Chapter 17: Magical Coins

Outside, the branches whispered secrets to the wind, and the three brothers sat once more, bound by bread and magic and the bright, unknown promise of the forest late afternoon pressing close around their shelter.

A subtle shift in the air, a change so slight it might have been imagined. Tavik’s head lifted, his warrior’s instincts flaring. He turned towards the stairs, gaze drawn upward as if tugged by a silver thread. “Nix is awake.”

Above, a faint scuffle echoed through the quiet, bare feet brushing old wood, the soft thump of movement careful and deliberate. Nix appeared at the top of the stairs, pausing in the half-light where the loft’s glow met the deeper shadows below. One hand curled around the banister, pale blue skin catching the candlelight, runes flickering gently across his arms. Heightened by shadow and moonlit luminescence spilling from the fairy lights above, his keen eyes lingered on each of his cousins in turn, as if mapping the quiet transformation in their faces and the air about them, cataloguing changes with the precision of a creature born to notice such things.

For a heartbeat, none dared disturb the brittle magic of the moment, the stillness holding them all suspended.

It was Tavik who broke the spell, his words gentle as a dawn breeze. “Did you sleep well, Nix? How do you feel?”

Nix considered, head tilted in that way he had, ears swivelling to catch every nuance of sound. The curve of a wry smile flickered across his features, there and gone like starlight through clouds. “Better, I think.” The admission came with quiet warmth. “Thank you for tending my wound, Tavik.”

The words, unexpected in their directness, caught Tavik off guard. A flush bloomed on his cheeks, creeping up from his collar, and he ducked his head slightly.

But Nix’s gaze remained steady, searching, moving between his cousins with careful attention. “You all seem different.”

He descended slowly, arms full of books, a precarious stack hugged to his chest. The spines were faded but the titles gleamed with hidden promise, catching the candlelight as he moved. “I found these in the loft,” he explained, his voice carrying that matter-of-fact tone he used when discussing things of great import. “Couldn’t help myself. They’re fascinating.”

He reached the bottom of the stairs and crossed to the table, setting the volumes down with a soft thud that seemed to echo in the charged air. The books settled amongst the plates and candles, their presence immediately commanding attention.

Bran peered closer, mouth falling open as he read the topmost spine. Oren straightened, reaching out to trace the letters with reverent fingers, his newly crowned head catching the light.

“Awakening at Twenty-Two: The Path of the Lightweavers by Serenya Dawnthread,” Oren read aloud, awe feathering his tone, making the words sound like a prayer. He touched the next spine. “Rupture and Resilience: The Peril of Early Light by Miren Starbough.” His voice dropped further. “And look at this one. “Crystalsong Echoes: The Elves and Their Fractured Kinship with the Caelvarae” by Lirael Frostsong.”

Oren glanced around the small room, wonder brightening his features, the crown of light on his head pulsing gently. “It’s as if the tree house itself is readying us for what’s to come. Preparing us.”

At this, Tavik shifted in his seat, discomfort flickering across his expression like shadow over water. Bran’s fingers drummed a nervous tattoo on the tabletop, the sound soft but insistent. They both knew what these books represented: answers to questions they weren’t certain they wanted answered, knowledge of futures that had been thrust upon them without warning or choice.

Nix, eyes gleaming in the low light, nodded quietly. He drew up a chair, the wood scraping softly against the floor, and settled himself amongst them. His glance took in the magical meal, the empty plates, his cousins now subtly changed, alive with the luminous promise of things beginning. The crown on Oren’s head. The steadier set to Tavik’s shoulders. The lingering glow around Bran’s hands.

For a time, the four sat together, the crackle of magic and the rustle of ancient pages mingling with the hush of the early evening. Outside, the Eldertree Forest pressed close, patient and watchful, its ancient consciousness aware of the small lives sheltering within its heart.

The hours melted quietly away, measured not in minutes but in the turning of pages and the hush of wonder threading through the air like silk through a loom. Moonlight spilled through warped windowpanes, dappling the floor with shifting silver patterns that moved as the branches outside swayed in winds too high to hear. The forest pressed close beyond the walls, its ancient boughs whispering secrets in a language older than memory, older than the settlements of men, older perhaps than the world itself.

The brothers and their cousin were drawn inward, their faces aglow with the soft, amber light of the lantern and the deeper, inner light sparked by discovery. Magic hummed in the spaces between breaths, in the grain of the wood beneath their feet, in the very air they shared.

Oren and Tavik poured over rune-etched diagrams in one of the volumes, their heads bowed together as if in silent conspiracy, voices low as they discussed the meanings of symbols neither fully understood. Nix, ever curious, traced a finger along the margins of a delicate chart, his eyes flickering with questions he had yet to voice, absorbing information with the focused intensity of one who knew knowledge might mean survival.

Bran, meanwhile, sat with Crystalsong Echoes cradled in his hands, lips moving in a soundless recitation as he lost himself in tales of elven kin and their fractured bonds with the Caelvarae. The words seemed to breathe on the page, each paragraph releasing a gentle fragrance of pine resin and old parchment, as if the very spirit of the forest watched over their reading, leaning close to ensure they understood.

