Lifeweaver: The Mage Without Flame

At dawn, the forest felt different—less rooted, more breathless. Where golden waves of sunlight had collected, long shadows twisted across the moss. All the leaves whispered warning, and all the roots trembled with unspoken grief.

Eryndor stirred to Sylven's gentle touch, sunlight dappled through spotted leaves. Kiva was awake, watchful, and feline-wary by his side. Maren was already up, collecting cloth and examining small wounds. Their expression was resolute, but their eyes betrayed tiredness.

"You're healing," Kiva said softly. "More quickly than I had believed."

Eryndor stirred slowly. All movement was rigid, foreign. "It's still not familiar to me. I feel… connected. Like everything shares one breath."

"That's lifeweaving," Kiva said, unfolding her limbs. "But it can hurt you, too. Especially that fast."

Maren hunched over a shallow spring at their feet, splashing cold water into Eryndor's face. "Hydrate," they said. "We'll move once you're ready."

Eryndor stared at his reflection in the pool sunken cheeks, dark rings around his eyes, and something new in their depths: purpose.

He slapped water against his chest, braced his aching limbs, and stood. Sylven walked by his side, eyes gentle.

They were about to leave the clearing when Kiva's voice halted them. 

"Maren… I have something to tell you," she said, voice sharp but unyielding.

Maren paused, buckling straps on their pack. "Say it."

She took a breath. "The Echo-Wardens… we are a small group. There were only five of us at one time. We walked Spiral currents, healed rooted rifts. I was traveling to Convergence Grove. I did not expect to find two others already committed to the Spiral."

Eryndor looked at Maren, face a mixture of awe and caution.

Maren let out a breath. "If three awakened cross each border, the Spiral stirs deeper. More threads find their soul-light. It accelerates… everything. The hunter. The Void. The Mantle."

Eryndor winced. "The Crimson Mantle hasn't been after me yet."

Kiva gazed into the darkness. "He will. But there are firebrands as well. False Flames that mimic elemental magic. They've shown up before, incinerating towns in order to create Spiral tears."

Eryndor swallowed. "You mean like that creature yesterday?"

Kiva nodded. "Exactly. Those Ember-shamblers serve the False Flame—and they don't just hunt you. They corrupt the roots."

Maren started walking again. "We should move now. The creek we're heading for carries old Spiral water. Following it leads to Convergence Grove."

Eryndor watched as the three Awakened—three unlikely bonds—merged and disappeared into the undergrowth, life weaving life through silent synergy.

Strolling along, Kiva walked alongside Sylven, muttering softly to the fox. The leaves murmured back. Eryndor remained quiet, watching them chat.

A mile of turned roots led them to a shallow creek whose water ran clear and rippled over flat stones. A change in the air made Kiva leap.

"Look," she breathed softly, her finger pointed beyond the water.

On the opposite side of the river was a perfect circle incised in the moss by fine stitch work of vines—remains of an echo-ling parchment: flower, intricate. In the center was the charred petals of a black rose, still smoldering.

"This is bloodscript," Kiva breathed. "The script Ember-mages used to master Spiral magic."

Eryndor got down on his knees, tracing the pattern. He could feel a tingle beneath his fingers, a fraying thread at the root weaves of the forest.

"Not natural," Maren said, voice tight. "Someone was here and they touched the Spiral."

Footsteps from the woods. Then a figure, a young woman in ember-blackened armor, hair burning in furnace colors, eyes burning with flame.

False Flame.

Eryndor stepped back. Kiva stepped forward guardedly; Sylven growled low.

The Ember-mage looked at them; then the blazing rose. She knelt, tucking the petals into her cloak.

"Lovely," she whispered, breath as soft as dying embers.

Maren's hand rose to their staff. "Back away."

She turned to them. "You hold roots of life," she said softly. "But the Spiral is fire's." Her eyes flashed to Eryndor. "The Weaver has not learned fire within, but it calls."

Eryndor shook. "Summon for what?"

She smiled, fire dancing at her fingertips. "Balance. Power. Destiny. Something older than war and newer than the wail of a newborn child."

And ere one leaf could move, she extended a hand.

