"The Dawn that Rose from Fire"

Day 30 of Novel November-50K Words. Entering the Ashfall Pass

Chapter 16

When the caravan arrived the next morning, Alenyah had thought it best to remain out of sight. She heard the sound of multiple Stoneborn and Rhea coming and going, and when she cracked the shutter, she could see the bustle of strangers. Sera stood on the porch, hands on hips, a commander of a regiment ordering her troops to battle. Seth had some of the horses in hand and appeared to be haggling as Kaelen and Foxran looked over supplies. At the sight of Kaelen, she swung her shutters closed.

She had waited a long while, listening to the cacophony of the card game inside the inn, but he had not returned. Finally, feeling cold and defeated, she had gone upstairs to bed. As she lay awake, she tried to decide if she had been fair or not in her judgement. Had she spoken out of turn?

She dreamed of Valka that night. They were in the Ironwoods of the Reach, and Valka kept disappearing between the tree trunks ahead. Alenyah had called out for her to wait, but she only saw the black and white flag of the Fylgja’s tail. Putting on a burst of speed, she had sprinted toward the edge of the treeline, seeing Valka running joyfully out onto the plains ahead, before disappearing in a pillar of fire. Her head pounded when she woke, and she found herself stretching her hands across the straw mattress, feeling for the softness of her friend’s fur.

A rap of a hand knocked on her door, and Alenyah moved slowly to open it. Althea stood, a bundle of goods in her hands. She skirted around the wooden door, kicking it shut with her heel.

“I know most of your stuff was in Valka’s saddlebags when…” The Rhea broke off before dumping the pile onto the mattress. “I tried to find you some clothes that would fit, some camp gear, a new bedroll.”

Still tender, Alenyah held a palm against her stomach as she bent to look. The clothes were secondhand, but they looked clean, if frayed. She fingered the linen, a dyed blue and the black pants.

“It’ll do,” she told Althea. “Thanks.” The Rhea smiled, but did not move to leave. The Fey’ri gave her a quizzical lift of her brow. Althea rocked back on her heels, arms crossed, watching Alenyah with an expression that hovered somewhere between concern and calculation.

“You look like death warmed over,” she said plainly. “Worse than Seth after a night of drinking Foxran under the table.”

Alenyah huffed, though it lacked real amusement. “Didn’t sleep well.”

“I noticed.” Althea leaned her shoulder against the wall. “Kaelen didn’t either.”

Alenyah’s hands stilled over the bedroll. “I wasn’t aware you were keeping track.”

“Oh, please.” Althea snorted. “When a Stoneborn disappears before dawn to ‘walk off a headache,’ everyone keeps track.”

A twist pulled low in Alenyah’s stomach.

“We… spoke,” Alenyah admitted, which felt like saying they’d survived a battlefield together.

Althea’s brows shot up. “Well, that explains why he’s glowering at the sky like it personally offended him.”

Alenyah winced. “I may have said some things.”

“You? Honest things?” Althea grinned. “Kaelen hates that.”

A beat passed, the humor fading.

“Look,” Althea said, tone gentling, “I’m not asking what happened. Not my business. But I am telling you something: he took one look at your shut window this morning and nearly crushed a saddle buckle in half.”

That startled her. “He didn’t come inside.”

“He tried. Saw you gone, turned around. Man’s got the emotional finesse of a falling boulder, but even he can tell when someone doesn’t want to see him.”

Alenyah swallowed hard. That wasn’t what she had wanted. At least, not exactly. She’d only needed space. Needed to breathe. Needed the echo of his words-now you can make it right-to stop reverberating like a struck bell.

“Althea,” she said softly, “do you think I was unfair?”

The Rhea straightened, studying her. Really studying.

“I think,” Althea said slowly, “you’ve both been carrying your grief like it’s a weapon you’re afraid to sheathe. And last night?” She lifted one shoulder. “Maybe you finally nicked each other with it.”

Alenyah looked down at the folded clothes. Her fingers trembled slightly.

“I dreamed of Valka,” she murmured before she could stop herself.

