Most days, being the Head of Medicine in Auroride means treating arrow wounds, mixing herbs, and explaining to soldiers that “if it’s glowing, don’t eat it.”

  But today wasn’t most days.

  Today, I was hiking through the Western Ridge with my two best friends—

  and also the two biggest sources of headaches in my life.

  There was Kael, the Head War Commander, who spoke as if punching solved everything.

  And Vyre, the Royal Strategist, who could turn even a simple “good morning” into a five-step tactical plan.

  Together, the three of us had been ordered to “survey unusual reports.”

  What unusual reports?

  Nobody bothered to specify.

  Typical.

  The air was unnervingly still—no birds, no wind, not even insects. Auroride forests were never silent. Even the trees liked to creak dramatically for attention.

  “Do you feel that?” I asked.

  Kael cracked his knuckles. “Yeah. Feels like something exciting is about to happen.”

  Vyre frowned. “Exciting is rarely good.”

  “Relax,” Kael said. “We’ve fought worse than silence.”

  “I don’t like it,” I said. “Even the air feels… thick.”

  Kael smirked at me. “Everything feels thick to you, Doctor. You overthink too much.”

  “Says the man who once head-butted a berry bush because it ‘looked suspicious’.”

  “That bush was TWO meters tall!”

  “A bush,” Vyre said dryly, “is not threatening because of its height, Kael.”

  “I disagree,” Kael replied instantly.

  I rubbed my temples. “Can we focus?”

  We moved deeper into the ridge. Rock outcrops rose like gray teeth around us, and the path narrowed until only one person could walk at a time. Kael, naturally, shoved ahead, declaring himself “front tank,” whatever that meant.

  Every few steps, the ground shimmered.

  Not wet.

  Not icy.

  Shimmering.

  I knelt, brushing my fingers across a trail of glittering dust. It clung to my fingertips like metallic pollen.

  “What do you think?” Vyre asked, crouching beside me.

  I rubbed it between my fingers. “Metallic… but it’s too fine to be natural. Almost like shavings. Something scraped something.”

  Kael loomed over us. “Trees?”

  “No,” Vyre said. “Trees do not produce metal shavings.”

  “Well maybe these trees do,” Kael insisted.

  I sighed. “Kael, no tree—”

  From a distance, sunlight flashed off something bright.

  “We’re close,” Vyre said.

  Stolen story; please report.

  I wasn’t sure close to what, but the dust thickened until it coated the rocks. The air smelled faintly metallic, like heated iron. Every step echoed too sharply. Even Kael quieted down.

  The trail opened into a stone basin.

  And that’s when we saw it.

  A boulder-sized chunk of metal was half-buried in the cracked ground—if it was metal at all. It glowed faintly, shifting between gold, blue, and a kind of soft white that somehow wasn’t bright but still illuminated everything.

  Strings of light ran across its surface like veins.

  I stepped closer slowly. “That… is not normal.”

  Kael whistled. “Pretty.”

  Vyre narrowed his eyes. “Pretty usually means dangerous.”

  “I’m going to take a sample,” I said. “But NO ONE touches it.”

  Kael nodded with exaggerated sincerity. “Of course, Doctor. I would never—”

  He reached out and grabbed the nearest loose piece protruding from the ground.

  “KAEL!”

  He held the fist-sized shard up proudly. “See? It’s fine.”

  Then he paused.

  “Huh. Warm.”

  “DROP IT!” I shouted.

  He dropped it instantly—and then hissed.

  His palm reddened, fast.

  “Let me see,” I said, grabbing his hand.

  Thin purple veins snaked outward from the burn. Too fast. Skin degeneration spreading like venom.

  “Oh wonderful,” I muttered. “Metal that kills you politely and quickly.”

  “That’s bad, right?” Kael asked.

  “Very bad.”

  Vyre leaned closer. “Rotate his hand. I need to see the spread speed.”

  Kael yanked his hand back. “NO. You are NOT observing my suffering like some lab frog.”

  “I’m not observing suffering,” Vyre said. “I’m collecting data.”

  “You’re collecting NOTHING,” Kael growled. “Fix my hand, Doctor!”

  I was already digging through my satchel. I uncorked a vial, poured salve over his palm, and massaged it in. The purple veins slowed, stopped, and then faded into normal redness.

  Kael exhaled in relief. “I thought my hand was going to fall off.”

  “It might have,” I said honestly.

  “Why would you tell me that?!”

  “I believe in honesty.”

  “Lie next time!”

  Vyre tapped the shard with the tip of his knife—carefully, never touching it. “Incredible. Some form of reactive decay. We’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Kael glared. “Can you NOT admire the thing that tried to eat me?”

  “I’m admiring its scientific uniqueness.”

  I stood and glared at both of them. “This thing is dangerous enough to kill someone in a minute. And we don’t know what triggers the decay. Heat? Skin oils? Organic matter?”

  Kael puffed his chest. “Well, it didn’t kill me.”

  “You touched it for eight seconds,” I said. “Touch it for sixty and you’d be an amputee.”

