The Heart’s Whispers

(Paige’s POV)

Stillness here holds weight. Not hollow, but fed by seasons of slow work beneath the surface. From that ground rise daily things - real ones - the smell of baking wheat drifting up from the kitchens below, Lysander’s voice ringing sharp then fading against old stone, my fingers meeting Noah’s without looking when night finally settles inside our room.

Footsteps above might miss it, yet underground, roots twitch at faint quivers seconds ahead. Though silent, earth holds signs just beneath what eyes catch.

Something stirs beneath the soil, though no dreamer speaks of it. Instead, voices rise where roots run deep.

Hill Folk come to the Citadel one morning, their hands empty, their expressions heavy. Not gifts they bring this time, instead silence hangs around them like damp cloth. Kieran, who is Borog’s son and now speaks for his clan, steps forward without ceremony into the stone-walled chamber. We’ve met here before under brighter skies, yet today feels different. His gaze - deep brown, cracked with strain - carries a weight I last felt when arrows darkened the air above these walls.

The hill sighs, he murmurs, sound like stone scraping over rock. Not hello, not even a nod first. For those who live among slopes, nothing else holds weight.

A hush falls over Noah next to me. "Tell me what's going on," he says

“The streams from the high glaciers run thin and bitter. The deep-rooted pines on the eastern slopes shed their needles though it is not season. The silence… it is not peaceful. It is a held breath.” Kieran’s gaze shifts to me. “The Heart is troubled. It whispers of… disconnection.”

Deep inside the mountain. That raw energy present when Lysander first drew breath. A dormant strength stirred by our panic - responding with snow and thunder. Everyone assumed it was just a single event, sparked by crisis. Yet now it appears: some doors stay cracked open long after they’re meant to shut.

“What is it after?” I say, feeling my pulse shift into a sluggish thud.

Kieran shakes his head. “It does not speak in wants. It speaks in being. And its being is… strained. The bond is thin. The heir…” His eyes drift past me, to where Lysander is supposed to be practicing his letters with a tutor. “The heir it chose has been gone too long. The stone forgets the warmth of the hand.”

Coldness crawls up from deep inside. Lysander - suddenly clear now - he entered the world when the peak roared loud. Some link binds him to the high snows, though none could name how. That crown they call Prince of the North? More than words spoken at ceremony. It breathes like a promise made long ago. We pulled him toward warmer lands, where halls echo with scheming talk and walls stand dead against forgotten rhythms.

“What happens if the bond breaks?” Noah’s voice is dangerously calm.

“The magic fades,” Kieran says simply. “The land becomes… just land. The winters may grow harsher, the summers more barren. The balance that lets the high pastures bloom and the deep mines hold safe will become brittle. It is a slow death. But a certain one.”

Breathing gets harder, like the walls closed in. All that struggle for a throne - now it turns out what we protected has been left behind.

Back to Blackstone we go, Noah states without pause. Not a query. A choice already made.

Yet things aren’t quite so clear. Power rests in his hands as Lord Protector. The Charter has barely taken hold down south, too new to trust. Without him present, some may call it a retreat - inviting trouble from hardliners or those chasing rank.

“You can’t,” I say softly, the chancellor in me warring with the mother, the northerner. “The summit in the west, the trade agreements… the realm needs its Protector here.”

His eyes blaze. “My son needs his father. My land needs its steward. The realm can rot for all I care if it means losing the North’s soul.”

Here walks the former Noah, a duke sharp with fire, guarding what he claims like flames guard ash. That version stirs something deep in me. Yet there’s another figure now - one shaped by thought, by balance, by care beyond himself. This too holds space in my chest. Conflict lives behind his gaze, two versions pulling at once.

“Then I’ll take him,” I say.

His eyes lock on mine. Paige -

“It’s the logical choice. You are the shield of the whole realm. I am the Chancellor, but my power is in ideas, which can travel. My connection to the land… it’s through him, and through what I felt before.” I reach for his hand. “I will take Lysander north. We will go to the mountain. We will listen.”

A shiver runs through him, sudden. His eyes widen - not with anger, but something deeper. A grip tightens around the idea of distance between us. He speaks before thinking: "Out there? With them watching?" Words hang, broken. Silence fills the space where comfort should be

“Alex and half your guard will come with us. The North is our home. It is safer for us there than here, in this den of whispers and poisoned fruit.” I squeeze his hand. “You taught me to be brave. Let me be brave.”

For a while he says nothing, just runs his thumb over my fingers. His eyes shift to Kieran. If your group comes first, will each of you stand for them - no matter what?

Kieran places a fist over his heart. “They are of the mountain. The mountain will protect its own. We will be their guides.”

A choice has been reached. Right it might feel - scary so - and yet that makes it no less done.

(Lysander’s POV)

A hush sits heavy in the Citadel, thick as storm air. Something moves beneath the quiet. When I walk into the room, their whispers die fast. My mother crouches down, level with my face. Her voice drops lower than the others. Grey eyes lock on mine without blinking.

“We are going on an adventure, my heart. Back to Blackstone.”

A sudden lightness fills my chest. Missing the open heavens now, plus that sharp scent of frost-laced pines, even Uncle Gareth’s booming voice - those things pull at me. Yet Father stays flat-faced. His expression shifts just like it does prior to tense gatherings where words feel heavy.

“How much time?” I say.

“For a little while,” Mother says, but her eyes tell a different story. “The mountain needs to see you. Needs to remember you.”

Sometimes I just go quiet, then tilt my head yes. The mountain stays with me. At night it knocks through sleep, a deep thud beneath the soles of my boots. That pulse fits right in my chest.