The stillness was broken by Oren clearing his throat softly. “Listen to this.” He pulled one of the volumes closer, the candlelight catching on the gilded title. “It’s from the Lightweaver book Nix found.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to him, attention sharpening.

Oren’s finger traced beneath the words as he read, his voice taking on the cadence of the text, something formal and ancient threading through his tone. “The final week of the twenty-first year is not a time of revelry, but of quiet preparation. Each Lightweaver must walk alone into the embrace of nature, leaving behind hearth and kin, for solitude is the first teacher of light.”

Tavik’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Bran’s fingers went still on the page he’d been reading.

“At dawn they rise,” Oren continued, “and with the sun’s first rays they begin the Dance of Becoming. Slowly, deliberately, they move their bodies through each beam of morning light, as though weaving themselves into the fabric of the day. The forest, the meadow, or the mountain becomes their sanctuary, and the light itself their partner in motion.”

A pause. The fire crackled in the hearth. Outside, an owl called, the sound distant and mournful.

“For seven mornings the ritual continues. They read the rays as scripture, bending and turning so that every gesture is a prayer of gratitude. The body learns patience, the mind learns humility, and the spirit learns to listen.” Oren’s voice had grown quieter, more contemplative. “When the dawn arrives of the twenty-second year, the dance culminates in the first weaving: runic patterns traced in the air, luminous threads offered back to the ether.”

He looked up, meeting each brother’s gaze in turn. “These runes are not spells of power, but blessings. A declaration of thanks for breath, for body, for memory, for spirit. In this way, the Lightweaver’s gift awakens not as a weapon, but as gratitude made visible, a lattice of light that binds them forever to the path of healing.”

The silence that followed was profound, weighted with implications none of them were quite ready to speak aloud.

“Four years,” Oren said finally, his voice steady but quiet. “Four years until I begin that dance.”

“Five for me.” Tavik’s words came flat, stripped of inflection.

“Seven,” Bran whispered, the number both distant and terrifyingly close.

Nix watched them, his ears drooping slightly, empathy radiating from his small frame. He understood, perhaps better than they did, what it meant to stand on the threshold of transformation, to feel the future bearing down like an avalanche, inevitable and impossible to stop.

Nix reached for a volume, needing something to do with his hands, needing to move past the weight of those numbers. His fingers found the book about premature awakening, the one that had drawn his attention in the loft. He opened it carefully, as if it might bite.

He leaned forward, his voice matter of fact despite the gravity of what he was about to share. “There’s a passage. Here.” He pointed and shifted the book so the candlelight fell across the page.

Nix read aloud, his tone unchanged, as steady as if he were reading a recipe or a weather report. “There is no mercy in the eruption of Light before its appointed hour. Those who awaken before their twenty-second year are torn apart by their own brilliance. Bodies unravelled, minds consumed, spirits scattered into the ether.”

His cousins had gone very still, barely breathing.

“It is not a gentle passing,” Nix continued, “but a violent sundering, swift and absolute. No healer’s hand nor killer’s loyalty can intervene; the paradox devours its own too soon.”

The fire popped, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. No one moved.

“Among the scholars of Tioria, whispers persist of a rare possibility: that a child born of mixed blood, half Lightweaver and half Elf, or half Lightweaver and half Caelvarae, might endure the rupture. Such speculation remains unproven, for no record exists of such a being surviving.” Nix’s finger traced the final lines. “The scrolls are empty of names, the chronicles silent. Until such a soul walks among us, the truth remains only conjecture, a fragile hope against the certainty of annihilation.”

He closed the book with a soft thump. “That’s me. The conjecture. The experiment with no precedent.”

Bran’s breath had gone shallow, his healer’s mind racing through implications. “You survived because you’re mixed. Lightweaver and Caelvarae both. The only one to ever do so.”

“Apparently.” Nix’s ears twitched, the gesture dismissive but his eyes betraying deeper worry. “Still dying, though. Just slower than the others would have.”

“Don’t.” Tavik’s voice cut through, sharp as a blade. “Don’t talk like that.”

Nix met his eyes, and through the tether, Tavik felt the boy’s calm acceptance, the way he’d made peace with uncertainty long before they’d ever met. It was steadying and terrible in equal measure, that resignation, that quiet courage in the face of his own mortality.

“There’s more,” Oren said, reaching for the third volume, needing to understand the larger picture, to see how all these pieces fit together. He opened Crystalsong Echoes at random, and his eyes caught on a passage that made his breath hitch.

He read aloud, his voice taking on the cadence of a storyteller sharing an old, painful legend. “The chronicles speak of a single moment that shattered harmony between the Crystalsong Elves and the Caelvarae. Legend holds that one of the sky-born Caelvarae was cast down from the Stormroot Halls with such force that its descent tore through the canopy and split the land.”

