The Untried Hands

The newcomer stood before the masters of the Hall, his question hanging in the silent air. Nyra watched them, her gaze sharp, weighing their silence.

Finally, one of the elder masters, a man whose hands were gnarled like ancient roots, spoke. “You ask to carry the Stillness,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “But do you have the wood to burn?” The words, simple and direct, landed with the weight of a stone in a still pool.

The newcomer did not answer immediately. He looked down at his own hands, soft and uncalloused, and then back at the masters of the Hall. In their faces, he saw not judgment, but a challenge. A question he had to answer for himself.