The carriage stopped near the edge of the road. Dyan got down first and naturally extended his hand for Finia to lean on him.
"Are you sure I should rest here, Master?"
Dyan smiled warmly. "Of course. Someone has to take proper care of you. Besides, Corven will be delighted to replace you for a while."
"I don't doubt it..." Finia murmured, with a tired smile.
The mage approached the coachman and handed him a couple of silver coins. The cold mountain wind rustled the roadside grasses, and the chirping of nearby birds seemed to announce his return. With him, a form of peace that could only be found in that corner of the world also returned.
"Thank you, Master," said the old coachman, taking the coins as if they were jewels. "The village was already missing you. A week is enough for rumors to flourish like ivy on an old wall."
Dyan nodded with a slight, uncomfortable laugh.
The carriage rattled away down the path, heading towards the village.
Finia raised a hand to her forehead, like a visor, to shield her eyes from the sun falling obliquely between the mountains. She surveyed the surrounding landscape and understood why her master spoke of that place with such affection: the mountains in the distance, the constant murmur of the nearby river, the conifers trembling in the wind, the butterflies fluttering among the wildflowers. Everything seemed drawn from a peaceful dream.
Dyan held out his hand again. Finia took it without much thought, and they walked together along the path until they turned off onto a track leading to the river. There, behind a wooden gate—from which an rusty bell hung—stood a two-story house with an enchanted air: a crescent-shaped window on the first floor, stones engraved with arcane inscriptions, and a second level of stained wood, though still incomplete in one of its corners.
The mage glanced around. The grass had been recently cut. Someone had done it for him, hoping for his return.
"What do you think?" he asked in a serene voice.
"It's beautiful," Finia replied. "It reminds me of the countryside you used to take me to when I was a child." She squeezed her master's hand. "I feel better… away from the noise of the Tower, from the demands. By your side, I can breathe."
Dyan opened the door and gestured for her to enter.
"I'm grateful you agreed to stay during your recovery. You know? Since I arrived here, memories of those days with you visit me daily. You were a mischievous and restless child… and all of that makes me very happy."
They embraced, first gently, then Finia hugged him tightly, as if wanting to engrave Dyan's presence on her skin, as if she could take it with her when she returned to Scabia. It was hard to say if it was a minute, or several, but that hug meant too much for both of them.
Then, a high-pitched voice interrupted them from the entrance:
"Uncle Mage! Uncle Mage!"
Dyan turned immediately. Finia also looked… and there she was: Cadin, sweaty, panting, with her hair stuck to her forehead and her cheeks flushed with excitement.
"Cadin?" Dyan murmured, just before the little girl ran into his arms and threw herself on him, clinging as if her life depended on it.
"Uncle Mage… you came back…" The little girl's broken voice barely allowed her words to be understood. "You left without saying goodbye to Cadin! Cadin waited for you so long… missed you so much…"
Her words tangled in uncontrollable crying and were lost amidst sobs. Dyan hugged her tenderly, stroking her head like one comforting a frightened animal.
"I'm sorry… I had to leave suddenly. Can you forgive me?"
Cadin nodded, her head buried in his shoulder. Then she looked up, wiped her tears with her small, somewhat clumsy hand, and her eyes found Finia, who was observing the scene with tenderness, but also with deep sadness.
"Who is she, Uncle Dyan?"
Dyan turned to Finia, still with the girl clinging to his robe. "Cadin, this is Finia… my daughter."
Finia felt that those words, spoken aloud, spoken with someone else listening besides just the two of them, took on a definitive, sweet, and true weight. She smiled with emotion.
"Hello, Cadin," she greeted, extending her arms. "You're a beautiful girl. Do you want to come with me too?"
Cadin looked at Dyan for approval. He nodded gently.
At that instant, Finia saw herself reflected in Cadin's eyes. She remembered when she arrived at the Tower, shy and wounded, when Dyan held her in his arms like a treasure that needed protection. Back then, she was just a child without a family, like many others who filled the wagon.
She carefully took Cadin, wiped the sweat from her forehead, and hugged her affectionately. She felt the loneliness that had accompanied her for the past few months vanish in an instant.
"I love you, Dad," she said suddenly, looking into his eyes, her voice firm and clear, without shortcuts or fears.
Dyan looked at her as if time had stopped.
"I love you too, my little one," he replied, stroking her curls and placing a fragile kiss on her forehead. "I'm so happy to have you here, with me."
Cadin tugged at Dyan's sleeve. "Are we going to play moving things? Cadin helps Uncle Mage!"
The little girl's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.
Finia, amused and with a light heart, added: "Let's play, all three of us. Together."
