When the meeting reached its weary end and the elders dispersed, the chamber exhaled a long, exhausted stillness. Scrolls were gathered, seals extinguished, and the last ember of incense crawled upward in a thin dying thread. The great hall settled back into its ordinary quiet: cracking timber, shifting banners, the distant croak of wind passing through high slats.
Nothing strange.
Nothing disturbed.
Yet Khaldron remained—standing exactly where he had stood during the entire council, boots set upon the ancient stone, shadow cast true beneath him, breathing as any mortal man might. His presence made sound: the faint rustle of his long coat, the soft grind of leather when he shifted weight, the smallest exhale. All was normal. All was real.
And still, none had noticed.
Not during the meeting, not even now.
For he did not hide, nor cloak himself, nor veil aura or intent. He used only the Bend of Reality, a technique so subtle it did not change their eyes—only the world their eyes believed in.
Their vision, their hearing, their senses—all remained exactly the same.
What changed was the foundation beneath it.
He had folded their reality a fraction to the left, shifted his own a fraction to the right, so that both realms touched but did not fully overlap. They occupied the same hall, the same lantern-light, the same air…
…but the laws governing what they acknowledged had split paths.
Thus to them, he was not invisible—
He was simply absent, like a moment forgotten by time.
Their world continued with perfect normalcy: the table, the chairs, the echo of discussion fading from memory. Meanwhile, Khaldron watched them depart with quiet eyes, every detail sharp and unmuted—their footsteps, their murmurs, the dust motes stirred by their robes. Everything about them was completely real to him.
Only his reality admitted both sides of the divided truth.
He listened to the last door thud shut, lanterns flickering low. The silence that remained belonged to him alone. And as the world settled back into its singular shape, the bend relaxed, his presence re-anchoring fully to the shared fabric.
What was unseen became simply unremarked.
What was unfelt became simply overlooked.
Khaldron stepped forward, boots tapping audibly on the stone—sound that would now be heard, should anyone return. For the split had ended. The technique was undone.
Only the hall remained to remember that he had stood there all along.
In truth, the elders had not ignored Khaldron.
They had not failed to hear his footsteps, nor overlooked the faint rustle of his cloak.
Their senses were keen, honed by Genesis-level insight, sharpened by centuries.
Yet they could not perceive him.
Not because he hid.
Not because he muted his being.
Not because his art cloaked him.
But because of the Veil-World—
that ancient, thin realm that clung to him like a second skin.
The Veil was not illusion, nor spell, nor shadow.
It was a world folded so tightly that it slipped between the seams of creation, its edges brushing the mortal world only when it chose to breathe. It existed beside reality the way a reflection exists beside a face: close, similar, yet never fully touching.
To common eyes, it appeared as nothing—
a faint pressure in the air, a cold too brief to name, a flicker upon the wall dismissed as trick of lantern-light.
But the Veil shaped perception.
It did not hide Khaldron—
it rewrote what could be acknowledged.
Those who dwelt wholly in the mortal realm looked upon him, yet their minds, bound to the Veil's law, slipped past him as water slips past stone. He became a thing their world no longer had the language to describe. They did not see absence.
They saw nothing to question.
Like a name erased from memory,
like a footprint swallowed by wind,
like ink that dries invisible—
he was present in body, absent in recognition.
Only Khaldron, who bore the Veil's mark and walked its edge, could stand within both worlds at once. To him, reality layered upon reality like oil upon water. The hall, the lanterns, the council—all remained real. And the Veil remained real. And he existed at the seam where the two truths failed to merge.
Thus the elders passed by him,
their robes brushing the same air,
their boots striking the same stone,
yet their reality and his reality shared no point of agreement about his existence.
He blended with time not by art,
but by distance—
a single breath removed from their world.
So when the meeting adjourned,
when the doors shut and the echoes died,
he stood alone not because he hid,
but because their world was too narrow to hold him.
