You did." In that moment, he didn't see the future hunter or the "Great Stone." He saw the boy he'd taught to walk, now walking a path of his own making.
They quickly covered the carcass with cooling leaves and a layer of Blood Moss to protect it from scavengers and slow the spoilage. The real work of butchering and preserving would come later, at camp. For now, they needed to get their prize to safety.
As they finished, Othniel's gaze was drawn to the west, to where the forest of the World Above the Scar grew dense and ancient. He pointed.
There, half-swallowed by roots and moss, was a series of long, straight mounds. They were too regular, too perfectly aligned to be natural. They looked like the buried spine of some colossal, forgotten beast.
Othniel stared for a long moment, his hunter's eyes tracing the unnatural lines. "We have life now," he murmured, his voice low. "We have food. And now... we have a question." He turned to Xeno, his expression unreadable. "Look at how the earth lies there. Those shapes... if I didn't know better, I'd say they were made with purpose. Like the work of builders."
He let the observation hang between them, heavy with implication. "Or something that wanted to look like builders," he added quietly, his voice dropping almost to a whisper. "The stories never agreed on what made the Old Walls. Only that they were best left alone."
The immediate hunt was over. A deeper, more dangerous one had just begun.