Althea’s eyes softened instantly.

“She kept running ahead, and I couldn’t reach her.” Alenyah swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “And then she was gone.”

Althea rested a hand on her shoulder. “That wasn’t a judgment dream, Alenyah. That was a missing-her dream.”

Alenyah bit her lip, nodding.

Downstairs, a door slammed and Foxran’s laughter boomed. Somewhere, she heard Seth cursing at a stubborn horse. Life moved on, loudly, as if her world hadn’t tilted in the night.

Althea squeezed her shoulder once more. “We’re leaving soon. You should come down when you’re ready.”

As she turned to go, Alenyah stopped her with a quiet, “Althea?”

“Mm?”

“If Kaelen asks… tell him I’m not hiding.”

Althea’s smile was small but knowing as she slipped out the door.

Alenyah sat on the edge of the bed, the bundle of clothes beside her, her heart beating with a fragile, hesitant rhythm. Not hiding. But not healed either. She wasn’t sure which of them would break the silence first. Or what would happen when they did.



She only felt the faintest twinge in her midsection as she shouldered her back. Her hand drifted to her mother’s sword buckled on her hip. Finally, she touched the Songstone at her throat, hearing her mother’s joy in her ears before she pushed open the front door to the inn and stepped out.

The sun had broken through the clouds, stinging her eyes with brightness. She shielded her forehead, blinking, and her friends came into focus. Some of the Rhea from the caravan noticed her on the porch, surveying. Her hair was braided back from her face, showing her ears and draping in a curtain of darkness down her back which swayed in the morning wind.

Foxran noticed her hesitancy and waved her over. He was holding a small shield. As she stepped off the porch, she felt the warmth of the sun on her skin. When she reached the Stoneborn, Foxran held out the buckler.

“I know your other shield was lost with Valka,” he said softly. A pang shot through her heart at the name, and she braced herself, giving him a small smile.

“So is this for me?” Alenyah reached out to take it, testing the weight with both hands. It was lighter and made of…

“Ironwood?” Her eyes shot to his, and he nodded.

“It is for you, and it’s old- maybe from before the Fall.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I got it from the traders, but if its like…sacrilegious to use or something…”

“No!” Alenyah pulled it close to her chest. “No, I just- hadn’t seen one of this make in a long while.”

The wood sung to her, like deep wind chimes under her hands, as if it remembered the trees from which it had been carved centuries ago. As if the Song was a refrain still playing. She knelt using the pack straps to hook the buckler on and within easy reach. Her fingertips grazed the woodgrain one last time before she straightened.

Berin put both of his pointer fingers in his mouth and whistled. Sera was bustling the traders into the inn for some food and rest, and it was prudent to make their escape before too many questions were asked. They gathered at the base of a rough path, weaving gradually upward into the cliffs and around a bend. It was three feet wide, barely enough for the Stoneborn.

They gathered, and a beat passed, almost as if everyone took a collective breath, or waited for someone to say…something. Kaelen tightened his hands on the straps of his back and strode to Berin’s side. He clasped the Rhea’s shoulder before turning and beginning the slow ascent. One by one they fell into line without speaking, Alenyah at the back.

When she reached the bend that would carry them out of sight of the inn, she turned back one last time. Her gaze trailed to the blinding brightness of the light reflected off the mirrored shores of the lake. For a moment, she imagined she heard Valka panting beside her, smelled the pine scent of resin that clung to her fur.

“Alenyah, come on!” Althea called from up ahead. The Fey’ri raised her hand in answer.

She whispered, “That’ll do, girl,” before turning and stepping out of view. She never saw that lake again.

A century ago, the path had seemed wider and less treacherous, as if the Fall of the Reach had simply been the first domino in a long, tumbling path of ruin. Now, great boulders and rockslides had sheared away the broadest stretches, forcing them to clamber over tilted stones, hop across gaps no sane traveler would chance, and sidestep along ledges thin as a sword’s flat.