The Veil-World, faint and silent, lay behind him like a mural of dim stars—
its presence the very reason their eyes could not bear witness.
Khaldron lingered before the Veil-painting, its near-perfect beauty stretched like a trapped dawn against the stone. He studied it in stern silence, gaze cold, discerning.
The moor within shimmered with exquisite ruin—
violet skies bruised with ancient sorrow,
a lone tower rising like a wounded titan,
fog brushed in delicate strokes of silver so fine it seemed to breathe.
It was a world crafted with almost worshipful precision, its despair too ornate, its beauty sharpened to an edge nearly divine. Khaldron frowned faintly.
"Immaculate," he murmured, "yet too eager to impress."
A stir rippled within the moor, as though the painted wind bristled at his judgment.
He stood unmoved.
Then—
a tiny sound touched the vast hush of the hall.
Soft.
Uneven.
Like a small bird afraid to call.
Khaldron turned.
A little girl stood near the doorway, half-hidden by the dim lantern glow. Barefoot, hair a tumble of dark strands, clutching scrolls almost as large as her arms. Her eyes were wide—moon-pale, earnest, trembling with uncertainty yet unafraid.
And she saw him.
Truly saw him.
Her lips parted, barely finding words.
"Um… s-sir…?" she whispered, voice thin as thread. "Are… are you real?"
Khaldron regarded her calmly, the Veil behind him curling like a second shadow.
"Aye," he said. "I am."
She blinked once, twice, as though making sure he did not vanish between blinks.
Her voice grew even softer:
"I… I didn't mean to see you."
A shy swallow.
"I only looked up… and you were there."
He stepped toward her with measured grace, neither threatening nor gentle—simply present, as the moon is present upon still water.
The girl hugged her scrolls tighter.
"Um… everyone else walked past," she murmured, eyes lowering to the floor. "They didn't look. I thought maybe… maybe I wasn't supposed to look either."
Her innocence rang through the hall like a small bell.
Khaldron let out a slow breath.
"Thou did nothing wrong, child."
She peeked up at him again, hesitant hope glimmering.
"But… why can I see you? No one else did."
He lowered himself slightly, enough that his gaze met hers without towering.
"Because," he answered, voice deep as distant thunder yet steady, "among all who dwell here, thou alone possess a heart unclouded. And I… chose not to hide from thee."
Her lips parted in a tiny gasp of wonder.
"Oh…"
The lanterns flickered.
The Veil behind him rippled like a dream shifting in its sleep.
And the little girl, fragile as a candle in winter, stood as the single soul permitted to see the man whom reality itself refused to acknowledge.
The little girl stood trembling beneath the lantern's faint glow, the alchemy scroll clutched so tightly against her chest that the parchment crinkled. Khaldron's gaze dropped to it—not with judgment, but with quiet observation.
The scroll's seal bore the sigil of the Pillwright Clans: a blooming flame encircled by mortar and pestle.
He knew the mark.
The child belonged to one of the old families who toiled day and night refining pills for the sect—lineages bound by duty more than choice, their children often pressed into labor before they learned to laugh.
Her shoulders were small, yet carried weight far beyond her years.
Khaldron saw it instantly.
She spoke first, timid and careful, as if afraid to disturb the dust around them.
"Sir… I'm sorry I dropped the scroll earlier."
Her fingers wiggled anxiously against the parchment.
"I'm s'posed to bring these to Master Herin before sunset. If I'm late again… Father won't be happy."
Her voice cracked at the last word, only slightly—but to Khaldron, it sounded like a stone fracturing under too much strain.
He studied her face.
The faint exhaustion around her eyes.
The small bruise on her wrist from mortar-work.
The lingering scent of bitter herbs—burned, overbrewed.
Signs of a childhood spent steeped in cauldrons instead of dreams.
He exhaled slowly.
"What is thy name, little one?"
She hesitated, shifting barefoot on the cold stone.
