When the first light broke over the mountains, it did not come gently. It spilled like judgment across the scarred village of Maerrin, painting bloodstained earth and broken homes in a cruel, golden hue.
And with that light came the soldiers.
They arrived in full regalia, the sigils of the nearby city sewn proud upon gleaming cloaks. They rode in formation, crisp and clean and practiced—too clean for men who had come to offer comfort. Their captain dismounted with theatrical grace, helm tucked under one arm, the other resting on the pommel of a decorative sword. He bowed to the villagers like a courtier addressing peasants in a play.
"We are deeply grieved," he said with all the sincerity of a merchant mourning lost coin. "The escape of these prisoners was a most unfortunate lapse. The responsible parties have already been dealt with."
Lies.
Everyone could see it in the way he looked past the grieving, the way his men stepped around the dead as if avoiding mud puddles. This was a cleanup. A political stain to be blotted out before it reached the Capitol. The man who had allowed the prisoners to escape by compromising safeguards to lower costs,—some rising city noble, Alexander guessed—would never face consequence. Not truly.
The reality being the prisoners had escaped a week ago.
"Reinforcements" dispatched after a spy mentioned a massacre at one of the villages the city managed.
The soldiers? They had not come to make amends.
They had come to be seen.
When they finally left, their pristine boots untouched by soot or sorrow, a heavy silence took their place.
The village did not mourn together. There was no unity in grief—only instinct. Some buried their dead. Some cleaned. Some stared blankly at nothing and waited for the numbness to pass.
Alexander did not join them.
He gathered wood.
He gathered cloth.
And when the sun began to fall, he dug a grave.
Not in the village square. Not among the other dead.
But beneath the elm tree at the edge of the field where Emil had first learned to walk.
There, with hands blistered and shaking, Alexander laid Sophia to rest.
She looked peaceful. As if asleep. He had washed the blood from her skin. Braided her hair the way she liked. Dressed her in her favorite shawl.
Emil stood beside him, silent, holding a small bouquet of wildflowers Raphael had helped him pick.
The boy said nothing. Only stared.
Alexander placed one hand on Sophia's cheek, then leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, voice raw. "I should have been here. I should have—"
He broke off. Could not continue.
Emil reached for his father's hand.
Alexander held it like a lifeline.
Raphael and Liz stood at a distance, holding back pained sobs and wiping away silent tears that betrayed their stoic expressions.
With a pain worse than any blade could inflict, Alexander eventually finished laying the last of the dirt upon the newly formed grave. A final kiss to the ground and his wedding band laid upon the moved earth, Alexander wished for continued guidance from his beloved Sophia, selfishly daring to disturb her rest.
That night, beneath a starless sky and the hush of a world too exhausted to mourn, Alexander lit the last candle in their home. Its flame flickered weakly, casting long, trembling shadows across the walls that still remembered laughter.
He sat at the table, hands clasped, staring at the chair that would never again be pulled out by her gentle touch. No tears came—grief had rooted itself too deep, somewhere beneath breath and bone, in a place where saltwater could no longer reach.
The silence was unbearable.
So he reached for parchment.
The quill shook in his hand, blotting ink where words should be. He didn't write much. Just a name. A direction. A promise he wasn't sure he could keep.
When the moon had risen high—cold and distant—he stepped outside and sent for Raphael and Liz.
They arrived without speaking, faces drawn, clothes still dusted with ash and sorrow.
Alexander stood framed in the doorway, the candle behind him burning low, casting a frail halo around his grief.
"We leave at dawn," he said quietly. "To the Capitol."
Liz's lips parted in surprise, but her voice barely rose above a whisper. "You're certain?"
He looked past them, into the night.
"No," he said. "But I won't risk him growing in the shadow of graves."
His voice caught, just once.
"I can't bury another dream here. Not after today."
And that was that.
They packed in silence, through the quiet hours when the world held its breath. They didn't own much anymore—what hadn't been broken, burned, or bloodstained fit easily into crates and sacks.
Alexander moved slowly, methodically. He folded Sophia's shawl with reverence. Tied down the trade barrels with hands that had held her last breath. Every motion was a farewell.
And when everything was ready, just before the sun could rise, he knelt beside Emil's bed and gathered his son into his arms—still sleeping, still innocent, still unaware.
As the boy's head rested against his shoulder, Alexander whispered into the soft curls of his hair.
"We go forward, my little ember," he murmured. "For you. For her."
He climbed into the carriage, the road waiting in the dark.
Raphael took the reins without a word.
And they left behind the village, the grave, and the home that would never again be whole.
The first day on the road passed in aching silence. The wheels of Alexander's merchant carriage creaked and groaned beneath the weight of their departure, and the dirt path that unraveled before them offered no comfort—just the long, slow churn of a world that had changed too fast.
They had taken the eastward route, winding through the gentle slopes of the Isenfold valley. Wild thyme grew in patches along the roadside, and tall reeds bowed under the windless hush of early morning. In the distance, mountains shimmered with a fine dusting of frost—summer clinging to its last breath.
Emil sat in the back of the carriage, nestled between crates once filled with spices and cured leather, his head resting against the worn wood. His eyes were open, but distant, studying the canopy of leaves above them as they rolled beneath clusters of maple and ash.
Liz sat opposite him, her legs tucked beneath her, fingers absently worrying the edge of a weathered grimoire. She watched him in intervals—not too closely, not too long. At first, she had expected trembling, tears, maybe even silence.