The only solace Alenyah could think of was that there were no children clinging to hems, no elders stumbling behind, no frightened masses whose lives she was responsible for. Only her own fingers and nose could be sacrificed to the cold. No starving families. No desperate pleas. No one to lose but herself.

It seemed a morbid thing to be grateful for.

Some stretches were so steep the path became a ladder carved into the mountainside, and sweat slicked her palms beneath her gloves as she clung to the freezing stone. A strange twist of fate, she thought, that Stoneborn would be the ones leading her over a trail her own people once used to flee. Seth, Foxran, and Kaelen barely spoke, only the low hum of Stonesong passing between them, guiding them to footholds and handholds she would never have noticed. Movements that made the climb quicker for them and harder for her, as if the mountain itself whispered to their bones.

Her limbs trembled with a new kind of ache, from fingertip to shoulderblade, threaded through with the ghost of exhaustion long suppressed.

They did not make it far. Mountain travel devoured hours the way the plains devoured miles, and by the time the sun began its slow descent, they had halted on a broad ledge beneath a jutting overhang of rock that blocked the worst of the cutting wind.

Alenyah dropped her pack and collapsed beside Althea and Berin. Her legs gave out with embarrassing eagerness, and her breath rushed in harsh plumes, fogging the air. She tucked her arms and legs close, curling tight as a beetle rolling itself into a shell. Ridiculous, no doubt, but she was far too cold, too wrung out, to care.

More than anything, she wished for the warmth of Valka’s fur, for the gentle lean of her companion’s body against hers. Instinctively she reached for where Valka would have lain, and her hand closed on ice-cold stone.

A shadow fell across her.

“Don’t go to sleep like that,” Kaelen’s voice rumbled, rough from the climb. Not cruel. Not soft, either. “You’ll freeze.”

She didn’t have the strength to lift her head. “I’m not sleeping.”

“You’re trying,” he countered.

She bristled, but the wind sliced over the ledge, stealing the heat from her curled frame, and she flinched involuntarily. A heartbeat later, something warmsettled over her shoulders.

His cloak.

She jerked upright, grabbing for it. “Kaelen, no. You need this more than I do-”

“You’re shaking,” he said simply. “I’m not.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“It’s a reason.”

Their eyes locked. His unreadable as stone, hers raw with grief and pride scraping against each other like two blades in a sheath too tight.

She meant to shove the cloak back at him. She really did.

But her fingers closed in the folds instead, pulling it closer, the heat seeping in just enough to take the edge off the cold tightening around her chest.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

Kaelen nodded once, a stiff dip of the chin. But his gaze lingered a little too long on her shaking hands, on the tired slump of her shoulders, on the Songstone at her throat that still glowed faintly with warmth.

He turned away before she could read him further, moving to help Foxran with the bedrolls, voice low, expression shuttered.

For the first time since the night at the inn, she wasn’t sure whether the space between them was widening or narrowing.

“How long till we are over this pass?” Althea groaned, rubbing her arms and tucking her knees close to her chest. Berin pulled his hood tighter before replying.

“Depending on how fast we go? At least two days, maybe three?”

A soft whimper followed his words, and he laughed softly. They had no fuel for a fire, so dinner consisted of bread and a small jar of jam that Althea had slipped into her pack before they left. As the sun set behind the mountains to their right, the temperature dropped even further. Alenyah was wearing every article of clothing she own, Kaelen’s cloak wrapped around her like a cocoon. Everyone began to huddle together for warmth, and that was when she noticed. Kaelen’s finally shivered, just barely. It took all her will power to stand and unwrap herself from his cloak, ready to foist it onto his shoulders and insist he take it back. His gaze snapped to hers at her movement, and her legs almost buckled underneath her. He tore away and looked around at how Berin held Althea tight, pressed under Tavren’s arm. Seth and Foxran tucked cloaks around each other, teasing about camraderie in times of trouble. She thought she heard, “I’m not kissing you though-” from Seth.

