The village square roared with life.

  Colors clashed, voices tangled, scents clung to the air, heavy enough to coat the tongue.

  Merchants bellowed over one another, their cries like clanging bells, each desperate to outshout the rest. Stalls spilled over with ripened fruit, bright fabrics whipping in the wind, trinkets polished to a gleam that masked their worthlessness.

  A bard strummed a lute, fingers moving fast—too fast. Desperation in every note.

  Hooves clattered. A farrier barked prices. Somewhere, a deal was struck with a hiss of exchanged coin.

  The square was alive. Chaotic. And beneath the noise, it held a rhythm all its own.

  Dinadan moved through it all like a shadow with legs, the afternoon sun catching on his sandy hair and the edge of his dented pauldron. On an ordinary day, this chaos would have suited him —an entire stage of fools and fates to mock with one well-placed quip. But today, the noise grated, the crowd pressed too close, and every voice called too loud. Beneath the chatter and clatter, it pressed against him—that infernal pull, steady as the turning of the tide.

  For a moment, he stood motionless, his gaze unfocused, as if listening to something far older than the voices around him. The echoes of ancient magic stirred in his blood—whispering, waiting.

  His hand found the shard beneath his tunic, fingers pressing against the cold metal. Sharp against his skin, heavier than steel had any right to be. Whether it was the talisman itself or the weight of what it carried, he couldn’t say. Only that it would not let him go.

  “Why me?” he muttered under his breath, weaving past a boy chasing a chicken. “Of all the knights in Albion, why saddle me with this nonsense? Someone else must be free—one of the shiny ones who likes quests.”

  Bracken flicked an ear, unbothered, uninterested. Dinadan exhaled. Lucky beast. No grand prophecies, no tangled loyalties—just hay, stubbornness, and the occasional well-placed kick. If only life were that simple.

  He adjusted the bundle under his arm—a pitiful offering of bread, cheese, and a bottle of wine unfit for cooking—and wove deeper into the crowd. The press of bodies should have swallowed him whole, should have drowned out the hum gnawing at the edges of his ribs. But with every step, it climbed closer, restless beneath his skin.

  Grumbling under his breath did little to smother it.

  His gaze snagged on a weathered stall, its warped wood and sun-bleached cloth standing out against the churn of the market.

  It wasn’t the wares that caught him—polished stones, simple carvings, and the usual trinkets peddled by hopeful artisans. No, it was the woman behind the table.

  She sat hunched over a smooth, spiraled stone, her gnarled fingers turning it with slow, deliberate care, letting the light catch in its grooves. Deep-set wrinkles furrowed her face, more carved than grown, each line a story worn into her skin. But it was her eyes—sharp, gleaming with a knowing that settled wrong in Dinadan’s chest.

  The sort of gaze that didn’t just see, but understood.

  “Sir Knight,” she called, her voice dry and rustling, like the whisper of autumn leaves. “You’ve the look of a man carrying questions. Perhaps the stones can answer them.”

  Dinadan hesitated.

  It wasn’t the kind of pitch that should have stopped him. He was well-versed in dismissing the mystical and the mad. But her hands—those hands—moved with purpose, tracing patterns older than kingdoms, each gesture heavy with the weight of rites long buried.

  His breath hitched. His feet stayed.

  The stone in her grasp caught the light, glinting like a thing that remembered.

  He stepped closer, eyes narrowing.

  “I’m not in the habit of chatting with rocks,” he said, though the tightness in his voice betrayed him.

  Her smile was faint, a flicker of thought crossing her face. “Not every stone carries wisdom, but some…” She turned the stone in her palm, tilting it to the light. The spirals caught the sun, the carved lines bending and curling like rising mist.“Some carry the weight of Y Tir. You’ve felt it, haven’t you? The pull?”