  He blinked. “I don’t like that.”

  “Good,” I said. “Keep not liking it.”

  I approached the ore again. The glow pulsed faintly, like it had a heartbeat. The surface was flawless, smooth, unnaturally perfect. No signs of erosion. No cracks. As though something shaped it intentionally.

  “And the structure?” Vyre murmured, tracing patterns with his eyes. “I’ve never seen metal grown like this.”

  “It’s not grown,” I said. “Metal doesn’t grow.”

  “This one might.”

  Kael crossed his arms. “Great. Living killer metal. Wonderful discovery. Ten out of ten.”

  I crouched beside a smaller fragment, this time using tongs. Carefully, slowly, I lifted it. No reaction.

  “Good,” I whispered. “It reacts only to organic contact.”

  “So if we mine it,” Vyre said, “we could handle it using tools.”

  “But for what purpose?” I asked. “Weapons? Armor? Tools? No one can touch it. One mistake and you lose a limb.”

  Kael shrugged. “We’ll just teach people not to touch it.”

  “YOU touched it.”

  “That was before we knew!”

  “Exactly. And next time, someone won’t be so lucky.”

  I dropped the shard into a reinforced jar and sealed it tightly.

  Vyre exhaled softly. “This is a new discovery. We should name it.”

  Kael immediately lit up. “YES! Something cool. Something strong. Like— Kaelium.”

  “No,” Vyre and I said at the same time.

  “Why not? I discovered it!”

  “You discovered it by grabbing it like a toddler grabbing a shiny spoon,” Vyre said.

  Kael frowned. “Still counts.”

  “We need something meaningful,” Vyre continued. “Something that acknowledges its power and danger.”

  I snorted. “How about ‘Deathium’?”

  Kael made a face. “That sounds dramatic.”

  “It IS dramatic,” I said. “It tried to rot your hand off.”

  Vyre looked thoughtful. “Aurorium.”

  I blinked. “After Auroride?”

  “Yes. The ore belongs to our land. It is our discovery.”

  “That’s like naming a poisonous snake after your palace,” I said. “It’s insulting.”

  “It sounds majestic,” Vyre argued.

  Kael nodded, convinced. “I like it. Aurorium. Powerful. Deadly. Important.”

  I sighed. “Fine. But only because I don’t have a better alternative.”

  Vyre peered around the basin. “There might be more.”

  Kael groaned. “Do we have to find more? One rock nearly killed me.”

  “Yes,” Vyre said. “We need to map the entire vein.”

  I tapped my medical pack. “And I want to know the limits of its decay. What if it reacts differently with blood? Or sweat? Or different skin types? Or temperature?”

  Kael paled. “Please don’t test it on me again.”

  “I’m not going to,” I said. “Probably.”

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN PROBABLY—?!”

  I walked away before he could continue panicking.

  We climbed further into the ridge, scanning the ground. The deeper we went, the more strange the environment became. Rocks were split cleanly, as though something had melted through them. Trees leaned away from the ground, roots exposed, as if they were trying to run.

  “Something happened here,” I murmured. “Something big. Recently.”

  Vyre pressed his palm against a stone wall—not the ore, a normal rock—testing temperature. “Heat passed through here. Days ago.”

  Kael scanned the treeline. “Maybe an animal.”

  “No animal melts rock,” I said.

  “Magic, then?”

  “Magic doesn’t pulse like that ore.”

  Kael muttered, “Can we go back now? We found your stupid killer rock.”

  “No,” Vyre and I said again at the same time.

  We continued mapping the ridge for another hour. More small fragments. More dust. More strange scorch marks.

  Finally, we returned to the main basin.

  The large chunk still glowed.

  Still pulsed.

  Still waited.

  As though watching us.

  A chill ran down my spine. “Let’s mark this place. No one should come here. Not until we understand this.”

  Kael tied a warning ribbon to a tree. “Should we send soldiers to guard it?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “We don’t know what it reacts to. We don’t know what it attracts. This ridge stays empty until we’re sure it’s safe.”

  “Which might be never,” Kael muttered.

  We started our climb back.

  Halfway up, I looked over my shoulder. The basin shimmered faintly behind us.

  The ore glowed once—subtle, almost like a wink.

  I shivered.

  Kael noticed. “Cold?”

  “No,” I said. “Just… uneasy.”

  Vyre nodded. “Good. Instincts exist for a reason.”

  Kael scoffed. “Instincts tell me I’m hungry.”

  “No one asked,” Vyre said.

  As we reached the forest line, I took one last glance at the ridge.

  Aurorium.

  Beautiful, deadly, mysterious.

  A thing we couldn’t use, couldn’t touch, couldn’t understand.

  Useless.

  And yet…

  Somewhere deep inside, I felt like this was only the beginning.

  Like this useless ore would soon change everything.

  But for now, it was simply a danger we needed to contain.

  We walked home.

  Aurorium pulsed once more behind us, as if listening.

  Watching.

  Waiting.