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Finia went out to the backyard barefoot, breathing the clean mountain air. The sun was slowly setting, casting a golden light that caressed the tree trunks and the smooth stones of the garden. Dyan waited for her near the circle of engraved stones, dressed in his simplest robe, as if the magic he was about to show needed not solemnity, but silence and precision.
"Are you ready?" he asked, without needing to look at her.
Finia nodded with an excited smile. Despite all her studies, the magic Dyan had barely begun to develop was a mystery even to her.
Cadin came running from the house with a flower in one hand and a piece of bread in the other. "Uncle Mage! I want to see! Are you going to move things again?" she shouted enthusiastically.
"Of course, my little one," Dyan said, and motioned for her to sit next to Finia, who crouched at the edge of the runic circle, like a child herself.
Dyan knelt down, picked up a small, flat stone, and held it between his fingers. "Watch carefully, Finia. What you are about to see is a direct application of what were once just theories. Space, if you fold it at the correct points, doesn't have to be traversed... it can simply touch itself."
He gestured with his free hand, and the runes carved into the ground lit up as if someone had blown embers under the earth. A subtle murmur rose in the air, barely perceptible. Then, Dyan closed his eyes, concentrating, and the stone disappeared from between his fingers with a faint, dry "click." Half a second later, it reappeared on a tree stump at the other end of the garden.
"Oh!" Finia exclaimed, with a mixture of surprise and genuine respect. "Did you throw it… or displace it?"
"I displaced it. I used the point as a destination anchor, something physical I already knew and had charged with energy before. The trick isn't just in the destination, but in correctly fixing the origin."
"And is it safe for larger objects? People…?"
Before Dyan could answer, Cadin spoke up: "Sometimes things arrive… incomplete."
Both adults turned to her. The girl chewed bread as if nothing were amiss, her legs crossed and her eyes wide open.
"What did you say, Cadin?"
"Once," she explained, pointing to the woodshed, "Uncle Mage tried to move a teapot from the kitchen to the shed… and when it arrived, it had no lid. And once… a watermelon split in two. Plop! Half here, half there."
Finia's eyes widened.
Dyan cleared his throat, uncomfortable. "There's still room for error," he admitted, with a lopsided smile. "It's not finished magic… it's still based on the precision of the runes, on concentration, and on exact knowledge of the object and the destination. A mistake in the coordinates, or a wandering thought, and you can send only half a cup… or half an arm."
"Have you tried it on yourself?"
"Once," he answered sincerely.
Finia immediately knew what he meant, and the risk he had taken for her.
"That's why it's still dangerous for living beings, and I won't use it on you or anyone until I'm certain. But every advance, every complete object that appears… is one step closer."
Cadin held up the flower. "This one traveled too!" she said proudly, pointing to a flower with deformed petals and a twisted stem. "We sent it to the chicken coop, but when it came back it was squashed and half sad."
Finia took it between her fingers. It was dry on one side, almost singed.
"Is this also due to distortion?"
Dyan nodded, now more serious. "When space is folded, time wrinkles. Sometimes… it wrinkles at the edges of the object. Or inside it. I still don't control that."
Finia looked at the flower and thought about how beautiful and dangerous it was. Like life itself: brief, fragile, and subject to the slightest miscalculation.
"And you want to teach me this?"
"I want us to perfect it together," Dyan corrected. "You are no longer my apprentice. You are my equal, Finia. And it would do me good to have a second mind… and a younger heart to warn me when I'm getting too daring."
Finia smiled, excited, and Cadin climbed onto a nearby rock. "Now move the bread!" she shouted. "Move the bread to the roof!"
Dyan laughed, and so did Finia. "Perhaps tomorrow, Cadin. Today we are just learning."
"You always say that!" the girl grumbled, crossing her arms.
But deep down, everyone knew that this mountain garden, under the golden morning light, was witnessing the beginning of something amazing: a new, powerful, and dangerous magic. A magic that could change the world… if it didn't split them in two first.
They spent the entire morning moving objects and studying runes and glyphs, while Cadin ran back and forth to retrieve what disappeared with each spell. Every success was celebrated with cheers, jumps, and applause from the little girl, and soon both Dyan and Finia found themselves surrounded by scattered sheets of paper, full of notes, formulas, corrections, and enthusiastic scribbles.
They had lunch by the river, where Dyan parted the waters with a simple gesture, just to make Cadin laugh, who shrieked with joy at seeing the fish suspended for a few seconds before falling back into the current. He caught a couple of them for lunch, and then, sitting on blankets spread in the sun, they ate amidst laughter and stories.
