The morning sun filtered through the wooden slats of my window, painting golden lines across the stone floor. The scent of burnt bark still lingered on my skin from yesterday's aura training. I stretched slowly, bones cracking like the branches I'd been punching for weeks now.
Downstairs, the clatter of pans and the warm voice of my mother filled the home.
"Calen! Igris! Breakfast's ready!" she called.
My father's deep voice followed. "Coming, Arla."
I slipped on my tunic and bounded down the stairs just as Father swept her into his arms for a kiss on the forehead.
"Good morning, love," he murmured.
"Put me down, you brute. You're sweaty," she teased, though the smile on her face betrayed her affection.
"Morning," I greeted them both.
"Morning, my little storm," Mother said, ruffling my already-messy hair.
The table was set with hot bread, berry jam, and some of the dried meat from the cellar. I dug in quietly, my mind already racing ahead to training. My fists itched.
"You'll be working with your spirits again today?" Mother asked, settling across from me.
"After training with Dad. Then yes," I replied. I always answered her honestly. She seemed to know when I lied anyway.
She smiled knowingly. "Be careful with that shadowy one."
"Raven?" I asked, glancing toward the kitchen wall. I could feel her there, hidden in the dim light, always watching. Always near.
"She's just… intense," Mother muttered.
"She's protective," Father corrected. "And deadly. Good to have at your side."
I nodded, finishing the last bite of bread before slipping away into the study, my feet padding softly on the polished stone.
The library still smelled like ink and pine. I scanned the shelves—hundreds of books from across the continent. Some magical, some philosophical. But today, my eyes landed on a small leather-bound book, tucked between two larger volumes: Father's journal.
I paused.
I shouldn't… but curiosity won. I pulled it free and opened it near the middle.
[Year 823 - Mid-Summer, Day 13]
Another pointless meeting with the nobles. They argue, they posture, but when the Bandit King's forces raided Selen's farms last week, no one lifted a finger.
The king calls it a "waste of military resources." His words, not mine. And so, I command a force of commoners—farmers, hunters, tradesmen. Not a single knight among them. No proper aura training, no enchanted gear. Just grit.
We lost five more today. I stitched up what I could, but even my aura is limited. I'm tired. I want this over. I want to go home.
I stared at the page. My father… led an army of peasants?
I flipped further.
[Year 824 - First Snow]
The war is over. We won, if it can be called that. The Bandit King is dead. So are hundreds of innocents. I hate this continent's politics. I hate this war.
But I met her today. Arla.
She was tending to the wounded in a village the nobles left to burn. I carried a boy into her home, and she looked at me like I wasn't a soldier—but a man.
She called me "idiot" when I tried to stand before my wounds closed.
I think I fell in love that night.
I closed the book slowly.
My father… he carried more scars than he ever showed me.
"Igris."
Her voice was soft and smooth—like velvet brushing against steel. I turned to see Raven, her form emerging from the shadows behind the bookshelf. Her white-veined silhouette pulsed with black fire, her hair like dark mist drifting in zero gravity.
"Reading your father's past?" she asked.
I nodded. "He never told me about the war. About leading commoners."
"He would have, in time. You're not just his son. You're his legacy," she said.
Her shadowy hand reached out, brushing my cheek gently.
"You must understand… this world doesn't reward kindness. Only power ensures survival. What he did—fighting without support, commanding the forgotten—that was strength."
I looked at her, eyes narrowing slightly. "That's why I need to grow stronger. So no one can treat me like that."
She nodded. "That's why I chose you."
I tilted my head. "Chose me?"
"You don't remember yet. But one day… you'll know."
The rest of the day passed in silence until training began.
Father was waiting for me in the courtyard, shirtless, aura flaring faintly in the air around his body like mist made of lightning. I stepped forward.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Always."
He tossed me a weighted staff. "Today, we fight like they did on the battlefield. No magic. No anima. Just aura, muscle, and grit."
I smiled.
The training was brutal. My arms ached from blocking, my knees burned from dodging, and my chest heaved from the weight of the blows. But I learned. I adapted. Every strike I took, every parry I failed, burned deeper lessons into my bones.
At dusk, we both sat panting by the firepit.
"You've improved," Father said, handing me a water skin. "But you still hesitate."
"I'm trying to think ahead."
"Don't. Thinking is for when you're alive. Fighting is for when you're dying. When the blade comes for your throat, there's no time to think—only act."
I nodded. The words etched themselves into my soul.
That night, I curled into bed, every muscle sore. My spirits gathered in the dim corners of my room.
Solara shimmered faintly near the window, her wings folded like a cloak of fire.
Aelira sat cross-legged at the ceiling, meditating upside-down.
Nyssara dozed in a cluster of shadows, barely visible.
Raven lay at the foot of my bed like a wraith in the shape of a woman, her form flickering with warmth when our eyes met.
"Tomorrow," I whispered, "I'll grow stronger."
Raven stirred. "We'll make sure of it."
And sleep took me, dreams swirling with blades, fire, and the soft warmth of distant memory.