Riftborn Saga [Low Fantasy, 3,000 words]
Chapter 1
Fallburn was still standing.
That was just about the best thing anyone could say about it.
Kari's boots sank deep into ash before she cleared the first street. There was never this much, usually enough to cover window panes or dust her steps. But the wind must've carried in more overnight, curling it into corners around town.
Her satchel jangled faintly with loose berries and dusty vials, most half-full. She squeezes it tighter under her arm as she passes the old mill, which hadn't spun in years but faintly moans when the wind hits. Half the town says the sound comes from deeper within-beneath the stone-where Pristine used to hum before it drained away.
Her breath faintly fogged as she passed another building lost to time. An old baker's stall. The frame still stood, but it was hollow and withered. The wood was warped and split with years of ash and damp eating through it.
She slowed in front of it.
There used to be a line here in the mornings. She could still picture it if she focused hard enough. People shoulder to shoulder boots tapping on the boards, the smell of warm bread drifting out into the street. Her mother had once pressed a coin into her hand and told her not to lose it. She had waited there alone, too small to see over the counter, too scared to order from the adult behind the counter.
Kari reached out, brushing her fingers along the edge of the withered stall. The wood flakes beneath her touch.
Now it barely held its own weight. She didn't linger. There wasn't any reason to.
Somewhere behind her, a raven called out–low and rough, like it had something caught in its throat. That was one thing that had never changed about Fallburn. The birds didn't leave even after everything else had begun to.
The tavern looked worse than usual, the shutter swinging open on the second floor, the floorboards splintered and slowly corroding. But the front door, reinforced with iron and a few screws, still stood prouder than ever. The sign above it desperately flickered, dimly lighting and dying every few seconds.
Kari stepped inside.
Warmth met her half way, smelling of burnt bread and smoked citrus. The tavern wasn't fashionable by any standard, crooked tables, uneven seats, but Merrin still set out pewter mugs like he expected company. He always did.
“You're late.” He said
Kari dropped two pouches of dried root on the table. “You're old.”
Merrin's laugh rolled up from his belly. He turned, heavy-lidded eyes crinkling. “Smart mouths don't get breakfast. But lucky for you I'm feeling sentimental.”
He handed her a wedge of coarse bread still warm from the oven. She tore into it, sat at the window bench, and let the silence linger. Across the room, two boys argued over something Kari couldn't make out, or cared to make out for that matter. A group of young girls were standing outside playing a strange game they must have made up with a stuffed-cloth ball.
“Have you heard anything from the coast?”
Merrin shrugged. “Fogs still thick, no word from Tunika in 2 weeks.
“Kari.”
Quinn dropped into the seat closest to her, brushing ash from his sleeve. A few strands of pale blond hair fell loose across his forehead, damp from the cold, and he pushed them back without thinking.
“You're late,” she said.
“Am I?” He asked, glancing at her plate. “Looks like I made it.”
He reached over and tore a piece of bread from her plate without asking.
From behind the counter, Merrin spoke without looking up. “I could get you your own you know?”
Quinn took a bite. “Would you charge me?”
“You wouldn't pay it anyway”
Quinn looked at Merrin. “Just put it on my tab.”
Kari laughed. “If you paid Merrin for your tab he could move to The Utopia.”
They all shared a tight-bonded laugh, echoing off the hollow walls of the tavern.
Quinn swallowed, brushing crumbs off of his sleeves.
“Gerik was looking for us,” he said.
Her expression shifted. “What happened?”
“Nothing yet,” he said. “He wants another section cleared before the storm.”
Kari slid the plate toward the counter hesitantly, her eyes darting to Merrin.
“I promise I'll pay you back.”
Merrin looked at her with a soft face. “You know you don't have to.”
Kari smiled. “I will.”
They left the tavern just before noon. The sun didn't shine much in Fallburn as much as it suggested itself. A pale smear of light that had been tucked behind clouds throughout the whole year. The square layed quiet all but for one boy in ragged clothing who was running about chasing a blackbird around a cracked fountain and the remains of a dry goods shop. The bird kept just ahead of him.
Kari watched him for a moment before she and Quinn turned toward the perimeter.
They walked the wards in the way Gerik had taught them. South face first, then east, favoring the more densely populated patches of Fallburn. Most of the wardstones hummed with the energy of someone in their final hours. One gave a weak pulse beneath Kari's palm, a faint vibration that felt like a heartbeat through a wall.
