They arrived back at the manor as the evening settled in, and Ivel went to his room and sat on the edge of the bed with the red box open in front of him.
He lifted the orb out carefully and held it against his chest.
He felt it immediately — a dense, solid energy that pressed against his core like something with weight and intention, not flooding in all at once but seeping, patient and steady, small pieces of it breaking away and absorbing into him at their own pace. He sat with it for a while, feeling the process work, before he set it down and turned to his belongings.
He packed slowly, moving through the room and collecting what was his. When he got to the sword he stopped.
He turned it over in his hands. The blade was chipped along nearly its entire length — the tournament had finished what the nightcrawler's horns had started, and what remained was a weapon in name only.
He sighed.
I'll need to see Aldrius sooner rather than later.
He set it carefully among his things and finished packing.
The Frost family was waiting at the entrance of the manor when the Revenants came down — gathered near the door with the particular warmth of people who are good at goodbyes without being sentimental about them.
Alavan stepped forward first and took Ivel's hand firmly.
"You did exceptionally well at the tournament." His voice carried the same easy authority it always did, though the warmth underneath it was genuine. "I will say this — I had no doubts about whose son you were. You honored your family name in that arena."
"Thank you, sir." Ivel smiled. "I'm glad you enjoyed the fights."
He turned to Alavan's wife and offered a courtesy bow, which she received graciously, and then he turned to Verna.
She held out her hand.
He took it — and kissed it.
A beat of silence.
"I was going to ask for a hug," Verna said, "but I suppose that works too."
Ivel's expression shifted with the speed of someone realizing they have significantly misread a social situation.
"In your dreams," he said, with as much composure as he could locate on short notice.
Verna smiled.
"I'll see you there, then."
"That's not what I—" He stopped. Looked at her. Let the sentence go. There was no winning this, and they both knew it, and her knowing it was the worst part. "Never mind."
She laughed — bright and unguarded — and reached into the fold of her dress, producing something small and silver. She held it out to him.
"What is this?"
He took it and turned it over. A trinket of some kind, silver, shaped like the roots of a plant curling around each other — intricate, delicate, clearly made with care.
"Put it on your wrist."
He did. The moment it made contact it shifted — the roots curling outward and then inward, linking together and locking into place around his wrist as though they had always been meant to fit there. He turned his arm and looked at it.
"What's it for?"
"A gift," she said simply. "So you remember me."
He looked at it for another moment, then at her.
"I should have brought you something."
"Give me something when we see each other again."
He looked up.
"Sure thing," he said, with a slight smile.
Verna tilted her head.
"Either way — you owe me. I did let you win that tournament."
Ivel scoffed.
Then he smiled despite himself.
"I suppose you're right."
Across the entryway, Alavan watched this exchange with the expression of a man who has noticed something and is exercising considerable restraint in not commenting on it. He said nothing. He simply looked away and let it pass.
Leom embraced Alavan and his wife both — the long, full embrace of people who have known each other long enough that the goodbye carries the weight of everything between them — and then the family gathered at the carriage and climbed in, and the manor receded behind them as they moved out into the night.
Inside the carriage the warmth was immediate and close. Leom settled against the window looking more rested than he had in days — the capital had agreed with him, or the company had, or both. Aniya and Elia lasted perhaps twenty minutes before the motion of the carriage and the accumulated exhaustion of the week caught up with them at the same time, their heads tipping sideways in near unison.
Ivel watched them sleep for a moment.
Then he turned to Leom.
"Father. What do you know about the Isles of Rom?"
Leom looked at him.
"What I told you before — the name given to the chain of islands that appeared near Ardan. The ones that came without explanation." He turned back to the window. "No one they sent ever returned. Enlightened, Ascended — it didn't matter."
"You told me no one came back," Ivel said. "And yet they're considering sending another expedition."
"Yes. The thinking is that the previous groups were the wrong kind of strong — power without the right foundation, perhaps, or preparation that didn't account for what the islands actually are." Leom was quiet for a moment. "Why do you ask?"
Ivel was quiet for a beat longer than he needed to be.
"Vas asked me to go there," he said. "To train under him."
Leom turned from the window.
He looked at his son for a long moment — not with alarm, not with the immediate refusal that Ivel had half expected. Something more complicated moved through his expression, and then settled.
"Well," he said. "I suppose that's up to you."
Ivel blinked.
"You're not concerned? About me going somewhere that dangerous?"
Leom exhaled slowly and placed his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"I've known for a while that the day would come when you'd go off on your own." He said it simply, without performance. "So — yes. It's up to you. It will be dangerous. There's no pretending otherwise." He paused. "But I have a feeling that at the end of it, you'll come back."
Ivel sat with that for a moment.
The carriage moved through the dark, and the countryside passed quietly outside, and his sisters slept, and his father waited without pushing.
"I want to go," Ivel said finally. "If I'm being honest — I have to. I'm not strong enough yet, not for what I want, and I know it. The forest isn't enough anymore. Staying isn't enough anymore." He looked at his father directly. "Even with the risk. I have to grow, father. I have to."
Leom smiled.
Not with pride, exactly — or not only with pride. Not with mockery, not with sadness. Just a smile, quiet and knowing, the kind that belongs to someone who has watched something take shape for a long time and is now watching it arrive.
"If that's what you want," he said.
He leaned back against the carriage wall and closed his eyes.
"Just know this — the path of strength is an arduous one. You will go places others can't follow, and they won't always understand why. That is simply the cost of it."
"I know," Ivel said.
"Good." Leom's voice was already growing softer, sleep beginning to take him. "I'm glad you made up your mind."
Ivel looked down at the bracelet on his wrist — the silver roots locked into place, catching the faint light that came in through the carriage window — and then out at the dark countryside rolling past.
He pressed his thumb to the button on the device in his pocket.
And held it there.