A week passed, and Ivel barely moved.
He sat in the same spot for most of it — still, eyes closed, breathing in the measured way of someone who was somewhere else entirely even while his body remained in the room. His sisters watched this from a careful distance.
"That brat has just been meditating for a week straight," Aniya said, with the tone of someone trying to decide if they should be concerned or annoyed and landing somewhere between both.
"His concentration has improved considerably over the last few days," Elia said, watching him. "Whatever he's doing, it's working."
As if on cue, Ivel opened his eyes, rolled his shoulders, and stood up with the unhurried ease of someone returning from a long journey that had taken place entirely inside his own head.
Aniya straightened.
"Oh, look who's rejoined the living." She cracked her knuckles. "How about a spar, little brother? It's been a while."
Ivel looked at her, then glanced toward the door.
"I have to go into town first. Aldrius should have my weapons ready."
Aniya's expression fell into a pout that she made no effort to conceal.
"Fine. But when you get back you have no excuses."
He waved a hand over his shoulder and walked out.
The town felt different on the walk over — or rather, he felt different in it. The gazes that used to catch on him like burrs, the sidelong looks and the deliberate silences that opened up when he passed, the weight of being watched by people who had already decided what they thought of him — none of it landed the way it used to. He moved through the streets and let it pass over him and kept walking, and arrived at Aldrius's door feeling none of the things he usually felt arriving at Aldrius's door.
He knocked.
The door opened, and heat came out with it.
"Ah, little one. Come in."
The shop was its usual self — the furnace roaring, the temperature immediate and absolute, the smell of hot metal and worked leather present in every breath. Ivel looked around while Aldrius disappeared into the back, taking in the quiet order of the place, the tools arranged with the precision of someone who had spent decades learning exactly where everything needed to be.
Aldrius returned carrying a leather wrap, which he set on the table between them and unrolled with the particular care of someone presenting something they are genuinely proud of.
The weapons caught the light immediately.
The sword first — double-edged, the hilt and handle both worked in steel, the blade exuding a sharpness that was apparent even at rest, the kind of edge that didn't need to be tested to be believed. Ivel picked it up and turned it slowly, watching the light move across it. It was a beautiful thing. The kind of object that made it clear, without any explanation, that the person who made it had been making things like this for a very long time.
He set it down and lifted the dagger.
Curved slightly along its length, the edge running to a point that was sharp in the way that promised it would stay sharp. Compact and deadly and perfectly balanced in his hand.
"Well?" Aldrius said, watching him with the expression of a craftsman who already knows the answer but wants to hear it anyway.
"It's perfect," Ivel said. He meant it. "When did you get this good?"
Aldrius laughed — the deep, full sound that came naturally to him.
"I've been at this since I was younger than you. It's a long story."
"How much do I owe you?"
"Ten daks."
Ivel reached into his bag and counted out the payment. Aldrius took it, then held up a finger.
"I almost forgot — I added something to the sword. Since you seem to have a habit of destroying them."
Ivel looked at the blade.
"Those engravings along the flat," Aldrius said. "They're runes. When you channel mana into the sword, it repairs itself." He paused. "Within reason. If it breaks completely the runes stop working. But for ordinary wear and damage — it'll hold itself together."
Ivel stared at him.
"What?"
Aldrius smiled broadly.
"Don't mention it."
"Aldrius, that's — that's remarkable."
"Now then." The old blacksmith waved him toward the door with the affectionate impatience of someone who has work to return to and is genuinely fond of the person he's dismissing. "Off you go. I have things to do."
Ivel gathered the weapons, wrapped them back in the leather, and left. Behind him, Aldrius sighed contentedly and turned back to the forge.
Back to work, I suppose.
He moved through town at a pace that was faster than a walk and less dignified than a run, and didn't particularly care. The streets seemed livelier than usual — some gathering or market day pulling people out of doors and into the open — but he passed through it without stopping and made it home to find Aniya exactly where he expected her, waiting with the patience of someone who had already decided the spar was happening regardless of what he said about it.
"You look pleased with yourself," she said. "Did he do good work?"
"See for yourself."
He unrolled the leather on the table between them.
Aniya leaned forward and looked — really looked, the way she looked at things she was taking seriously. Her eyes moved across the blade with the attention of someone who knew what they were examining, and then she picked up the sword and turned it, reading the engravings along the flat.
"Runework," she said. "A regeneration type."
"He told me. Repairs itself when I put mana into it."
She nodded and set it down. "Good craftsmanship. The runes are clean — whoever carved them knew what they were doing."
"He did them himself, apparently." Ivel looked at her. "Where did you learn to read rune language?"
"Father taught me."
Ivel blinked.
"Of course he did." He shook his head slowly. "That man is a walking encyclopedia."
Aniya laughed. "I had the same reaction when he first showed me. You think you know someone."
Ivel looked at the sword for a moment, turning something over quietly in his mind. Then he looked up.
"Did you have to read many runes on the battlefield?"
The laughter left Aniya's face.
Not dramatically — not all at once. It simply receded, the way warmth recedes from a room when a window is opened, and what replaced it was something older and more settled and entirely without performance.
"Not often," she said. "But it was useful when someone recovered a nexus orb. You could identify the quality quickly."
Ivel nodded. A beat passed.
"You and Elia never told me what it was like out there," he said quietly.
Aniya was still for a moment.
"It was war," she said.
The word came out flat and without decoration, and he understood immediately that she meant it to.
"War," he repeated.
"Cruel. Unforgiving. And above all else — deadly." She looked at the table rather than at him, her voice even and measured in the way of someone who has thought about something so many times that the thinking has worn smooth. "You would fight until a wave of them subsided, and then you would look around, and the people you had been standing next to — the ones you had spoken to, eaten with, known — most of them would be gone." She paused. "At some point I started asking myself what we were even fighting for. Whether any of it meant anything at all."
The room was quiet.
Ivel looked at her — at this version of her, the one that existed underneath the teasing and the noise and the hand ruffling. He had known it was there. He had never quite seen it this clearly before.
"I'm going with Vas in three weeks," he said. "To train. In the Isles of Rom."
Aniya looked at him.
She didn't look surprised.
"I know," she said. "Elia and I both felt it coming." A small, tired smile crossed her face. "It was about time, honestly. You've grown."
"Did father tell you?"
"No. We just knew." She looked at him the way you look at someone you remember being smaller. "You've been growing for a while now, even if you haven't noticed it yourself."
Ivel was quiet for a moment.
"I'm sorry to leave," he said. "And honestly — I don't know when I'll be back."
Aniya reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder. Firmly, without ceremony.
"We'll see each other again," she said. "Don't worry about that part." Something settled in her expression — certain, unhurried, the kind of conviction that doesn't need to argue for itself. "Destiny will have it so."
Ivel looked at her hand on his shoulder, then at her face.
He didn't say anything.
He didn't need to.