The village did not die all at once.
It lingered.
Like smoke.
The flames had long since dimmed, reduced to scattered embers in the early morning frost. The clouds above had thickened, gray and motionless, but no rain came. The earth remained dry. The smell of soot was still thick in the air—coating tongues, hair, and memory. What was left of the homes were hollow skeletons, wooden ribs blackened and brittle.
The river still ran.
That, at least, had survived.
Aevion sat beside it.
His hands were caked in ash and dried blood. Not his. He hadn't washed them. Not yet. They felt heavier than anything he had carried.
Behind him, the silence stretched wide.
He could still hear April's voice—how she'd teased him, told him he looked like a ghost. The way she'd pulled his hand. The ribbon in her hair. Her small, confident steps.
Gone.
Not like the creatures, who had disappeared into mist.
April was truly gone.
And still, he hadn't cried.
He didn't understand why.
He didn't feel numb. He didn't feel distant. He felt—he knew he did. But whatever he felt was too deep, too ancient to name. Not sorrow. Not despair.
Something colder.
Something still.
Something dangerous.
He sat there for hours, unmoving, until a voice broke the quiet.
"You should come inside."
Sister Ilya stood a short distance away, her robes torn and streaked with soot, her hands red from lifting beams and tending wounds. Her hair had come loose from its usual knot, and her eyes were tired in a way that could not be fixed with sleep.
But her voice was gentle.
"There's bread. And the fire's warm," she said.
Aevion didn't answer.
She walked closer, kneeling beside him.
"April would've made you come," she said softly.
That made him blink.
"I know she used to braid your hair." Ilya smiled faintly. "Told everyone you were her project."
Aevion lowered his eyes.
"She was brave," he said at last. "Braver than I was."
"No," Ilya said. "She was kind. You were brave."
He didn't agree. But he didn't argue.
After a moment, he stood.
The movement felt unnatural. As if the world had shifted slightly while he sat, and now gravity pulled differently.
Sister Ilya led him back through the wreckage.
Most of the survivors had gathered in the chapel ruins. Its roof had collapsed, but the stone walls remained. Blankets were laid out beneath a makeshift tarp, and the injured rested in silence. Some were missing limbs. Some had lost family.
Some had lost everything.
No one spoke loudly.
Even the children had gone quiet.
Grief had soaked into the soil. It would not leave quickly.
Aevion found a corner and sat. No one questioned him. They let him be.
He watched as Sera bandaged a girl's foot. As Marek helped dig a firepit. As the few men left upright carried out burned bodies wrapped in sheets.
He did not move.
Not until night returned.
That night, the stars came out.
Clear.
Cold.
Bright.
Aevion sat on the hill above the village. Alone again. He preferred it that way now. No one asked anything of him up here. The wind touched his hair and did not expect words in return.
The grave markers below were crude. Just wooden crosses, uneven and scorched. April's was near the center. They hadn't buried her yet. The ground was still too hard.
He looked up at the sky.
He wondered what she'd say if she saw him now.
"Still weird," maybe. "Still too quiet."
Maybe she'd laugh at the way his flower braid had fallen apart.
He almost smiled.
Almost.
But then something shifted behind him.
A presence.
He turned.
And saw a man.
Not a villager. Not a survivor.
Someone else entirely.
His clothes were travel-worn but fine, stitched with gold thread. His eyes were sharp, silver, and his hair was pale blond, tied back neatly. He had no sword, but he stood like one who had never needed one.
He regarded Aevion with interest.
"You're not what you appear," the man said.
Aevion didn't move. "Neither are you."
The man tilted his head. "A shame, what happened here. Tragic. But enlightening."
"…Enlightening?"
The man smiled. "You resisted. With no power. You faced them. Even made one vanish. That's not ordinary."
Aevion said nothing.
The man stepped closer, but not threateningly.
"I know what you are, Aevion."
That caught his attention.
But his expression didn't change. "Do you?"
"I don't know what form you've taken, or what you're hiding from. But I know power when I see its echo. You let it bleed out, just for a moment. Just enough to frighten something older than gods."
Aevion met his gaze evenly. "And what do you want?"
The man smiled again.
"I'm called Verrian. A seeker. Not of justice. Not of vengeance. But of truth."
Aevion stood slowly.
"You're a scavenger," he said. "Looking for broken things to make use of."
Verrian chuckled. "No. I'm a witness. That's all."
"Then watch somewhere else."
Aevion turned his back.
But the man's voice followed.
"Just remember," Verrian said. "You didn't cry. Not because you can't—but because something in you has already accepted this. And I wonder… how many times have you watched people like her die?"
Aevion stopped walking.
His voice was quiet.
"Too many."
Then he walked away.
Verrian did not follow.
That night, Aevion stood over April's grave.
No longer a boy.
Not in that moment.
Not in his heart.
He whispered something only the wind could hear.
And when he turned to leave, his eyes shimmered—not with tears, but with memory.
Something had changed.
The fire had taken everything.
But it had also burned away something inside him.
Not his humanity.
His fear.
The world would not protect him.
So he would not ask it to.
