Time flowed differently after I left Master Chronos's sanctuary. Some days felt like hours, and some hours felt like days. I had learnt the rhythm of memory, yet inside me, emotions started clashing like storms. Sometimes I felt overconfident; other times, I doubted every step forward.
Elder Aarion visited one twilight and looked straight into my eyes. "Knowledge sharpens the mind," he said. "But the mind without balance destroys itself. It's time you learnt the language of emotion — from the one who can hear hearts better than words."
He told me to go west, where the mist thickened into silver fog.
So I walked. The deeper I went, the quieter the world became. Then, through the fog, I heard something soft—whispers, laughter, cries, even angry shouts—all blending like thoughts flowing in water.
At the centre of the mist stood a calm woman wrapped in blue robes. Her long black hair floated gently as if underwater, and her eyes glowed faintly violet. In her hands, she held a glass orb swirling with colours that changed each time I blinked.
She smiled before I spoke. "You don't need to introduce yourself, Mukul Sharma. I already know what your heart wants to say."
Her voice was music and calm mixed together. Elder Aarion's tone carried awe when he introduced her: "This is Master Lyra Aenor, known across realms as The Mind Whisperer. She was once the High Psychologist of Empaths and the Composer of Emotions in the Great Worlds. Her gift is reading emotion so deeply that even silence cannot lie to her."
Lyra bowed slightly, her eyes reflecting the fog around us. "I can hear the noise inside you, little one," she said gently. "Fear, confusion, and pride all shouting at once. Let us quiet them."
And thus began my thirteenth training — not of body, not of star, but of soul.
Her home was unlike any other. It didn't stand in one place. Every time I returned, it appeared somewhere new — floating over misty lakes, hidden under giant flower petals, or inside caves where thoughts echoed like music. "The mind, she said once, "has no walls. Why should a home?"
She began by teaching me ancient techniques — methods used by monks, seers, and philosophers thousands of years ago. "In the old realms," she explained, "people didn't treat feelings as weakness. They studied them."
The first lesson was Emotional Reflection. She placed me before a pool of still water and told me, "Look until your face disappears."
When the water finally shimmered, I didn't see my reflection anymore. I saw flashes of my own memories—moments of joy, anger, sorrow, and fear—rising like waves. "Every emotion, Lyra said softly, "has a colour. Every colour, a message. Learn to read them without drowning in them."
Next came Heart Listening, an art that let me sense what others felt — not by words, but by energy. "People rarely speak the truth in words," she said, placing her palm on my chest. "But their hearts always hum the same rhythm as their intentions."
The exercises were exhausting. She made me stand in circles of whispering illusions—voices of pain, jealousy, and temptation—and told me to find peace among them. I often failed, my mind filled with noise. Yet each failure taught me something new about myself.
Then came her modern methods.
Her sanctuary contained strange holographic chambers — glowing, transparent spheres where energy pulses matched brain waves. "In your time," she said, "psychologists call it neural resonance therapy. But I simply call it clarity."
She strapped delicate bands around my temples and guided me through emotional projections — showing how each thought triggered heart rate, breath, and aura shifts. Slowly, she helped me learn how to control emotional energy like one tames wind — not suppressing it, but steering it.
Lyra spoke to me not like a teacher but like a mirror. "Emotions, she said, "are not enemies of reason. They are its heartbeat. You cannot lead others if you fear what they feel."
Sometimes she tested me unexpectedly. Once, she changed her form into someone I loved—my mother—and asked softly, "Would you stay here forever if it meant forgetting your purpose?"
The illusion was so real that I almost answered "yes". But the mark of seven stars on my neck burnt faintly, reminding me of why I was here. When I looked back, her face returned to her own — calm and proud.
"Good," she said simply. "Your heart nearly betrayed your destiny, but your mind remembered it. That is balance."
Another night, she showed me her greatest lesson. She took the swirling glass orb she always carried and held it to my chest. "This orb hears emotions," she said. "Watch."
Colours burst from within it — red for anger, gold for hope, blue for sadness, and violet for calm. The shades twisted, reflecting everything I felt at that moment. "You see?" she murmured. "Even when you hide your pain, the soul remembers."
I asked her once why she came to Aarvak Island. Her gentle smile faded. "Because too many sought to control emotions instead of understanding them," she said. "I worked for leaders who wanted to erase fear, erase grief — but by removing pain, they destroyed empathy. I left their world before they turned hearts into machines."
Her eyes seemed distant. "Here, I listen again. The island never lies."
Before I completed my training, she handed me a small silver pendant shaped like an ear of glass. Inside, a faint mist swirled. "This will not enhance power," she said. "It will remind you to listen to yourself and to others. The loudest screams often sound like whispers."
As I walked away from her fog-covered realm that evening, I heard hundreds of faint voices in the wind—laughing, crying, calling my name—yet none frightened me anymore. For the first time, my heart and mind moved in rhythm.
And that was how I met Lyra Aenor—The Mind Whisperer, the master who taught me that understanding hearts is harder than winning wars, that emotions are not weakness but truth—and that only by mastering our inner storms can we ever bring calm to the world.