The scent of cut grass and diesel hung thick in the late afternoon air. Astralen guided the mower along the edge of Lord Elmsworth’s prize-winning clover, the engine a steady drone against the rising wind. Not exactly the life he pictured after the Academy, but borders didn’t patrol themselves, and someone had to keep the peace—or what passed for it these days—in Avesten. A handful of skirmishes along the Whisperwind Marches, increased bandit activity near the Stone Teeth peaks. Little things, mostly, but they added up.
He killed the engine, the silence a sudden weight. Old Man Tiber, Elmsworth’s groundskeeper, shuffled closer, wiping sweat from his brow with a bandana.
“Rough week, Astralen?”
Astralen wiped his own hands on a rag. “Same as always. More patrols. More… unrest.”
“Folks are jumpy. Been that way since the disappearances started.” Tiber spat a stream of tobacco juice into the dirt. “Old Man Hemlock went missing a month back. Solid mage, that one. Gone without a trace.”
Astralen gripped the handle of the mower. Hemlock. His mentor. The man who’d seen something *more* in him than just another soldier.
“They found anything?”
Tiber shook his head. “Nothing. Folks whisper about the Shadowed East. Say that’s where he went lookin’ for trouble. Some kinda lost city, maybe.”
Astralen kicked at a clump of dirt. He remembered Hemlock’s last lesson, a strange conversation about echoes and loss. The man had spoken of a grief so profound it could unravel a person. It had felt like a warning.
“He was searching for something.” Astralen said, the words raspy.
“Everyone is, boy. Everyone is.” Tiber turned back towards the manor house, his gait slow and deliberate. “Just most don’t wander off to the edges of the world to find it.”
The next patrol took him along the Whisperwind Marches, a desolate stretch of moorland bordering the K’hari wastes. He rode with Captain Lyra, a woman whose face seemed permanently etched with displeasure. Rain slicked the leather of her armor, turning the moorland a bruised purple.
“Bandits hit Old Man Corvin’s farm last night,” Lyra said, her voice clipped. “Took everything. Left him tied up in the barn.”
“Anything unusual?” Astralen asked, scanning the rolling hills.
“Unusual? Farmers getting robbed? It’s Tuesday.” She reined in her horse, pointing to a patch of flattened heather. “Tracks. Two riders. And something else.”
Astralen dismounted, kneeling beside the disturbed earth. The tracks were deep, definitely horses. But beneath them, almost erased by the rain, were fainter impressions. Not hooves. Something… clawed.
“What is it?” Lyra asked, her hand resting on the pommel of her sword.
Astralen traced the pattern with his finger. “I don’t know. Something big. Something…not right.”
A flicker of movement caught his eye. High on a distant ridge, silhouetted against the stormy sky, a figure stood motionless. Too tall for a man. Too slender for a beast.
“There,” he said, pointing. “On the ridge.”
Lyra followed his gaze, her eyes narrowing. “What in the blazes…?”
As they approached, the figure didn’t move, didn’t react. When they were close enough to make out details, it wasn’t a creature. It was a statue. Carved from obsidian, depicting a woman with wings spread, her face a mask of unbearable sorrow. A faint, pulsing energy emanated from it.
“Never seen anything like it,” Lyra murmured, her voice uncharacteristically subdued.
Astralen reached out, hesitating before touching the cold stone. As his fingers brushed the statue’s wing, a jolt of energy surged through him. He saw flashes of a forgotten city, a sky choked with ash, and a face—Hemlock’s—filled with a despair that felt ancient and profound.
He stumbled back, breathing heavily. “Hemlock… he was here.”
“What are you babbling about?” Lyra demanded, her hand now firmly on her sword hilt.
“This isn’t just banditry, Lyra. It’s something else. Something old. And it’s connected to Hemlock.” Astralen’s gaze swept across the desolate landscape, a chilling realization dawning. The skirmishes, the disappearances, the statue… it all felt like pieces of a shattered mirror, reflecting a darkness he didn’t understand. A darkness that was calling to him.
Days bled into weeks. Astralen continued his patrols, but his focus had shifted. He poured over old maps and forgotten lore, searching for any mention of the statue or the lost city he’d glimpsed. He found fragments of legends, whispers of a place called Aeridor, a city built by a race of winged beings, destroyed by a cataclysmic sorrow. A place said to be located deep within the Shadowed East.
He sought out Old Man Tiber, hoping the groundskeeper knew more than he let on.
“Aeridor?” Tiber said, polishing a silver teapot. “Heard tales when I was a lad. Ghost stories, mostly. Said the city was built on tears.”
“Tears?”
“Aye. The Aeridorians were a melancholy folk. They believed sorrow held power. They collected it, bottled it, even worshipped it.”
“And what happened to them?”
“They drowned in it.” Tiber paused, his gaze distant. “Some say their sorrow still lingers. A darkness that feeds on loss. That draws those who are wounded to it.”
Astralen felt a cold dread creep over him. He was haunted by Hemlock’s last words, by the despair in his eyes. Was the old mage drawn to Aeridor? Had he sought solace in its darkness?
“I need to go to the Shadowed East,” Astralen said, the words firm with resolve.
Tiber looked at him, a knowing glint in his eye. “You’re chasing ghosts, boy. And ghosts have a way of consuming those who seek them.”
Astralen didn’t reply. He knew the risks. He felt the pull of the darkness. But he couldn’t ignore the feeling that Hemlock wasn’t just lost. He was *calling* to him. And Astralen, despite the fear gnawing at his heart, was compelled to answer. He’d search for his mentor, even if it meant facing the sorrow that had consumed a city. He needed to know, even if the answer broke him.
