The Soul Whisperer
Elara’s boots grind against the gravel, brittle stones snapping beneath her step like dry bones. The sound shatters the thick silence of the camp, deliberate and sharp, a counterpoint to the slow, coiling fury tightening in her chest. Overhead, the red moon looms—swollen, menacing—its eerie light bleeding across the landscape like an open wound. Shadows stretch long and unnatural, shifting as though alive, whispering of deception.
The meeting had been a waste of breath. A storm of half-truths and careful omissions, leaving her with nothing but the smoldering embers of frustration.
Gorik had left first, a whirlwind of barely contained rage, his heavy footfalls still echoing in her mind. Drunk, no doubt—drowning himself in whatever swill he could get his hands on while she was left to sift through the wreckage. Pocket had slipped away in his usual fashion, vanishing into his private void, leaving only a hollow absence and the creeping certainty that he was still listening. And Enoux—always the performer—had sighed, fluttered her lashes, and melted into her tent like some delicate thing wilting under the weight of reality.
Tired. Right.
Elara clenches her jaw, fingers curling into fists. They think I don’t see. But I do.
They had torn through everything—every parchment, every trinket, every scrap of debris. Everything except the artifacts. The ones that mattered. The ones the Soul-Bound human had possessed. The aether-infused sword. The hand cannon. The only things in that ruin that held true power.
A cold certainty settles in her gut. If they had been too afraid to touch them, there was a reason. And if they had already decided to keep their secrets, then she would tear the truth from them herself.
She moves faster now, her breath shallow, thoughts a tangle of sharp edges and grim conclusions. The camp lies in uneasy stillness, the weight of the late hour pressing down on its inhabitants. The fires have burned low, embers casting faint orange halos in the gloom, but the moon’s glow drowns them out, replacing warmth with something colder, crueler. A wind snakes through the camp, carrying the mingled scents of damp canvas, charred wood, and the metallic tang of distant rain.
The silence is thick. Pressing.
And beneath it—beneath the steady crunch of her boots—something else lingers.
A presence.
Not eyes, not movement. Just a feeling.
Her breath hitches—just for a second—before she presses on.
The tents of her sisters rise ahead, their familiar shapes offering a flicker of reassurance. If Tibbins is with them, she’ll have one ally. One person she can trust. She hopes.
She stops in front of the tent, the fabric shifting slightly in the breeze. The glow from within is faint, barely enough to cast a shadow. Her hand hovers over the flap, fingers trembling—not with fear, but with barely restrained fury. She swallows it down, steadying her breath.
They won’t stop me.
I will see what they’ve been so desperate to hide.
With a swift, controlled motion, she pushes inside, eyes already sweeping the dim interior, searching.
Elara’s pulse drums in her ears, steady and insistent, matching the tight coil of tension in her chest. The air inside the tent is thick with the scent of old parchment, tanned leather, and the faintest trace of lavender oil—Selene’s doing. A small comfort. A fragile tether to normalcy in the midst of the storm raging inside her.
Selene sits cross-legged on her cot, candlelight flickering over her pale features. Her amber eyes lift, sharp and searching.
“Elara,” she says, voice soft but laced with wariness. “You look—”
“Angry?” Elara cuts in, sharper than she intends. She exhales through her nose, forcing control.
“Frustrated,” Selene corrects.
“Is Lyra here?”
Selene’s fingers tighten around the book in her lap. She doesn’t answer immediately, just shakes her head.
The silence stretches, weighted and expectant.
Elara steps deeper into the tent, her shadow shifting against the canvas walls. “The artifacts. Where are they? Are they still in the camp?”
Selene hesitates, then sighs. “In the Guild’s storage. Not the AAC’s.”
Elara’s brow furrows. “Not the AAC’s?”
“Garik made a big fuss,” Selene says, voice dry.
Elara nods, absorbing that. Not unexpected.
“Where’s Tibbins?” she asks, scanning the space.
Selene shrugs. “Around. Probably with Gru.”
Elara’s gaze sharpens. “And Lyra?”
Another sigh. Selene closes the book, the rustle of parchment loud in the hush. “Garik stormed in here not too long ago, furious about something. Lyra left with him.” She tilts her head. “You’re after the artifacts, too?”
Elara blinks. “The—” Then she chuckles, voice firm. “Of course. Leave it to Garik to have the same idea as me.”
Selene squints at her. “What?”
“Nothing.” Elara steps back, gesturing. “Come along. We have secrets to uncover.”
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Elara shoves aside the heavy canvas flap, the fabric snapping in protest as she strides into the tent. The Guild’s so-called relic warehouse is little more than a massive pavilion reinforced with wooden beams, its vast interior swallowed in dim lantern light. Dust lingers in the air, disturbed only by the faint shimmer of residual magic. The scent of old metal, charred leather, and something sharp—ozone-tinged, electric—saturates the space. A relic’s breath. The memory of battles long past.
Selene follows close behind, her boots scuffing softly against the packed earth. She says nothing, but Elara feels her hesitation, the way her presence folds inward, as if trying to take up less space.
Across the room, hunched at a rough-hewn table, Garik grips a dented tin mug, fingers wrapped around it like a vise. The ale inside sloshes dangerously as he lifts it, swallowing deep. His gaze lifts as they enter, eyes glassy, unfocused—drunkenness clinging to him like a second skin. His lips part as if to speak, but no words come.
He just watches.
And for a long, heavy moment, Elara watches back.
