The stone door is a silent, imposing challenge in the flickering firelight. Its surface is cool and smooth under my fingertips, the crescent moon carving a stark, elegant symbol of the power that now sleeps in this valley. There are no handles, no hinges, just a solid, perfectly fitted slab of granite. It is a door not meant to be opened by brute force.
Kael tries first. He braces his feet, his muscles cording in his back and arms as he attempts to lift it from its edge. He is strong—the lean, corded strength of a survivor—but the stone doesn't move so much as a fraction of an inch. It is ancient, heavy, and sealed by more than just its own weight.
He steps back, panting slightly, and looks at me. There's no command in his eyes, just a quiet, questioning understanding. This is a witch's door. It will take a witch's key.
I kneel beside it, placing my hand over the crescent moon symbol, just as I did with the satchel lock. I close my eyes, reaching for that now-familiar, humming well of silver energy within me. I expect a click, a yielding. But nothing happens. The stone remains cold and inert beneath my palm.
"It's not enough," I whisper, frustration pricking at me. "It's not just about a mark. It needs… more."
I open the journal, my fingers frantically flipping through the aged parchment until I find what I'm looking for: a section on Wards and Seals. The script describes seals like this one, ancient guardians of sacred spaces. "They do not answer to a touch," it reads. "They answer to an offering. A whisper of your own will, a deliberate gift of your light, is the only key."
A deliberate gift. Not just a touch, but an intentional act of magic. The idea is both thrilling and terrifying. Everything I have done so far—corroding the trap, sensing the life in the plants—has been instinctive, reactive. An unconscious flexing of a new muscle. To do it on purpose, to try and control this wild, new power… my heart hammers at the thought of it. But the secrets below this door call to me, a silent promise of knowledge and power that I desperately need.
"Okay," I say, more to myself than to Kael. "I think I know what to do."
I take a deep breath, mimicking the instructions for the Ward of Sight I had read about before. I place my palm flat on the stone moon carving. This time, I don't just wait for something to happen. I push. I visualize the silvery energy not as a passive hum, but as a flowing river, pouring from my chest, down my arm, and into the stone.
The moment I do, the stone door responds. The crescent moon carving begins to glow with a soft, silver light. I feel a deep, resonant thrum from the stone, a low vibration that travels up my arm and into my very bones. Heavy grinding, the sound of stone on stone after centuries of silence, echoes through our small shelter. With agonizing slowness, the massive slab begins to slide aside, revealing a set of steep, narrow stone steps leading down into absolute darkness.
Kael and I exchange a wide-eyed look of pure astonishment. The air that wafts up from the opening is cool and dry, smelling of dust, of time, and of a hundred strange, forgotten herbs. It smells… like a secret.
Kael lights a torch—a branch wrapped in pitch-soaked cloth—and leads the way. I follow close behind, the Moon-Fox a silent, silvery shadow at my heels. The stone steps descend into a circular chamber, larger than I expected. The firelight dances across the walls, revealing a room that is perfectly preserved, a snapshot of a life interrupted.
It's a witch's workshop.
My breath catches in my throat. This is a place of unbelievable power and knowledge. Shelves carved into the stone walls are lined with dozens of clay jars, neatly labeled in the same elegant script as the journal. Other shelves hold neatly stacked bundles of dried herbs, their faint, spicy scents still clinging to the air after centuries. There are alchemical tools of strange design—mortars and pestles carved from obsidian, crystal phials that seem to shimmer with an internal light. Faded star charts, intricate and beautiful, are pinned to one wall.
My gaze is drawn to a small, wooden table in the center of the room. On it sits a collection of smooth, fist-sized river stones, each one a perfect shade of grey. As I get closer, I can feel that humming energy radiating from them in gentle, steady waves. They are suffused with magic.
I run back up the stairs, my heart pounding with excitement, and grab the journal. I find the corresponding entry almost immediately. "For the apprentice," it reads, "direct communion with the Moon can be overwhelming. Her power is a flood; to learn to swim, one must first practice in a still pool. The river stones from the valley's heart are natural vessels. They absorb the ambient moonlight over decades, storing it. They are practice stones, perfect for the novice to learn the fine art of control without calling upon the full, wild power of the sky."
