The first thing Arjun noticed was the quiet.
Not the sterile silence of a library at closing, but a living quiet: wind sighing through canvas, embers clicking in a brazier, the faint rustle of paper charms that hung from his tent's entrance.He drew breath, and the air tasted of rain and woodsmoke. It was the breath of someone who had never known exhaust fumes, never known the metallic tang of city dust.
He had expected euphoria. Instead, what filled him was recognition—an ache that said, I am finally where I was supposed to be.
He rose and stepped outside.
The camp spread below the dawn like a living organism. Smoke curled from hundreds of cookfires; soldiers moved between tents, their voices a muted rhythm. Banners, stitched with runes he now read effortlessly, caught the morning light.Beyond the ridge, a river gleamed like glass, and beyond that, the gray suggestion of enemy hills.
Someone approached—a woman in half-armor, her braid streaked with silver."Archmage," she said, bowing. "The wards held through the night. The wounded are stable."
Arjun nodded automatically. The title no longer jarred. It fit his skin like old clothing rediscovered."Good," he said, and his voice carried the calm authority of Arathen without effort. "Prepare the scrying pools. I'll join the council at second bell."
The woman smiled, relieved. "As you will, my lord."
When she left, Arjun exhaled, slow and steady. There had been no hesitation in his words, no flicker of confusion.He had been Arathen entirely.
He walked the camp's edge where the wards shimmered—a faint blue veil in the morning mist. He could feel the magic pulsing under his fingertips, responsive, eager. It wasn't a tool; it was memory given substance.Each rune etched in the barrier matched one he had sketched absent-mindedly in his student notebook. They glowed now, alive, as if thanking him for finding his way back.
Back, he thought. Not here.
The realization didn't frighten him.
At the river's edge stood the general—the same scarred woman who had once challenged his mercy. She was watching the water with that soldier's stillness that hides exhaustion.When he approached, she gave a nod that was almost affection.
"You've returned," she said simply.
"I never truly left," Arjun answered, and it felt true.
She studied him a moment, then smiled—a rare, small thing. "The men said your eyes looked strange last night. Brighter. I told them that means the Archmage's spirit is burning again."She paused, gaze flicking to the horizon. "We'll need that light soon."
Arjun looked out across the hills. Rain threatened in the distance, a storm edging toward them. He felt the hum of power under his skin, the readiness of the wards, the poised breath of the army awaiting his command.He should have felt the weight of responsibility. Instead, he felt whole.
That evening, when the fires dimmed and the camp quieted, he found a moment alone in his tent.On the table lay a fragment of something small and incongruous—a torn piece of notebook paper. His own handwriting scrawled across it:
"Don't forget the real."
He stared at it for a long time. The words seemed alien, written by someone else. He tried to summon the memory of that world—fluorescent lights, the click of a keyboard, the faces of friends. They came as faint silhouettes, like dreams receding after dawn.
He whispered their names once, softly, to test how they felt on his tongue.They felt wrong. Heavy. Out of rhythm with the language of this place.
He folded the paper carefully and slipped it into the pocket of his robe. Not as a talisman—just as proof that another version of him had once existed.
Later, in council, he traced troop movements on a map and gave orders with effortless certainty. His words shaped reality; the generals moved with trust that bordered on faith.Every decision he made shimmered with the quiet thrill of purpose. He was no longer surviving; he was necessary.
And yet, sometimes, when he blinked, the lamplight flickered—just enough for a ghost of a reflection to appear in the brass table's surface: a thin young man in a university hoodie, tired eyes wide with wonder and fear.
Arjun met that reflection's gaze for one heartbeat.
Neither smiled.
Then the light steadied, and the reflection was gone.
That night, under a sky salted with twin moons, Arjun stood outside his tent, the wind threading through his hair like invisible fingers. He whispered a word—one of Arathen's old runes for remembrance—and the air shimmered briefly, forming a shape that could almost have been a door.
He didn't open it.
He simply watched it fade, feeling both grief and peace twine together inside him.
"This is my world," he said aloud, as though someone might argue. "This is my world now."
The wind carried the words away, and far beyond the hills, thunder answered softly.