"My name is Lira."
"Lira," he repeated, letting the name settle upon the air. "Tiny flame."
She blinked up at him, unsure whether she had been praised or measured.
He continued softly, "Thy burden is heavy for one so small."
Her lips quivered, though she tried to hide it.
"My family… we make pills. All day. Every day. And… and if we don't work fast enough, the elders get angry. Father says we must be perfect… even if it hurts."
Her gaze fell to the scroll again.
"I don't want to mess up."
A silence hung between them—not cold, but deep, like the stillness before snowfall.
Khaldron lifted one hand. Not abruptly, not ominously—simply offering presence.
"Thou hast walked enough today with fear at thy heels."
She looked up uncertainly.
Then he did something that seemed almost absurd in the vast gothic hush of the hall—
something so gentle it startled even the Veil.
He reached into the fold of his coat and drew forth a small crystalline sphere, chilled with a faint mist. With a subtle turn of his fingers, the sphere unfurled into a delicate cup formed of frost.
And within it—
swirled soft layers of pale cream, cold as winter dawn, shimmering with faint silver threads as if moonlight had been churned into sweetness.
Lira stared, mouth softly agape.
"What… what is that?" she whispered.
Khaldron lowered it to her tiny hands.
"Ice cream," he said, though his voice made even that simple word sound like a secret relic. "Crafted from frostmilk and star-honey. The most delicious I possess."
Her eyes widened round as lantern globes.
"For… for me?"
"Aye. For thee alone."
She reached out timidly, fingers brushing the chilled cup. A gasp of delight escaped her lips as the cold kissed her skin.
She took a small bite—
and wonder broke across her face like sunrise over a ruined world.
"It's…" She staggered for a word. "…it's perfect."
A faint smile—barely a ghost—touched Khaldron's mouth.
"Then savor it well, little Lira."
As she ate in shy bliss, the hall seemed less oppressive, the shadows less cruel. Even the painted world behind him quieted, as if humbled by her simple joy.
For in that solemn chamber of ancient power,
where elders walked blind and burdens weighed heavy—
a child tasted sweetness,
and Khaldron allowed himself one moment of quiet grace.
Lira held the frost-cup in both small hands, nibbling spoonful after spoonful of the pale, shimmering cream. Each bite melted upon her tongue like soft snow kissed by starlight. Her eyes glowed brighter with every taste, the earlier fear forgotten as though it had never lived in her bones.
When she finished the last bit—licking the rim shyly—she looked up at Khaldron with a spark of timid hope.
"Um… Sir Khal…"
She hesitated, toes curling against the cold stone floor.
"C-could you… maybe… maybe teach me how to make that?"
Her voice was a whisper wrapped in wonder.
Khaldron raised a brow, ancient calm unmoved, yet faintly intrigued.
"Thou wishest to learn the craft of frost-cream?"
Lira nodded fast, clutching the empty cup against her chest as if it might vanish.
"Yes! I—I mean… if it's not too hard. It was the sweetest thing I ever tasted."
Her eyes dropped, shy again.
"Maybe… I could make some for Father. He never smiles anymore. Maybe he would… if he tasted this."
Her innocence struck the air like a small, brave flame against a storm.
Khaldron studied her quietly. Around them the hall remained solemn, shadows pooled in old corners, and the Veil-painting watched with its silent moor. Yet her little request warmed the cold chamber more fiercely than any lantern.
He lowered himself slightly, enough for his voice to fall gently upon her ears.
"Little Lira," he said, "the making of such sweetness is no mere recipe. It is a weave of temperature, essence, and gentle will. One must command frost without crushing the flavor within it."
She blinked, absorbing none of the complexity.
"But… can you still teach me?"
He almost laughed—not aloud, but deep within, where storms had long slept.
"Aye," he said at last.
"I can."
Her face lit brighter than firelight.
"Really?!"