Dyan told Finia about his first days in Glavendell, and Cadin interrupted the narrative every now and then with her "corrected" version of what the village people were like: exaggerating, inventing, embellishing.
The afternoon slipped away unnoticed, as always happens when one wishes to stop it. Because time, that stealthy thief, never obeys. If you need it, it flees. If you fear it, it settles in like an unwanted guest. It always runs in the opposite direction to the heart's desires.
When the sun began to paint the sky gold and violet, Dyan approached Cadin and took her in his arms.
"It's time to go home, little mischief," he said softly.
Cadin nodded, her eyes heavy and her body overcome with tiredness. She settled against his chest without resistance.
"Finia, you can settle into the upstairs room," he told her. "I'll be back for dinner."
"Of course. I'll do that," she replied, carefully gathering the parchment sheets and the day's formulas. She looked at Dyan with tenderness and a small pang in her chest. "Come back soon…"
"Always," he replied with a serene smile.
And he walked away, with the girl dozing in his arms, like a painting taken from his own memories. For Finia, that image—Dyan carrying a sleeping child in his arms, walking among the trees at sunset—was a postcard she knew well. It was like looking at a version of herself many years ago.
Because he had always been there: when she didn't understand a grimoire and cried in frustration, when she stumbled playing, when she got lost in the market, or when a failed magic left her trembling. He had always been that firm and warm pillar, capable of carrying her world without saying a word.
And now, that peace—that lost balance—seemed to have returned.
The breeze gently rustled the trees. The river murmured in the distance. The sky turned golden, and Finia felt that, for the first time in a long time, life had a rhythm again. The memories she had been holding for years began to surface: Dyan cooking for her (though he was terrible at first), carrying her on his shoulders through the fields, holding her hand as they explored dusty libraries. Everything returned with force and sweetness.
A tear slipped down her cheek without resistance.
She had had a great life… and she had forgotten it.
For some reason, only his departure—Dyan's absence—had turned the wheel of memory. She had stopped living to dedicate herself to duty, to study, to perfection… but that day she had laughed, hugged, cried, and loved. And she had done it while also being a mage. Perhaps more of a mage than ever.
She walked up the path to Edictus's house, not without a certain irony. That man had always seemed demanding, dry, distant… but his house, with its symbols carved in stone and its enchanted lamps, now returned the warmth she had forgotten. There she rediscovered the most important thing: not what she had lost, but what she still had.
She entered the house. The lamps lit themselves with a soft, warm glow. She smiled, recognizing that magical gesture: so typical of Dyan, so full of subtlety.
She approached the desk to leave the day's notes, just as she did when she was an apprentice at the Tower of Scabia. It was covered with ancient tomes, open scrolls, and a half-drunk cup… but something caught her attention.
A note written in a hurried, trembling hand rested at the edge of the desk.
"I'm leaving for a few days. I'm urgently needed on the western frontier. I'll be back. Don't worry about me."
Finia held the paper between her fingers for a moment, letting silence fill the room.
Now she understood. After seeing how space-time magic worked, after experiencing the errors, the voids, the distortions… she understood the danger involved in Dyan's decision to appear at Fort Frontier. A word misspoken, an emotion ill-contained, a symbol badly traced, and he might not have arrived whole. He might not have arrived at all.
She sighed.
It wasn't like him to take unnecessary risks. But when it came to protecting her, he always took them without hesitation. She remembered it clearly: his voice, that night, seeing her amidst blood and despair: "Calm down, little one… I'm here now."
And he had been there. Always.
She carefully organized the documents, but when she moved a small book, she found, in a corner of the desk, a group of unopened letters, with the Willfrost seal still intact. She observed them for a long time. She knew what they represented. And she also knew what they meant to Dyan.
She hadn't forgiven Eleanor. Not yet.
But seeing her master smile again, seeing him laugh without a burden in his eyes, she wondered if perhaps that was the way. If opening one's heart was wiser than locking it with keys.
Perhaps… just perhaps, it was worth allowing beautiful memories not to be buried under pride.
Finia caressed the letters with her fingers, not yet daring to touch them fully.
Afterwards, she lit the stove, made tea, and sat down to write the day's progress. Like in the old days, because, finally, she felt alive again.
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Dyan returned home with a bag full of fresh vegetables, hanging from his arm as if it were a trophy. He opened the door with a smile and held the bag high, letting the evening light stream in behind him.
"Finia! Look what I brought. Do you want to cook with me?"
From the desk, still surrounded by scrolls and notes, Finia looked up. Seeing him there, so full of life, so simple and serene, with that smile that had never changed, she felt that refusing would be cruel.