This is it. A training ground. A safe way to learn.
I grab one of the stones. It's cool and smooth in my hand, and the latent energy within it is a comforting, steady hum. I find a description of the first and most fundamental cantrip in the journal: a simple life-coaxing spell, designed to encourage growth in a living thing.
I set the stone on the floor in front of me and find a small, withered weed that has somehow managed to grow in a crack between the stone flags. This will be my subject.
Kael watches from the doorway, his arms crossed, his expression a mixture of intense curiosity and deep-seated caution. He says nothing, giving me the space I need.
I place my fingers on the stone and try to replicate what I did with the door, but on a much finer scale. I close my eyes, trying to draw just a tiny thread of energy from the stone, just enough to nurture the small, struggling plant.
Nothing happens. I push a little harder. The stone warms slightly under my hand, but the weed remains stubbornly withered and brown. A flicker of frustration sparks within me. It looked so easy in my mind. The knowledge is in my soul, but my body, my will, they are clumsy, untrained things.
I grit my teeth and try again. This time, I push with more force, visualizing a rush of silvery light flooding the weed, commanding it to grow. Live! I think, pouring my desperation into the command.
The result is instantaneous and horrifying. The weed doesn't grow. It glows with a brilliant, violent silver light for a split second, then withers completely, crumbling into a pile of fine grey ash. I cry out and snatch my hand back from the stone as if burned.
What did I do wrong? I gave it life, energy. Why did it die?
A cold knot of dread forms in my stomach. Power. I have it, more than I can comprehend. But control? I have none. It's like trying to quench a single candle flame with a tidal wave. I either do nothing, or I destroy. There is no in-between.
Kael remains silent, but I can feel his wary gaze on me. I can feel his doubt. And it feeds my own. Maybe he's right. Maybe this power is just a different kind of liability. A destructive, uncontrollable force that I am foolish to even try and command.
No. I will not believe that. I refuse to be a monster. I refuse to be a weapon. I am a witch, a tender of wild magic, a weaver of life. I will learn.
For the next several hours, I try again and again. My frustration mounts with each failure. Each time, the result is the same. Either the withered plant remains unchanged, or it is obliterated into ash by my clumsy, overwhelming power. My initial eagerness sours into a bitter, gnawing self-doubt. The smooth, grey practice stones now feel like mockeries, silent testaments to my own incompetence. My head begins to ache with the strain of concentration, a dull, throbbing pain behind my eyes. I am pouring my will, my very essence, into this task, and it is yielding nothing but dust and failure.
Finally, drenched in sweat and on the verge of tears, I decide to try one last time. My hope is gone, replaced by a hollow, stubborn refusal to be defeated. I am too tired to try and force the magic, too drained to command it. This time, I do something different. I don't push. I don't pull.
I ask.
I place my hand on the stone and, instead of trying to wield the power within, I simply connect with it. I whisper the intention into it, not as a demand, but as a humble request. Just a little. Just enough to let one bud open. Please. I channel a thread of energy so fine, so delicate, it feels like almost nothing at all. A mere sigh of power.
The stone hums.
My eyes snap open and I stare at the plant. For one single, breathtaking, miraculous second, a tiny, dead bud at the tip of the withered stem begins to unfurl. It glows from within, a soft, perfect, internal silver light, and opens into a tiny, ethereal flower made of moonlight.
A cry of triumph escapes my lips. I did it. Control. Finesse. It is possible.
But the triumph is violently, instantly cut short. The incredible effort of that one, tiny act of control hits my body like a physical blow. The world whites out. An overwhelming wave of magical exhaustion, a hundred times worse than any physical tiredness, crashes over me. My limbs turn to lead. My head spins violently. The workshop tilts on its axis, and the last of my strength vanishes.
I sway, my body giving out completely, and collapse.
But I don't hit the hard stone floor. An arm, strong and steady, darts forward and wraps securely around my waist, catching me. I look up, my vision blurring, into Kael's grim, stormy eyes. He looks from the small pile of silvery dust where the flower briefly bloomed to my pale, sweat-sheened face. His expression is dark and serious, all trace of wonder gone.
"This power," he says, his voice a low, heavy growl. "It's eating you alive."