“They're thinning,” she said.
Quinn walked beside her with his hands burrowing into his dirt-stained pockets. “Or Fallburn just isn't worth protecting anymore.”
She shot him a look.
“Im just saying.” He glanced at her with a look somewhere in between a smile and a wince. “If the Riftborn wanted this town they'd hardly need to knock.”
The fact she didn't have an answer for that left a sour taste in her mouth. The wardstones, meant to protect the town, had grown withered and aged from little use. Gerik had proposed a fund to purchase new ones from outer settlements nearly two seasons ago, but the money never came.
Gerik had sent them to clear the lower pass. Another rock slide, which may sound exciting, but fell short of thrilling to Kari. She despised having the boring jobs, not like many exciting ones were available, but she hoped every night one would present itself. Rockslides were dull and cold, but necessary.
But this rock slide presented Kari with her wish.
—
They only halfway crossed the bottom of the pass before Kari smelled something. A faint smell, not the stone and dust from the rock slide. Something underneath that. Something older, and wetter.
They found the body beneath half a tree's worth of debris.
The man was twisted in a way that had nothing to do with the fall. One boot missing. His face pressed against the moss with his eyes still open, staring at the rock with a fixed intent, like his last thought had been maliciously interrupted. His hands were curled inward, fingers contracted, the nails blackened. Not from fire, Kari knew the look of fire damage and this wasn't it. This was something different.
Quinn crouched beside him, his breath fogging steady in the cold. He looked at the hands a long time before he spoke.
“Must have been a Riftborn,” he said. His voice was quieter than usual.
“No.” Kari was already crouching on the other side, studying the man's face, the line of his jaw, the gruesome state he was in. “Look at him. He's human. He was human.”
“Was.”
Quinn hadn't seen a Riftborn since he's been small enough to stand eye-level with Merrin's bar counter. Storms rarely pushed this far inland unless they had a grudge, usually attacking coastal settlements first, and whatever did end up hitting Fallburn, Gerik had always found some excuse to keep Quinn away from the worst of it. His parents had trusted the old warden long before Quinn was born, and Gerik had carried that loyalty ever since.
Kari brushed dirt from the man's sleeve carefully. Dark royal blue beneath the mud. Fine stitching. Yellow buttons filled by grime.
Her expression shifted.
Quinn noticed immediately. “What?”
At first, she didn't answer. Her fingers had already started down lower along the coat, stopping just below the shoulder where the fabric had been torn open.
Underneath, black veins crept faintly beneath pale skin.
Not spreading anymore.
Just ... .there.
Kari leaned back slowly. “It's not Riftborn.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don't know yet.”
Kari was usually quick to come up with a theory. Sometimes too quick. But now she just stared at the body with a strange concentration, like she was trying to piece something together.
Quinn reached across the corpse and carefully rolled him enough to free the satchel pinned beneath his arm.
The leather came loose with a squelch sound.
Scorched along one edge, but intact.
Strange symbols had been carved directly into the flap, deliberate lines cut deep with something sharp. Five of them in total. Each different.
Kari leaned in closer by instinct.
“You ever seen those before?”
Quinn shook his head once and opened the satchel.
A brittle journal slide free first. Loose pages almost came with it.
Most were warped from moisture, folded corners and stained from a long journey. Quinn flipped through them carefully while Kari watched over his shoulder.
The entries weren't organized like a soldier's records.
Some pages held measurements.
Some were frantic entries in disorganized writing.
Sketches of ruined structures.
Some looked frantic.
–Storm reacted to exposure—
—veins progressing further than expected—
—light beneath the quarry—
Several entire sections had been scratched out so violently the page fibers had torn.
Quinn frowned. “This doesn't read like military notes.”
“Definitely not.” Kari said with a nod.
He turned another page.
Stopped.
“Wait.”
A full spread sketch covered both pages. Five sharply drawn symbols had been drawn with cards in fine dark ink, connected in branching lines that resembled roots or veins.
Underneath them, written over and over in worsening handwriting,
Sareth Velen sha nael vyr.
The final repetition pressed so hard into the parchment it nearly pierced the other side.
The wind picked back up through the trees around them.
Quinn stared at the page. “You know what this means?”