It took him three strides to reach her, and Alenyah did not even have time to open her mouth to protest. He didn’t seem willing to give her time, either. The silver Stoneborn bundled her up into his arms, wrapping the cloak tight- so tight- around them both. Her mouth was hidden under the fabric, heating what little space remained between them. He tucked them in under the overhang, snuggling his back against Foxran and Seth who both chuckled.

His body was shockingly hot. Stoneborn radiated warmth like banks of coals when pushed to the edge. For a moment she just knelt there, half in his lap, breath shallow.

“Is this…alright?” he muttered, the words barely audible.

She nodded, unable to look up. “Yes.”

Kaelen exhaled shakily and shifted, tugging her nearer until her back rested against his chest, his arms bracketing her in a circle of solid heat. The cloak wrapped both of them now, pulling them into a shared pocket of warmth.

Her pulse fluttered wildly, embarrassingly, and she prayed he couldn’t feel it. He could. He absolutely could.

To distract herself, she whispered, “You didn’t have to do it like that. You could have just asked me to sit closer.”

His chuckle rumbled against her spine. “I thought you’d say no.”

“I might have.”

“I know.”

They sat like that, her hands tucked under his forearms, his breath stirring the hair behind her ear as the others drifted to quiet exhaustion around them. The mountain wind sang its long, lonesome note beyond the ledge. Just when she thought he’d fallen asleep, Kaelen’s voice came low, rough, almost lost in her hair:

“It’s easier in battle.”

“What is?” she murmured.

“Knowing what to do with my hands.”

Her heart stuttered. She didn’t move, not even to breathe too loudly.

Softly, without thinking, she whispered back, “You’re doing fine.”

A beat. When Kaelen replied, the words were strained and earnest:

“You have no idea.”



Alenyah was a Singer- she heard the music in the trees, in the insects writhing in the earth, in the sweep of a robin’s wings. She had not truly heard it in the stone before this night. This night, she dream- and the Song pulsed. Rather than flowing melody, it was as if the earth itself had a heartbeat. Every thump shook something deep inside her abdomen, something like pleasure, like pain, like the groan of a world still trying to GROW. This Song was not about blending of notes and melody. This Song was power, it was devotion and majesty. It demanded the Singer to bow, to listen, to learn. She was to become the mountain or to splinter beneath. Alenyah had never felt this Song before, and she gasped awake panting. She jerked awake as the last echo of the heartbeat-Song reverberated through her ribs. For a disoriented moment she could not tell if the trembling came from within her or from the mountain itself until she felt the heat. Far too much heat.

Her breath stuttered. An arm lay heavy across her collarbones, not restrictive but claiming, the loose curve of a hand resting at the dip of her throat. The weight of a wrist pressed against the upper swell of her breast. Warm breath tickled the edge of her ear, and that made her pulse leap.

At some point in the night the huddle for warmth had collapsed into something far less orderly. Kaelen had drawn her into him as though she were no more than another blanket to be hauled close. His face was buried in her hair, tucked into the cradle beneath her hood, mouth slack against a strand of it. He snored softly. Deep, even, utterly unaware.

Her first instinct was embarrassment; the second was something far sharper.

Because the Song… the Song had felt like him. Not in tone, not in melody—Stoneborn didn’t sing the way her people knew singing—but in its pulse, its unrelenting force, its demand to bend or break. The same power she’d felt radiating off him on the path, when the stones shifted to his will. Now it wrapped around her like a second skin.

She swallowed, trying to shift without waking him. The movement only slid his grip lower, his thumb brushing the hollow of her throat. A flash of heat swept through her even as she froze.

What would he do if he woke and found them like this?

What would she do?

The sky pinkened, and as she shifted, she thought she felt something slick between her legs. Her cheeks pinkened as well, and she tried to disentangle herself. As she shifted, he groaned, and his limbs tightened. His other arm had fallen to her waist, which was pressing into her abdomen like an iron bar. She froze as the hand at her throat tightened by a fraction, not enough to restrain… just enough to remind her of its presence.

She did not feel afraid. Quite the opposite, which unsettled her even more.

