Chapter 1: The Well That Whispers
The chickens stopped clucking the moment the sky cracked open.
Kaelen woke in darkness, his breath steaming against the loft's rough beams. Something was wrong. The silence pressed against his ears like water—too thick, too complete. Below, the chickens should have been stirring, rustling straw, clucking soft complaints about the cold. Instead: nothing.
He pushed himself upright, bare feet finding the ladder's rungs. The house creaked around him, settling deeper into winter's grip. Through the small window, mist clung to Veldermere's stone walls like funeral shrouds.
Outside, the air bit his skin. Frost turned the ground to glass beneath his feet as he padded toward the village center, drawn by instinct more than thought. The Bonewell waited there—ancient, moss-covered, dry for longer than anyone remembered.
But tonight it whispered.
"Kaelen."
He froze. The voice drifted upward from the well's throat, soft as leaves brushing stone. Not a scream or a shout—something quieter. More intimate. Like a friend calling him home.
His fingers found the well's edge, worn smooth by centuries of hands. He leaned forward, peering into the black.
Nothing. Just emptiness and the smell of old earth.
Then—a flicker. Deep down where light had no business being. A glow, faint as dying embers.
Gone.
*That wasn't real.* The thought scraped across his mind like a blade on stone. *Just a dream still stuck behind the eyes. Get back inside.*
But his feet wouldn't move. The well held him, patient as stone, waiting for something he couldn't name.
---
"Kaelen! Where are you?"
His mother's voice shattered the silence. He stumbled backward from the well, heart hammering against his ribs. The glow was gone—if it had ever been there at all.
"Coming, Ma."
He ran back to the house, but the whisper followed him, echoing in the spaces between his heartbeats.
---
By morning, the village had found worse things than whispers.
Kaelen stood at the edge of the crowd gathered around Henwick's prize calf. The animal lay twisted in the snow, its belly split wide but no blood pooled beneath. The innards had frozen mid-spill, crystalline and strange, as if death had surprised them.
"No beast does this." Elder Margot poked the carcass with her walking stick. "Look at the wound. Clean. Too clean."
Kaelen's father spat into the snow. "Or not beast at all."
The words hung in the air like smoke. Eyes shifted, searching for someone to blame. Kaelen felt their weight settle on him, familiar as old scars. He pulled his threadbare cloak tighter and tried to disappear.
"Witch signs," someone muttered.
"Curse marks."
"Bad blood coming home to roost."
His mother's hand found his shoulder, fingers trembling. "Hush now," she whispered, but her voice carried no conviction. Even she was looking at him strangely, like he might sprout horns if she blinked.
"Stay close." Gerun appeared beside him, bow slung across his broad shoulders. "Eyes are already turning your way."
They always did. Even when Kaelen gave them no reason. Even when he kept his head down and his mouth shut and tried to be the kind of boy who wouldn't draw attention. It never mattered. Something about him made people nervous, made them cross themselves when they thought he wasn't looking.
"Come on." Gerun jerked his head toward home. "Nothing good comes from crowds like this."
---
Behind the house, Gerun worked his knives across rabbit pelts, steam rising from the fresh kills. The repetitive scraping sound normally soothed Kaelen, but today it reminded him of claws on stone.
"Something's watching the tree line." Gerun didn't look up from his work. "Can feel it. Like an itch between the shoulder blades."
Kaelen glanced toward the Blighted Woods. The trees leaned inward there, their branches twisted into shapes that hurt to look at too long. No one hunted there anymore. Not since the Matthison boy went missing three winters back.
"They think I called it," Kaelen said.
"You didn't." Gerun's knife paused. "But if it does come... scream. I'll hear."
"What if I don't scream?"
Gerun's mouth quirked upward—not quite a smile, but close. "Then don't die."
He tossed Kaelen a skinning knife, handle first. "Here. Time you learned to do more than watch."
The blade felt strange in Kaelen's grip—too heavy, too sharp, too real. But Gerun's hands covered his, showing him the proper angle, the way to separate flesh from hide without waste.
