(Chapter 2)The Stones That Whisper
"They do not shine.
They do not speak.
They wait.
And they feel what others never see."
— Fragment from the Umbra Codex, Volume III (Forbidden Texts)
At first glance, they are nothing.
Smooth, dark stones. Dull. Unmarked. Cold to the touch.
You'd walk past them a thousand times and never know.
And yet…
When a hand draws near — the air changes.
It thickens.
Stillness spreads, like the hush before a storm.
Soulstones, as the ancients named them.
No one knows where they came from.
Some say they were carved from the bones of dead gods.
Others claim they fell from the stars like silent embers.
And a few, mad with age, whisper that the stones are alive — listening.
Most scholars dismiss them as relics.
Curiosities.
But those who have stood in their presence, who have felt them hum — they do not laugh.
Because soulstones do only one thing.
But they do it flawlessly.
They sense.
And they never lie.
What They Sense
Soulstones do not measure strength.
Not raw power.
Not the blaze of conjured fire or the purity of noble blood.
No.
They sense something far deeper.
They sense will.
The kind of will that claws its way through a broken life and says: I will not fall.
The kind of will forged in silence, sharpened on grief, and tempered by rage.
They react not to talent, but to tension — to the invisible bend of reality when someone refuses to break.
They vibrate in the presence of defiance.
A child with light dancing at their fingertips? The stone hums.
An old soldier, long stripped of magic, but still burning inside? The stone stirs.
And sometimes...
Before someone everyone has already forgotten —
The stone trembles so violently it's mistaken for fear.
The Trial of Silence
When a soulstone is used, it is placed on a pedestal — plain, cold, unmoving.
A child is led to it.
Told to place their hand atop it.
And then… silence.
No one speaks.
Sometimes, nothing happens. The stone remains still. Cold. Indifferent.
And the child is labeled: empty.
Sent away. Forgotten.
Sometimes, the stone gives a soft pulse — and a scribe notes the name, the faint potential.
But once in a lifetime — maybe less — the stone beats like a second heart.
That is what happened the day Ashen passed through Caldor's corridor.
He didn't even see the stone.
But it felt him.
And it shook.
Not in awe.
Not in recognition.
But as if something inside it remembered pain.
And answered it.
Power or Warning?
Interpretations vary.
To some, a stone's tremor is a sign: of power unborn, of greatness buried beneath scars.
To others, it is a warning.
Because the fire that burns in a wounded soul can consume more than it warms.
Caldor did not speak of it.
But at night, when the house was asleep, he would descend the stairs.
Stand before the stone.
And listen.
It never pulsed then.
It waited.