But Emil was... still. Not frozen or numb—not in the way trauma usually made children shrink. He was simply quiet. Reflective. As if the storm had passed through him and left a hollow that healed not with fear, but with purpose.
It unnerved her.
That night, when they made camp under a broken grove of willow trees, Liz found herself by the fire, Raphael sharpening his blades beside her. Alexander, a few paces off, fed the horses in silence.
"He hasn't cried," she said softly.
Raphael didn't look up. "I know."
"He hasn't asked for her. Not once."
"I know."
She looked into the flames. "It should worry us more than it does."
Raphael finally raised his eyes. "You think he's bottling it up?"
"No," Liz said. "I think... he's already burned through it. As if his soul passed through the grief before his mind could catch up. Like the pain never had a chance to take root."
They both fell silent, watching the fire crack and leap.
---
The next day, Liz made a point to ride inside the carriage with Emil.
She kept her tone light. Pointed out odd birds. Quizzed him gently on the names of trees. Even handed him a puzzlebox once enchanted to teach pattern recognition.
He solved it in ten minutes.
Finally, she sighed. "You're very composed for someone who's been through so much."
Emil looked up. His eyes were not tired, but ancient in a way she could never quite describe.
"It hurt," he said. "But it doesn't hurt now. Not like it should."
"That's alright," Liz said carefully. "People grieve differently. There's no right way."
Emil nodded slowly. Then added: "It's like there's something inside me that... softens the edges. Like I remember being sad, but it doesn't break me."
Her breath caught.
He blinked up at her.
"Is that bad?"
She reached across and took his hand.
"No, darling. Not bad. Just... unexpected."
---
What Liz couldn't know—what no mortal could—was that deep within Emil's reborn soul lay a flame unlike any other. The sixth dragon. The last gift of Themis.
Not a beast of claw and fire, but of essence—a draconic being whose domain was endurance, not strength; clarity, not power. It was her essence that had woven into the core of Emil's new form, allowing his mind to process emotion without being drowned in it, to mourn without crumbling.
Each breath Emil took in that carriage was bolstered by an unseen shield. One that even he did not know he carried.
And so, the journey continued.
---
On the third day, they passed into the Valescar Plains—wide golden fields that swayed like oceans beneath a sky painted with migrating clouds. Shepherds tended massive herds of rune-sheep, and far in the distance, sky barges floated above the lowlands like drifting lanterns.
Liz used the opportunity to teach.
"The empire stretches across four major provinces," she explained, sketching lines in the dirt when they stopped to rest. "We came from the western highlands. The Capitol sits at the heart of the central province—Elorynth."
"Are there dragons in the east?" Emil asked.
Liz smiled. "There were. Once. The Spine of Varn was their nesting ground—a mountain range so jagged they say it tore the sky. But they've long since vanished. Hunted. Or hiding."
"Maybe they're waiting," Emil said, fingers curled in the grass.
"For what?"
"For the world to need them again."
Liz felt a chill crawl down her spine.
They passed through towns with cobbled streets and painted markets. Slept under stars bright enough to read by. Once, they camped beside a crystal-fed stream, where glowing insects danced above the surface in spirals of light.
Emil never complained.
Not once.
---
At night, when the world fell silent save for the murmurs of owls and wind-swept grass, Emil dreamed. The visions had not left him. But where once they were shrouded in fire and violence, they now carried a quiet melancholy. The warrior in the ruined armor still walked through his mind, but slower now—almost wistful. There were no battles. Just a sense of waiting, of searching.
And as Emil lay in the carriage, half-awake beneath the stars, he remembered the moment when the mana had surged to his will. Not with fury. Not even fear. But with a calm demand that the world shift to protect what mattered.
He had whispered to the elements, and they had listened.
No chant. No sigil. Just intent, and truth.
The more he thought about it, the clearer it became. Magic wasn't something to command. It was something to understand. A conversation, not a conquest.
And in that stillness, in that reflection, something within him clicked. A faint warmth in his chest—not fiery, but glowing. He didn't have a name for it. Not yet.
But it was there.
And it was growing.
---
On the sixth night, Alexander stayed behind to refill the water barrels while Liz and Raphael set up camp.
Emil wandered a short distance, collecting wildflowers and stones of curious shape.
Liz followed quietly, finding him seated on a small ridge overlooking the road behind them.
"Do you think she'll find us?" he asked without looking.
Liz sat beside him. "Who?"
"Mama."
Her heart squeezed. "I don't know."
"I think she already has," he said.
And in that moment, the wind shifted, brushing a lock of hair from his face.
Liz looked at him—really looked. Saw not the boy, not the prodigy, not the vessel of fate.
She saw a soul tempered like steel. A quiet fire.
She smiled.
"Then she'll be proud of how far you've come."
---
The final day, as the sun rose amber over the horizon, the Capitol crept into view—a sprawl of marble towers, domed sanctuaries, and layered bridges carved with the banners of noble houses.
It was both beautiful and oppressive.
Alexander slowed the cart, breath catching.
Liz placed a hand on his arm.
"We'll be careful," she said. "And we won't let him be swallowed by it."
He nodded. Then turned to look back at his son, now sleeping soundly against the side of the cart, a wildflower still clutched in his hand.
Hope flickered.
And for the first time since the night of fire and blood, Alexander dared to believe that maybe, just maybe, this road would lead not to an end—but to a beginning.