Rain had thinned to a steady drizzle by dawn. The courtyard smelled of wet earth and old banners — the Valeheart crest still hung above the training yard, its colors dulled but intact. For a breath, for a fragile moment, Arion let himself believe the world had been turned back to mercy.
He found Elandra in the small garden behind the family quarters, ankles muddy, hands working at a bundle of herbs. Sunlight struggled through the clouds and caught the bright freckle on her cheek the way it always had. She looked smaller than he remembered, seventeen and stubborn and alive.
The sight broke something in him. He stumbled forward, words failing at the first sight of her smile. He had rehearsed a hundred speeches in his head — warnings, plans, apologies — but none of them mattered now. He dropped to his knees without meaning to, hands covering his face as hot, uncontrolled tears came.
Elandra froze, then crossed the small distance with the thud of bare feet. She reached for his face, fingers gentle on his jaw. "Arion?" she asked, voice threaded with worry at the wetness on his cheeks. "What is it? Are you sick?"
He swallowed, the memory of the burning hall pressing like a stone behind his ribs. How many times had he watched her fall in another life? How many times had he held her hand as life ebbed from her? The images came unbidden — blood, smoke, Darius's laugh — and he clung to her like a drowning man to a plank.
"I—" The words were ragged. He could not find the proper tense; the present and past tangled into something raw. "I missed you," he managed, and the admission was both confession and prayer. "I missed you so much."
Elandra's brow furrowed. Her hand tightened, then she smiled, a small, bewildered thing that made the ache in his chest shift into something sharper and fiercer. "You're acting strange," she teased, though her fingers lingered as if not wanting to let go. "You slept through morning drills. Master will tear you tomorrow."
He laughed then, a wet, broken sound that surprised them both. He wanted to tell her everything — the future, the betrayal, the bodies — but even the thought of spilling those horrors into her bright face felt like a fresh wound. He had sworn a vow in the dark flames of the hall: protect her. To tell her would put a target on her forehead.
"Don't tell anyone," he murmured instead, closing his hand around hers and feeling the pulse of youth in her wrist. "I'm… not well. I'll be fine. Just stay by my side."
Elandra's eyes narrowed, then she huffed. "You always say that," she said, but she flitted off to the herb bundles as if she believed him.
They walked back into the household together. The Valeheart home felt like a living thing — creaks in the floorboards, the muted clink of dishes, the faint scent of medicinal salves where Serenya tended trays on the kitchen bench. Arion's mother looked up when they entered, her smile soft and immediate. She moved toward them with the easy grace of someone who had cultivated calm as armor.
"Morning, my son." Serenya's voice wrapped around him. For a moment he could have bowed to her and meant it; she had been the steady heart of the Valehearts in the quiet years. He wanted to tell her the truth, to ask her to hide Elandra away, to teach him healing so he could mend wounds later that no blade could fix. But warmth, not paranoia, responded to him now. He swallowed the urge.
At the head of the long table sat Lord Caelum Vale. The Iron-Souled General, as the songs called him, looked smaller at nineteen than the legend his name would become in the decades Arion remembered. Time had not yet eaten at the sharpness of his jaw, but his hands bore the faint tremor Arion had seen only in the final days of his first life. The knowledge made something cold and urgent settle under Arion's ribs.
"Arion," Caelum said, voice steady as always. "You slept like a rock. Training's been light this week — I ordered it. You should not strain yourself."
Arion inclined his head. "Yes, Father." The words felt like armor when spoken in front of the family, a simple piece of the civilized show. He ate in half-measured bites, watched the way Elandra laughed at some small remark, felt the ordinary moments of family like warm stones warming his hands. He could let himself be human here, for a day or two. He permitted it, and the permission tasted like grief and hope in equal measure.
After breakfast, he sought out Rowan.
They found him at the outer yard, where apprentices sparred and the clang of steel kept time with the heartbeats of the clan. Rowan Greaves moved with the easy confidence of someone who had known Arion since their first broken blades. He still wore the badge of the Valehearts, still carried the old rivalry in the easy banter he leveled at younger trainees. In the other life Rowan had been the knife that had cut Arion's back; here he was a brother, honest and brash.
Rowan clapped him on the shoulder with a grin. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Or drunk five cups of that awful wine Master keeps hiding from Caelum."
Arion forced a laugh. The familiarity was a balm and a blade. He let Rowan poke and prod like a brother might, letting no hint of the memory show. He had to learn patience again. Learning patience was a slow, careful thing — living day to day, planting seeds of change while secrets rotted or healed.
"Train with me," Arion said suddenly, worded as a challenge and an invitation both.
Rowan's grin widened. "Finally. I thought you'd keep hiding in the library forever."
They sparred for an hour, not with the ferocity of masters but with the honed rhythm of two friends who had bled side by side through countless drills. Arion moved like the boy he now was; there were glimmers of the older man's reflexes — a counter here, a softening step there — but nothing miraculous. Sweat soaked his tunic. His chest burned. He lost two early exchanges and came away with a bruised forearm because he'd hung back, testing more than striking.
It was precisely right. He had knowledge; he had memory; but his body belonged to the timeline's rules. That reality gave him comfort. There would be no easy ascension. He would have to climb the ladder rung by rung, and that climb would be slow enough to let him gather allies and watch for treachery.
After practice, as apprentices filtered out, Arion stood by the old well where the clan's young men tossed coins and dared each other to feats of bravado. He looked out over the walls of the Valeheart estate, over the land that had been his until it was taken. The rain had washed dirt into small runnels of mud. Beyond the outer fields, the Drakar banners fluttered at a distance, cruel little marks of a threat not yet acting openly.
He remembered Darius's face — thumbs, a laugh like a blade rasping over bone. He remembered Rowan's hand clasping Darius's in that dark hall. The remembered betrayal pressed at the edges of his hope.
One goal, he whispered, inwardly, steady and absolute: keep them alive. Protect Elandra. Protect his parents if fate allowed. Protect the Valeheart name. Everything else — vengeance, honor, the Broken Sword — came after.
He'd start small: heal, train, sow quiet doubts in the right ears, watch how men moved when they thought no one looked. He would be patient. He would be relentless.
Elandra found him when the sun was finally taking its leave, trails of orange smudging the wet clouds. She came to stand beside him, fingers tucked into the crook of his arm like she used to do as a child. "You seem different today," she said softly.
He turned to her and offered the honest, uncluttered smile of a man who had slept through agony and awoken to choice. "I am," he admitted. "And I will not let that change go to waste."
She peered at him, searching, then nodded with the fierce faith he'd always known in her. "Then don't," she said, as if that one word could carry the weight of any promise. It did, for now.
They walked back toward the household under thinning sky. Arion carried a quiet thing inside him — a vow that no blade, no scheme, would again take his family from him without a fight. He could feel the long road unfurling before him, the slow work of rebuilding and reforging. It would take years. It would demand sacrifice.
But he had his sister. He had his family. And that was enough to start.
Outside the walls, the first strings of smoke rose from the Drakar encampment like a finger pointing at the future. Arion watched and let the ember of his resolve grow into a small, steady flame.
One step at a time, he thought. One breath. One training session. One ally.
He would begin with home.