The banquet didn’t end so much as fade away. Guests left in small excuses and quieter footsteps until only scattered conversations remained. I stayed until the last of the significant guests had gone.
Then I found Aria.
She was in the side corridor along the east wing, near the window, a cup resting loosely in her hand.
She didn’t turn when I approached..
"The banquet went well," I said.
"It went as expected," she said.
I stopped beside her and looked out the window at the estate grounds. The torches were still burning along the periter.Beyond the torches, the mountains sat in the dark, massive and still.
"I want to tell you sothing before I leave tomorrow," I said.
She turned slightly.
"Your ice affinity," I said. "You’ve been treating it like a foundation for everything else. Domain, blade coating, suppression.
But it isn’t sothing you build on. It’s sothing you strike with." She waited.
"Stop doing that," I said. "The ice is not a foundation. It is a weapon. Build your combat around it directly rather than using it to support other techniques.What happened in the arena," I said, "was your Domain collapsing under heat. That shouldn’t happen if you use ice correctly."
"You are fighting like soone who learned to be careful with a gift because they were told it was too much," I said. "It is not too much. Lead with it."
Aria looked at for a long mont.
"How do you know that?" she asked.
"I have been paying attention," I said.
She looked back at the window.
"I will consider it," she said.
"That is all I am asking," I said.
.....
"There is sothing else," I said.
She waited again.
"Lina," I said. "The girl I brought here."
"I rember her."
"Lina will regain her mory soon," I said. "When she does, she’ll be disoriented. She knows the estate now... and she knows you, at least in passing."
I paused.
"I want you to look after her while I’m gone."
Aria turned to face properly for the first ti in the conversation.
"You are leaving her here," she said.
"I am asking you to make sure she gets to Astral Academy for the entrance examination. She has the ability to qualify. She has more than the ability. But she is going to need soone with the authority to put her na forward and the sense to make sure she actually gets there."
"And you cannot do this yourself."
"I will be at the academy. But I cannot be in two places at once and the path I am taking back does not allow for passengers."
Aria looked at in the way she looked at things when she was deciding whether to ask the question she was actually thinking.
"Why do you care what happens to her," she said.
I hesitated.
Because she was never ant to matter in the first place.
And I don’t like that.
Aria was quiet for a mont.
....
"She called you Mister," she said.
"Yes."
"In front of every significant noble family in the northern region."
"Yes."
She almost smiled.
"I will look after her," she said. "And I will see that she reaches the academy."
"Thank you," I said.
She looked at for one more mont.
"Brother," she said.
I waited.
"Lead with it," she said. Quietly. Returning the words back to .
I looked at her.
Then I nodded once and walked away.
Seraphina was in the receiving room, sitting with the particular stillness of soone who had been waiting without wanting it to be obvious that they had been waiting.
She looked up when I ca in.
I crossed the room and sat down across from her without being invited to because she was my mother in this body and in this world and I had stopped performing the formal distance soti in the last two months without entirely deciding to.
"You are leaving tomorrow," she said.
"Yes."
"The cave," she said. Not a question.
I looked at her.
"I knew you were going sowhere in the forest," she said. "A mother notices when her son leaves before dawn and cos back with the kind of focus that does not co from a training ground."
"It is a place I found," I said. "It has sothing I need."
She looked at in the way mothers looked at things when they were deciding whether to ask or whether to let it be.
She let it be.
"Kael," she said instead.
"Yes."
"Whatever you are looking for." She paused. "I hope you find it."
I paused.
I looked at her for a mont.
"Take care of the girl," I said. "Aria has agreed but she will need support from you as well."
"I already like her," Seraphina said. "She called you Mister in front of the Marquess of Valdren."
"I am aware."
"I liked her imdiately after that."
I stood.
She stood as well, which I had not expected, and she crossed the small distance between us and put her hand briefly against the side of my face, not a gesture I had context for from Kael’s thin mories, which ant it was sothing she was doing rather than sothing she had always done.
"Co back," she said.
I did not tell her what I was actually trying to do. I did not tell her that coming back ant finding a way out of this world entirely. I did not tell her about Rin or Tokyo or the hospital chair or the ten years I had spent sitting in it alone.
"I will do what I can," I said.
It was the most honest answer I had.
The carriage left before the sun was fully up.
Sylvaine Valtier’s carriage was already in the process of departing when mine passed through the outer gate, her timing, as always, suggesting she had been aware of mine before she set her own.
Her window was open.
She looked out at as the carriages drew level with each other on the estate road, and for a mont we were moving at the sa pace in the sa direction with nothing between us but the width of the road and the morning air.
"Young Duke," she said. Sylvaine Valtier had a warmth about her that didn’t feel safe. Not fake, just deliberate.
"Your Highness," I said.
"You are heading back to the secondary estate."
"For now."
"And then the academy."
"Eventually."
She looked at with the expression she had worn in the corridor, the one that appeared when she encountered sothing that had not behaved the way she expected and she was deciding what to do with the new information.
"You are careful," she said, for the second ti since we had t.
"You have ntioned that," I said.
"I ntion things more than once when they are worth ntioning more than once." A pause. The carriages were beginning to diverge as the road split ahead her route turning south toward the capital, mine continuing east. "I will see you at the academy, I expect."
"Probably," I said.
"I am looking forward to it," she said.
The way she said it did not sound pleasant.
The road split.
Her carriage turned south.
I watched it go for a mont.
She’s going to be a problem later, I thought. Just not yet.
I turned back to the road ahead and did not think about it further.
There were more imdiate things to think about.
***
The secondary estate appeared in the late morning.
I did not stop.
I left the carriage at the gate, changed into the clothes I trained in, and walked into the forest.
The path appeared the mont the light dropped below the canopy the sa way it always appeared, present and patient, as though it had been waiting for specifically and had no particular feelings about the wait.
I followed it.
The cave entrance ca into view ahead.
I stopped.
Sothing was different.
The air was wrong the mont I stepped near it. Warm not natural warm.Like sothing inside had been holding its breath for too long.
The temperature coming out of it was wrong in a way I could not imdiately categorize.
Sothing that felt almost like anger.
Right, I thought.
I have been gone for four days.
The cave made it feel like it rembered every one of them.
I had not thought about the cave.
The warm air continued to move past , out of the entrance, into the forest.
I took a breath.
"I am back," I said, to the dark.
The temperature spiked for a mont.
Then settled.
Then spiked again, briefer this ti.
I stood at the entrance and looked into it and understood, without being able to explain exactly how I understood it, that the thing inside this cave had been counting the days.
Four days, I thought.
The warmth coming from the cave had a different quality to it now that I was paying attention. Not threatening. Not directed at exactly.
Just a present. The way a feeling was present when it had been held for too long and had run out of room.
I stepped inside.
The temperature wrapped around imdiately warm and close, unlike anything the cave had felt like in all the mornings I had been coming here.
I walked to the center of the cave floor and sat down.
The warmth pressed in from every direction.
"I should have told you I was going to be gone," I said, to the air around . "That was inconsiderate. I apologize."
The temperature shifted.
Not cooling down. Sothing more complicated than cooling down.
I sat in it for a mont and let it do what it needed to do.
"I will tell you about the banquet," I said. "It was eventful."
The warmth settled slightly.
I sat down anyway.
And started talking.
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