  The words struck like a blade between his ribs, and for a moment, the market fell away. The laughter of children, the calls of merchants, the faint strum of the bard’s lute—all of it faded, leaving only the hum, rising louder and louder until it filled his ears. The air grew cooler, sharper, and the scent of bread and sweat was replaced by the damp tang of earth.

  And he was fourteen again.

  The sky above was a low sheet of gray, stretched thin and ready to tear. The wind snapped at his cloak, carrying the sharp scent of heather and cold stone. Dinadan trudged across the open plains, his legs burning from the pace Sir Alain had set. His father, all straight lines and iron discipline, strode ahead without looking back.

  “Must we walk so fast?” Dinadan grumbled, kicking a loose stone. It skittered across the path and disappeared into the grass. “The stones have been here for centuries. They’ll survive if we’re late.”

  Sir Alain didn’t look back, his posture as rigid as the sword strapped to his back. “A knight does not make Y Tir wait,” he said, each word crisp and cutting. “And neither should you.”

  Dinadan kicked a loose stone, watching it skitter across the uneven path. “A knight this, a knight that,” he muttered. “Do you have any advice for people who don’t spend their lives grunting about duty and swinging swords?”

  Sir Alain stopped, and Dinadan pulled back before he collided with him. His father turned, fixing him with a piercing gray stare that stripped away every layer of sarcasm and bravado Dinadan had learned to wear.

  “Do you think this is a game?” Alain’s voice was quiet, but it carried a weight that settled on Dinadan’s chest.

  “It’s just stones,” Dinadan replied, shrugging. But the shrug didn’t quite land—his unease showed in the slight quaver of his voice.

  Sir Alain stepped closer, his shadow falling long and sharp over his son. “They are not ‘just stones.’ They are the bones of the Y Tir, the keepers of its will. They see more than we do—more than you can imagine.”

  Dinadan rocked back on his heels, eyeing the stones with open skepticism. “They’re old, sitting around like forgotten teeth. What could they see in me?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.” Sir Alain’s voice was colder now, almost dismissive. “Now keep walking.”

  The Henge loomed ahead, the stones jutting from the earth like the ribs of an ancient beast long buried, yet never dead.

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  As they neared, unease slithered through Dinadan’s ribs—not fear, not quite, but a presence. A hum. A vibration. Low, steady, alive.

  It didn’t echo in his ears—it sank deeper, thrumming beneath his skin, settling in his bones.

  By the time they reached the edge of the circle, his knees felt weak. Not from exhaustion. From knowing.

  “This,” Alain said, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder, “is where you prove yourself.”

  Dinadan scoffed, though the sound came out weaker than he intended. “Prove myself to who? The rocks?”

  “To Y Tir,” his father said. “To your lineage. To yourself.”

  Dinadan opened his mouth to retort, but one look at his father’s face—the grave set of his jaw, the unflinching certainty in his eyes—silenced him. Swallowing hard, he nodded and stepped into the circle.

  ----

  The moment Dinadan stepped across the threshold of the Henge, the air changed. It wasn’t subtle—like a sudden storm breaking across a still summer day, it hit him all at once. The wind died, leaving a silence so thick it pressed against his ears. The hum that had been a faint pulse in his chest surged, growing louder and deeper until it reverberated through his bones.

  He froze, his breath hitching, but the world did not wait for him. The stones loomed higher now, their jagged edges slicing into the gray sky. The air shimmered and bent around them, twisting like heat rising from a forge. Symbols carved into their surfaces began to glow, ancient lines of spirals and intersecting marks, both random and deliberate, as if they held a secret Dinadan wasn’t meant to understand.

  The earth pulsed beneath his boots, each throb in sync with the humming force pressing against his ribs.

  Dinadan staggered. Reached for balance. Found nothing.

  The gray plains beyond the Henge buckled, warped—folding inward like fabric pulled through unseen hands. The land itself melted, rippling like water disturbed by a stone.

  Then came the shadows.

