Over the next few days, they all relocated to the dojo.
All except Sylra.
“It’s about time my family remembers I’m still alive,” she muttered before vanishing down the road, wind rustling at her heels. No one tried to stop her. She’d earned her exits.
The dojo itself was hidden, tucked between cliffs and trees that hummed with dormant Essentia. The world seemed quieter there, as if holding its breath.
“Leon’s best hideout artifact,” Selene had explained when they arrived, tapping the smooth stone archway with two fingers.
“It only reveals itself to those who’ve been here before. Or to those Leon chooses.”
“(Huh, so that’s why no one ever came here despite being… in plain sight of the forest)” Towan thought
Elliot had taken to the library immediately.
Small in size, but dense. The kind of place where one book might change your entire worldview. Selene guided him through the harder texts—scrolls on forbidden Essentia theories, essays Leon had annotated, and diagrams that seemed more like riddles than research.
He studied like someone trying to make sense of the world… and maybe himself.
Meanwhile, both brothers trained under Lytharos, who—true to form—spoke little and corrected often. His techniques weren’t flashy, but they worked. Sharp, survival-focused strikes. Movements that made you feel like you’d always been two seconds too slow.
Then, one morning—weeks after they’d settled in—a new presence stirred the air.
It wasn’t loud.
But it was heavy.
Birds stopped mid-song. The wind shifted direction. Even the trees seemed to lean slightly, as if bowing.
Towan looked up from his drills. Elliot stopped mid-sentence, a finger still resting on a line of text. “(What is this pressure?!)” they could feel it
Stolen novel; please report.
Someone was approaching.
And they weren’t just walking.
They were returning.
The door creaked.
Not like wood bending—no, it sounded like the world itself took a breath.
Heavy steps echoed down the stone hallway, slow and deliberate. Each one landed with a pressure that wasn’t violent… but undeniable. Like the earth acknowledging someone who hadn’t walked upon it in far too long.
Towan stood up.
Elliot closed his book.
Selene turned toward the entrance without surprise, like she had felt this coming.
Then he stepped in.
Broad shoulders.
A coat of faded black and green, worn from weather and war.
Eyes like carved stone, deep and unmoving. His beard had grown longer, tinged with silver, but his posture carried the same force as the mountains.
Eryndar.
He said nothing at first. His gaze swept the room, not in judgment, but calculation—assessing who was present, what they carried, and what they’d lost.
When he saw Rheon lying within the quiet chamber, he finally exhaled.
“I felt the Vital Essence call. Like a pulse under my feet. I hoped I was wrong.”
He moved to Rheon’s side, kneeling. One hand pressed lightly to the man’s chest—not with urgency, but familiarity.
“Still breathing,” he murmured. “That idiot. He always was too stubborn to die properly.”
He didn’t cry. Didn’t even sigh.
But something in the room shifted.
Like gravity itself had thickened.
Not from grief. From presence.
“Thought you were on the other side of the continent,” Selene said, stepping toward the door.
Lytharos followed beside her, arms crossed, unreadable as ever.
“Long time no see, Eryndar,” he added.
The man didn’t look at them at first. His eyes remained on Rheon, unmoving. When he finally rose, it was with the ease of someone whose strength came from knowing exactly when to use it.
“Rheon always spoke of the flow in nature,” Eryndar said, voice like stone rolling downhill.
“The shift was undeniable. I felt him fall.”
“I had to come.”
Towan and Elliot reached the hallway, pausing at the edge of the scene.
They didn’t speak.
They didn’t have to.
The way Selene and Lytharos acknowledged the stranger told them enough.
This wasn’t just someone important.
This was someone who belonged here—more than they did.
It was in the way his boots touched the floor like he'd walked these halls a hundred times. In the way Selene, so rarely moved, allowed a brief smile. And how Lytharos didn't correct him, didn't comment, just nodded.
“A pleasure to see you well,” Eryndar said, finally turning to them.
“Selene. Lytharos.”
Then his gaze shifted.
To the boys.