Kersting still didn’t know the child’s name.
It had been an autumn afternoon when Kersting, then a child himself, had followed the forest path beyond the old mill, where the trees grew tall enough to swallow the sky. His imagination lead him on a quest in search of magic.
He had seen, once, a mage. The man had performed for the town faire. An act that wowed the crowd. He had summoned small gusts of wind, made small objects seemingly vanish and reappear. And Kersting’s favorite: produced small flickers of flame from their fingertips.
And so Kersting had begun his search for magic.
And in that forest was where he found the stones. A ring of ancient monoliths slick with moss, standing like sentinels in the clearing.
And in the center, a child.
Not much younger than Kersting, but strange. Eyes like clouded glass, hair pale as frost, their bare feet resting in the damp earth. They held a small, leather-bound book pressed to their chest as if guarding something precious.
“You dropped this,” the child said.
“That’s not mine.” Kersting had replied.
“It will be.”
The child smiled, an expression that didn’t quite reach their eyes. They stepped forward to place the book in Kersting’s hands. The moment their fingers touched, the air changed. The stones shivered. A low hum rose from the ground, vibrating through his bones like the echo of a bell that had been struck long ago.
When Kersting looked up again, the circle was empty. The pale child was gone.
The tome’s cover bore no title, only a sigil carved into the black leathee: Three interlocking circles surrounding a single flame. When opened, the pages shimmered faintly, letters shifting like ink stirred by wind. And so he learned.
Now, years later, Kersting resides in the town of Stag's Rest serving as Archmage of House Revenant and Master of Toadspire Tower. He spends his days wandering through the the deep places of the lands, always in seach of artifacts and new magics. When not on the hunt for rare treasures, Kersting can often be found hunched over his tailoring bench crafting robes, dresses, and tunics to outfit the people of Kerys and beyond.