  They poured into the void, thick and restless, twisting in unnatural shapes—not mist, not smoke, but writhing tendrils coiling like serpents, shifting as if they could taste the air.

  And the first vision struck like a lightning bolt.

  ----

  He was no longer in the Henge.

  He was kneeling—not on sacred ground, but on a battlefield.

  The land stretched in every direction, a scarred wasteland of churned mud and blood-soaked earth. Smoke coiled thick in the air, blotting out the sun, burning his lungs with its acrid bite.

  Bodies lay broken, twisted where they fell. Faces lost beneath layers of grime, war, and death.

  The sounds of battle came in shattered pieces—steel on steel, men shouting, horses screaming—but distant, muffled.

  As if the world itself wanted to swallow the noise.

  To bury the dead. To forget.

  Dinadan looked down—and staggered back.

  Blood. Everywhere.

  His gauntlets dripped with it, crimson slicking the lines of his fingers, pooling in the crevices of worn steel. Not fresh. Not dry. Endless.

  And in his grasp—a crown.

  Jagged. Misshapen. Wrought of blackened iron and tarnished silver, its edges keen enough to carve flesh. It pulsed against his palms, warm, alive, beating with a rhythm that wasn’t his own.

  A voice rumbled, deep and vast, folding around him like the weight of the sky.

  "Do you see?"

  Dinadan’s breath caught, his throat dry as dust. "See what?" The words left his lips, brittle and uncertain. Did it hear him? Did it matter?

  The crown grew heavier. Heat slithered up his arms, burrowing into his chest. He tried to let go—his hands wouldn’t obey. His muscles locked, every struggle only tightening the unseen grip that wove the metal into his flesh.

  The weight pulled him down. His knees struck mud.

  Then the voice came again, a force of thunder and inevitability.

  "Do you see the truth?"

  Dinadan tried to shout—to demand, to defy, to claw his way back to solid ground.

  But the battlefield fractured before the words left his throat.

  The air twisted, warping like heat rising from stone. The world folded inward, edges curling, dissolving—and then the shadows took him.

  Dinadan stood in a Henge unlike any he had known.

  The stones pierced the sky like dragon’s teeth, jagged and unyielding. Once-faint carvings now blazed, spirals and lines burning gold, their glow cutting through the dark like a brand against flesh.

  The hum deepened. Not just sound now—a force. It coiled around him, pressed against his chest, crushing the air from his lungs.

  Then, the figures emerged.

  Tall. Too tall. Their forms rippled, draped in shifting shadow, their faces lost behind a veil of darkness that never settled. Not men. Not spirits. But their presence thundered through the air, ancient and absolute.

  Dinadan’s knees nearly buckled.

  One stepped forward. Slow. Intentional. As if time itself bent to make way.

  A hand rose.

  And the crown was there again. Floating. Waiting.

  Its jagged edges glowed, the pulsing heat licking at the air. Mocking him. Calling to him. Binding itself to him.

  The figure’s voice broke the silence—stone grinding against stone, weighty, inescapable.

  "Do you understand what must be carried?"

  Dinadan wanted to look away. His body refused.

  The crown hovered before him—golden, terrible—a halo that whispered of both glory and ruin.

  “I don’t want it,” he said. The words fell from his lips before he could stop them.

  A laugh. Cold. Hollow. Echoing like a chasm with no end.

  “Want?” The figure’s voice cut through the air, sharp as fractured stone. “Y Tir does not ask what you want. It asks only what you will carry.”

  Dinadan swallowed. His breath hitched. “I’m not worthy.” The confession slipped out, raw and unbidden. True in a way nothing else had ever been.

  The figures leaned in, shadows stretching, pressing, suffocating.

  “No one is. And yet, the burden remains.”

  The crown pulsed—faster now. Urgent. Matching the wild hammer of his heart.

  His hand moved before he could stop it. Trembling. Reaching.

  Heat flared, rising from the metal—not warmth, but fire. Branding. Consuming.