She carefully placed the quill on the parchment and stood up. "Of course." She smiled, raising an eyebrow nostalgically. "How long has it been since we cooked together?"
"A few years… too many."
They walked towards the kitchen. As soon as they crossed the threshold, the fire in the hearth lit with a soft crackle, obeying the domestic enchantments of the place. Finia placed a pot over the flames, while Dyan took out a small pat of butter and poured it in carefully.
"Did you become a cook during your retreat?" she asked, remembering the first disastrous meals they had shared in her apprentice days.
"Let's just say I learned out of necessity… and pride," he laughed. "But I think I've improved quite a bit. You'll see."
He skillfully chopped an onion, added a few cloves of garlic, and the aroma began to dance through the kitchen. Then, he took a folded piece of parchment from his pocket and read it carefully.
Finia approached, curious. "What's that?" she asked, seeing that the handwriting was unfamiliar. "That's not your handwriting…"
Dyan smiled, still stirring the ingredients. "No, it's from Anidia, Cadin's mother. I asked her for the recipe for a soup I tried at her house… I liked it. And I wanted to make it for you."
Finia was silent for a moment. She pressed her lips together, and her voice came out barely as a whisper. "Thank you…"
Dyan added tomatoes and a bell pepper, stirred carefully, and without taking his eyes off the pot, said: "Let me take good care of you, Finia."
She didn't respond immediately. She just rested her forehead on his shoulder, seeking that warmth her soul had craved for a long time. The simple gesture enveloped her like a home spell. That day, something inside her had ignited, and she finally recognized it: she needed love, belonging, roots.
"Now I understand a little better… why you left."
Dyan hugged her with his free arm. "I haven't left. Not entirely. This is your home too. I will always be there for you."
He put the chicken pieces to brown. The soft crackle of the skin as it met the butter filled the kitchen with a warm, comforting aroma.
Then, in a low voice, as if afraid the words might change something fundamental, Finia asked: "Are we… a family?"
She didn't look at him as she said it. She kept her face against his arm, as if expecting to be rejected for her own need.
Dyan didn't hesitate. "We are." He stroked her hair tenderly. "A small family… but yes, Finia, we are. Don't be ashamed of what you feel. It's new for me too. And, to be honest… it makes me very happy."
The chicken browned at the bottom of the pot, reminding them with its crackle that the moment was still there, alive. Finia added the water according to Anidia's instructions, and together they began to chop potatoes and carrots. Dyan peeled them with a steady hand while she washed spinach and cilantro leaves.
A couple of bay leaves floated on the broth like fragrant boats. The smell was already comforting.
"And what's this dish called?" Finia asked as she added the cilantro to the pot.
Dyan, who was placing some loaves of black bread on the counter, took the parchment out of his pocket again, unfolded it solemnly, and read: "Shepherd's Broth, according to Anidia." And he added with a half-smile, "She says it's simple, but it heals the soul."
The steaming shepherd's broth rested on the wooden table, alongside two steaming plates and freshly cut bread. The magical lamps flickered softly, bathing the dining room in an amber light, as if they knew they shouldn't interrupt the stillness that had formed between them.
Finia gently blew on the first spoonful before bringing it to her mouth. The taste was simple, warm, rustic… but full of something nameless. Something that, no doubt, didn't come only from the vegetables.
"It's delicious," she said, without looking at Dyan. "I never imagined that you, of all the mages I've known, would make soup."
Dyan smiled, breaking off a piece of bread. "There are many things you never imagined about me," he replied softly. "And not all of them are as humble as soup."
"I know," Finia nodded, with no trace of a joke. She was silent for a few seconds before adding, "I wish I had known it sooner. To see this part of you… when I was younger, when I had so many questions about you."
"And why didn't you ask me then?"
"Because you were… imposing. Always so serene, so wise, so far from my small concerns. And at the same time, you were always there, as if you knew when I would need you. But I never knew how much everything you carried hurt you. Or how many times you broke in silence so as not to worry me."
Dyan lowered his gaze to his plate. He stirred the broth, as if Finia's words had stirred something deep in his soul.
"Perhaps I didn't want you to know. Maybe I liked being that refuge for you… the firm master, the lighthouse that doesn't tremble in the middle of the storm. But lighthouses also erode, Finia."
She reached out and placed her hand over his. "You're not alone, Master. Not anymore."
"Thank you." His voice was barely a whisper, as if saying it released a tension he had carried for too long. "Sometimes I wonder what would have become of me if I hadn't found you in that square that day. You were so scared, so angry with the world…"
"And you so stubborn, insisting that I could learn magic even though I couldn't read."
