ETHANAC

A lonely wind moved across the field, carrying the scent of ash, iron, and rain. Beneath a sky filled with smoke, dust, and the remains of those who had fallen, Ethanac knelt, his hands trembling as he pressed them to the earth saturated with the blood of kings and beggars alike.

His armor was split and burned; his tartan torn and soaked through with sweat and blood. Around him, the remnants of his kin’s banners fluttered like broken wings—dancing one last time on a soft breeze.

He whispered a name—not of the enemy, not of the gods, but of her.

He wanted her to be his last thought, and this seemed like the right time.

But every ending begins somewhere.

He lived in the Vale of Loryen, where the rivers ran clear and the air shimmered with the scent of honeyroot blossoms that tickled the nose. The people of Loryen believed the land itself was alive—that the forests whispered and the mountains breathed.

Ethanac had grown beneath those whispers, taught not to wound but to mend—the way of the forest, the way of the life force that bound his world.

His mother was a keeper of herbs and lore, always providing care and a good story for her kinsmen. His father was a maker of blades—the finest and strongest steel known throughout the kingdom.

Between them, Ethanac learned both compassion and the raw power of the sword.

He had never sought greatness; he had sought balance and peace.

Then the sky fell.

One night, long before dawn, a burning star tore across the heavens, dragging a long tail behind it, looking like a dragon plummeting through the sky before it crashed beyond the ridge of Tyrna—setting the forest ablaze.

All night, the dark orange of fire radiated into the night as smoke blotted out the stars and the scents of those ancient forests filled the atmosphere.

The next day, the world changed.

Strange lights flickered in what was left of the woods, and the rivers pulsed with life and a pale blue glow as the waters crept along the shores like a snake sizing up its prey.

Animals fled, seemingly on instinct alone, from unseen forces, and the air grew cold on what should have been a hot midsummer morning.

Ethanac could not contain his curiosity, so he and his father joined the searchers who followed the trail of scorched earth to the crater.

Like some lonely death march, having no idea what waited ahead, they surveyed the damage along the way.

Homes and forests alike had been incinerated with such intense heat there was barely any identifiable debris.

Nothing appeared to have survived in the wake of whatever had fallen.

They reached the crater’s edge, and Ethanac was the first over the impact ridge, his father’s voice behind him barely heard and not listened to.

Smoke still lingered—but it didn’t rise and float away.

It hung in the air as if inspecting him, waiting for him—or so it felt—before it revealed what lay beneath.

As if it was alive.

Breathing.

Watching.

Watching him.

Then, and only in that moment, as if deciding, it simply dissolved and was gone.

Like the steam on a hot bowl of Wanka stew his mother was likely preparing at that very moment, the smoke—or mist, or whatever this was—was just gone.

He made his way cautiously to the center of the pit.

There, half-buried in the soil, was some sort of rod or staff. As he got closer, he could see what looked like a handle and, ultimately, what appeared to be a blade unlike any his father had forged.

He could see that immediately.

Its blade was black as night, rimmed with veins of glowing blue light.

The light seemed to be radiating heat, but he could not feel any as he approached.

Then Ethanac touched it.

He filled from his bones outward with a heat of such intensity that not even a scream could escape. His head snapped back, his body arched as if howling at the moon and frozen at the same time.

His only thought was how.

How could he warn the others?

His father.

His clansmen.

The blade hummed as if with a living pulse at first, then with an intensity that matched the pain.

For a heartbeat, he heard whispers in a tongue that seemed older than anything he had ever heard before.

And at that moment, a cool breeze drifted slowly across him as if time itself had stopped.

Up his spine it crept, slowly bringing him back to his normal body temperature.

He felt calm.

In a flash, he was back, stooped over the blade with its hilt in his hand.

He pulled back, dropping the sword into the soil that oozed beneath it as if shivering from its very presence.

But the sword had already marked him.

The light shifted from blue to a dark, moss-colored green and pulsed ever so gently with a strange inner hue.

The same markings briefly lit across the skin of his body and, as quickly as they appeared, vanished—unseen by anyone.

Ethanac did not feel any different.

But somehow, he knew everything had just changed.