Kaelen was not seen by men, though he walked among them. To the smiths of the desert valley he was a whisper at the edge of their fire, a rhythm felt more than heard. But when raiders came riding down from the high ridges — ironless men with hunger in their eyes — the valley called upon no gods, only the ringing of their forges.

Kaelen answered.

Invisible to their eyes, he walked the ridge above. His tongue hissed words that bent flame, and the forges roared alive though no bellows touched them. From the mouths of furnaces poured rivers of heat, flowing where he willed, licking at the raiders’ blades until they split like clay.

The smiths, thinking it miracle, snatched the molten shards, plunged them into the troughs, and from them drew weapons streaked with red veins. Kaelen stood behind them, unseen, his hands raised as though shaping sound. When the raiders charged again, the smiths’ new-forged swords struck true — harder, sharper, singing with his cadence.

The battle was short. The raiders fled, leaving their dead on the glass flats. The valley returned to silence. Only the forges still whispered, as though remembering the tongue that had spoken through them.

That night, Kaelen bent low to the quench trough. He let his breath ripple the water until it glowed with embers. Into it he dipped a smith’s blade, unseen, and left a rune burned into the steel. Kaelen’s first battle in defense of the smiths left more than whispers. From it, he earned the Rune of Cadence.

It appeared when he breathed into the quench-trough after the battle. The water glowed, then cooled, leaving a faint sigil seared into the steel of the smiths’ blades. It was shaped like a strike arrested in mid-air, rhythm captured in form. The smiths carried those weapons across deserts and wars, thinking the strange mark nothing more than chance, yet the Draegyn would always know its meaning. It was balance of heat and hand, fire that obeys discipline. It was strike and pause, the law of cadence, to make not only with power but with measure. It was unseen guardianship, the protector who shapes without being seen.

To men, it was only a curious mark etched in the steel of their finest swords. To Kaelen, it was proof of his vow made flesh — his fire given law, his cadence written into matter.