The month after Lorian's death passed with a strange quietness, as if the house itself had learned to breathe more softly.
The mornings felt colder, though the season had not changed. Arden began noticing small things—the way his mother's footsteps no longer echoed down the corridor; the way his father's voice grew measured and careful, as though held back by something he refused to name.
Mariel stopped going to the village market at first.
Then she stopped visiting the neighbors.
Then she stopped walking beyond the small strip of grass behind the house.
In its place, a garden grew.
It started with a single flower—a white valley bloom she planted with silent purpose. Then another. Soon patches of soil became neat and shaped, as if she were stitching something invisible back together. Arden would sometimes find her kneeling in the dirt long before dawn, hands muddy, eyes distant.
Once, when he asked why she worked so early, she gave him a thin smile.
"Lorian liked the morning light," she said. "It felt wrong to let the ground stay empty."
Arden didn't know what to say, so he simply stayed beside her, handing her seeds she had not asked for. She never told him to leave.
His father changed too—but in an entirely different way.
After the rites, Thaleus Vaelor returned to training with a restlessness that unsettled even the younger guards. The rhythmic clang of metal against practice dummies filled the courtyard from before sunrise until after dusk. His movements grew sharper, heavier. Even on days when exhaustion clung to him like a second cloak, he pushed himself further.
But some evenings—not many, just enough—he would call for Arden.
"Bring your notes," he'd say. "And your quill."
The lessons were short, tightly packed bursts of arcane theory or historical recounting, spoken as if every word carved meaning into the future. Arden would sit cross-legged on the floor as Thaleus outlined ether flow, the shapes of ancient chants, and the mistakes of the First War. Then, with a brief ruffle of Arden's hair, he'd mutter something about needing to "clear the mind" and return to the courtyard to practice until the torches guttered.
Arden treasured those fragments of time more than he understood.
Not long after, the elders summoned the Vaelorian children.
There were six of them in total, including Arden—faces he had seen before during festivals or gatherings but never spoken to for long. They were not all his age; one boy looked scarcely seven, while another girl seemed nearly grown. Now they stood in a quarter-circle in the old study hall, waiting for the elder assigned to teach them.
Elder Marath entered with a presence that needed no raised voice. Tall, white-haired, sharp-eyed—he seemed carved from the very stone of the Keep. His robes, though simple, were neat to the thread, and his gaze lingered just long enough to make each child straighten.
"You are Vaelorian by blood," he began. "That alone carries responsibility. But blood, without instruction—without discipline—becomes nothing more than a story people forget."
He paced before them, hands clasped behind his back.
"You will study theory first: history, scripture, combat principles, and arcane basics. Frivolity ends today. Your childhood," he said, "is over."
One of the younger boys swallowed audibly.
Marath's lessons were strict—bordering on severe—but never cruel. He demanded exact recitations of old dates, proper diagramming of mana conduits, and careful analysis of ancient battle journals. The children spent hours beneath the glow of old lanterns, copying diagrams until their wrists ached.
Arden found it exhausting—yet strangely compelling.
Sera, however, faded slowly from his days. He saw her rarely—once passing by the archives, another time carrying a pail from the well. Their conversations grew shorter.
"How are the lessons?" she asked once.
"Long," Arden answered.
"And difficult?"
He nodded.
She smiled faintly. "Good. They'll keep you from wandering off cliffs."
He meant to reply with something clever, but Elder Marath called for him, and the moment dissolved. After that, she drifted like smoke—present, but always at the edges of his routine.
…
Political tension reached the Keep quietly, through murmurs and sealed letters.
One evening, Arden overheard his father speaking with Elder Marath near the main hall. Their voices were low, strained.
"The latest shipment from Falren hasn't arrived," Thaleus muttered. Falren—the Empire's eastern province and the primary supplier of refined mana stones. "Not late by days—late in a way that suggests more than poor weather."
"Their priorities are shifting," Marath replied. "The Emperor's illness accelerates that shift."
"A rumor," Thaleus said, though doubt tinged his tone.
Marath shook his head. "Not a rumor. A truth delivered by someone who has no patience for lies."
"If the Emperor falls, the factions will tear each other apart," Thaleus whispered.
"And our supply of mana stones will be the least of our worries."
Arden did not understand the full weight of their words. But he felt the heaviness of something vast and cold creeping toward them.
That night, his father spoke little. His shoulders were stiff. His eyes distant.
Weeks passed.
Arden's days became a pattern of study halls, ink-stained fingers, thick tomes, and Marath's sharp instruction. At home, silence filled the rooms where laughter once lived. His mother's garden grew fuller each day, blooming like a quiet rebellion against grief.
Sometimes Arden dreamt of the cliff—the wind, the drop, Lorian's hand slipping from his. He never told anyone.
One evening, as lantern light softened the living room, he found his mother brushing soil from her hands. Her eyes were tired but soft.
"You've grown quieter," she said.
"So have you."
She smiled gently. "I suppose we all have."
"Does the garden help?" he asked.
Mariel looked out toward the moonlit blossoms.
"It doesn't bring him back," she whispered. "But it reminds me that something still grows. Even when we don't."
Arden nodded, though he wasn't sure he understood.
She reached out and brushed a thumb across his cheek. "Go rest, my heart."
He stayed with her until the lantern burned low.
Outside, in the training courtyard, his father's staff cracked against the wooden post again and again, as if carving out a wound only he could feel.
…
A few weeks later, the Keep buzzed with word of an outbound caravan heading toward Falren's capital. That evening, as lessons ended and the courtyard lanterns flickered awake, Arden slipped down to the lower castle yards.
Sera was waiting on the balcony overlooking the sea—a familiar place, one they had once used as a hiding spot. The wind tossed her hair as she leaned over the railing, staring at the dark line of waves.
"You're late," she said without turning.
"You never told me to meet you."
"I was testing your intuition."
She grinned. "You failed."
He snorted. "You sound like Elder Marath."
"I'd rather bite my own arm."
For a moment, the old rhythm returned—easy, careless, warm. But when she turned fully toward him, her smile softened.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," she said.
Arden blinked. "Leaving? Where?"
"Falren. My parents… they saved enough. I'm going to study with the Scholar-Historian Guild." Her eyes brightened, though something behind them trembled. "It's what we always talked about, remember? Seeing the world? Learning things bigger than this place?"
He remembered. All of it—the dream of exploring distant cities, wandering old ruins, discovering secrets lost to the Ley.
"It happened sooner than I thought," Sera continued. "And… I didn't want to go without saying goodbye."
The words hit him harder than he expected.
"So that's it?" he asked quietly.
"Not forever." She nudged his shoulder. "I'll come back. And when I do, we're going to explore the world together like we planned." Her grin widened. "But you'd better train hard. I'll need someone strong enough to be my knight. Someone who can protect me like the heroes in those old stories."
Arden flushed, and she laughed softly.
The wind carried the scent of the sea between them. Sera reached out and squeezed his hand.
"We'll meet again, Arden. Don't let this place dim you."
Then she stepped back.
"Goodbye—for now."
She left him on the balcony, lantern light glowing around her like a drifting ember.
When she was gone, Arden leaned against the railing, staring out at the vast, dark horizon. The world beyond the Keep no longer felt distant. It felt alive—calling, whispering.
One day, he told himself, he would see it.
One day he would grow strong enough.
Strong enough to make his father proud.
Strong enough to carry what his family had lost.
Strong enough to walk beside Sera beneath the wide, unbroken sky.
The wind swept across the balcony, cold but full of promise.
Arden closed his eyes.
Somewhere deep inside, a small, steady flame began to burn.