Khaldron straightened, his coat whispering as he moved. "But know this: thou must first learn patience. Ice cream made in haste becomes ruin—hard as frozen stone, dull as old bread."
"I can be patient!" she replied earnestly, only to add a heartbeat later, "Um… how patient?"
"A full minute at least," he answered gravely.
She gasped. "A whole minute?"
Khaldron nodded solemnly, as if declaring a sacred trial.
"Aye. A test fit only for the bravest."
Lira stood up straighter, little chin lifting with childish determination.
"I—I can do that. I wanna learn. I really do."
He regarded her, the weight of countless ages behind his gaze, and for the first time in many years, the corners of his mouth softened into something nearly warm.
"Then I shall teach thee, tiny flame," he said.
"In time, thou shalt craft frost-cream worthy of the stars."
Lira beamed, wonder bright enough to soften even the Veil's cold breath behind him.
"Thank you… Sir Khal. I'll try really, really hard!"
And for a moment—brief but pure—the ancient hall felt less like a tomb of old powers and more like a place where small miracles still dared to bloom.
Khaldron gazed at the little girl, her eyes still wide with wonder, the tiny cup of frost-cream trembling slightly in her hands. For a heartbeat, the hall seemed to hold its breath, as if Genesis Peak itself awaited his next motion.
He lowered a hand and placed it gently upon her head. Not roughly, not with force—but as one might rest a finger upon a spring of water, patient, deliberate, eternal.
A flicker passed—soft, black as the void behind the moon.
Not visible to mortal eyes, yet it danced within the cradle of her mind.
It was a memory, a spark, a seed.
A fragment of the black flame he had nurtured through countless centuries:
A flame that lived, that breathed, that remembered the forging of stars, the decay of worlds, the subtle alchemy of life itself.
It was alchemy wrought into sentience, a scripture etched upon the soul for a million years, containing all knowledge of cooking, botany, farming, and the hidden truths of transformation.
The flame curled around her mind like a whispering shadow, tender yet infinitely potent.
"You shall not carry it all," Khaldron murmured, voice low as stone grinding in the deep halls.
"This flame is mine. Ancient. Endless. Infinite. I grant thee only a drop—a seed to grow in thy heart. Nourish it, strengthen it, let it awaken, but guard it well. It is a fragment of what the world cannot yet comprehend."
The black fire seeped into her consciousness, leaving no mark upon flesh, yet burning a quiet, enduring impression upon her soul.
She gasped softly, her mind flooded with echoes:
The taste of herbs in sunlight, the rhythm of frost melting in shadow, the secret fold of a seed beneath cold earth.
She saw, without seeing; she knew, without understanding.
A library of countless knowledge pressed gently against her soul, asking only that she nurture it, that she live, that she grow.
Khaldron withdrew his hand, the black flicker retreating like tide from the shore, leaving behind only a warmth of potential, a quiet resonance of power.
"Remember this, tiny flame," he said, voice grave, echoing faintly in the vaulted hall.
"What I have given thee is not for haste, nor for idle curiosity. It is a seed. Thy hands, thy heart, thy patience—these shall give it form."
Lira's eyes shone, luminous in the lantern-light. She whispered, almost breathless, "I… I will make it strong. I promise. I'll take care of it."
Khaldron inclined his head slowly, as if weighing the centuries against a child's simple vow.
"Then thou mayest learn, and in time… perhaps create wonders that even the shadows would envy. But for now, tend it as a gardener tends the first bloom of spring. Small, fragile… yet bound for greatness."
The hall settled back into stillness.
The mist curled lazily across the flagstones, and the Veil-painting seemed to lean closer, as though approving the quiet transfer of ancient fire.
And in her heart, the black flame flickered—small, faint, yet alive, carrying the weight of Khaldron's endless existence, and the promise of a seed that could grow beyond imagination.
The hall lay silent, the lanterns flickering like distant stars caught in the folds of shadow. Khaldron watched quietly, a patient sentinel, as Lira clutched the empty frost-cream cup to her chest.
