Teaser

  The boy who once fell to jeers now rises in silence— a silence sharp enough to draw blood before anyone hears it.

  ...

  The river kept its slow pull beneath the willow, black and quiet as thought. The water mirrored nothing; even stars knew better than to watch.

  Kael’s arms burned from the climb, his legs trembled from the balance steps, but his breath still counted: four in, four hold, four out.

  Eldrin’s staff tapped once, steady as a heartbeat. The boy swayed, sweat dripping into dust, and held.

  Only then did the old man lift his hand , at last.

  Eldrin said, “enough.”

  Kael sagged to a crouch, forearms on knees, breath counting itself now. Wrecked and awake at once, like a house after the first good sweep in years.

  Eldrin knelt and unrolled a small leather kit: a length of weighted cord; a slender flute carved from dark bone; three smooth river stones; a short iron chain with a ring; a folded scrap that smelled faintly of rosemary.

  Kael’s eyes tried to sort weapons from what was not, then gave up.

  “These,” Eldrin said, answering the unasked, “are names men forgot to return to the world. Cord to teach hands the truth of a line and the mercy of slack. Stones to teach eye measure and wrist truth. A chain to remind you that what binds can also pull. And this—” he lifted the flute, “—to teach that breath has edges.”

  “Edges?”

  “Breath can cut,” Eldrin said mildly. “The world just forgets to listen for it.”

  “You’ll teach me to fight,” Kael said, watching the iron ring. “Not with swords.”

  “You’ll learn to fight last,” Eldrin said. “By then, you might not even need to.”

  Kael wasn’t sure he liked it. He couldn’t argue with it, not with his arms shaking and the square’s stone still in his cheek. He nodded.

  They walked again.

  Dogs grumbled, decided the night wasn’t worth the price of standing. A shutter clicked. A voice in a yard hushed a child who hadn’t spoken. Wind moved like a thought through reeds.

  The city’s windows blinked like half-closed eyes, pretending not to see them pass.

  “Why do they believe it?” Kael asked. “Gorath’s curse. Why swallow it so easily?”

  “Grief is heavier than questions,” Eldrin said. “Fear likes a name—preferably someone else’s.”

  “They’ll keep watching me.”

  “They will. Let them see what you choose to show.”

  “What do I show?”

  “Nothing, they know how to count.”

  Eldrin’s cottage waited with its roof like a tired hat.

  He pushed the door; the dark changed shape into the room: table, hearth, two stools, cot, a shelf of books whose spines had given up telling strangers anything.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Wash,” Eldrin said. “Salt the cuts. Wrap your ribs. Slow.”

  Kael obeyed. Salt burned like honesty. He counted and did not disgrace himself with a sound.

  Eldrin checked the binding—firm, impersonal—and nudged the knot a thumb’s breadth. “Here. So it won’t slip when you climb.”

  Kael’s gaze snagged the books. “What are those?”

  “Old arguments,” Eldrin said, mouth tipping. “Some with themselves.” He brushed his hand along a battered ledger, a stitched folio, waxed sheets. “You’ll read when your eyes earn not to close the moment you sit.”

  Kael wondered if words could fight longer than men.

  A small, surprised smile threatened Kael’s mouth. “Yes.”

  Eldrin poured thin broth into two bowls. “Eat.”

  They ate to soup sounds and settling wood. The locket lay on Kael’s sternum like a coin left by someone who meant to come back. Its warmth no longer felt cruel.

  “We’ll make a schedule,” Eldrin said, as if listing bread. “Before dawn: breath and balance on the river path. After chores: carry, chop, lift. After sunset: hands and eyes, cord and stones, stillness. When the moon is thin: the first measures of music."

  “If you fail,” Eldrin said, “fail quietly— that’s when the world teaches best.””

  “Music? Now?”

  “Later,” Eldrin amended, amused. “You’d miss half the notes tonight. But a day will come when you must hold a room with nothing but a sound.” He tapped the flute. “We begin with scales. Ordinary, foolish scales. You’ll hate them. Then you’ll make men listen without shouting or bleeding.”

  Kael thought of the square listening to Varrick without asking permission of its conscience. He nodded. “I will learn.”

  “Good.” Eldrin set the cord and stones where morning would remember them. He paused in the doorway, listening to a wind Kael couldn’t yet hear. “Do you know what your enemies fear most?”

  Kael studied his hands—still a boy’s hands after a long day in an older man’s world. “Me?”

  “Their own measure,” Eldrin said. “You will become a mirror they can’t bear to face.”

  Kael didn’t understand, not really. He let the words sit like a cut that can’t be tended until morning.

  “Sleep,” Eldrin said. “We rise before the bells.”

  Kael lay on the cot where straw prickled through the thin blanket. The ache in his ribs fell into a rhythm that, if he shaped his breath, almost felt like a second heart. He turned the locket and set it to his forehead. The silver answered with a pulse as small as a moth’s wing.

  “I heard you,” he whispered into the dark. “I hear you.”

  The answer was not light this time, but a faint tightening of air—as if something far away had turned its head.

  The square returned—boot, water, laughter—but no longer the whole world. Stones in a stream. He could feel the current find its way around them.

  Sleep came like a door easing shut on a room that had been too loud.

  The Morning After...

  He woke before the bells.

  The dark hadn’t begun to pale, but the world had started its quiet work. Eldrin stood by the table, wrapping cloth around the weighted cord, tying a new knot. Unhurried. Precise. A river works at its own pace.

  “You’ll run before breath,” Eldrin said, not looking up. “Then breathe before run. Bring the stones.”

  Kael swung his feet down. The ache rose like a loyal enemy to greet him, legs trembling once before he locked them into obedience.

  He sat, let the first breath count itself, then stood. He tucked three smooth stones into his palm—light, then not.

  He touched the locket. Its heat met him like a hand that didn’t pull away — and for a heartbeat, he saw Liora laughing under torchlight, fireflies circling her hair like tiny suns.

  Outside, the air bit with river-cold. The path waited. The willow waited. The night made room.

  They stepped into it together—old man, boy, staff ticking measure—and the city that watched him crawl did not yet know the boy had stood.

  Beyond the cottages, a rooster shouted the first absurd claim of the day. The drunk finished his hymn and snored. A shutter cracked, a pair of tired eyes marked them, and closed. Somewhere in the palace, Gorath woke angry and didn’t know why.

  “Count,” Eldrin said. Kael’s ribs ached against the rhythm, but he kept the count steady.

  Four in. Four hold. Four out.

  He no longer carried only grief.

  He carried purpose—thin and sharp as the first edge on a whetstone.

  Far beyond the river, beyond Eryndor, beyond even the Vyrn Forest where shadows learned to walk, something shifted. Roads unseen rippled. Old powers turned their faces east—as if the world had heard the quiet vow of a broken boy.

  And somewhere in Eryndor’s quiet heart, a knife turned on a whetstone— slow, deliberate, learning his name with every stroke.

  The hunt had already begun.

  Next: The Firewood Trial — the first lesson of endurance begins before dawn.

  The Saga of the Starbound Protector updates every Wednesday and Saturday at 7:00 PM (IST).

  Author’s Note

  Updates every Wed & Sat, 7 PM (IST).

  Thanks for reading — your support, comments, and ratings keep this journey alive. Congrats to all of you walking this path with Kael! ????