I had grown up on those stories. The elders of the village, gathered around the great fire on winter nights, would lower their voices when they spoke of the mountain. Of what lived at its crown.

  "There is a King who rules Mount Caelestis-Sol—the Heavenly Sun," Old Man Hendrick would say, his voice a dry rustle like leaves in autumn wind. "Not a king of men, with crowns and armies and coin. A different kind of king. One who guards the barrier between this world and what lies beyond."

  The children would huddle closer, half-terrified, half-fascinated.

  "They say he has lived since before our grandfathers' grandfathers were born," Hendrick would continue. "They say he walks among us sometimes, dressed as a healer, tending to the sick and the broken. But he is no mere healer. He is the Linchpin King. The one who holds back the darkness that would swallow us all."

  His gnarled hand would wave toward the window, toward the distant peak that loomed over our village like a silent god. Even on clear days, its crown was often wreathed in clouds, as if the mountain itself refused to be fully seen by mortal eyes.

  "No man has ever reached its summit," Hendrick would say, and we children would nod solemnly, having heard this truth our entire lives. "The paths are treacherous beyond imagining—sheer cliffs of ice that crumble beneath your feet, crevasses that appear without warning, winds that can strip the flesh from your bones before you even feel the cold. The air up there is so thin that mortal lungs cannot draw enough breath to climb another step. Many have tried. None have succeeded."

  I remembered once, when I was perhaps four or five, a traveling merchant had laughed at these tales. "Superstitious nonsense," he had scoffed. "An old man living in a cave, nothing more. If the mountain is so impossible, why hasn't anyone proven it? And this healer you speak of—if he's so powerful, why do you all cower instead of demanding answers?"

  The silence that followed was absolute. Every elder in the room turned to look at him with eyes that held no warmth.

  Old Woman Marta, the eldest of all, had spoken then. Her voice was thin as spider silk but carried more weight than any shout.

  "You are not the first to speak so, stranger. There was a man, many generations ago, who thought as you do. A man from a village much like this one. He grew tired of the stories, tired of the warnings, tired of watching the healer come and go while asking no payment and offering no explanation. He decided he would prove the healer was a fraud."

  The fire crackled. No one moved.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "He waited until the healer came to his village. Then he took a woman—a young mother, beloved by all—and in front of the entire village, he drew his knife and slit her throat before the healer could move."

  A collective gasp always ran through the children at this part. I remembered holding my breath, waiting.

  "The woman fell," Marta continued, her voice dropping low. "Blood poured from her neck, soaking the ground. The villagers screamed. Children wept. And the man stood there, bloodied knife in hand, demanding that the healer prove his power now, prove he could do anything about this."

  She paused, letting the silence stretch.

  "The healer did not move at first. He simply looked at the woman—at the life draining from her eyes, at her husband collapsing to his knees beside her, at her children wailing in the arms of neighbours. And then his eyes changed."

  Marta's own eyes, clouded with age, seemed to gleam in the firelight.

  "Not just the colour, but the nature of them. They became something other—something that held the light of stars and the darkness between them. For one moment, the village saw what truly lived among them. Not a healer. Not a kindly young man. A being of such terrible beauty and power that grown men wept and children hid their faces."

  She leaned forward, and we children leaned with her, spellbound.

  "The healer walked to where the woman lay. He knelt beside her, placed one hand on her ruined throat, and spoke. Not words we could understand—something older, something that made the very air tremble. And the wound... closed. The blood stopped flowing. Colour returned to her cheeks. And after a long moment, the woman opened her eyes and drew breath as if waking from a dream."

  I remembered the way my own hand had flown to my throat, as if checking that my own life remained safely inside.

  "She lived," Marta said simply. "She lived, and she raised her children, and she grew old, and she never forgot the face of the being who had called her back from death's door."

  The traveling merchant had gone pale, but Marta was not finished.

  "As for the man who had killed her—he did not die quickly. The healer looked at him, and something in that look unmade him. Not his body, but his mind, his soul, his very essence. He became a hollow thing, walking and breathing but empty of everything that made him human. They say he wanders still, somewhere in the far north, a cautionary tale for fools who think they can challenge the divine."

  After that night, the healer had spoken to the elders of that village. Marta's voice dropped to barely a whisper as she recounted his words, passed down through generations.

  "I am the King who guards this world," he had told them. "I am here to help, not to be questioned. I will tend your sick and heal your wounded, but I will not be tested. I will not be challenged. And I will not be spoken of." His gaze had swept over them, ancient and terrible. "You will not tell your children what I truly am. You will not write it down. You will let the story fade into myth and rumour, until it is nothing but a tale told around fires by those who do not quite believe it. And if anyone comes to this village asking too many questions, asking about the healer who never ages—you will deal with them. Quietly. Permanently. Do you understand?"

  They understood. And so, the stories became warnings. The warnings became whispers.

  But even with that warning, there were always those who tried to test the mountain itself.

  >> Wow!! You’ve made it to Chapter 15 together!!!

  Thank you so much for sticking with the journey in Starbound. It means the world to me that you're spending your time in this universe I’ve built.

  I’m so excited to share what comes next, and I truly hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

  >> If you’re loving it so far, I’d be incredibly grateful if you could leave a rating or a comment —it really helps readers discover the book!"