She shivered slightly—not from cold, but from something deep and invisible stirring within her.
The black flame, the seed he had sown, stirred in reply.
It whispered to her mind like a gentle wind threading through ancient trees. She could not see it, she could not name it, yet a warmth blossomed inside her chest—a subtle, radiant pulse that coiled around her heartbeat.
She smiled faintly, thinking it was the lingering sweetness of the ice cream, savoring the memory of the creamy frost upon her tongue.
And in that innocent delight, the first threads of awakening wove themselves into her spirit.
Her soul did not yet quake, nor blaze in visible might.
But the black flame traced its tendrils carefully, testing the bounds of her consciousness. It nudged her toward growth, revealing secrets hidden within the folds of her mind: the faint rules of frost-milk congealing, the flow of sugar and cream through cold, the harmony of herbs and honey, the song of alchemical transformation itself.
All of it danced within her quietly, unnoticed, uncomprehended—but her soul had tasted it, and that was enough.
Her pulse quickened. Her senses sharpened.
She did not know, yet her cultivation had already stirred.
Almost… almost to the Golden Core.
The first spark of condensation around her spirit flickered like molten gold, invisible to her own eyes, a subtle aurora of latent power that even the oldest masters would have marked as miraculous.
Khaldron observed her, expression inscrutable, the Veil of reality around him calm and undisturbed.
"Thou hast not yet noticed, little flame," he murmured softly, "yet thy soul hath leapt forward… carried by nothing but sweetness and a single seed of knowledge. A small thing… yet it awakens all."
Lira tilted her head, still blissful, licking the last trace of sweetness from her fingers. "I… I feel… warm," she murmured, thinking it the sun caught in her hair, or the hall's draft upon her skin.
The warmth pulsed stronger, unseen tendrils of black flame weaving deeper, imprinting the first scripts of centuries into her mind. Her soul was learning to remember, to feel, to comprehend—even if she could not name it yet.
Khaldron's eyes, older than all the mountains of Genesis Peak, flicked once to the Veil-painting. The moor and tower seemed to pulse faintly in response, as if acknowledging a new life awakened within the hall.
And still Lira, small and innocent, remained unaware of the miracle in her veins, tasting only the sweetness of ice cream and the quiet thrill of a moment she could not yet name.
The first step was taken.
The seed had rooted.
The Golden Core waited—just a whisper beyond the horizon of her perception.
Khaldron inclined his head slightly. "Grow well, tiny flame… grow well indeed."
The hall exhaled around them. The shadows remained unchanged, the mist coiled lazily, and the painting's distant moor breathed as if it, too, honored the quiet awakening of a soul untested yet destined.
The hall lay hushed, vaulted arches stretching like the ribs of some great, forgotten beast. Lanterns trembled faintly, their feeble light quivering against blackened stones, as though the very air knew that what was to come surpassed mortal reckoning. Khaldron stepped forward, slow, deliberate, a shadow among shadows, and the black flame coiled around him like a living serpent of night, flickering with a light both void and brilliance, neither wholly seen nor wholly unseen.
He extended a hand, and the darkness within it pulsed—alive, sentient, a whisper of eternity. The flame rose and twisted, curling like smoke made solid, writ with patterns too intricate for any mortal eye, every tendril a scripture older than time itself. Sparks danced and shimmered, each a memory of creation, destruction, and the hidden laws that bind worlds together.
"I created these flames," Khaldron spoke, his voice low, sonorous, carrying the weight of eons. "Older than the first light that pierced the void, older than the stars themselves, wrought by mine own hand, tempered in the crucible of uncounted ages. It breathes. It remembers. It holdeth all knowledge I have garnered in the span of a million lifetimes… alchemy, frost, herbs, cultivation, the turning of life's hidden wheel."