Kari slowly shook her head, but Quinn noticed something about the page clearly unsettled her.
“No, but I've heard stories.”
“Kari.” Quinn tries to insert himself.
“The Everbind,” she said quietly.
Quinn looked sideways at her immediately, scoffing at her words. “That old myth?”
Kari didn't respond. She had always thought it was a myth too, a token that old trailmakers used to get a rouse out of townsfolk. But now Kari wasn't so sure.
Quinn shit the journal carefully and reached further into the satchel.
This time he pulled free a folded map that was wrapped tightly in oilcloth.
To a strong contrast to the journal, the map had been protected. Must have been more important, Kari thought.
He unfolded it slowly across the flat rock that was between them.
Both of them went hush silent.
Fallburn was placed near the center.
Routes stretched outward from it in several directions, each ending at one of the same five symbols from the journal.
This felt different from the journal.
The journal was chaotic. Fearful.
This map was far more calculated. Whoever made it knew exactly where these places were and what these symbols represented.
Quinn traced one of the branching lines with his finger. “Any guesses on why this zombie-dude drew this?”
Kari sharpened her gaze. “Not a clue,” she said. “Probably had a few screws loose.”
“Definetly more than a few.”
She ignored him this time, eyes moving between the symbols again. Flame. Coil. Eye. Wind. Shadow.
Five points, five places. And it seemed to all start with Fallburn.
A cold breeze pushed through the pass above them, and somewhere higher up, dirt and stone shifted.
“Kari! Quinn!”
Both of their heads snapped upward.
They both stood deep in the rock slide, hands in their pockets, hoping he was too far to make out their findings.
“What are you two doing?” He shouted. “Gerik needs everyone back at base. Code purple.”
The term base was a little bit of an exaggeration. They arrived at the old dentistry on the outskirts of town just as the sun had hit its peak. It was the warmest the day would get, which to people of Fallburn translates to, just a little cold. The building had been abandoned long before any of the wards were born, with the exception of Gerik. All of the windows were either boarded up or shattered, and the words above the entrance all but faded. But the wardens still used it as their “home base.” It was far away from the main part of town so that panic stayed contained whenever storms showed up.
Inside, the air smelled like dust, damp wood, and old medicine.
“I'll cut to the chase cause we don't have a lot of time.” Gerik scruffs his chin with a look, almost a tired but worried expression.
“Another storm in about 1600 hours. The wards can't withstand any more so we have to meet it head on.”
The room gets even quieter, if that's even possible.
“Should be small but we can't be too sure. I want Henry, Quinn, and the Hanson twins on the front lines. As for Kari and Lukas I want you to keep this under wraps. Tell the people there's a…” he paused for a moment. “bear, or something.”
Kari's boots creak away from the meeting spot and onto the dead and dry Fallburn soil. The air was crisp and cold, and smelt like burning wood and rusted metal. She paced herself slowly, staring at the ground thinking hard, trying to make sense of this. “What would the Utopia want with this place?” She murmurs to herself.
She stops at the old brick well in the middle of town. It doesn't work anymore, it stands as a metaphor for the people of Fallburn. Withered, worn, labored. She sat on its low bricks and looked around her home, studying every house like she's never seen it before. She glared down at her satchel where the map lays.
Suddenly, a bright glowing light illuminates from within it. Confused, she reaches deep into her satchel and grabs the map, quickly unraveling it. Kari looks in awe at the map as one of the shards drawn on it are glowing with a strange sigil that looks to be etched into the map with a stick, sharply and roughly drawn. She examines the weird looking sigil, holding her hand behind the map trying to find the source of the glow. Her eyes dart around to see if any pedestrians are around, but there isn't a soul. Out of nowhere, the sigil starts to glow brighter and brighter, rapidly blinding Kari as she shields her face and drops the map to the floor beside the well. The glow stops. Kari, blinking, bends down to pick up the map but notices something strange on the walls of the well. Weird lines etched into the side. At first in her head she blames the matter on some kids messing around with something sharp. But no, she takes a closer look and notices a weird shape. Her eyes squint, darting from the well to the map and then the well again. It's the same symbol, the same shape marked on both items.
“What the hell.”
In the darkness, a twig snaps, Kari sees something moving. She picks up the map and runs back to her apartment.
