The hollow smelled of damp earth and tannin, the air thick with must and stone. Some might have called it a cave, though it was little more than a narrow gap between two rock seams. Aurelian's prism caught the faint light, scattering color across veins of ore that glimmered beneath the surface. Fayte leapt at the shimmer as if he could catch it.
Ooba chuckled at the ardentis' antics as he unrolled his bedroll. Aurelian smiled, remembering the insects and shadows he'd once chased through the grove. He spread his own bedding beside the fire and drew from his Shadow Gate the small odds and ends they'd need for the night.
Ooba drew a knife and shaved curls of wood into tinder. Aurelian watched as he dug through his pack for dried meat and beans. After the day they'd had, a hot meal felt like mercy. They deserved at least once to end the night on a full stomach.
Fayte nosed at his pack and nudged his knee. Aurelian chuckled and opened the sack, pulling out several fillets of dried fish. He held them out, and Fayte grasped them eagerly, feathers rippling with satisfaction. The ardentis had more than earned his fill tonight—Aurelian's failure would have ended swiftly, and with brutal finality, had it not been for him.
"You've more than earned this, little brother," Aurelian murmured. "There's plenty more if you're still hungry."
Fayte gave a playful squawk and butted his knee, prancing in a half circle as if to say, I know. You're lucky to have me.
Ooba chuckled at their exchange. "Come here, bird. We need to talk."
Fayte glanced at Aurelian for permission, then padded over and settled beside the older man.
Ooba wrapped an arm around the ardentis' shoulder and pulled him close. "You did your line, your brother, and the Darkfall bloodline proud today," he said. His gaze shifted to Aurelian, sharp as a challenge. "You did what he did not. He panicked and tried to run. You reacted—protected—and made sure he lived."
The words stung, but they were true. Aurelian flushed, then burst into laughter. Fayte trilled in triumph, a bright, musical sound that all but said, I know. Aren't I great?
Aurelian found the small pot he'd bought in Brineford and set it near the fire. His hands moved automatically—water, flint, a stir of dried beans—but his gaze kept drifting to Fayte. The ardentis preened under Ooba's praise, feathers glowing in the firelight. Shame twisted in Aurelian's chest, but beneath it pulsed a fierce, quiet pride.
We're brothers, you and I, he thought. I may have stumbled, but you, little brother—you showed me what I hope to be someday.
He stirred the beans and reached out to stroke Fayte's beak. Fayte nipped playfully at his fingers and gave a soft squawk. At least they understood each other—on some primitive level.
The fire popped, sending a few sparks skittering into the dark. Ooba's gaze followed them for a long moment before he spoke again.
"Tell me, boy," Ooba said, his arm still draped around Fayte. "Do you think I brought you here only to watch you fear? To see you panic?"
Aurelian flushed. "I'm… not sure, sir."
Ooba snorted. "Sir? That's like calling a madam a maiden—unneeded and unwanted. Got me?"
Aurelian nodded quickly.
"Good. Then let's educate you a bit." Ooba shifted, his tone neither sharp nor kind—just certain. "You've earned that much. I realize you don't yet understand why we're here. That's not a dig, boy—just the truth. Am I right?"
Before Aurelian could answer, Ooba scooted closer to the fire and rapped his knuckles with his fingertips like a schoolmistress correcting an unruly student. "Give me that! You think I don't know how to stir a pot of beans?"
A grin tugged at Aurelian's mouth.
Ooba stirred the beans once, the ladle tapping softly against the pot. "You fear this place, but that isn't why we're here. I brought you because I know what you do not." He nodded toward the cave mouth, where the wind teased the moss. "You are nature-given living breath, boy. Anywhere that flourishes is your battlefield, not theirs. The roots remember you; the air listens when you breathe. You keep fighting as if you were apart from it—but you are it."
His gaze held Aurelian's.
"I've never left the grove before now," Aurelian said quietly. "I'm used to its kindness. It holds danger, yes—but it embraces, not rebukes. This place doesn't." He hesitated. "At least, not for me."
Ooba's brows lifted. "That's because you're not listening."
The fire popped between them. He leaned forward slightly, voice low but certain.
"I brought you here because every tree would bend if you asked it, every root would answer your call. The animals, the moss, the air itself—they'd know their sovereign walks among them again."
"Sovereign…" His voice trailed. Images of the Dragalian Moose's antlers, the crash of its charge, the crush of soil beneath its hooves flickered behind his eyes. "I'm no sovereign. Eden hammered that into me. Arrogance would be my foolishness."
Ooba breathed out through his nose, a sound caught between amusement and disappointment. "And there it is—the wrong lesson taken from the right teacher."
He clicked his tongue, not unkindly. "Another listen, boy, and you still haven't heard the truth."
He turned his staff in the dirt, as though weighing something old and heavy.
"No harm in it," he decided. "You're young. And your mother was wise to send me after you. She knew you'd need someone who remembers what the Grove forgets."
Aurelian looked away, jaw tight.
"Listen to my words, boy," Ooba said, voice dipping into something patient and immovable. "You're thinking of this as pride… when it's simply truth."
He lifted his hand—small, weathered, calloused from decades of bark and root. "Give me your hand."
Aurelian hesitated, then extended his own. Ooba's fingers closed around his palm with surprising strength, rough warmth grounding him to the earth beneath their feet.
"Feel the soil," Ooba murmured. "Not as danger. Not as place. As kin. It's listening to you. It has been since the night you were born."
He tapped Aurelian's wrist with his thumb, right where the pulse beat steady. "This rhythm? The Grove knows it. The wild knows it. Eden knows it, though she'll never claim it out loud."
Aurelian's throat tightened. "What does it know?"
"That its sovereign has finally stepped past the roots that hid him," Ooba said. "And every beast beyond those roots feels that truth—even if you don't." He let out a short, rough exhale. "What Eden did not grasp is simple. When a new buck rises in one forest, the surrounding woods wake as well. They smell the shift. They feel the stir of a throne changing hands."
His eyes narrowed, not unkindly. "And beasts—whether hoof, fang, or feather—do not ignore an upstart sovereign. They test him. They probe him. Some offer challenge. Some offer respect. But none stay asleep." Ooba tapped the soil beside Aurelian's knee. "Keep your palm on the earth. You learned abilities from the old buck, did you not?"
Aurelian nodded.
"Shockwave… am I right?"
"Yes."
"A simple spell," Ooba said, "but easily bent to your will." He nudged Aurelian's wrist, guiding his hand a little firmer into the soil. "Let it run along the earth. Don't think of it as a dam trying to hold back water. Think of it like an aqueduct. A channel you open. A thing that carries life instead of breaking land."
Aurelian swallowed, focusing.
"Let the tremors answer the footfall of whatever walks in your space," Ooba continued. "Not just disrupt the ground under your foes' feet. Make it listen. Make it warn you. Make it speak."
He leaned back a little, watching Aurelian's face.
"You're not trying to knock anything down tonight," Ooba said. "You're trying to hear it."
Sweat beaded along Aurelian's brow. The earth gave a faint, answering hum—soft, like the world clearing its throat.
"Exactly, boy," Ooba beamed. He stirred the beans with renewed vigor. "Now don't just sit there; we are safe, and my beans need meat! Give me that bag!"