Lira's breath caught. Her small chest rose and fell rapidly, though the flame did not scorch her, did not consume. Yet she felt it pressing upon her spirit—a weight of wonder, awe, and terror intertwined, a warmth that throbbed against the marrow of her bones.
"It is alive," she whispered, voice trembling like a candle in the draft. "It… it moves, it watches."
"Aye," Khaldron said, tone reverent. "It is alive. Yet know this, tiny flame: beauty untempered is treacherous. Power unbridled devours its master, as swiftly as the void swallows the fool who dares gaze too long."
He shifted his hand, and the flame writhed in reply, stretching, coiling, twisting, forming spirals of pure night threaded with sparks that shimmered like starlight long dead. It danced over the stone floor without burning it, glided along her fingers without searing, yet every touch left a faint impression upon the soul.
"See how it burns, yet harms nothing," Khaldron intoned. "It obeys not by fear, nor passion unbridled. One commands it not with force, nor with haste, but through mastery, patience, and attunement with its own will. One must move in harmony with its memory, or the flame will exact a lesson severe and unyielding."
He leaned closer, letting a single tendril of the living shadow curl along her palm. Lira gasped, a thrill running through her like frost meeting fire. The flame twisted and recoiled as if testing her, yet yielded to her presence, alive with curiosity, alive with infinite memory.
"Thou mayest touch it, little flame," Khaldron murmured. "Yet heed this well: it obeys only those who understand the weight of thought, the measure of will. One misstep… and it shall teach thee harshly. I shall guide thee, not through ruin, but through control, through discipline, and through attunement with its essence."
Lira's small hands hovered, trembling, eager.
"I… I can control it?" she whispered.
Khaldron's eyes, black as the abyss between worlds, regarded her with the patience of millennia. "Aye. The seed I bestowed upon thee is but a spark. This flame—older than the stars themselves, born of mine own hand—is infinite. Thou shalt learn its beauty, its patterns, its hidden laws. It shall scorch nothing thou dost not intend to scorch. Master it as I have mastered it… not through wrath, but through understanding, through reverent attunement."
He allowed the black fire to curl gently around her fingers, careful, deliberate, nurturing, a living scripture of his existence itself. It trembled, acknowledging a pupil worthy of its creator, quivering like a shadow that knows its master has arrived.
"Breathe with it," he whispered, voice now a thread of shadow and wind. "Feel its will, its memory, its truth. Let it flow through thee, not against thee. When thou art ready, little Lira… thou shalt craft wonders that no mortal eye hath yet beheld, wonders unimagined by even the oldest masters of Genesis Peak."
The hall seemed to lean closer in silence. Shadows twisted along the vaulted arches, coiling and recoiling, and the Veil-painting upon the far wall pulsed faintly, as though honoring the careful transfer of the ancient, living power Khaldron had himself created.
Lira, trembling yet radiant, synchronized her breath with the black flame. Its tendrils wrapped around her like a living scripture, older than the stars, older than light itself, yet patient, awaiting the hand and heart capable of shaping its will.
And Khaldron, sentinel of eons, patient as stone and night, watched, letting the seed of mastery take root, knowing that control must come first, and beauty, as ever, would be the eternal companion of power.
Lira lingered in the hall's shadowed corner, her small hands trembling, yet steady with quiet determination. The black flame within her chest throbbed softly, older than the stars, patient as the void, whispering, coaxing—but awaiting her will.
She closed her eyes, inhaled slow and deep, and let her spirit rise above fear and doubt. She did not command the flame with thought alone, nor with desire alone; she called to it with the very essence of her being. Her soul reached out, a tether of intent, and the darkness responded.
A tiny wisp of black flame sprang to life upon her palm, flickering delicately like smoke caught in a shaft of moonlight. It curled, twisted, and hovered—no larger than a candle's spark—but every movement was guided by her spirit. The flame pulsed with life, obedient to the rhythm of her breath, the cadence of her heartbeat, the quiet depth of her awareness.