They laughed. It was a brief, but genuine laugh.
"You were my miracle," he added, after a moment. The phrase hung in the air, more sincere than he himself seemed to have anticipated.
Finia looked at him, her eyes wide, bright with the reflection of the light.
"You were my home."
The confession silenced them for a long moment. No more needed to be said. Sometimes, truth needs no arguments or explanations, just space to be shared.
Dyan took a sip of the broth and sighed. "I've thought about staying here longer. Not running away, not disappearing… just living. Calmly. With intention."
"And what if… I stayed too? For a while, at least. Until I heal completely. Until… the silence doesn't hurt me."
The mage looked up and found her looking at him with tenderness and conviction. "It would make me very happy."
"Then it's decided."
Finia raised her clay cup. "To quiet days."
Dyan raised his and gently clinked it against hers. "And to those yet to come."
And so, between spoonfuls and glances, night fell over Glavendell, not with the coldness of oblivion, but with the promise of a new beginning. Outside, fireflies danced on the grass, and inside that enchanted house, a small family began to heal.
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Over the next few days, the house in the mountains filled with laughter, errant sparks, objects flying in the wrong direction, and much more scattered flour than advisable.
The first big mistake happened with a spoon.
"We're going to move this from the kitchen to the table," Finia said, concentrating, with the destination rune etched in chalk on a plank.
Dyan nodded, observing with an academic demeanor.
Finia whispered the words, moved her index finger with precision… and a faint flash illuminated the spoon, which disappeared.
"I did it!" she exclaimed.
"Look at the table," Dyan said.
There was no spoon.
Cadin, silent from the doorway, pointed to the ceiling with a jam-covered finger. "It's up there."
Both looked up. The spoon hung from the ceiling… embedded.
"Well, at least it arrived whole," Dyan said, trying not to laugh.
Finia scoffed. "I must have confused the vertical rune… see? The trace shifted when I marked it."
Cadin clapped. "Let's stick more things! I want a chair on the ceiling!"
Dyan knelt to her level. "Only if you promise not to hang yourself too, little grasshopper."
Cadin thought about it very seriously… then nodded solemnly.
The next day they tried with a pitcher of water.
"It's heavier," Dyan said, "and liquid. There's more chance of error."
Finia frowned. "I'll do it calmly."
Cadin was off to the side with a small sketchbook, drawing the things that "disappeared." Every time something was displaced incorrectly, she added a scar or made it cry in the drawing.
Finia concentrated. Dyan watched her with a mixture of pride and caution. She performed the conjuration. The pitcher disappeared in a soft glow.
Seconds later, it fell from the sky onto the chicken coop.
"Ahhh!" Cadin shrieked, as the chickens scattered in all directions and the rooster let out a wounded cry of dignity.
"No way! Where on earth did I put the anchor?!" Finia ran with Dyan to check the circle.
The rooster climbed onto the roof, soaked, squawking furiously.
Cadin drew a soaked chicken.
The practices became part of the routine. In the afternoons, they sat on the porch to review the calculations. Finia filled pages with theories. Dyan corrected the strokes and made notes. Cadin, meanwhile, used an old blackboard to write new "rules":
Don't move animals.
No things with liquid.
No bread. It always disappears.
Don't move Cadin. Though Cadin wants to.
Don't move knives. Finia screams if they move.
One day they tried to move a watermelon. It disappeared well. It reappeared at the designated spot… split into five.
"At least it didn't explode," Dyan commented, as he handed Finia a towel.
"This is frustrating. Sometimes it seems like the object 'remembers' its shape and other times, it doesn't."
"Perhaps the object's 'memory' is partly affected by its composition," Dyan suggested.
Cadin ate a piece of watermelon, paying no attention to the debate. "This magic is delicious."
And, unintentionally, those days filled with something more than learning: they filled with life. One afternoon, as it rained softly, Dyan moved a flower from the garden indoors, as a final demonstration for Cadin. This time, it was complete, with no trace of damage.
"You did it, Uncle Mage!" Cadin jumped, hugging him with hands full of cookies.
Finia watched Dyan as the girl laughed. She saw him so different from how she knew him at the Tower: relaxed, luminous, with a smile he didn't have to force.
And in her chest, something softened. She not only admired the master he was, but the man he had become. One who still believed in magic, even the simplest kind: that of sharing a home with others.
"Are you ready for the next test?" he asked.
"Only if you're ready for me to make a mistake again," she replied.
"I always have been, Finia."
The rain tapped against the windows with a slow rhythm. Cadin drew flowers floating over a magical house. Dyan and Finia took a break. And in that break, without any spell needed, time seemed to stop on its own.