Caidon Rise reared up from the golden plain, jutting toward the sky as a monolithic precipice of granite and dirt. Hewn stone basked in the light of the midsummer zenith, warming and radiating the very air, and sparse lichens crawled up the spire’s flanks, bristling green in spite of the dry air. To the west side stretched its mighty shadow, looming downward over the quickly sloping, descending valley. The dark shade seemed to mock the fiery blades of grass that sprung up ‘round the hill’s base. Perfect darkness, for works of dark meaning and dark potential.

Wind whistled over young, tender shoots that sprung up in the shade of the west side’s shadow, shoots that were...

What you do have, though, is paragraph of description that doesn't actually leave me much the wiser about Caidon Rise. It's described (eventually) as a hill, but we also get "precipice" (which implies a cliff or single slope), mention of "hewn stone" (which implies an artifical construct, or else that it's been quarried). For good measure, we've got the "midsummer zenith" casting a shadow to the west, which implies the sun rises and sets north-south - is this intentional? - and a conflict between the "plain" from which it rises, and the "valley" to the west (a valley must be between two slopes - Caidon Rise and something else, or is this a canyon, incised into the plain?). The end result is that I'm probably more confused than if you'd spent less time trying to build the description.

Oh, and "shade of the... shadow" feels clumsy, and you don't need the apostophe on "round" (either say "around" or just "round").

why do you abbreviate 'round? Are you planning on using a colloquial narrative voice? Your use of complex vocabulary earlier in the paragraph contradicts this.

Why is the west side a shadow? Is there something that keeps the sun off that area in the afternoon? This almost leads me to think we have a PoV we just don't know about and they are witnessing the Rise in the morning. But didn't you say "zenith" meaning noon? The shadow would be north, if at all.

Who is percieving this? Just blurting out a random description of a geographical feature without having someone's perspective to judge it by(and get to know the character) we have absolutly nothing.

Quickly sloping? (Inappropriate Adverb)

Descending valley? (Redundant)

Dark shade (Redundant without refereneces to multiples shades.)

Sorry, rocks do not radiate air. They might radiate heat into the air.