Father puts his big hands on my shoulders. He crouches down so we’re eye to eye. “You listen to your mother. You listen to Kieran. And you listen to the land. Do you understand? It will whisper to you. Don’t be afraid.”

Fear doesn’t sit in my throat. His stare holds mine - steady, heavy - like handing me a key to something locked tight. My voice comes up before I think: “Mother stays safe.” Chest forward now, shoulders wide.

A shadow flickers across his eyes - something between hurt and stubborn honor. Into his arms I go, squeezed hard enough that air slips away. His voice lands soft on my scalp. Not loud, just certain. Words shaped like trust. "I know you will." A pause hangs there before he adds, almost under breath, "My brave boy."

(Noah’s POV)

The ache of seeing them leave cuts like a blade through bone.

Up high on the horse, Paige holds herself straight, little Lysander pressed close in front, his chin lifted toward open sky. Not once does she turn around. Glancing back would risk it - my vow could slip, feet moving without thought, chasing their path into distance.

Alex locks eyes with me from atop his horse, then nods once - solid, certain. That single motion carries weight: my life depends on it. Trust settles in before I even think to question it.

Up high on the stone edge of the citadel, I stay past when the riders vanished into quiet. Below me stretches the city - lands bound to my oath. Yet what beats deepest inside pulls north, chasing ice and sorrow along the earth's broken ridge.

Out of nowhere, Elara appears beside me. This is Lysander’s nurse - clever, watchful, never one to wait in the wings. A pause hangs there before she finally says something. Silence breaks only when she decides it should.

“He’s more you than you know,” she says. “And more her. He has her curiosity, her way of seeing the threads between things. And he has your… solidity. When he sets his mind, the world shifts.” She glances at me. “The mountain chose well. It didn’t choose a warrior. It chose a bridge. Like his parents.”

A whisper of relief comes from what she says. Yet fear sits heavy, like a rock inside me. What politicians fight over means little next to the quiet, old conflict waiting for us ahead.

Maybe it's hope, but I trust them more than anything. Their connection - how they feel about that untamed place - might fix what’s damaged.

Belief feels necessary right now.

Without that choice, everything falls apart.

(Paige’s POV)

Northward, the trip feels like returning - only backward. Air bites cleaner now; hues fade into stone, open space, stubborn trees holding on. Excitement hums through Lysander - he spots an eagle, then another, wonders aloud how cliffs got their shape, won’t stop wondering.

Yet when we reach the lower slopes, something shifts in his manner. Quiet settles over him then. A stillness takes hold. Often his little hand lies across the pony's neck - no pulling, no urging - simply there. Touching.

Frost touches the high rocks when we arrive at Blackstone. Built into stone, the fortress looks like it has always been there. Waiting near the gate, Gareth holds Mara tight - both of them watchful, both uneasy. Snow falls slow on their shoulders.

“The lambs were born weak this spring,” Gareth says that night over stew. “The fish in the high lake are few. It’s… it’s a quiet wrongness.”

Up high above, Whitehorn cuts into the sky - Lysander stands still in the yard below, eyes fixed on its tip. The place they say holds the Heart. His face, though young, shows no smile.

Quietly, he whispers it’s lonely. Almost too faint to catch.

On the ground next to him I go down. "Tell me what's here," I say softly

“The big slow heartbeat under everything,” he says, his eyes still fixed on the mountain. “It’s beating… but it’s lonely. It misses us.”

A shiver moves through my body, though the air stays still. Him too, it touches - same feeling, just deeper than sight. Not imagined, more like knowing without words.

Kieran approaches. “The path to the Heart is not for the faint of foot. It is a full day’s climb to the sacred cleft.”

My eyes move from the boy - seven years old now - to the mountain ahead. Is this climb too much for him? The rock face looms, silent

Lysander looks my way, teeth clenched just like Noah used to do when he meant business. A quiet strength sits in his voice as he speaks. Not pleading, not arguing - just stating it plain. His promise weighs heavier than any excuse. That single line holds more weight than most speeches ever could

Up we go. Kieran takes the front, followed by me, then Lysander bringing up the middle, while Alex and two more guards trail behind. This route isn’t any proper trail - just jagged edges and hidden splits in stone, knowledge passed down among the Hill Folk alone. Breathing gets sharper, colder, each step higher.

Lysander stays silent. Up he moves, steady on the rocks, somehow at ease where others would slip. Time stretches. Beneath us, everything vanishes into distance.

Just as light turns amber behind the peaks, we find the crack in the rock. This slit in the mountainside stays dark even now, opening into deeper black. From within comes a chill air, old and silent, carrying dampness from stone walls plus a sharp note - electric, almost, like the moment following thunder. The scent clings without warning.

Kieran stops. “This is as far as we go. The Heart receives whom it chooses. Only the heir may enter.”

I freeze. Into the shadows goes my son, without me.

Up ahead, the shadowed entrance looms. His eyes shift to mine. In that breath, he seems younger, small even, and I catch it - the quick flash of being afraid. My palms cup his cheeks.

“You don’t have to,” I whisper.

A tight breath follows the gulp, yet determination reshapes his face once more. A nod comes slow. “It's something I must do.”

Into the crack he goes, silent, not looking back. Gone - swallowed by shadow, like the air itself closed around.

A shape shifts inside me, pulse racing beneath skin - eyes locked on empty space where he last stood. Stillness of stone presses close, as if the peak itself pauses to listen.

The decision stands. It is done.

The heir has entered the Heart.

Waiting - that’s what happens now, until the mountain decides to respond.