Not a nightmare, no.But a silence... burning.Eric had lain awake for hours, eyes wide open, his breath paced by his thoughts.
Time.That mysterious element that had resonated within him like an ancient melody. A forgotten chant. A hidden truth.But something was missing.He felt it in his chest, like a breath cut short.Like a bridge without a shore.
In the morning, he descended the stairs of the family home, bare feet on the still-cold wood.Each step felt heavier than the last.Not from fear, but from inner weight.
The kitchen smelled of fresh herbs and warm stone.Stella, his mother, was there, slowly stirring a spoon in a steaming cup.She looked up. Her gaze caught his.No surprise. No panic.Only a grave tenderness.
— "You want to talk to me," she said simply.He nodded.— "It's about my awakening... it has started. But I think... it's incomplete."He saw her hands tremble slightly as she set down the spoon.Not from fear, no.But from maternal instinct.She knew. She had been waiting for this moment.
— "You felt the mana of time, didn't you?"He was speechless.Then nodded.— "Yes. It was like a presence everywhere. Silent. But... sovereign.Like the entire world was breathing under a rule I didn't yet know."
Stella inhaled deeply.— "You mustn't speak of it to anyone. Not even the village elders. Time is a... rare element. Very ancient. It attracts gazes... we'd rather avoid."
He looked down. He understood. But he also felt it wasn't over.— "Then why do I feel... empty? Unfinished?"
The kitchen was peaceful, bathed in soft, golden light filtering through the linen curtains Stella had tied herself.The warm stone floor beneath Gaël's feet seemed to vibrate slightly, as if the house itself was holding its breath.He stood in the doorway, arms crossed, shoulders broad like a deeply rooted oak.But in his eyes, a discreet fire burned. Not a fire of anger.An old fire, patient. Like an ember protected under ashes for far too long.
He listened to Erikan speak of his incomplete awakening. Of the mana of time.And within him, memories surged.
Flashback
It had been night, back then. A heavy, suffocating night. Gaël was no older than seventeen. He was running.His footsteps pounded against the cobblestones, breath ragged, arms scraped.Behind him, the cries of the militiamen echoed in the narrow alleys.He had taken the blame for someone else. To protect them. Because that's what his clan did.
But in his chest, it wasn't fear that pounded.It was shame. Injustice.He was tired of silence, of following, of bending.
And in that alley, the fire was born.
He didn't know how. There had been no incantation, no scream, no training.Just a silent cry, a deep refusal to be muzzled.And the walls had caught fire. Literally.Not a destructive fire.A pure one. Sharp. As if the air had chosen, for once, to burn with dignity.
That night, he understood fire wasn't rage.It was choice.The act of no longer containing what is true.
Since that day, he had never used fire in public again.He had married, built a simple, solid life.And he had learned to read flames not as danger—but as an inner voice.
And today, seeing Erikan...He recognized that silence.That void only fire could fill.That need to no longer disappear.
He stepped toward his son, laying a firm yet gentle hand on his shoulder.— "The balance of your mana... is fire," he said, his deep voice resonant.
Erikan had stepped back, surprised.But Gaël looked at him calmly, with that grounded wisdom that only tamed fire could offer.
— "Time is everywhere. It watches. It weaves. It waits. But it does not decide.Fire, though... it is decision.It is the heartbeat.The break in continuity.And without it... time becomes inertia."
He smiled softly, eyes shining with memories he never shared.
— "Fire, Eric... is what makes us act. What breaks the silence. What says: 'I am here.'"
Stella's Perspective
Stella watched her son.Every word he spoke was a slow tear.Not pain.A shedding.
She had always known.Since he was a child, Erikan had shone without daring to illuminate.He moved carefully, as if not to disturb.Even when he laughed, it was measured.
And yet... she felt something burning inside him.
She stood there, a cup in her hands, fingers trembling not with fear…but with ancient foreboding.
Fire.The fire she had seen ignite in others.But never in someone so calm, so... contained.
So when Gaël said — "Your balance is fire" —she wasn't surprised.But her heart clenched.
A soft light. Red. Pulsing.Like a heart beneath the skin.And in that beat… she knew.He wouldn't become an ordinary mage.He wouldn't become a weapon.He would become himself.
Fire, in its rawest form, wasn't an element of rage.It was a language.A molecular voice.A dialogue between matter and air.Between what resists… and what yields.Érikan, for his part, had always resisted.Everything.Himself.
Scientifically, fire is born from a rapid oxidation reaction — a chemical reaction between a combustible substance (wood, flesh, will) and an oxidizing agent (oxygen, or in this world… mana).This reaction releases three essential things:
Light (intuition, truth)
Heat (emotion, passion)
Gas (thought, invisible drive)
But the reaction only occurs if three conditions are met — the fire triangle:
A fuel — what inside you is ready to burn (his repressed emotions)
An oxidizer — what feeds the flame (the surrounding mana)
An activation energy — the spark, the trigger (the emotional fracture)
And Érikan… had just united all three.He was no longer holding back.He was reacting.
There is something sacred about fire.It is not like water, which flows.Nor like earth, which supports.Nor like air, which lifts.Fire transforms.
It takes what was… and renders it unrecognizable.It destroys — to reveal.It is not an element of preservation.It is an element of rupture.
And that is what makes it so intimate.So dangerous.But also… so necessary.
The fire mana rising around Érikan didn't roar.It didn't scream.It danced.The blazing particles swirled around him without ever harming him.They resonated.
Stella, from the threshold of the room, understood even before he spoke:his fire was not a battle cry.It was a sigh of existence.
Gaël, for his part, saw something else.He saw a steady torch.A contained blaze.A focused force.
Érikan, meanwhile, felt in every particle a word, a memory.An image.His hand sketching equations in another life.His throat tightening when he hid his love for the stars.His heart racing with each scientific discovery, like fireworks.And his refusal to share them.Each spark was a withheld emotion.Each ember, a compressed desire.And now… he let them out.Not to burn.To exist.
Fire was the engine.Time, the structure.Fire animated.Time guided.Like a heart and a skeleton.
One without the other led to ruin:
Fire alone: raw impulse, blind destruction.
Time alone: cold stagnation, icy detachment.
But together…They formed an incandescent thread.And Érikan was that thread.
Fire gave him the courage to feel.Time gave him the patience to understand.
He opened his eyes.His gaze wasn't just glowing.It was fire.Stable. Silent.But ready to ignite everything — if it was to protect.