The fires erupted unexpectedly, a fiery comet splitting the morning air with the sharp scream of unwinding magic. Eryndor didn't think—his body got there first. Life surged from the root-thread at his feet, pulling through his bones like a river finding a new course. He flung his hands up—

—but no shield, no ward, no element was present to call.

Instead, the Spiral within him reacted.

Time crept slowly. The world paled to a memory. He felt all of it—the warmth of the ember, the thud of Kiva's stunned breath, the tautness of Maren's brittle bones, Sylven's coiled muscles bracing to spring.

The power in Eryndor reversed. It did not reach outward—it drew inward. The fire was stopped in mid-air by an intangible hand, as water bursting into a vacuum.

It doubled back on itself in mid-air, sucked into nothing.

The Ember-mage stepped back in shock. Her eyes widened, uncertain.

Maren's eyes flickered. "You took it?"

"I didn't do it on purpose," Eryndor huffed. "It just happened."

Kiva's expression was unreadable, hovering between awe and fear. "That's not lifeweaving; that's."

"Absorption," Maren finished softly.

The Ember-mage snarled. "No. He steals it. The Spiral won't allow—"

Sylven struck.

The fox tore across the creek in a silver blur, catching the Ember-mage mid-pivot. She hit the ground hard, fire sputtering at her fingertips as Sylven clamped jaws around her forearm. She screamed, but it was fury more than pain.

"Don't kill her!" Eryndor shouted.

Sylven paused, teeth still bared.

Eryndor crossed the creek and knelt beside them, heart pounding. "She knows things. About me. About… what I'm becoming."

Maren approached tentatively. "Then we bind her."

Kiva's fingers wove the air with intricate signs. Vines leaped from the moss and wrapped the Ember-mage's arms and legs like living ropes. The Spiral bent to her will—sensual, lovely. Eryndor stood mesmerized.

Kiva's gaze encountered his. "She's yours to question."

They built a tiny fire at the crook of a leaning willow. The Ember-mage was covered in vines, her arms tied behind her back. She sat and looked at them all with searing defiance.

Eryndor knelt across from her. "What is your name?"

She spat on the ground. "Ashna."

He nodded slowly. "Why did you attack me?"

Ashna cocked her head. "I did not attack. I tested. There is a difference."

Kiva laughed, crossing her arms. "You nearly killed him."

Ashna snorted. "Only if the Spiral wanted it to. But it didn't. It chose him. Just like I knew."

Eryndor looked at her. "What do you mean, chose?"

"You don't know what you are," she said wearily. "The Spiral isn't elemental. It isn't flame or wind or stone. It feeds on life. On beginnings and endings. The mages you were born of? They only skimp its surface."

Maren stepped forward. "And you think Eryndor… is what?"

Ashna looked up, eyes blazing with embers. "He's a Heartflame. A nexus to the heart of the Spiral. He doesn't destroy life. He is life."

The flames snarled between them. There was a silence of a few long moments.

Kiva frowned. "Then why burn?

Ashna looked at her then, the slightest hint of despair in her voice. "Because something is on its way. Something worse than fire or nothingness. And if he fails to learn to burn, he will die when it arrives."

Eryndor gasped, "What is it?"

Ashna said a single word: "The Hollow."

Later in the night, Ashna slept weighed down with Kiva's magical roots. Maren stood guard while Eryndor sat by the fire, Sylven at his feet.

Kiva sat next to him, arms crossed. "Do you think she?"

He didn't answer right away. "I don't know. But… what I felt today… when I took in the flame."

"Yes?"

"It didn't feel like magic. It felt like hunger."

Kiva nodded slowly. "The Spiral is alive, Eryndor. It listens, remembers, and even yearns. You're tied to it in a way none of us are. That makes you different… and dangerous."

Eryndor looked at her, voice soft. "Would you still teach me?"

She hesitated. "Only if you promise not to forget who you are. The more you use that gift, the harder it'll be to remember who you were."

He nodded. "I promise."

The shadows closed in around their camp, thick with the sounds of the night: insects humming, leaves releasing their breaths, Sylven's own quiet breathing in the flames. But far beneath the surface, deep in the gnarled roots, something colossal moved—old and unmoving.

Eryndor laid his hand on the moss beside him, and a tiny vibration of power—not his own—ran through him. His brow creased, heart tightening.

