“That’s skald.” blurted out Wellynd.

Kellog held the stone up and examined it between his index finger and thumb. “Skald, eh? Another Southern Artan term, I imagine. It’s strange that you recognize it though. Have you seen it around here? How do you know what it is?”

Wellynd stood up and walked toward the wood pile. There was an acute fragility to this moment. Kellog had just offered him mentorship. The thing he’d been hoping for the most. If Wellynd lied to him now, he might endanger his opportunity. At the same time, he didn’t want to oust Laine and jeopardize the crew of the Brinebreaker.

He tried to formulate a response as he knelt down and started stacking logs in his arms.

“I can’t really tell you how I know. At least, not yet. Is there any way I can answer that question later? Or, is it not enough that I know what it is?” he finally replied as he walked back towards the fire.

Kellog placed the rock back in his pocket and sat down. “Sure, sure. As long as you know what it is. I guess that’s all that matters. Though, I would be lying if I said I’m not interested. So, you know it’s both highly volatile and highly illegal just about everywhere, meaning we must exercise utmost caution when using or speaking about it?”

“Yeah. No problem at all.” A bloom of sparks shot up into the air as Wellynd threw a log onto the fire.

“Do you know why it’s illegal?” asked Kellog, the intense curiosity in his voice unmistakeable.

Wellynd shrugged his shoulders as he peered into the fire. “Because it’s dangerous? I dunno. I always figured it was just one of those laws that everyone agreed to.”

Kellog nodded. “You’re right, of course. It is exactly that, but there’s a good reason for it. Perhaps we’ll talk about that sometime as well. It all depends…” The man’s eyes absently gazed off into the darkness of the cavern for several long moments before snapping back to Wellynd, the rich green irises once again filled with warmth from the firelight. “For now, I think it's best that we call it a night. Or were you planning on returning to Kellek’s Watch tonight?”

Wellynd nodded to the sleeping roll tied to his bag. “No way. That would be a death sentence at this point in the season.” The wind howled outside in emphasis of his point.

“Fair enough, Wellynd. Or would you prefer Welly?”

“Welly works.”

“Okay Welly, feel free to huddle up close to the fire. I must attend to a few things before I sleep , so I’ll just be puttering about like a fool in the dark. I’ll see you bright and early.”

And before Wellynd could say another word, Kellog walked off deeper into the cave.

~

A thump awoke Wellynd from his light sleep. Peeking open one eye, he saw Kellog standing over the crackling fire, prodding a fresh log with a stick. The night’s storms had subsided. A faint, whistling wind emanated from the small entrance hole, and the cavern was now replete with a soft light.

It must have been early dawn.

Wellynd rolled over and tried to find a comfortable spot on the hard ground, though he knew his effort was futile. He had spent what felt like half the night tossing and turning on his thin bedroll, the revelations that Kellog had given him, and the thousands of questions they had prompted, causing his mind to rage like the storms battering the mountainside.

“Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to wake you, Welly.” said Kellog’s voice, notably hoarser than it was the previous night.

Wellynd sighed before sitting up and turning back towards the fire, rubbing his eyes and yawning “That’s alright. I should probably get up anyway…When’d you cut all that wood?” asked Wellynd, noticing a neat pile of freshly cut logs next to the wall.

“Last night. I was having some difficulties sleeping, so I decided to forgo it altogether. I don’t need much rest anyway. Since you’re up, why don’t you get that pan hot and warm up some of that bread. I have some cheese we can share.” Kellog replied before wedging another log into the fire.

“Why do you use wood?”

“Hmm?”

“Well, you can start a fire with kose. Can’t you keep a fire going with it too?”

Kellog raised one eyebrow and grinned as he fished around in one of his bags.

“I could, yes, but I don’t. It’s not a practice I’d suggest anyone take up unless they absolutely have to.”

“Why not?”

“You’re full of questions, eh? Even this early in the morning, hah. I have my reasons. To keep it simple, I’ll say that, one, why would I keep up a weave when the wood will burn without me doing anything, and two, more importantly, one should always revel in the simple tasks of life. They provide more insight than you can possibly imagine…Ah good, yes just throw it right in the coals there.”