  His fingers touched the crown.

  And the vision shattered within a vision.

  Dinadan was still in the Henge.

  The stones loomed, silent now. The glow had faded, leaving only the damp scent of rain and earth clinging to the air.

  He lay on the ground, his breaths coming in short, ragged gasps.

  The laughter came.

  A chuckle at first—light, drifting, almost amused. But it twisted, rising, sharpening, filling the space, ricocheting off the stones until it became a noose around his throat.

  "Unworthy."

  The word slashed through the laughter like a blade. Cold. Final.

  "Unworthy."

  Dinadan clutched his chest, pain thrumming beneath his ribs, a pulse that wasn’t his own. It wouldn’t stop.

  “Stop,” he gasped. To the stones? The voice? Himself? He didn’t know.

  The word came again, thunderous now, rattling through his bones.

  "Unworthy."

  The crown appeared again.

  It lay in the dirt at his feet—tarnished, jagged edges dulled, cracks webbing its surface like a thing long broken.

  He reached for it.

  His fingers brushed the metal—and it crumbled.

  Ash spilled through his hands, caught in the wind, lost before he could hold it.

  The laughter faded.

  The world collapsed.

  The vision shattered, and Dinadan fell to his knees in the center of the Henge, gasping for breath.

  The stones loomed, unchanged. Silent. Watching.

  As if nothing had happened at all.

  Sir Alain approached, his footsteps deliberate. “What did you see?”

  Dinadan glanced up, his face pale and damp with sweat. He opened his mouth, ready to spill the truth—the blood, the crown, the laughter—but the weight of his father’s expectations stopped him.

  “Nothing,” he said, forcing a grin. “Just lights and shadows. Nothing important.”

  Sir Alain’s frown deepened, his gaze lingering on Dinadan. But in the end, he only gave a curt nod.

  “Then we’re done here.”

  He turned and strode away, back toward the path leading out of the Henge.

  Dinadan followed, his footsteps sluggish, the silence between them thick with things left unspoken.

  But as the ancient stones faded into the distance, the hum remained.

  ---

  Dinadan staggered back, gasping as the vision tore away from him.

  Reality slammed into place—too sharp, too loud.

  The marketplace roared back with violent clarity. Merchants shouting. Carts clattering over stone. The thick, heady scent of bread and wine.

  It was too much. Too bright. His legs threatened to give way.

  But the old woman was still there.

  Still watching.

  Her sharp eyes burned with the weight of something older than time.

  "They're calling, aren't they?" Her voice cut through the noise—not loud, but separate, as if the world around them didn’t matter.

  Dinadan swallowed. "I don’t know what you’re talking about." The words came out rough, unsteady. He turned to leave.

  "Oh, but you do."

  She smiled.

  Too wide. Too knowing.

  She stepped closer, holding up the smooth, spiraled stone in her gnarled hand.

  “Y Tir doesn’t call for heroes. It calls for those who will carry its burden, whether they want to or not. It calls the unworthy.”

  The word struck harder than it should have, and Dinadan stepped back, his hand tightening on the shard beneath his tunic. “You’ve got the wrong man,” he said. “I don’t carry anyone’s burdens but my own.”

  The woman’s voice followed him, low and sharp, cutting through the din of the market. “Y Tir has chosen you, Sir Knight. It doesn’t matter what you believe. You’ll hear it again soon enough.”

  Dinadan kept walking.

  His boots struck the cobbles too hard, too fast, each step a defiance, a refusal to listen. But the pull remained—a steady pulse beneath his skin, ancient and relentless.

  It wouldn’t fade.

  It wouldn’t be ignored.

  His fingers tightened around the shard, its edges biting into his palm. "I'm not ready," he muttered, voice lost beneath the marketplace din. "I'm not."

  But the word from the vision followed him.

  Threading through the noise. Curling around his ribs.

  Refusing to be silenced.

  Unworthy.