Silent Rebirth

Early morning light crept through the small windows of the guild quarters, casting beams across the stone floor in pale-gold hues. Dust motes danced within the feeble shimmer, floating in the silence of morning. Kiaran woke to the pain of the trials of the day before and every muscle ached as he hurled himself upward, each movement a reminder of the bruises and cuts he'd earned in the fight. The aftertaste of victory still clung in the air—cloying, intoxicating, a sweet respite from the acrid bitter taste he'd known all these years. Yet he knew, even now in the haze of an early morning, that one win was but a drop in the bucket of a world that preached power above all else. For him, someone without a birthright of strength, every day was a fight against the shadows of obscurity.

He dressed in a hurry, pulling on the tunic ill-favored, which may have seen its best days a good long while ago; buckling on worn leather armor whose edges were frayed from countless scrapes. As he stepped out of his quarters, the familiar din of the guild hall welled up for him like a wave—voices, clattering arms, and the occasional bark of laughter, which did little to banish the lingering sense of danger.

The hall vibrated with activity. Adventurers readied for the following day, some running and honing the dents from their battered armor, others honing weapons to a sharp, hungry edge. Maps of deadly dungeons lay open across wooden tables, inked with paths from which few return. Fresh bread and smoked meats floated out of the kitchen on a wing of metallic iron and sweaty men. Life and death curled together, entrapping each other in an interminable, ruthless waltz.

Kiaran's gaze swept across the gathering, lingering for a moment on the battle-hardened men, those few who seldom saw him. He was still an upstart, tolerated only because he endured – barely, often ignorantly. But within him burned a quiet fire that had kept him alive thus far.

Alaric stood beside him, his broad frame becoming one with the movement of the scene. The older man was a shadow drawn across noisy hall, his scars mapping battle after battle. "Keep your wits about you, Kiaran," he said softly, low enough to be lost in the chaos. "Find a mission that fits you, but don't be afraid to dig deeper. Sometimes the safest-looking missions are the most dangerous."

Kiaran nodded, drinking in the weight of the words Alaric spoke. He trusted his mentor's instincts, even when they bordered on paranoia. Alaric was no one to spout empty words at ceremony; he spoke for a reason, because something lurked out of sight. Kiaran himself knew to look back at the board to find a quest that utilized his skills yet might allow him a bit of that something more.

The board was covered in papers: routine patrols, high-stakes hunts, and everything in between. Most guild members hovered around those promising gold or glory. Kiaran stopped in front of a yellowed, curled parchment near the bottom of the board. Investigate disturbances around the ruined temple deep in the forest. The task seemed almost too mundane—that probably was why others had missed it and craved greater exploits. Still, an odd creeping feeling at the back of his neck nipped away at Kiaran, and he couldn't shake off the memory of Selene's words about shadows whose movements played between shadows.

He ripped the notice off the board and turned to Alaric, who merely arched an eyebrow at his selection. "Good. Just. be careful. The forest hides more than it show," Alaric whispered, and a shiver crept into Kiaran's bones.

Kiaran tucked the notice into his belt and took off, bracing himself for what he found in the next silence. He left into the wood, a smell of warm autumnal winds, but bitter as frosts when he went deep. The undergrowth grew thicker; the shadows stretched down longer to hold daylight in their arms. Every step had stirred the scent of wet earth everywhere, mixed with something ancient below the surface, like a mystery kept, waiting to be found.

Kiaran scanned the surroundings as he walked, drinking in broken branches and gouged claw marks into the trunks. Every scuff and scratch hinted at battles long past, fights that had marked the forest as surely as they had scarred the warriors. Here, he came upon the remnants of other adventurers: a shattered sword rusting into his age, a leather glove stiff with dried blood. The truth curdled his stomach with an augury of worse days yet to come, though he pressed on, his grip around the sword's hilt tightening.

As sunset bled away, the ruined temple confronted them. Vines wrapped between stone and stone, like skeletal fingers pushing up to claim the last shadows of light. This was once a place of glory-a possible ancient place of worship or sanctuary-but today, it represented decay. The air thickened with the scent of moss and rot; the whispers teased at Kiaran's ears since entering the forest grew louder, as if they rode on the wind.

Kiaran hesitated, his hands locked on the hilt of his sword as if the grip itself was a lifeline. It's just a job, he lied to himself, but the unease gnawing at his mind wouldn't keep still. He stepped forward into the chill, misting breath on the ancient stones groaning beneath his feet.

Inside, it was cool and quiet, suffocatingly so. The air pressed inward from all sides. Symbols carved into the walls glowed faintly with unnatural light: twisted, misshapen forms; they reminded him of the puzzles the guild's trials had thrown his way. Kiaran's fingers brushed over the runes, feeling a strange tingling crawl up his arm as if ancient markings recognized him—marked him.