Wellynd had gotten up and moved the skillet into the fire. He then returned to his seat from the night before.

“So, what’s the plan to…..what are you doing with that?” Wellynd asked, noticing a long collapsible ladder leaned up against one of the cavern walls. “That’s a miner’s ladder. Did you take it from the main shaft?”

“I did borrow it, yes. We will need it later once we sort a few things out.” Kellog replied as he sat down and began to carve a small block of cheese into slices.

Wellynd stared into the fire as his mind awoke from its half-slumber.

“Uhm. I have…another question…” he finally said with a polite reticence.

“Yes?”

“Sort what things out?”

Kellog chuckled. “I wasn’t criticizing you for asking questions. Just observing. But yes. I’ve been thinking about your dilemma. Or rather, your dilemmas.”

This is what Wellynd had been waiting for. He suddenly felt his heart racing.

“The way I see it, you have two distinct problems.”

“Two?”

“Yes. And there is a good chance they are unrelated, but we will find out shortly. Watch the bread!”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Watch the…Oh!” Wellynd ran over to the skillet and, without thinking, pulled it out from the coals. He yelled as the hot iron seared his hand, and the pan clattered to the ground. Clenching his fist, he hurried over to his pack, grabbed a linen cloth, and wrapped it around the burn.

“Sorry about that Welly. That was probably at least somewhat my fault. Let’s eat and then we’ll get to it.”

The two ate their breakfast in relative silence. Like the roasted boar the night before, the cheese was delicious. It had a nutty and sharp flavour that left him wanting another bite. Wellynd had never tasted anything like it before.

“So” Kellog started, licking his fingers and wiping them off on his pants as he stood up. “I have some suspicions about the nature of this pain you feel when you manipulate kose, however, that problem will be a little more difficult for us to solve.”

Wellynd frowned, “Okay…then what’s my other problem.”

“It’s not really a problem. Well, I guess it could be, depending on how you look at it, but I think, overall, for our purposes, it’s a good thing. If you’re up to the challenge, that is.” Kellog beamed.

“What is?”

“I think you’re like me.”

“Like you? How do you mean?” Wellynd could feel a slight tingling sensation at the tip of his ears.

“I mean that you have been blessed, or cursed, with a Mantle that never forms into a Habit.”

“And that’s why I haven’t been able to improve my Gusting?” Wellynd asked, working his best to suppress the grin that was now threatening to spread across his face.

“Probably so, though, I am curious as to how you were so effective at it yesterday. But yes, probably. Let’s be sure though, shall we? Let’s see here…Yes just to be safe…”

Dirt and dust crumbled toward them, and a loose stone tumbled down, scattering the fire as the side of the cave crashed open. A gust of cool mountain air flooded the stuffy cavern, and Wellynd blinked against the daylight. Kellog strolled outside.

Incredible. Wellynd followed after him.

The sky was grey, and a light drizzle peppered Wellynd’s head as he and Kellog stopped a few yards from the entrance.

Kellog took a deep breath, and Wellynd couldn’t help but notice that the wrinkles on the man’s face were much more pronounced in the daylight. He didn’t look old, he just looked weathered.

“To know for sure, we need to see your Mantle. I’m going to show you how to express it.”

Wellynd set his jaw and nodded silently, hoping he was conveying a countenance of fierce determination.

“Expressing your Mantle is rather simple, but requires a very intentional trick of the mind. This may be difficult given your issue with pain, but there’s not much we can do about that right now. You’ll just need to push through it. Are you fine with doing that?”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Good. To start, you’ll need to pull in as much kose as you can. As you feel as if you’re beginning to 'fill up', I want you to start compressing it into the smallest ‘ball’ that you can. Try to hold it at the center of your mind, body, wherever it is that you visualize it.”

“Compress it?”

“Mhm…Let me see” Kellog looked around before jogging over to a small patch of snow that must have formed in the early hours of the morning. He ran back with two fistfuls full of it.

“I find a visualization always helps. So, you take the kose” he said, holding up one hand filled with snow.

“Compress it” he began to squeeze the snow in his hand, forming it into a tiny ball.

“And then add more.” He took the other handful of snow and compressed it into the first, eventually forming a small snowball in his hands. “Yes?”

