They were led deeper into the manor until the hallway opened into a wider room, and there the owner of the house came forward to meet them.
He was a man of about Leom's age, brown-haired and green-eyed, with the kind of face that stays with you — strong-featured and handsome in a way that time had refined rather than diminished. The moment he saw Leom he crossed the room without hesitation, and the two of them embraced the way men do when the years between meetings have been long and the friendship underneath them has not moved an inch.
"Alavan. How are you, old friend."
"I've been well." Alavan pulled back and looked at him. "And you?"
They fell into easy conversation — the natural, unhurried rhythm of people catching up on a gap of time too long to summarize quickly. Ivel watched from a few steps back. He couldn't have explained precisely how he knew it, but the man radiated something beyond wealth. A quiet, settled power that had nothing to prove and didn't bother trying.
After a moment Alavan turned to the sisters, spreading his hands with warm recognition. "You two have grown since I last saw you. Both of you." He laughed, then shifted his gaze to Ivel. "And this must be little Ivel. I remember when you were barely walking."
Ivel looked at him carefully. He had no memory of this man whatsoever — which struck him as strange, because Alavan was not the kind of person you forgot. Even now, with age settled into the lines of his face, he was distinctly, almost unfairly, memorable.
"I'm glad your family has grown so well, Leom," Alavan said.
Leom smiled, and meant it.
A servant was summoned, and the siblings were guided through the manor to their quarters while Leom remained behind to talk. The halls stretched long and white — porcelain walls, high ceilings, door after door leading to rooms Ivel could only imagine the contents of. He tried not to stare too obviously as they walked.
He was shown to his room.
He stepped inside and stopped.
The bed alone was larger than the entire floor space of his room back home. He moved through the space slowly, taking stock of it — silk curtains catching the late light, blankets that gave beneath his hand like something living, pillows that felt as though they had been filled by someone with very strong opinions about comfort. The sun came in through the tall windows and spread itself across the floor in long warm panels, and the whole room glowed with it.
He sat on the edge of the bed.
Then he lay back.
He was asleep almost immediately.
A knock at the door pulled him back.
"Sir. Dinner is ready. Please come down to the hall."
Footsteps receded down the corridor.
Ivel lay still for a moment staring at the ceiling, then sat up, dressed, and stepped out into the hallway — where he promptly realized he had absolutely no idea where the hall was.
He wandered.
The manor rewarded wandering, at least. The walls were lined with paintings — portraits and landscapes and a few things he couldn't immediately classify — and he moved through the corridors at an unhurried pace, looking at each one in turn, letting himself get properly lost before he thought seriously about finding his way back.
He turned a corner and nearly walked into a girl.
She looked to be close to his age, brown-haired, grey-eyed, wearing a grand blue dress that made her look as though she had stepped out of one of the paintings he'd just been admiring. She turned at his approach with the composure of someone entirely accustomed to her surroundings.
"Excuse me," Ivel said. "Do you happen to know where the hall is? I'm a bit lost."
She looked at him — really looked, the way people do when something has caught their attention before they've decided what to do with it. Her gaze settled on his eyes and stayed there a moment longer than was strictly necessary.
"Your eyes are quite nice," she said, in a tone that was very comfortable with itself. She leaned in slightly, inspecting them with open curiosity.
Ivel took a small step back. "Uh. Thanks, I suppose."
She smiled. "Follow me. I was heading to the ballroom anyway."
"Alright."
They walked. After a moment Ivel asked, "May I know your name?"
The girl glanced at him sideways with a look of mild surprise — the particular expression of someone who had expected to already be known. "Did your father not tell you?"
"He doesn't tell me a great deal of things," Ivel said. "I didn't know I'd be here until this morning."
She laughed a little at that — a short, genuine sound. "Well. I am Verna of Frost. You may call me Verna."
"Of Frost," Ivel repeated. "Why that title?"
She smiled again, and there was something faintly pitying in it. "My, your father really does keep things close. It's a family title."
"Ah." He turned it over. "So you're Alavan's daughter."
"I am. And you must be Ivel — son of Revenant Leom." She extended her hand. "A pleasure."
He shook it. "Why do people keep calling my father a Revenant?"
Verna tilted her head at him with the same expression she might give a question she found unexpectedly earnest. "Because it's your family name," she said.
Ivel said nothing for a moment.
He turned that over too, and found it did not become simpler the more he looked at it. That man — the same man who made breakfast and told them to come inside before it got dark — was from a noble family. He had simply never mentioned it. Not once.
"Ah," Ivel said again. "I see."
They reached the hall.
It was full and warm and bright — a long banquet table laid with more food than Ivel could immediately take in, the room filled with the sound of conversation and laughter. Alavan and his wife stood near Leom, and the three of them were deep in the easy, unguarded laughter of people who had known each other long enough to have stopped being careful around one another. Ivel greeted them, took his seat, and let the evening carry him.
The food was extraordinary. Not in any way he could attribute to anything mystical — simply the result of a chef who was exceptionally good at what they did and had been given everything they needed to do it.
After dinner, Ivel found his father and asked if there were training grounds anywhere on the property.
Of course there were. Leom led him there without comment and then drifted back toward the warmth of the hall, leaving the boy alone in the dark with the open space and the moon overhead and the katana at his hip.
Ivel drew it.
He began to move.
The blade was different from anything he had used before, and he let himself learn it rather than forcing it — following the arc of each swing, feeling where the weight wanted to go, adjusting the angle of his footwork to suit the geometry of a single-edged weapon. Gradually the movements grew cleaner. More natural. The wind caught the blade as it came through, and in the silver light the kata had a quality to it that was hard to name — graceful, but underneath the grace, something with edges.
"You are quite good at the sword for someone so young."
Ivel stopped.
He turned.
There was a man seated some distance behind him — legs crossed, a long bottle of wine resting in one hand, watching with calm, unhurried attention. Ivel had not heard him arrive, had no sense of how long he had been there. He was in his late fifties, white-haired, brown-eyed, with the exterior of someone who had spent a great deal of time in very serious places and had come out the other side of all of them.
"Thank you, sir," Ivel said carefully. "Who are you?"
"Vas of Night." The man rose, unhurried, and crossed the training ground toward him. He stopped at a comfortable distance and regarded the boy with an expression that was neither warm nor unkind. "I am a friend of your father's."
He looked at Ivel for a moment longer. Then he said, simply: "You have a strange quality. Best to be careful with it."
It wasn't a threat. It landed with the weight of something genuinely meant — advice offered plainly, without any attempt to soften or elaborate on it.
Then Vas turned and walked back into the manor, the bottle loose in his hand, disappearing through the doorway as quietly as he had appeared.
Ivel stood alone in the training ground for a moment, the katana still in his hand.
Strange quality.
He looked down at his palm — then back toward the door.
Weird guy, he thought.
Though the words stayed with him longer than he expected them to.