The house felt both too large... and too small.The sun was slowly setting through the small wooden windows, casting a soft, amber light that slid across the walls like a silent caress. Dark beams supported the ceiling — thick, solid — but tonight, they seemed to bend beneath the weight of a silence that had become almost sacred.The fire purred gently in the hearth, but its warmth couldn't dispel the chill that had crept into the walls. Not a physical chill, but one born of uncertainty… of upheaval. The air had a heavy stillness, as if every breath risked shattering something fragile.The table was set, but no one ate.The entire household was holding its breath.
Stella moved aimlessly, her steps gliding across the creaky floorboards. She held a cloth in her hands — wrinkled, unused — which she folded and unfolded. She set down a bowl, then picked it back up. Opened a drawer, then closed it again. Her gestures had no logic, no purpose. They existed to fill the void, to keep fear from settling in.Her gaze darted constantly: the flames, the window, the doorway… but never Érikan. She couldn't look at him. Not directly. It was too much. Too intense.Her fingers trembled. She had tried to hem a piece of fabric, but the needle had pricked her skin. She hadn't even flinched. A bead of blood welled up, forgotten.Her heart was still beating too fast. She relived the moment she had held him in her arms, dirty, wounded… but alive. She remembered her uncontrolled sobs, her primal terror.And now… now that he was here… why did she still feel so hollow?Because she knew.Something had changed.And she didn't want to admit it.
Gaël didn't move.He leaned against the main beam, arms crossed, expression frozen. His eyes moved between Stella and Érikan, never lingering too long. He observed. He absorbed.He was sharpening a blade — one already razor-sharp. Methodically. The metal rasped against the stone with obsessive regularity. Not out of need… but escape.He didn't know what to say. He had seen the fear in the militia's eyes. The residual mana still dancing like strange mist in the clearing. And he had seen his son… different.A shiver coursed through him each time he recalled it.Érikan was no longer just a child.Something had awakened.And he didn't know if it was a gift… or a burden.But his gut told him: this was no ordinary awakening.
He sat there.Legs tucked to his chest, chin resting on his knees. His arms wrapped around himself like a shield. His eyes stared at the floor, seeing nothing.The fire cast moving shadows across his cheeks, hollowed by fatigue. A faint scratch still marked his temple, dried blood etched in a fine line. His torn shirt hung limply on his shoulders.He hadn't spoken a word since they returned.But inside him, everything was screaming.He could still feel the bite of fear.The breath of the silver wolf.
And… the awakening.He didn't understand it all. But he knew what he had felt was not just adrenaline. It was… something else. Something alive. Something that had moved through him. Occupied him. Awakened him.And ever since, something accompanied him.A rhythm.Slow.Silent.A breath within space… within the world.Time.He couldn't name it yet. But he could feel it.And he was afraid to speak of it.
The fire danced in the hearth, but there was no more light in her eyes.Stella stood frozen near the table, a bowl in one hand, a cloth in the other. Her fingers, usually so deft and graceful, no longer seemed to know what to do. She had held that bowl for minutes without realizing it. Her hands trembled just enough to be noticed… if one paid attention.Her gaze flitted from object to object — the cloth, the flame, the hem of her sewing. Anything but him.Because looking at Érikan… meant admitting.Admitting that something had changed.Admitting that he had grown in an instant.Admitting that she had failed to protect him from it.
She still remembered the warmth of his body against hers, just hours before. His arms clinging to her coat. His wide, terrified eyes. The blood on his cheeks. His voice, broken by exhaustion.And now he was there, silent… and distant. Too distant.Stella was not a fragile woman. She had known fear, pain, uncertainty. She had fled, survived, fought through seasons of shadow just to one day have a home, a husband… a son.But never had she felt such a cold fear.Because this fear came from within.
She stared into the flames.Each flicker, each crackle echoed in her chest like a memory. When he was little, he used to sit in front of the hearth, cross-legged, watching the fire. He used to say it spoke to him. That he saw shapes in it.She used to smile. Thought it was a child's fancy.But today… she didn't know anymore.
And when she had seen Érikan again, she had screamed. Not at him… but at the fear.A fear so primal it made her lose control.And that… she couldn't forgive herself for.
Her eyes finally, slowly drifted toward him.He was curled in on himself. Silent. Not crying. But his silence hurt more than tears.She wondered:
"Does he still need me?Or is he already somewhere I can't follow?"
She wasn't ready. Not now.She wanted to reach out, to hold him, to say everything would be fine…But she no longer knew if she believed it herself.So she did the only thing she could.She stayed.She hid her hands under the table. She wiped away a stray tear in silence. She pricked the needle into the same piece of fabric once more.And she prayed. Silently.That he would speak.That he would look at her.That he would come back.
Gaël didn't speak.But his body spoke for him.He sat by his small bench near the forge just off the main room. A knife in one hand, a sharpening stone in the other. Slowly, he passed the blade over the stone in a motion as calm as it was precise. Again. And again.Not because the knife needed it.But because he did.It was his ritual. His way of thinking. Of grounding. Of observing.
And he observed.From the corner of his eye, he saw Stella. Her straight back, yet fragile. Her uneven gestures. Her diverted gaze.He saw Érikan, too. Curled up. Still. Eyes lost somewhere between the flames and the past.And he saw the space between them.A void he didn't know how to fill.
Gaël was not a man of words.He had always been a man of substance. Of tangible things — wood, stone, metal. He shaped, sculpted, fixed.The things he didn't understand… he reshaped with his hands.But this…This, he couldn't fix.
He couldn't repair what had shattered in the forest.
That day, when the light had split the beast, when the mana screamed in the air, when the silence became heavier than thunder…he had understood.His son had changed.
No — not changed.
And what haunted him wasn't power.Not even the fear of a premature awakening.It was the idea that his son… already bore a burden.A weight no child should carry.
His eyes landed on Érikan's hands.Still small, scraped… but holding a new tension.One he recognized.The kind that came from holding everything in.
He remembered himself, as a teenager. When his own father vanished.When he swore never to cry.Years later, he had learned: holding back tears isn't strength.It's simply… denying yourself healing.
He looked at the fire.Its shadows danced on the walls.The warmth was there, but the house felt frozen.And within that silence, he spoke to himself:
"You're no sage, Gaël. You don't read grimoires.You don't have the wisdom of an elder or the vision of a mage.But you're a father. And that… that's enough.So be one.Stand firm, even in doubt."
He set the stone down. Slowly.Wiped the blade with a cloth.Then stood.
Every step toward Érikan was a silent promise.Not a promise of answers.But a promise of presence.
He said nothing. Asked nothing.He simply placed a hand on his son's shoulder.And in that hand, everything was said:
"I see you. I am here. And I will stay."