Her eyes opened. Wonder and awe mingled with the steady pulse of control. The tiny flame floated above her palm, flickering yet unwavering, a reflection of her own spirit made visible. It cast dancing shadows upon the hall, yet it neither burned nor scarred; it existed only by her will, alive because she willed it so.
Khaldron, still a shadow at the far end of the hall, observed with eyes like midnight skies. A rare smile, faint yet warm, brushed his lips. He could see her mastery, not of raw power, but of spirit—the delicate thread that binds the self to all creation.
"Well done, little flame," he murmured, voice drifting like wind through blackened stone. "This is thy own spirit made manifest. Small it be, yet potent. Tend it with care. Let thy will guide it, thy heart temper it, and thy soul bind it. Thus shalt thou grow in strength beyond mortal ken."
Lira's lips parted in soft awe. The tiny flame pulsed gently, perfectly obedient, alive with her spirit alone. She felt the first faint stirrings of something far greater, a hidden surge of energy brushing at the edge of her Golden Core, yet still unnoticed by her own mind.
The hall seemed to lean closer with silent witness, shadows twisting gently along the vaulted arches. Even the Veil-painting pulsed faintly, as if acknowledging the quiet miracle of spirit-born fire—the first step of mastery, guided not by teaching alone, but by the unshakable will of a child's soul.
The tiny flame upon Lira's palm pulsed gently, a mirror of her own spirit, delicate yet alive. Khaldron stepped closer, the black flame coiling softly along his wrist, its older-than-stars memory quivering faintly in acknowledgment of her first mastery.
He bent slightly, his massive presence folding around her small frame, and produced a small treat from the folds of his robe—a second ice cream, creamy and sweet, its aroma a warmth amidst the cold stone of the hall.
"For thee, little flame," he murmured, voice low as grinding stone. "A reward… and a memory of this day. Taste it, and let thy heart know joy as well as power."
Lira's eyes lit, wonder mingling with delight. She took it carefully, savoring the flavor that seemed almost impossibly perfect—cream and sweetness, cold and rich, as though the world itself had condensed into that single bite. She shivered with delight, and the tiny flame atop her palm twined with her warmth, responding to her pleasure.
Khaldron placed a hand upon her head, patting gently, as if to anchor her in the moment, a rare intimacy in the vast, shadowed hall. His eyes, black and fathomless, softened with a warmth centuries could not erode.
"Thou hast done well, little flame," he said, voice steady, slow, reverent. "Remember this day, and remember thy spark. Grow, learn, and let the black flame guide thee when the path is dark. But now… I must depart. The winds of fate call elsewhere, and the hall shall not see me linger."
Lira looked up, eyes wide, the innocence of her spirit spilling into the shadowed space. "M-Master Khaldron… may… may I see thee again?" she asked, voice small, tremulous, but honest.
Khaldron's lips curved into the faintest, rarest of smiles, like moonlight brushing black stone. "Perhaps," he said, voice soft as night. "When the threads of fate allow. But for now… thou must tend thyself and thy flame. I shall watch from afar, and the seed I gave thee will grow if thou art steadfast."
She nodded, clutching the tiny flame in her hand, feeling its warmth intertwine with her own spirit. The ice cream in her other hand, sweet and perfect, a memory of kindness and wonder, made her heart pulse with both delight and courage.
"Thank… thank thee, Master Khaldron," she whispered, lips curling into a small, shy smile.
He inclined his head, letting the black flame ripple faintly along his sleeve, a silent acknowledgment of her promise. "Go now, little flame. Grow strong, and let the world remember thy light."
And with that, Khaldron turned, black flame coiling about him like living shadow, and stepped into the hall's deeper darkness. The lanterns flickered, shadows stretched long, and Lira stood alone, tiny flame dancing upon her palm, ice cream melting slowly, a single heartbeat bridging the infinite gulf between master and pupil.