Let it forget what he once was.
Let it think he was a child.
That he had no power.
That he could be broken.
Because he would walk forward anyway.
Even alone.
Especially alone.
Six winters had passed since the fire.
Aevion no longer resembled the quiet boy who'd walked barefoot into a village hidden between trees. His hair had grown longer, braided now in the back with worn leather ties. His eyes—once dulled by grief and silence—held something sharp, restrained, and endless. He had grown tall, lean, and quietly formidable. The weight he carried had not lessened, but it had learned how to sit within him.
He didn't look back often.
What remained of that village was ash beneath ivy. The chapel had long since collapsed, the forest reclaiming every edge of stone and memory. He had buried what was left of her with his own hands, marked it with a river stone, and never returned.
For six years, he had walked the world.
Sometimes alone.
Sometimes with passing faces he never learned the names of.
He followed rumors, studied glyphs carved in ruins, broke bread with hermits and monsters alike. Some saw a boy with empty eyes. Some saw a wanderer with no past. A few saw something else—something deeper than even he understood.
But none of them saw everything.
Because he had never shown it.
Nexis still slept, coiled and waiting. He could feel it, barely restrained, like breath before a scream. But he never touched it. Never called its name. He didn't need to.
His sword—if it could be called that—was forged from the melted remains of the spear that had once failed him. Short, curved, and dull in color, but it never left his side. Like a whisper of the past.
And now, at sixteen years old, he stood before the gates of Aetherion Academy.
Its spires rose like silver knives into the clouds, humming faintly with protective wards and ancient magic. Flags bearing the insignia of the Four Courts snapped in the wind—each color representing a path of study: Flame, Wind, Stone, and Sight.
He'd arrived two months past his birthday, slipping in just before the final cutoff. Not that anyone questioned him. His forged papers were flawless. The head examiner hadn't even looked up when he approved them.
Aevion passed through the gates with nothing but a small pack, his blade, and the weight of something unspoken in his chest.
The academy was a city unto itself. Floating towers, suspended walkways, enchanted lanterns that lit without flame. Young mages in crisp uniforms hurried past him, some chattering, others boasting, none paying him much attention.
He didn't care.
He wasn't here to be noticed.
He was here because something had changed in the air—an echo he couldn't ignore. A calling. The kind that didn't speak in words, but in instinct. In quiet promises.
Aevion had felt it when he passed through the burned remains of a sky temple two months ago. A glyph on the wall had pulsed faintly when he neared. Not in greeting.
In recognition.
It was time.
So he had come here.
Aetherion. The last remaining fragment of an age he barely remembered. Perhaps it would have answers. Perhaps not.
But it was a place to begin again.
The first day passed in a haze of sorting, room assignments, orientation speeches. He said little, asked nothing. Most students didn't even notice he was there.
He didn't mind that.
Until the duel.
It wasn't a real duel. Just a "talent demonstration," the proctor called it. The gathered students had been arranged in a ring near the central fountain. First-years only.
One by one, they were called to step forward, demonstrate their control, and receive a rank from the Head of Initiation.
Most conjured sparks, illusions, shields.
Aevion waited quietly near the back, arms folded.
He hadn't been called yet.
And then she stepped into the ring.
A girl.
His eyes found her instantly—not because she was loud or flashy, but because something… shifted when she entered the light.
Her hair was the color of chestnuts in autumn, tied back with a blue ribbon that fluttered slightly as she moved. Her stance was casual, but precise. Her eyes were calm, focused, with a spark of amusement that looked too familiar.
She raised a hand.
No chant. No theatrics.
Just a flick of the wrist—and fire bloomed.
But it didn't burn red. It didn't roar. It danced—blue and white, flickering like moonlight on a pond. It took the shape of petals, spiraling upward before dissolving into harmless cinders.
The crowd murmured.
The proctor nodded. "Advanced control. Court of Flame. Rank: Five."
She bowed slightly and turned to leave.
Her eyes met Aevion's.
She paused.
Just a second.
But in that second, the wind changed.
She didn't smile.
But she saw him.
And he saw her.
Aevion's breath caught. His fingers twitched.
It couldn't be.
No—impossible.
She would've been… no, it wasn't her. Couldn't be. Just a resemblance.
Coincidence.
He looked away first.
When his name was finally called, he didn't summon anything. Just walked forward, drew his sword, and pressed its tip to the stone floor.
The blade sang.
Not loud.
But deep—like thunder beneath skin.
A hairline crack spread through the marble.
The proctor stared.
"Court of Sight," he said, after a long pause. "Rank: Undetermined. Observation required."
Aevion returned to the edge of the circle.
The girl with chestnut hair was already gone.
But the scent of blue fire still lingered in the air.
And in the silence of his mind, something whispered.
"You've met her before."
He didn't answer.
Because he wasn't sure.
But he didn't sleep that night.
And for the first time in years, he dreamed.
Of flowers.
Of small hands.
Of a voice that had once told him not to be a ghost.
And for just a moment, Aevion wondered if he'd ever truly stopped haunting the past.
Or if it had simply… waited for him.