Tavik leaned forward, his warrior’s mind already cataloguing the tactical details.

“Half the Crystalsong Forest was laid waste in the impact,” Oren continued. “Trees reduced to ash, roots severed, and rivers diverted in a single breath of ruin. The Elves, guardians of that kingdom, saw the devastation as a deliberate assault upon their sovereignty. In fury, they marshalled their elemental strength and struck back against the Sky Halls.”

“A war,” Bran murmured, the healer in him already grieving for lives lost centuries before he was born.

“The Caelvarae, however, regarded the retaliation as unwarranted, claiming the fall was no act of war but an accident of storm and power. Thus began the Hundred Years War upon MirMarnian soil.” Oren’s voice dropped lower. “A conflict born not of strategy, but of misunderstanding, pride, and the irreconcilable weight of loss.”

He closed the book slowly, carefully, as if the pages themselves might crack under too much pressure. “We carry both bloodlines. Elf and Lightweaver. And Nix carries Lightweaver and Caelvarae. Peoples who went to war with each other.”

“Peoples who hated each other,” Tavik added quietly.

“Maybe that’s why the tether exists.” Bran’s healer’s mind was working, piecing together connections like symptoms of a complex malady. “You’re half Elf, Tavik. Nix is half Caelvarae. If Elves and Caelvarae were once connected before the war, maybe the tether is an echo of that old bond. Something trying to heal the fracture that violence tore open.”

“Or maybe it’s just what happens when you touch someone mid-transformation.” Tavik’s tone was dry, but his eyes were thoughtful, considering possibilities he’d never imagined.

They sat with the books spread before them, each lost in their own considerations, the weight of history and prophecy pressing down on their shoulders like snow accumulating on branches. The candles burned lower, wax pooling in the holders, and still they read, seeking answers to questions they hadn’t known to ask until Lisera had spoken on that wind-torn ridge.

Time passed in that peculiar way it does when the mind is fully engaged, hours feeling like moments, moments stretching into small eternities. The moon climbed higher beyond the window, its light painting silver tracks across the wooden floor.

Absentmindedly, Bran reached for the bowl in the centre of the table, the one he’d filled with the luminous acorns gathered from the forest path. They pulsed softly, their phosphorescence gentle and inviting, like tiny, captured stars. His palm came to rest atop the heap, the cool shells nestling against his skin, smooth and perfect. He scarcely noticed, so absorbed was he in Frostsong’s account of crystalline bridges and moonlit exiles, of centuries-old grudges and the slow, painful work of attempted reconciliation.

It was only when a sudden, metallic chime rang out that the others looked up, startled from their own reading. The sound was light as wind through chimes, yet unmistakable, clear as bells in the hushed space.

Bran drew back his hand in surprise; his book flopping closed on the table. Where the acorns had lain moments before, scattered across the smooth wood of the bowl, there now glittered a scatter of gold coins. Each one was chased with intricate symbols: twisting ivy that seemed to move in the candlelight, dancing flames frozen in metal, and a stylized stag’s head crowned with crystalline antlers that caught the light and threw it back in rainbow shards. The coins were oddly warm, their gleam dappled with faint hues of green and blue, as if a forest’s heart beat within the alloy itself.

“Did you see that?” Bran stammered, his voice low and uncertain, staring at his hand as if it had betrayed him. “I swear, I only touched them. I wasn’t trying to...”

Oren leaned in, his breath catching, the crown of light on his head pulsing brighter with his quickened pulse. “That wasn’t an ordinary spell, was it? Look at the markings.” He lifted one coin delicately, letting it catch the lantern glow, turning it over to reveal more symbols on the reverse. “These are like something from the old legends. Old magic.”

Tavik’s brow furrowed, curiosity battling caution as it so often did. “Perhaps they’re a token. A sign that the forest’s magic is watching us or willing us onward.” He studied the coins with a warrior’s eye, looking for meaning in the patterns, searching for threat or promise. “The tree house has been generous. Maybe this is part of that generosity.”

Nix, silent for a moment, finally spoke. His voice was quiet but certain. “We should keep them. They might be keys, or currency for trade, or charms against whatever waits beyond this tree house.” His ears swivelled forward, alert and thoughtful. “There’s purpose here. Magic answering magic. The tree house is still providing.”

The coins glinted between them on the table, small suns spun from moonlight and hope, metallic promises of journeys yet to come. The brothers and their cousin sat in wondering silence, the weight of transformation settling over them like a cloak. They’d come to this tree house as refugees, fleeing revelation and grief. They would leave it changed, marked by magic both subtle and profound, carrying gifts they didn’t yet understand but would need in the days ahead.

Around them, the house seemed to breathe in time with the forest, the boundaries between within and without softening, blurring at the edges. The fairy lights pulsed gently overhead, keeping time with heartbeats. The fire in the hearth burned steady and warm. And beyond the walls, the Eldertree Forest sang its ancient songs, patient and knowing, holding them safe within its embrace while the night deepened and the stars wheeled overhead in their eternal dance.