There are a lot of things they don't tell you when you leave home for eight years.
Like how the smell of the old pinewood halls still lingers, how the same creaky floorboard outside your room still groans like a dying goat, and how your older brother's face somehow got even more punchable with age.
We arrived just past dusk. The carriage ride was long, bumpy, and about as comfortable as hugging a pile of rocks. I stepped out, dusted the snow off my cloak, and took a long look at the Caspian estate.
Still big. Still broody. Still very much the same.
Julius was waiting with that same cold, unreadable expression he always wore. Nine years older than me and still acting like he was born with a stick up his spine. Fire affinity, golden boy of the Caspian family, blah blah blah. He didn't even smile when he saw me.
"You've grown," he said.
"So have your eyebrows," I replied.
Arno, still as stiff and terrifying as ever, gave a small cough. Translation: Behave.
We walked in. The estate was warm but distant, like a rich person's funeral. Servants scurried around. I recognized maybe three of them from back then. Everyone else looked at me like I was a ghost. Maybe I was.
They gave me a welcome dinner. Yay.
Father wasn't there. Apparently off handling politics, or hunting shadow cultists, or whatever D-Rank family heads do these days.
Julius and I sat in near silence across the table. I ate roast lamb. He sipped wine like he was judging it for a competition. Every once in a while, he'd glance at me like I was a science experiment that hadn't exploded yet.
"You stayed quiet all these years," he finally said.
"And you talk like you swallowed a law book."
He didn't laugh. Of course he didn't.
Later that night, I was shown to my room. It was the same one. They hadn't changed a thing. Bed in the corner. Bookshelf half-filled. Desk by the window. Dust on everything like the room had been waiting for me, like even the cobwebs were loyal.
I flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Eight years.
Eight years of training in a snow-covered stronghold under Elder Thorn, who spoke like a retired librarian and hit like a runaway ox. Eight years of memorizing formations, etiquette, sword forms I wasn't allowed to use, and other things I can't mention unless you want this memoir to be classified.
And not once—not once—did I hear the voice. The thing inside me, the so-called mythical beast, had gone silent. Dead silent. Like it had packed its bags and gone on vacation.
Good riddance, I thought more times than I can count.
Now that I was back, nothing felt real. Not the walls. Not the people. Not the silence.
I turned on my side. Moonlight streamed through the window, casting pale light across the floor. I closed my eyes.
Then I heard it.
My eyes snapped open.
It wasn't a whisper. It wasn't a dream.
It was real.
The beast was back.