"The Dawn that Rose from Fire"

Day 16 of Novel November- Alenyah attempts to heal Veilwatch Keeps corruption.

Kaelen halted them, Foxran dismounted first, his boots crunching through the snow. One of the Watchers — a tall Rhea woman with windburned cheeks — clasped his arm. “You’ve come from the Vale?” she asked, voice hoarse from the cold.

Seth joined her with an easy grin. “And brought friends. We were told you could spare some supplies.”

The woman hesitated, glancing toward the barren fields. “We’ll share what we can.” Her eyes flicked to Alenyah, narrowing with something like awe. “A Fylgja,” she whispered. “We heard a Fey’ri rode with you.”

“Not just a Fey’ri,” Althea started to say. Berin reached out and twisted her ear harshly. She hissed and slapped his hand away, but the damage was done. A ripple surged through the small crowd, and the people’s Song hummed with hope. The rest of the night passed in uneasy silence, each person engrossed in their own memories. When red burned the sky, Alenyah had not slept, and dark circles shadowed her eyes.

Veilwatch Keep looked imposing from a distance, dark and jagged against the clouds. As they rode closer, Alenyah could see the crumbling of the spires, how frost clung to the cracks in the stone. They passed fields, mostly barren save for some root crops- carrots, potatoes, and such. Alenyah hung back, falling further behind. When they reached the gates, she was last, almost hidden behind the Stoneborn’s massive forms. A foreboding weighed her heart, and her fingers twisted in Valka’s

Kaelen’s hand flexed on the hilt of his sword. “She’s a traveler,” he said flatly. “That’s all.”

The Watcher woman dropped her eyes. “Of course,” she murmured, though her tone said otherwise.

Berin cleared his throat, forcing a smile. “We’re grateful for your welcome. It’s been a long road.”

The tension eased, just barely. The Watchers stepped aside to let them pass through the gate, though Alenyah could still feel their gazes clinging to her back like cold fingers.

Inside the walls, the settlement was smaller than she expected — little more than a cluster of timber homes and half-buried storehouses pressed against the keep’s foundation. Smoke curled from a few chimneys, thin and uncertain. Children darted between doorways, their faces pale with cold.

They dismounted, and Alenyah allowed Valka to pad over to the children, laying down with her snout on her paws. Some remained hidden in doorways, but others approached the hound. Alenyah knelt, smiling. While she had never felt the maternal instinct to bear her own children, she could feel the light within them. She wanted some of that beauty to heal her own aching heart.

“It’s alright,” she murmured encouragingly. “You can pet her.”

Within moments, Valka was swarmed with little ones, Stoneborn and Rhea alike, burying their faces in her softness. She panted happily before turning over in search of belly rubs, legs splayed in the air. Laughter filled the air, and Alenyah saw some of the Watcher’s pause, listening to the joy like the tinkling of bells.

Kaelen stepped beside her, a small smile tugging his lips. He touched her elbow, and she jumped. Her gaze rose to his, and he jerked his head towards the main building.

“Come on,” he said softly. “I want to get indoors before either of us are recognized.”

Alenyah nodded, feeling the warmth in his fingers as he tugged her towards the Keep.

The great doors of Veilwatch groaned as Kaelen pushed them open. The entry hall was colder than the air outside, dim light spilling from guttering sconces along the walls. The stone itself seemed to drink in warmth.

A handful of Watchers waited within — older men and women wrapped in furs and patched cloaks, their faces drawn tight from long winters. One, a tall woman with a streak of white in her braid, stepped forward.

“Welcome, travelers,” she said, voice measured. “I am Captain Erwen. You are far from the green lands.”

Berin bowed slightly, every inch the diplomat. “We come seeking shelter and passage. We’ve heard your beacon falters.”

Eirwen’s gaze flicked between them, resting last on Alenyah. “It does,” she said quietly. “And our fields wither by the day. You bring… A Singer?”

Kaelen stiffened beside her. Alenyah inclined her head, unsure whether to lie. “I am Alenyah of the Vale.”

The woman’s expression softened, if only slightly. “Then perhaps the gods have not forgotten us after all. Come ,the fire still burns in the hall, and I think we have enough bread to share.”

As they followed her through the narrow corridors, Alenyah glanced back through the open door. Valka still lay among the children, surrounded by laughter and the falling snow. For a heartbeat, it looked almost like peace.

Then Kaelen’s hand brushed her arm again, grounding her.

“Don’t get comfortable,” he murmured under his breath.

She scowled, pulling away, “I know.” The last thing she needed was him reminding her to be on guard. She never relaxed anyways.



Tavern and Althea stayed in the main hall to eat, sitting on wooden benches and breaking bread with some of the Watchers, who peppered them with questions about life near The Vale. Berin watched his sister apprehensively, even as she laughed and conversed.

