The old druid's words settled into the heavy silence of the meeting hall, each one a stone dropped into a deep, still well. The boy needs to know.
Elara flinched, a small, almost imperceptible movement. Her gaze dropped from Hemlock's stern face to her own hands, which were clenched so tightly in her lap her knuckles were white. For sixteen years, she had carried the truth like a shard of ice in her heart. The story she had told Alph—of scholar parents lost to bandits—was a shield she had painstakingly crafted, a kindness meant to protect him from the sharp edges of their real past. It had been her solemn promise to her brother, a vow to give his son a life free from the shadows that had consumed their own.
But the boy before her was no longer just a boy. He was a Scribe of the Frostmoon blood, a wielder of their family's legacy. He had a right to the truth, a need for it. The dangers that had hunted them once could hunt them again. To keep him ignorant now was no longer a kindness; it was a liability. The promise to her brother warred with her duty as a guardian, and her heart, for a moment, was a battlefield.
She looked at Alph, truly looked at him. The boy who had dreamed of books and far-off academies was still there, but a new, steely resolve now sat in his eyes. She could not build a cage of kind lies around a spirit that yearned for the wider world. He would leave Oakhaven one day. He would face dangers she could not predict, against which her protection would be a distant memory. Her promise to her brother was not to keep his son safe in blissful ignorance, but to ensure he grew strong enough to survive.
A warm, steadying pressure bloomed in her mind, a familiar presence pushing back against her grief. Steadfast. Protect the pup. The thought was not her own. It was Iska, a simple, powerful sentiment sent across their bond from where the great wolf sat by the hearth. The wolf's unwavering loyalty was a grounding force.
Elara's hands unclenched in her lap. The battle was over. Iska was right. Hemlock was right.
She took a slow, deep breath and lifted her head, meeting Hemlock's patient gaze. Her own eyes were now clear, the sorrow replaced by a quiet, fierce determination. She gave a single, firm nod.
It was time.
Elara turned to Alph, her voice quiet but steady, carrying the weight of generations. "Our family carries an ancient bloodline, Alph. The Frostmoon bloodline. It is one of the old lines from before the Duchies were even carved out of the mountains."
She paused, her gaze distant for a moment. "For centuries, most of our ancestors who awakened did so as you have. As Frost-Rune Scribes. Some of the greatest among them reached heights we can only imagine, Tier 4, perhaps even higher. Their power, at the lower tiers, is subtle, precise. But at Tier 3 and above, it becomes something else entirely. Something that plays a crucial role in the turnings of the world."
Her expression became more complex. "The Scribe is the purest expression of our blood, the strongest of the variants. But it is not the only one. The Frostmoon gift can manifest in other ways, blending with a person's innate talents. Some have awakened as a Rimeshadow, their affinity for stealth mixing with the cold to become assassins who can melt into a snowdrift. Others have become a Frost-Warden, their physical might and connection to the wild tempered by the unyielding strength of ice."
She took a deep breath, the sound fragile in the quiet hall. The memory was a physical weight, pressing down on her. "Several years ago, our family... we faced a joint suppression. Several of the other ancient families turned on us, for reasons I still do not fully understand. We were hunted. Everywhere."
Her voice thickened with unshed tears. "Your father... my brother... he made a choice. He sent me away with you, an infant in my arms. We were able to take refuge here, in Oakhaven, only because Teacher Hemlock was a friend to him, a friend he trusted with our lives."
* * *
Alph could not help but interject, his voice cutting cleanly through the heavy, emotional atmosphere.
"Suppression by other ancient families?" The lawyer in him took hold, his mind demanding facts, not just sorrow. "What could have possibly caused such a situation? Was there no warning? No clues?"
Elara looked lost, her mouth opening and closing with no sound. The questions were too sharp, too direct for a wound so old and deep. "I... I was only a child. There was shouting, panic... I never understood..."
Hemlock took the reins of the conversation, his voice a calm anchor in the emotional storm. He looked at Alph, his expression shifting from a mentor's concern to a teacher's focus. "To understand the 'why', you must first understand the 'how'. Tell me, boy, how does a Mage cast his spells?"
The sudden shift in topic was jarring, but Alph's mind, now attuned to the flow of power, did not falter. He drew upon the innate knowledge from his awakening. "A Mage draws mana from their 'mana heart'," he stated, his voice clear and confident. "They use that energy to build and fuel a spell module, a specific mental construct, to cast the spell."
Hemlock nodded, a flicker of approval in his ancient eyes. "Correct. And when the spell is cast, what happens to the module?"
"It dissipates," Alph answered immediately. "It cannot be maintained once it loses connection to the mana heart that supplies it."
"Precisely," Hemlock confirmed. "The same is true for a Druid's power. My Treant Guard, the vines I called... they draw their strength from my connection to my domain, this mountain. Should I travel too far from it, their power would wane and they would return to the earth. The power of a Mage or a Druid is potent, but it is tethered. It is immediate, but it is fleeting."
Alph nodded, his brow furrowed in concentration. He was beginning to understand, but he remained silent, waiting for the old druid to complete the thought.
"A Frost-Rune Scribe, however..." Hemlock leaned forward, his ancient eyes locking onto Alph's. "This is my own conjecture, pieced together from whispers your father shared with me long ago. A Tier 3 Scribe, he believed, could create runes that were... self-sustaining. Runes that could draw their power not from the caster's mana heart, but from the ambient energy of the environment itself."
Hemlock leaned back, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. "I cannot say if this is true. I never witnessed such a thing. But anything that breaks the fundamental concepts of power, anything that offers a path to untethered, lasting magic... such a thing would be a prize beyond measure. A threat beyond reckoning. It would be coveted. It would be feared. And things that are coveted and feared are, inevitably, targeted by the greedy and the envious. My belief is this, boy: someone leaked this theory, this potential. And the other great families, in their fear and their avarice, decided that the Frostmoon bloodline was a threat that could not be allowed to flourish."
An involuntary shudder ran through Alph. The sheer, ruthless cruelty of it was a bitter pill. In the world he remembered, a world of contracts and capital, such an advantage would have made his family the most sought-after business partners imaginable, the target of fierce competition, not annihilation.
"How could they?" The question was a haphazard whisper, a fragment of his old world's logic colliding with the brutal reality of this one.
Hemlock's gaze was hard as winter stone. "It was not the first time such a thing has happened, boy. And it will not be the last."
The old druid let out a weary sigh, the sound ancient as the mountains. "The hearts of men are treacherous things."