Quinn and Kari meet at the tavern for the second time that day. A sudden darkness fell over Fallburn like a blanket. The tavern is still lit by orange lights and still filled with warm civilian chatter. A dark figure with a cloak sat in the corner.
“I just don't get it.” Kari said frustratedly.
“It'll happen eventually, you just gotta keep-”
Quinn is sharply interrupted by Kari
“I wasn't talking about the storms. I was talking about the soldier.” She takes a heavy sip from her jug.
“Flame, eye, coil. These all match up, and I noticed on the well tonight that–.”
Quinn takes a long look at Kari.
“Kari I know you want to believe there's some great adventure out there for us, something that gives us reason to drop everything and go on some sort of quest. But I think you need to drop this. Gerik said you need to warn the people, try to get the perimeter wards back up and running.”
“I don't care what Gerik said, you have to believe me. These sigils, this map.” She pulls out the map from her pouch and points to it, holding it in front of Quinn's face. “They line up and they mean something.” She gets closer to him. “They mean something.”
“Kari I don't know what to say.”
“Say you believe me.” She says to Quinn pleading.
Quinn says nothing, his eyes fixed on the floor.
Kari storms out of the tavern without finishing her drink. The tavern door creaked shut behind her, cutting off the warmth and chatter like a blade. The night outside was colder than she remembered. The kind of cold that sunk into your bones and made you shake. She paused under a flickering tavern lantern, unraveling the map yet again. Her breath fogged on the parchment, fingers tracing the jagged lines.
A shadow moved. Two silver gleams shone from their teeth.
Before she could react, a hand reached out and pinned her to the cobblestone. Her back slammed against the wall and the map slipped from her grasp. She gasped, more from shock than fear.
“Quiet.” The man's voice hissed.
“Henry is that you?” She started but he pressed his arm harder against her right shoulder, holding her against the wall.
“I said, quiet.”
She stared at him, heart pounding in her chest. “If you're looking for money you came to the wrong place.”
“I don't want your coin.”
“Then what?”
He didn't answer. He just studied her, as if trying to decide something.
“Kari.” His mouth quivered in the cold, the way he said it made her freeze. “You need to stop.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know what you're doing. I know what you're chasing.”
She shook her head. “I said I don't know what you're talking about.”
He stepped back, letting her breathe. “The journal, the map, the well. You think you've stepped into something new. Well you haven't. Trust me you haven't.”
She bent to grab the map but he kicked it out of reach with his boot.
“Kari what you're looking for isn't meant to be found. It's meant to be hidden.”
She straightened slowly. “You don't even know what I'm looking for.”
“You do not know what I have seen.” His voice raises. “The people I have lost. I see that hunger in your eyes. The need to make sense of things that don't have any sense to make.”
Kari didn't move, she tried to read him through the shadow of his hood, but only his eyes were visible, dark and low.
“Why are you even telling me this?” she asked, the hint of fear fading in her voice.
Henry let out a deep breath, as if trying to relax himself.
“Because I've heard those same words come out of my mouth.” He shook his head. “Thought if I could just understand it–name it–map it, then it wouldn't take anything else from me.”
Kari's grip tightened slightly around the strap of her satchel.
“And?” She asked.
His jaw shifted, gritting his teeth.
“And I was wrong.”
Kari folded her arms, more questioning than fearing at this point. “So that's it?” I just stop? Pretend none of this means anything?”
“I'm telling you,” he said, dropping his voice. “You're not the first one to step into this.”
Silence stretched, Henry gently shifted to the side.
He bent, picking up the map where it had fallen, brushing off ash with his thumb. When he held it out to her he didn't let go right away.
“If you're going to chase this,” he said, “at least understand what you have to give up.”
She met his gaze-or at least where she thought his eyes were beneath his hood, and pulled the map free.
“It couldn't get much worse.”
Then Henry gave a small, humorless nod. “Then who am I to stop you?”
Henry didn't wait for a response this time, he disappeared into the dark without another word.
Kari didn't know what to believe. But she knew she could stop.
The sun pulled itself over the horizon, shining a sad light through Kari's pale curtains. Dimly lighting her small living space. Her house went cold in the night but Kari didn't shiver, she was already up. The house was quiet and hollow, the wallpaper was wrinkled and torn in places, and the house smelled faintly of ash and bad c