The wind howled through the Hall of Ancestors, carrying the scent of pine and old iron.
It was the Day of Awakening.
In the center of the hall stood the Wyrd-Stone, a massive slab of meteor rock etched with glowing blue runes. Around it, the entire clan had gathered—warriors clad in wolf pelts, elders with braided beards, and the piercing gaze of the High Jarl.
They were all watching one boy.
Kaelen.
"Step forward," the High Priest boomed, his voice shaking the frost from the rafters. "Place your hand upon the stone. Let the gods decide your burden."
Kaelen walked forward. The stone floor was ice-cold against his bare feet, but he didn't shiver. He couldn't afford to.
'Focus,' he told himself. 'Just breathe.'
He could feel the eyes of his father, the Clan Head, burning into his back. The clan expected a Greatsword. Maybe a Battle-Axe. Something worthy of the "Iron-Blood" lineage.
Kaelen reached out. His palm touched the rough, freezing surface of the Wyrd-Stone.
HUMMM.
The stone vibrated. A light began to pool around his hand. The crowd leaned in, breath held, waiting for the roar of a beast or the clang of a weapon.
Instead, there was a soft, delicate crackle.
From the center of Kaelen's palm, a swirl of blue light coalesced. It didn't sharpen into steel. It didn't roar. It curled, twisted, and bloomed.
There, floating above his hand, was a tiny, fragile plant. It had two pale blue leaves and a bud that looked like it would shatter if touched.
A Frost-Bud.
The hall went dead silent. The wind outside seemed to stop.
"A... flower?" someone whispered from the back.
Then, the laughter started.
It began as a chuckle from a rival warrior, then spread like a contagion until the entire hall was shaking with raucous, mocking laughter.
"A gardener! The Iron-Blood heir is a gardener!"
"Don't let him near the battlefield, he might plant a daisy on the enemy!"
"What a waste of the ceremony!"
Kaelen stood frozen, his head bowed. To the crowd, he looked like he was trembling with shame.
But he wasn't trembling from shame. He was trembling from effort.
'Stay down,' Kaelen gritted his teeth, his internal voice screaming. 'Do not come out. Not now.'
Deep within his soul, far beneath the fragile surface of the Frost-Bud, something else was waking up.
It was heavy. Impossibly, terrifically heavy.
It felt like a pitch-black shadow trying to tear its way out of his spiritual vein. It felt like the sky falling. A dark, rusted handle was trying to materialize in his other hand.
The Eclipse Parasol.
'Let me open,' the shadow whispered in his mind. 'They are laughing. Let me open, and I will block out the sun. I will rain disaster upon them all.'
The sheer killing intent of the second spirit was suffocating. If Kaelen let it slip for even a second, the pressure alone would crush the Wyrd-Stone. The High Priest would sense it. The Empire would know.
Kaelen bit his tongue until he tasted copper. He shoved the darkness back down, forcing the screaming shadow into a cage of sheer will. He poured every ounce of his energy into suppression, leaving only a tiny trickle of mana for the visible spirit.
That was why the flower looked so weak. It wasn't because Kaelen lacked power. It was because he was using 99% of his power to hold the monster back.
The light faded. The Wyrd-Stone went dark.
The High Priest looked at Kaelen with eyes full of pity and disgust. He scribbled a symbol onto a parchment—the rune for Waste.
"Kaelen of the Iron-Blood," the Priest announced, his voice flat. "Wyrd-Spirit: Frost-Bud. Rank: 1. You are dismissed."
Kaelen finally exhaled. The shadow in his soul receded, growling as it went back to sleep.
He lowered his hand, the tiny frost flower vanishing into mist. He turned to face the laughing crowd, his face unreadable. He didn't cry. He didn't scream.
He simply bowed, a small, polite motion that looked almost bored.
'Laugh while you can,' Kaelen thought, walking past his father, who refused to even look at him. 'The storm is coming. And I am the only one who brought an umbrella.'