"Like this. Smooth strokes. Don't fight the knife—let it do the work."
The rabbit's fur parted under the blade. Beneath, the meat was still warm, still soft with life that had fled only moments before. Kaelen felt something stir in his chest—not revulsion, but recognition. As if the cooling flesh called to something in his blood.
"Good." Gerun nodded approvingly. "You've got steady hands. That matters more than strength, most times."
They worked in comfortable silence until the sun climbed higher, burning off the morning mist. But the feeling of being watched never faded. If anything, it grew stronger.
---
That evening, alone in his room, Kaelen tried to draw what he'd seen in the well.
The charcoal stub left dark smears on the rough wood of his bedroom wall. Wings took shape under his fingers—but not bird wings. These were torn, ragged things with joints in the wrong places. Like someone had tried to build flight from memory and gotten the details wrong.
A child screamed outside.
Kaelen dropped the charcoal and pressed his face to the window. The village square lay empty except for shadows. But the scream came again—high, desperate, definitely a child's voice.
He ran outside, feet slipping on ice-slick stones. The well waited at the village center, as it always had. As it always would.
No child. No one at all.
"Kaelen! Stop running off!" His mother's voice carried from the house, sharp with worry.
"I'm not running," he whispered to the empty air. "I'm following."
But following what? And where?
---
The next morning brought Gerun to his door before dawn, face grim.
"Come on. Need to show you something."
They walked to the edge of the Blighted Woods in silence. Snow had fallen during the night, clean and white, but here at the tree line it had turned black with soot and thaw.
"There." Gerun pointed to deep gouges in an oak's trunk. "Three fingers. Long as my forearm."
Kaelen approached the scarred tree. The claw marks bit deep into the wood, too wide apart for wolf or bear. Too deliberate for accident.
"It dragged something?" Kaelen asked.
"No. It dug in. Like it was watching."
Kaelen pressed his palm against the bark. Heat pulsed beneath his fingers—not the gentle warmth of living wood, but something fiercer. Hungrier.
*Still warm. It was just here.*
He jerked his hand back, but the heat lingered on his skin like a brand.
"We should tell the elders," Gerun said, but his voice lacked conviction.
"Tell them what? That something with claws was watching the village?" Kaelen stared at the gouges. "They already think I summoned it."
"Maybe you did."
The words hung between them like drawn steel. Kaelen looked at his brother—really looked—and saw doubt in those familiar eyes. Not accusation, not yet, but the seed of it.
"Maybe I did," Kaelen agreed quietly.
---
That night, the well called again.
Kaelen lay in his narrow bed, listening to the wind push snow against the shutters. Sleep eluded him, chased away by whispers that might have been dreams. Or might have been something else.
"Kaelen."
His own voice, drifting up from the darkness below. Perfect mimicry, down to the slight rasp from the cold he'd caught last week.
He rose without conscious decision, bare feet finding the floor. The house slept around him—father's snores, mother's restless murmurs, Gerun's steady breathing from the next room. Normal sounds. Human sounds.
Outside, snow fell in fat, lazy flakes. The village lay wrapped in white silence, every door barred against the night. Only the well remained uncovered, its mouth open to the sky like a hungry throat.
Kaelen approached slowly, each step deliberate. The whisper came again—closer now, more distinct.
"Kaelen."
He reached the well's edge and leaned forward.
Heat exploded upward from the depths. Not flame—something cleaner, hungrier. His breath fogged in reverse, drawn down into the darkness. He staggered backward, snow hissing where it touched his suddenly feverish skin.
No fire. No light. Just ash drifting upward, black flakes that dissolved against the falling snow.
*It knows my name. And it's learning how to say it better.*
He stood there until his feet went numb, watching ash rise from an empty well. When he finally turned away, something deep in the darkness seemed to sigh—disappointed, but patient.
---
He didn't sleep. Not really. Just lay there, listening to the wind push ash across the roof like nails scratching wood. When the sun rose, it brought no warmth. Only questions.
And somewhere in the Blighted Woods, something with burning eyes began to walk toward Veldermere.