[Six Years After the Black Spire War]

  The crate outside the apothecary was the same. The smell of wet timber in Oakhaven was the same. Even the bottle of clear spirits in Aether's hand looked the same.

  Aether wasn't just drinking to forget the scream anymore. He was drinking to drown out the silence that followed it. He was drinking to forget the last words he had shouted at the boy who never came home.

  “Continue that path... and you will die screaming.”

  The boy had burned. And Aether hadn't even said goodbye.

  “Get out of here,” Aether grumbled at the shadow hovering at the edge of his vision. “I'm not hiring.”

  The shadow didn't move.

  “I said scram. The orphanage is down the road.”

  “I don't like the orphanage,” a small voice said. “It's quiet.”

  Aether froze. The defiance was so familiar it felt like a physical blow. He lowered the bottle and squinted at the intruder. It was a boy, barely six years old. He was sturdy, broad-shouldered even for a child. He stood with his feet planted in the mud, refusing to budge.

  But it was the eyes that stopped Aether's heart. Clear. Blue.

  They were the eyes of a man Aether remembered becoming a light, saving Oakhaven. A man who was not allowed to scream by the effect of the alchemy. A child had been sent to Aether's doorstep in the wake of a slaughter, only for the child to be lost to the orphanage in the confusion of the aftermath.

  Nothing vanishes, Aether thought, his hand trembling. It just changes form.

  And here, standing in the mud, was the residue of that sacrifice.

  “Do you know Alchemy, boy?” Aether asked, his voice rough. “Do you know how to mix a stabilizer?”

  The boy blinked, confused. “What? That's magic stuff. I just want to be strong.”

  “You look like a fighter,” Aether said.

  “I'm strong,” the boy declared, puffing out his small chest. “I can lift the grain sacks.”

  Aether nodded slowly. Good. He’ll be a great vessel.

  “What is your name, boy?”

  “Caelthon.”

  Aether closed his eyes. It was a good name. Strong. He looked at the boy again. He saw the potential for greatness. He saw the same reckless spark that had consumed the First Champion. If he sent him away, the boy would find a sword on his own. He would find a war. And he would burn just like the others.

  Aether looked at the bottle in his hand. Then he looked at the open door of his empty shop. He had failed his first apprentice by trying to be just a Master. He had failed by refusing to be a father.

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  “You can't be a Champion without the math, kid,” Aether murmured, pouring the rest of the spirits into the mud.

  He thought of the other child in the village—the quiet one he had been watching from afar. The one with the sharp, calculating eyes of a survivor that will never walk the footstep of a hero.

  He would pair them. He would find a shield for this boy's spear. He would not let this one fight alone.

  “But...” Aether stood up, offering his gnarled hand to the orphan. “I think we can find someone who is willing to handle the numbers for you.”

  Caelthon took his hand. His grip was strong. Warm.

  “Come on,” Aether said, leading him toward the shop. “I won't make the same mistake twice.”

  [Present Day: Twenty Years After Black Spire War]

  The air in the training yard was cool, smelling of cut steel and dried herbs. It was a good smell. A smell of peace.

  Aether watched from the shade of the apothecary, his hands—once stained with the reagents of war—now patiently grinding saltbloom for a healing draught. His knuckles were gnarled, his face creased, not with the fire of his youth, but with a deep, patient sadness.

  In the center of the yard, the peace was broken only by the rhythmic thud and hiss of sparring. The boys were men now.

  Caelthon moved like a storm. He was all broad shoulders and heavy steel, his greatsword carving arcs of displaced air that whistled. He was the picture of the champions in the stories—strong, confident, and with a laugh that came easily.

  Macus was his opposite. He was the silence in the storm’s eye. He didn't have Caelthon’s strength, so he had cultivated speed. He didn't have the reach, so he had mastered angles. He moved with a quartermaster's mind, each dodge a calculation, each parry a redirection of energy.

  Macus stepped in, seeing the opening, his wooden blade darting for the ribs.

  Thud.

  It hit Caelthon, but the larger man simply absorbed the blow, grinning as he shoulder-checked Macus into the dirt.

  “Yield!” Caelthon boomed, dropping his sword point. He clapped Macus on the shoulder. “You have the technique, my friend. But sometimes, you just need the weight.”

  “I calculated the angle,” Macus groaned, dusting himself off. “You shouldn't have been able to keep your balance.”

  “That's why you're the brains,” Caelthon laughed. “And that's why I'm the Spear!”

  “A spear,” Macus corrected.

  “Like the First Champion!” Caelthon said, his eyes lighting up. “They say Odion could take down a garrison before the first man hit the ground. Right, Master Aether?”

  Macus's attention sharpened, but it was Caelthon who looked at Aether with academic reverence.

  “The histories say his perception was so fast, the world seemed to stop. That he faced the Soulfather alone and... he won.”

  “And he never came back,” Macus added, his voice dropping a register.

  “Ascension,” Caelthon argued, his eyes shining. “They never found a body because he gave it all to the light. He became pure energy.”

  “Or pure meat,” Macus countered, the realist to Caelthon's poet. “The grave-diggers say otherwise, Caelthon. They say no body means no rest. They say the 'First Champion' isn't in the sky. He's out there, shuffling in the dark like the things he fought.”

  “An undead Champion?” Caelthon snorted, shaking his head. “Don't be morbid. Champions don't rot. They said my father became pure energy when he saved this village; there was no body to be found. Maybe my father is the Champion.”

  The rhythmic tap-tap-tap of the mortar and pestle in Aether's hands went silent. The memory of a scream—or the lack of one—flashed in his mind.

  “Master?” Caelthon asked gently.

  Aether set the pestle down. He turned his gaze not to his pupils, but to the horizon.

  “The books tell you the legend, Caelthon. They don't tell you the cost.”

  “But you knew him,” Caelthon pressed. “You trained him. What was he really like?”

  Aether’s gaze finally fell on the men. His eyes were haunted. He looked at Caelthon as if searching his face for someone else.

  “He was... bright,” Aether said, the word catching in his throat. “He burned brighter than any fire I have ever seen.”

  He looked down at his own hands, then back at the student who wore his emblem—Macus.

  “He was the best of us. And he paid a price none of us could.”

  Aether turned and went back inside the apothecary. Macus just stared at the empty doorway, calculating the weight of the silence his master left behind.