“Got it. Then what?”

“We’ll get there. Just keep doing that for as long as you can.” Kellog replied, playfully tossing the snowball at a goat who had wandered over towards them. The creature bleated in protest before walking away.

“Okay. Sure. No problem.”

It was at this moment that a horrifying thought occurred to Wellynd. What if he just couldn’t do it? What if the pain was too much? Or, what if Kellog was wrong?

No. He could do it.

Wellynd shifted his feet and clenched his jaw, ready to embrace the pain.

“Okay. Here I go.”

Kellog smiled and took a few steps back.

Wellynd took a calming breath to stifle the tremor that threatened his hands.

Closing his eyes, he began to pull.

The air around his skin began to tingle as the cool mountain air faded from his senses, replaced by a crackle of heat, causing the hair on his arms to stand on end. A stab of pain needled at his chest, but he ignored it. He’d done this a thousand times.

This was nothing.

Within seconds, what felt like streams of fire were entering his body, and, with some effort, he began to sweep them into a swirling, writhing mass at the centre of his chest.

He pulled more.

He imagined those hot streams of kose as the snow Kellog held in his hand, and tried packing them tightly together. But snow is cold.

The mass wavered.

Wellynd pressed it back in, flooding the streams directly onto the mass, trying to shape it as it came in directly. He heaped the kose onto the mass, cupping it and pressing it against the now scorching ball of heat that threatened to consume him. His brow knitted, and more creases formed around his eyes as he shut them tighter.

What if this doesn’t work? Will Kellog tell me to leave?

The torrent inside of him ruptured and began to unravel. Wellynd’s head swam as he tried to maintain his balance.

Breaths now coming in short bursts, a low groan began to emanate from Wellynds throat as he fought the urge to give up. To collapse.

He began to yell. Scream.

The pain was too much. He forced the swirling molten mass of kose into a violent ball and tried to lock it away, swallow the pain, to somehow anchor it deep into his chest. He opened his eyes, still yelling, the edges of his vision turning black.

He stumbled and tears ran down his face.

Nothing was happening. Just pain.

“More! Pull in more!” Kellog said, voice raised to be heard over Wellynd’s echoing yell.

How? Was that a pang of disapproval in Kellog’s voice?

He couldn’t do it. It was too much. He felt sweat drip from his brow and land on his arms. He didn’t remember raising them.

The snowball trick wasn’t working. He felt the wind blow his hair, and, instinctually, he tried to envision the mass not as a snowball, but as a violent cyclone, wickedly churning and spinning, collapsing in on itself. The storm raged and his pain intensified once more.

It was too much. Everything disappeared to black.

He was standing in Laine’s warehouse, a storm threatened to tear down the metal walls that housed The Brinebreaker. Elaudri’s waves crashed violently against the mooring dock in front of him. The waves were not the familiar blue of the sea he’d sailed all his life. They were, instead, a beautiful, swirling silver.

A howl of wind blew through the portcullis from the vast sea before him, just as a breaker slammed into the dock, soaking him entirely in the silver water.

The pain stopped.

His yell faded to a murmuring hum as he opened his eyes. He was still on the mountainside. At the center of his vision stood Kellog, his mouth slightly open as he tracked something with his eyes above Wellynd.

Wellynd craned his head and gasped. Swirls of silver tendrils, like the violent air currents found in the storm walls of the Elaudri, whipped around him in a vortex. He gasped, taking a step backward, trying to move away from the erratic streams, but they followed him. The chaotic energy whipped out in all directions, the torrent obscuring his vision.

Was this his Mantle? What did it mean? It didn't look anything like Bertrand's or Neera's when he'd seen them. Theirs was orderly. Not this violent, swirling chaos.

Suddenly, the tendrils retracted, rushing in towards him and disappearing from sight.

All that remained was the howl of the wind against the mountainside above them. The pittering of rain against the stone.

Kellog silently walked up to Wellynd, holding one of the sticks he’d been prodding the fire with in the morning.

He gestured downward to a small patch of mud that had formed at Wellynd’s feet. In it, he traced the sign for Kosun, then crossed it out.

He traced the sign for Koshai, then crossed it out.

He drew a simple, perfect circle.

“You’re like me.”