Foxran and Seth headed off to gather supplies for the upcoming passes through the mountains, promising not to cause trouble.

That left Berin, Kaelen, and Alenyah with Captain Erwin who eyed them shrewdly. Captain Erwen motioned for them to follow. Her boots echoed in the stone corridor, the sound hollow and sharp against the cold walls. “The tower’s beacon hasn’t burned in nearly a fortnight,” she said without turning. “We keep it alight when we can, but the flame dies faster each time. Some say the blight eats the light itself.”

Berin adjusted his satchel, trying to sound conversational. “And your fields?”

Her mouth tightened. “Rotting from the roots up. We sent word south for aid weeks ago, but no one answers anymore.”

They passed a narrow window, and Alenyah slowed, drawn by the view beyond, the barren plain stretched to the horizon, a patchwork of ash and ice. Even from here she could feel it, the distant hum of corruption pulsing faintly beneath the soil. The Song there was wrong and off-key, like a discordant note she couldn’t unhear.

Kaelen noticed her hesitation. “Don’t,” he warned under his breath. “Not yet.”

She scowled, crossing her arms. “I wasn’t going to.”

Eirwen led them up a spiral stair that wound into shadow. The air grew colder the higher they climbed, until their breath misted before them. At the top, she pushed open a heavy wooden door, revealing a room that smelled of smoke and old oil. The great lantern at its center was dark, its glass cracked and rimed with frost.

“This was once the heart of our watch,” Erwen said quietly. “Now it’s just another tomb waiting to freeze over.”

Berin stepped closer to inspect the mechanism, while Kaelen’s gaze drifted to the Fey’ri. Her expression was distant, as though she heard something no one else could.

“Alenyah?” he asked softly.

Her gaze looked north, over the fields and traced the path they would follow. The jagged peaks of the Ashfall Mountains, the forests splayed before it a green smudge in the distance. She wanted to imagine that if she squinted, she could see the Crags, a line of cliffs past the mountain and astride them, her home. It was all lost.



Shaking her head, the Fey’ri turned her attention to the fields before the Keep. On the icy wind, if she closed her eyes, she heard a single voice, mournful and forgotten. A keening tune weaving through the air like sorrow.

Her boots scraped the stone as she planted her feet and grounded herself. Less than a foot from the beacon’s great opening, Alenyah lifted her pale hands, stretching them both outwards. The fields whispered, an almost smoke-like energy rising from the grounds.

A glow started at her throat, and she imagined heart and home fires. Warmth, and the comforting collapse and crackle of logs in a fireplace. Her song envisioned the quiet creaking of plants, pushing through frigid soil, like fingers pushing for the sun. Her fingers curled, twisting around the tendrils of black only she could sense. She lost all feelings of Kaelen and Berin’s eyes. Taking a breath, she began to pull, unthreading the darkness from the land.

It was so much harder than the groves. The fields were vast, and further north the corruption ran deeper. Sweat beaded her forehead, and she felt something akin to tears falling from her eyes, stinging them with salt.

She guided the corruption from the land, passing through her own body, and away into the sky. The Singer thought she was making progress, when a knifelike pain lanced through her mind. Alenyah flinched, knees buckling. The keening voice lifted in a wail, a banshee scream of loss. She tried to pull her hands back, but the corruption wrapped its darkness around her, burning like a fevered infection. This time, the corruption did not go quietly.

Her song changed, no longer the comforts of home and family. The corruption was twisting HER, and terror knotted her gut. All she could hear was her own screams mingled with that of the fell voice. She was being dragged with it.

Panicking, she no longer pulled at the corruption from the land. She ripped at it. Rather than be engulfed, she would destroy. The beacon behind her, flared to life, and she was vaguely aware of Kaelen and Berin shouting in alarm. Hands pulled at her desperately as blood ran from her nose, but she shook them off.

The air turned heavy, trembling with the force of her song. The ground itself seemed to recoil. Frost melted, then reformed, spreading in jagged spiderwebs that cracked across the fields below.

The Watchers on the ground cried out in alarm, and the Keep trembled. The beacon’s light was so bright it burned through her closed eyelids- a sun reborn. Then came the backlash. The light erupted outward in a shockwave of fire and snow, hurling herself and the others against the wall.

When the light dimmed, the fields were still.

Every stalk, every blade of brittle grass had withered to ash. The corruption was gone ,and so was everything else. The barren ground stretched for miles, silent and empty.

Fuzzily, she heard Berin- trying to calm Erwin, and she slumped against the wall. Kaelen was kneeling beside her as blood seeped from her nose and ears. Her eyes fluttered, unfocused, her skin almost translucent.

Then, her eyes rolled back, and the world went silent.