The Soul’s Chorus

Chapter 14

The border mist had teeth today. It was not the usual soft, grey blanket that blurred the edges of the world. It coiled in oily, separate tendrils. Each tendril was cold and clinging. It wrapped around his ankles as he walked. It slid down the back of his neck like a wet finger. The air smelled of wet rock and deep earth. But underneath that was something else, something sour. It was the smell of spoiled milk left in a dark corner. Kaelen had come at first light. A restlessness he could not name had pulled him from his bed. His pocket felt heavy. The smooth river stone and the sharp black thorn were there. They were quiet weights against his leg.

He went straight to the place. He went to the boundary stone where he had first seen the fungus.

It had spread.

What was once a single, pulsing patch was now a riot of sickly blue. The color was wrong. It was not the blue of sky or river. It was the blue of a week old bruise. It crawled over the ancient carvings on the stone. It formed a thick crust. The carvings, the lines of old protection spells, were now buried under this glowing skin. The light from it was slow. It was a wrong light. It did not flicker like fire. It did not shine like moss. It pulsed, like a thing breathing in its sleep. Around the base of the big stone, new growth had erupted. These were tiny mushrooms. They had thin stems and caps no bigger than his thumb nail. These caps released a fine, blue dust if he looked too close. Their light was different. It was faster. It matched the beat of a panicked heart. The air around the stone did not just feel charged anymore. It felt thin. It felt stretched. As if the world here was a piece of old cloth. A piece of cloth wearing through at the threads.

Kaelen crouched down. A cold knot of dread tightened in his stomach. This was not an odd thing. This was not a strange plant. This was an infection. He pulled a strip of plain cloth from his pack. He wrapped it over his nose and his mouth. The cloth made his breath sound loud. He took out his small knife. He would not just scrape a sample today. He needed to see the roots. He slid the knife point into the soft earth by the stone's base. He worked it under the thin, white threads attached to a tiny mushroom. He pried it up, root and all. The threads were pale, like blind worms. He placed the whole thing into a waxed pouch. He pressed the edges of the pouch to seal it. It felt warm through the wax. Lyra needed to see this. Someone who studied things needed to understand.

As he stood, a deep silence fell.

It was not the normal quiet of the woods. This was an absolute void. The wind died at once. The cheerful morning chatter of birds ceased in the middle of a note. The leaves on the trees hung perfectly still. It was the silence of a creature holding its breath. It was the silence before a strike.

Then, it came.

From beyond the veil, from the human side of the world, a howl ripped through the quiet.

It was not a wolf’s howl. It was too high. It was too sharp. The sound was woven through with a grinding, metallic noise. It was like a rusty chain being dragged over stone. This sound clawed at the ears. It was a sound of pure, intelligent malice. It did not ask. It did not call. It tested. It scraped against the invisible wards of Silvathorne. The wards were the ancient magic that kept the border safe. The howl scraped against them like a saw against bone.

The moment the sound hit him, Kaelen’s Lunarth power recoiled. His power was a deep, moon fed well inside him. It was a part of his blood. It was a part of his bones. It recoiled, and then it resonated.

It was agony.

A sickening, sympathetic vibration started in his marrow. It buzzed up from the center of his bones. His teeth buzzed in his jaw. The bones in his hands felt like tuning forks. They felt like they had been struck by a cold hammer. This was not pain from outside. This was his own innate magic being violently plucked. It was a disharmony so profound it felt like his soul was being grated on stone. He gasped. The sound was torn from his lungs. He staggered back from the boundary stone. His knees buckled. He clutched his head with both hands. The world swam in nauseating waves. The trees blurred into grey and brown streaks.

The howl lasted for ten seconds.

For ten eternal seconds, the vibrating, shrieking wrongness sawed at the barrier. And it sawed at him. He saw flashes behind his eyes. They were not images. They were sensations. The feeling of thick ice cracking under his feet. The feeling of great stone splitting down the middle. The feeling of a heavy door being forced open. The door’s hinges were screaming in protest.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

The ordinary forest sounds rushed back in a dizzying flood. A bird gave an alarmed cry. A squirrel rustled in the dry leaves. A light wind moved the branches. But the silence that followed the howl was now inside Kaelen. His power settled slowly, like stirred mud sinking in a pond. But it felt bruised. It felt tender. A phantom ache throbbed behind his eyes. He knelt on the damp moss. He sucked in ragged breaths. The taste of copper was in his mouth. He must have bitten his tongue.

The wards had held. He could feel that much. But they had strained. He had felt it in his own essence. It was like feeling a great wall shiver. A shiver that traveled through the ground and up into his own feet.

He looked, with new horror, at the glowing blue fungus. It pulsed brighter now. It pulsed in a steady rhythm, as if fed by the terrible sound. This was no coincidence. The fungus was a symptom. The howl was a probe. Something on the other side knew the barrier was here. And it was looking for a weak spot. It was looking for a crack.

An external threat. Warden Selene’s dismissive words echoed in his aching head. Her voice was calm and flat. This was exactly what he had asked about. This was what the rigid protocols ignored. The rules spoke only of internal balance. They said to watch for pride, for ambition, for greed within the community. They did not speak of sharp, metallic howls from beyond the mist.

His duty, as defined by Corbin and the elders, was clear. Guard the Sunderling. The Sunderling was the source, the old wound in the world that had created their home. Ignore the thicket. The thicket was the border, the tangled edge of things. It was considered a distraction.

But the thicket was screaming. And the scream had shaken the very magic in his blood. He was a Lunarth. He was a creature of the moon’s rhythm. His power waxed and waned with its light. That howl was chaos. It was anti rhythm. It was a noise that wanted to break the pattern of things. And it was attacking his home. It was testing the locks on his door.

He forced himself to stand. His legs were unsteady. They felt like fresh saplings in a strong wind. He adjusted his pack. The waxed pouch with the fungus inside felt alien. It felt hot against his back. The river stone and the thorn in his pocket felt like forgotten promises. They were from a simpler time, just a day ago. A time of quiet confusion, not of vibrating terror.

He cast one last look at the corrupted boundary stone. The infection was spreading. The probe had been launched. The border was no longer just a line to be watched. It was a patient with a fever. It was a patient thrashing in its sleep. He turned away. He began to run back toward the heart of Silvathorne. His feet pounded on the soft path. Each step jarred his tender bones.

And as he ran, Lyra’s scholarly voice whispered the most terrifying idea of all in his memory. He saw her face, earnest in the library light. Sunderlings as she had said, her finger on a page of old text. Think of them as a door that is not fully closed. The lock is old. The frame is warped. Things could get in. She had looked up at him. Or out.

The howl had come from the outside. It was trying to get in.

But what if something, or someone, inside was making the door weak?

The thought made his run faster. What if the infection on the stone was not just a thing from the human world? What if it was a sign of something inside Silvathorne itself? Something that was making the barrier thin? Something that was calling to the chaos beyond?

His breath came in white puffs in the cold air. The mist still had teeth. It nipped at his heels as he ran. He was not just running to report a strange sound. He was running with a new, chilling fear. The enemy might be over there, beyond the mist. But the lock on the door was in here. And someone inside might be slowly, quietly, turning the key.