A low growl rumbled through the darkness, and a shiver tracked its path down Kiaran's spine. He spun around to peer into the shadows, his heart thudding against the inside of his ribs. A shape flitted through the dim light-too quick to make out clearly-but unmistakably there. He tightened his grip on his sword, bracing himself as the whispers rose into a maddening cacophony.

And then out of the blackness it came—a creature born of darkness itself, its body twisting and flickering like smoke around a solid core. Its eyes glowed sickly yellow, and caught Kiaran with a hunger that sent the tremor running down his spine. The very air seemed to thicken with malevolent intent, and a clawing at his mind, primal and powerful, urging him to flee on screaming wind-surfing legs. But Kiaran stood his ground.

It lunged at him, claws snapping through the air with a ferocity that writhed shadows in disgust. Kiaran barely ducked in time, the creature's claws slicing through the air above his head. He countered with a desperate slash of his blade, but it passed through the creature's smoky form with little resistance. It retaliated, almost hitting him across the ribs, and he stumbled backward, gasping for air in ragged bursts, each one clouding the biting air.

His brain, racing with trying to divine a pattern in the creature's movement, circled back upon himself as he pondered how such a creature might be thinking. It was as if the thing was toying with him, a cat playing with a mouse. Only it didn't; then he saw a hesitation—a fraction of a second where it stopped to strike. Leaping at it, offering it his left shoulder, it plunged recklessly towards that side and he struck out into its core.

His sword drove into the heart of the shadow. The creature shrieked out in keening wail, a rattling crash of iron on bone, echoing down through the ruins. Its body thrashed about, tearing itself apart at the seams as the darkness spilled out like blood. He stumbled back, gasping, as the final remnants of the creature unraveled into a dark mist that sailed off to join the dust devils dancing up from the desolate wasteland, leaving behind a small stone pulsing with faint blue light.

Kiaran cupped the stone in his hand, feeling a strange warmth trickle across his palm. Symbols like those etched across the temple walls blazed across its surface, pulsing with a rhythm that seemed to keep time with the beating of his heart. His eyes stayed on it now, a wave of dizziness sweeping up over him and threatening to drag him down into the depths of unconsciousness. He forced himself to breathe deeply, fighting against the pull of what must have been an ancient power inside the stone, and stuffed it into his pocket. He felt instinctively that it was more than a bauble.

Walking back through the trees, the conviction that someone-or something-watched him grew stronger. Shadows seemed to wriggle at the edges of his vision, twist into impossible shapes, and disappear when he turned their direction. The trees whispered secrets he could not understand, their voices carried on a wind that cut through him like a blade. Every rustling branch made him flinch, but no other creature attacked him, and he emerged onto the edge of the woods just as the last light of day bled into the sky.

At the guild, Alaric's face darkened as he stared at the stone. His eyes narrowed, tracing the glowing runes that beat like a pulse. "You've discovered something dangerous, Kiaran. Things of this sort are attached to powers that should be left underground," he said, his voice heavy with a weight that seemed to make the air seem colder. "Keep it hidden and speak of this to no one.".

Especially not to the higher-ups. There are those who would kill to possess what you hold."

Kiaran nodded, though his mind buzzed with questions clinging to him as the chill did. Why was there a creature so strong guarding this relic? And what relation did it bear to the warnings given? The stone pulsed faintly in his pocket, reminding him of all these mysteries that now became shadowy presences over every one of his steps.

That night, Kiaran lay on his narrow bed, his body not wanting to sleep. He kept flipping the stone in his hands. He felt the runes dance there in the dim light. Each pulse was a silent rhythm beating to the slowing cadence of his own heart. What did it mean? Ran through his mind like a knife, twisting and turning there.

As the moon reached its zenith, a shadow crossed Kiaran's window. He tensed, his hand lifting toward his sword, until he saw the figure waiting outside. It was Selene, in her dark cloak that seemed to blend so well with the night he knew she would be a shadow among shadows; her face unreadable as the sky itself, lit only by the silver light of the moon.

Your restless forces best left sleeping," she breathed, hardly louder than a whisper on the night air, ghostly. Her eyes flashed with shadowed knowledge and unspoken terrors, boring into him as if seeing to his very soul. "The shadows you have faced are but a fragment. Be wary, Kiaran, lest they devour you whole.".

Kiaran's mouth opened to question her, and then she dissolved into the dark, leaving him to himself in the night's chill and the promise of those deeper dangers yet to come.

As he looked at the dying stars of the night, Kiaran felt that he was standing at the edge of a precipice, with below him yawning open darkness. He had faced the darkness, and he had passed the trials, but little did he know that the real test had just begun- deep inside his heart.