Kiva sat next to him, hooded in Kiva's cloak, eyes wide in alarm. "You feel that?"

He nodded. "Something moved."

She breathed deeply. "It was bound for a reason."

They spoke no more.

Midnight

Ashna slept, swaddled in Kiva's root-wrap. Maren stood guard at the periphery of the fire. The logs crackled, sparks dying upwards like small burning roots.

Maren's gaze flicked up at the moon. "The Guardian can't guide us all our lives," they said softly.

Eryndor blinked. "I—don't know what to believe anymore."

Maren's head canted. "You've learned in hours what I spent years studying. And yet, there's more to learn and more that we need to be careful against."

A shiver ripple coursed through the canopy.

Sylven's ears rose. The life-beast rose, back arching, tail stiff. Kiva leaned back, palm flat on grassy warmth.

The roots below them responded. A low thrum coursed through the earth.

Eryndor rose. "Show me."

Below the Camp

They clung to each other as the earth gave way, revealing a gigantic root of ebony-black wood, as thick as a tree trunk, thudding softly with crimson life bands that twisted like moving veins.

"This is it," Kiva whispered. "The ancient Root of Wyrd."

Eryndor's breast froze. "But… why is it bleeding?"

Maren stepped forward. "Because someone gouged into the Spiral at the Creek. They awakened one strand but hurt another."

The root pulsed, life bleeding into earth like sap. At its bark, a fissure formed, seeping threads of red-black energy.

Kiva's mouth went dry. "If this root kills, the forge that sustains this grove will topple."

Eryndor went to his knees, placing his fingers on the root's surface. Pain. Veneration. Vocation.

It vibrated back.

He looked at Maren. "Teach me how."

They worked in silence. Maren raised their staff over their head and sonorously sang a low thrum into the air. Roots shifted. Sylven crept up to stand by them.

Eryndor placed one hand on the bone-wooden staff, the other on the living trunk. Life flowed back and forth repairing frays, radiating.

He closed his eyes.

He wove.

Weaving the Root

Time lost meaning. He felt centuries go by in that instant as his heartbeat synchronized with the root's. Leaves unfolded and parted from above; vines weave again; sparks of corrupt energy cracked and shrunk.

Maren soothed the storm alongside him with gentle incantations. Kiva's hands manipulated the lines, bleaching energy gently to balance and not consume.

Sylven stood guard, eyes flashing gold in the soft light.

Then in a last throb the root healed. Clean sheen of green-gold ran through its bark. The crack closed. The crimson seepage ceased. The root hummed softly, alive again.

Eryndor dropped to one knee, gasping.

Ashna stirred in her protective bindings.

Kiva placed a hand on his shoulder. "You did it."

He shuddered, voice raspy. "We did it."

Maren breathed a sigh of relief. "Root and Spiral stabilized both."

Aftermath

They rested as dawn claimed the sky in pale violet.

Ashna slumped free from her root-binds, breathing deep. She looked at Eryndor with something like respect. "The Heartflame and the healer," she murmured. "I misjudged."

Kiva smiled softly. "Now maybe you'll join us."

Ashna shook her head. "I have my path. And a warning: others will come—stronger than Ember-flames. Not to test. To destroy."

Eryndor placed a light touch on Ashna's shoulder. "I want to help."

She nodded reluctantly. "Find me in Emberfall, when the tides change."

Departure

They broke out their packs. Sylven padded forward, twitching nose.

Eryndor felt the forest come alive around him not with fear, but expectation. He'd repaired one rent, but other threads frayed.

Maren discovered him by a tiny creek, dusk-glow glinting off its surface. "There's time before we leave," Maren spoke. "You rest here. But only for a little while."

Eryndor nodded.

Silence fell.

Sylven reclined beside him.

Truth thrummed under the roots.

But then, a change.

From the tops of trees, a wave of ember sparks drifted down through the leaf cover.

High up, settled on sturdy branches, hundreds of ember-blackened birds ringed silently.

Spies? Scouts? Omen?

Maren's teeth gritted. Kiva glanced up, whispering to the trees.

Eryndor put a hand on Sylven's fur. "They've seen us."

An ember-bird dove.

And the entire forest held its breath.