The others were stirring, yawning, and the wind seemed to have died for the moment. Kaelen suddenly shifted, coming awake in a great stretch. He realized their closeness immediately as she looked up, faces inches apart. The pupils of his eyes were blown wide, ringed by the tiniest sliver of amber.

She scrambled away, out of the warmth of the cloak, of him and straightening. Her hood secure, she scurried over to awaken Althea and Berin, feeling his eyes tracking her movement across the ledge.

Everyone was eager to press onward, and upward, to cross the highest point of Ashfall Pass that day. What unsettled the Fey’ri was how little she could hear the Song now, nothing from the stones and nothing on the wind. It felt like the faintest whispering, or the softest hum of a lullaby and if she wasn’t paying attention, it went away altogether.

Today was the day they had to use the rope and pinions. They finally reached a sheer cliff where the path had completely fallen away on the ascent. Kaelen measured their energy with his eyes, removed his gloves and pressed his palms to the stone, as if listening. Finally, he nodded and spoke,

“If we are to cross, you must put your hands and feet exactly where we do,” he gestured toward the other Stoneborn. “We’ll be tied together again like on the Lake, but if you fall…” He shuddered and closed his eyes.

“Just….do NOT fall.”

Althea blanched. At this, she turned and gripped Althea by the shoulders. The Rhea was trembling, eyes tear filled. Althea’s breath was coming too fast. Her eyes darted from the cliff face to the pitiless drop below, and her hands fluttered uselessly at her sides.

“No,” Alenyah said sharply. She grabbed Althea’s forearm, harder than she meant to. “Althea. Look at me.”

The Rhea’s trembling gaze lifted.

“Can you actually do this?” Alenyah demanded. “Because if you can’t, I’m not losing you to this gods-forsaken pass. I won’t.”

Althea opened her mouth, shut it again, swallowed hard. “I-I can,” she insisted, voice wobbling but determined. “I can do it, Alenyah.”

“Determination isn’t enough if you slip,” Alenyah hissed back. “This isn’t a trail, it’s a cliff. If you fall-”

“Then I fall trying,” Althea whispered, tears brightening her eyes. “But I’m not going back alone.”

That tore at something raw and buried inside her, but Alenyah spun on the Stoneborn before she could think better of it.

“Then one of you takes her down,” she snapped, pointing at the path they had climbed. “If she’s not safe crossing, then you take her back to the inn. I don’t care which of you. Just someone do it.”

Seth’s expression tightened. Foxran’s brows lowered. Tavren looked away. Kaelen’s jaw locked, shoulders rigid.

“No,” he said quietly.

The word struck her like a slap.

“No?” she barked. “You won’t go back for her? Any of you?”

Silence. Hard, unyielding as the cliff face itself.

A hot spike of fury shot through her chest. “Are you truly so selfish?” she spat. “So focused on your own path that you’d let her die before turning around?”

Kaelen closed his eyes, breath shaking once. “It’s not selfishness,” he murmured. “We have our own dead. Our own promises. Every one of us has lost someone to this mountain or the ones beyond it. If we go back now…” His voice frayed. “We might not climb it again.”

It was the truth. She knew it—deeply, bitterly—but the anger in her chest didn’t care.

Berin stepped forward then, gentle but firm, slipping an arm around Althea’s shoulders and drawing her close. “Hey,” he whispered to his sister. “You’re not doing this alone. And you don’t have to be afraid the whole way. You’re allowed to lean on us, yeah?”

Althea gave a watery nod.

Then Seth knelt before them, rope already in his hands, calm as still water.

“Althea,” he said softly, “I’m tying us together. You and me.” He glanced up with that steady Stoneborn gaze that somehow always landed like an anchor. “Just like the Lake. Remember?”

Althea’s breath hitched. “You… you didn’t let me fall then.”

“And I won’t let you fall now,” Seth said. “Not while I have breath.”

Alenyah swallowed hard, throat burning. She unclenched her fists, feeling suddenly too aware of her own sharp words, her own trembling fear.

Seth tied the first knot, tugged it firm, and nodded.

“Let’s cross,” he said. “Together.”