Elara barely registers Garik’s presence. The drunken mercenary is a shadow in her periphery—irrelevant.
Her focus is elsewhere.
Lyra.
She stands at the heart of the relic warehouse, commanding yet untamed, like something half-wild that wandered in from an ancient glade. Half Wood Elf, half Dryad, she carries the quiet grandeur of the old world in every breath.
Her long, violet hair cascades down her back in thick waves, shifting subtly beneath the lantern glow—a twilight hue, deep as dusk yet threaded with silver. Sharp, elegant ears peek through the strands. Atop her head, antlers rise—sleek and curved, polished obsidian laced with veins of emerald light. Not mere bone, but living wood, pulsing with something ancient. Tiny glowing runes etch and reform along their ridges, flickering like whispers in the dark.
And her eyes—black as the void between stars—reflect the room in eerie detail. No whites. No pupils. Just an endless abyss deep enough to swallow light. They flicker with something not wholly present, as if she stands at the threshold of two worlds.
Between her fingers, magic breathes.
It spills from her hands like liquid moonlight, drifting in slow tendrils—not just an aura, but alive. It stretches toward the covered relics with something like hunger, like curiosity. The mist curls and twists, sinking into the cloth as if tasting what lies beneath.
Then—a pulse.
Not a sound. Not a tremor. Something deeper.
Elara’s stomach clenches as the sensation sinks into her bones.
Lyra exhales, slow, reverent. Her voice is fragile, yet laced with something ancient. Something distant.
“Excalibur… Rhongomyniad…”
The warehouse breathes.
A metallic shudder cuts through the air, the sound of unseen chains snapping. The very space around them distorts—warping, stretching—as if struggling to contain something too vast, too powerful for this fragile world.
Then—voices.
Not spoken. Not heard.
Felt.
“Ah… another seeker.”
The words rumble like shifting mountains, deep and slow, pressing into the marrow of Elara’s soul. The weight of centuries, of duty, of sacrifice. Not a voice. An imposition.
Excalibur.
“Intruders.”
A crack of thunder and steel, sharp as lightning against the night. A voice like a blade unsheathed—cold, cutting, absolute. A warrior that has never known defeat.
Rhongomyniad.
Elara’s knees nearly buckle.
The lanterns flicker wildly, flames guttering against an unseen wind. The cloth draped over the relics writhes, as if something beneath is stirring. Restless. Unwilling.
Garik’s mug crashes to the floor. Selene gasps, breath stolen by the raw presence pressing down on them.
Elara forces herself to inhale, pulse hammering in her throat.
Lyra does not move. Does not flinch.
She stands perfectly still, black eyes unfocused, chest rising and falling in slow, rhythmic breaths. Her fingers twitch, and her Soul Magic thickens—silver threads winding tighter, binding to the relics like roots sinking into sacred earth.
Elara swallows hard.
No one should be able to do this.
Yet here Lyra stands—half-Elf, half-Dryad, all Soul-Whisperer—bridging the chasm between what was and what is. What was forgotten… and what will be remembered.
Lyra’s Soul Magic is a conduit.
She isn’t just sensing the artifacts. She’s waking them. Calling them back to a world that has long since moved on.
“Lyra…” she whispers, barely able to form the words. Awe coils with something dangerously close to fear.
Lyra’s eyes flutter open, black and endless, unfocused. She sways, her breath hitching as if bearing a weight no one else can see.
“They… they’re angry,” she murmurs. Her voice wavers, as though it barely belongs to her.
Selene flinches. “About what?”
Elara’s gaze snaps to the covered artifacts. The sword. The hand cannon. The relics of the Soul-Bound Human.
Not relics. Not anymore.
Her fingers twitch, itching to rip away the cloth, to see them, to understand the presence pressing against her bones.
Then she exhales, forcing herself to stillness. This isn't the time for reckless curiosity.
“Grant is not Arthur,” she says.
Garik stiffens. The drunken haze vanishes from his eyes, replaced with raw, sobering clarity.
“Is there anything else?” Elara asks.
A beat of silence. Then—
A pulse.
A whisper of metal against metal, the grinding of old gears, the shudder of something unseen shifting within the fabric of reality.
“Hm…” The voice is slow, weary, rippling through the air like the echo of a forgotten war. “A most curious paradox, wouldn't you say? The day we dreaded, the day foretold, has come—and yet, it falters. Incomplete.”
The sword glows. A pale, ethereal shimmer.
“The aged sovereign sought to reclaim his lost dominion. But the soul-bound mortal… Grant. He stands at the fulcrum of fate. A most unexpected variable.”
A second voice scoffs—sharp, clipped, brimming with impatience.
“Spare me the theatrics, old man.”
The air crackles. The hand cannon hums, its edges laced with violet light.
“The matter is simple, if you possess a modicum of intellect. Grant severed the connection between the Paragon and the Overlord. Cal’burn and that common Arthur are now—regrettably—distinct entities. One would think such a fundamental shift wouldn’t require such… laborious explanation.”
Garik sucks in a breath. “By the Great Anvil…”
Elara barely hears him. Her pulse thunders in her ears as she looks at Lyra, at the delicate silver strands of her magic weaving through time itself.
“Out of all of us,” she breathes, something tight and unspoken curling in her chest, “your Soul Magic, Lyra… it’s the most beautiful.”
Her gaze drifts back to her sister, to the living light spilling from her hands.
“To touch the past like this,” she whispers, voice trembling with something raw and unguarded, “it’s… magical.”