Mourncrest Manor felt colder when they returned.
Not in temperature.
In absence.
The market's noise vanished behind the closing gates. No vendors argued beneath colored awnings. No cooking smoke curled through the air. No stranger laughed loud enough to make an entire street turn.
Only polished corridors remained.
Silent servants.
Locked doors.
Tamura looked over his shoulder once.
Then twice.
Half expecting Vayrik to appear behind them with another ridiculous observation.
"You miss him already," Mugen said.
Tamura nearly jumped. "No."
"You do."
"I don't."
"You absolutely do."
Tamura frowned. "He was strange."
"He was annoying."
"He bought us food."
Mugen paused. "That is his only defense."
They entered the talents' dining hall expecting questions.
Freya met them at the door, seized Mugen by the chin, and turned his face toward the light.
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
"You look irritated."
"I always look irritated."
"More than usual."
Tamura stepped around them and reached for the nearest covered dish.
Freya slapped his hand away without looking. "Sit."
"I'm hungry."
"You ate half the market," Mugen said.
"I did not."
"You frightened a food vendor."
"He was already frightened."
"Because of you."
Aylin sat at the far side of the table, silver hair falling around the stripes at her temples. She watched their argument above the rim of her cup. The smallest smile tugged at her mouth.
Tamura noticed.
She immediately hid it.
For a little while, dinner felt ordinary.
Mugen complained about dishonest merchants. Tamura complained about vegetables. Freya complained about both of them and added more vegetables to their plates as punishment. Aylin listened in the peaceful way she did everything, speaking only when Freya asked her a direct question.
No nobles watched from the walls.
No instructors measured their responses.
They were not talents, investments, or property.
They were children eating together.
The illusion lasted until Tamura looked at the empty chair.
Tasheen's chair remained where it had always been.
Nobody had moved it.
Nobody sat there.
The bearkin had once occupied more space than the chair could hold. He ate loudly, argued louder, and complained whenever Tamura reached for the meat on his plate. Now the untouched wood seemed larger than he had ever been.
Tamura's appetite vanished.
His spoon lowered.
Conversation died around the table.
Freya noticed first. She always did.
"Eat," she said.
"I'm not hungry."
"That is a terrible lie."
Tamura stared at the empty chair. "What if he comes back?"
Nobody answered.
The silence told him enough.
Tasheen had worn a Mourncrest crest when they took him. After that, questions received punishment instead of answers.
Mugen tore a piece from his bread. "If he comes back and learns you stopped eating, he'll call you weak."
Freya nodded. "Then he will steal your food."
"He would try," Tamura muttered.
"He would succeed," Mugen said.
Tamura glared at him.
Aylin pushed the dish of meat closer to Tamura.
He looked at her. She did not look back.
Slowly, he picked up his spoon.
Not because he felt hungry.
Because remembering someone should not mean surrendering the parts of you they would have mocked.
Later, Freya led them into the small courtyard reserved for the talents. The night was cool and clear. Stars filled the sky above the high manor walls, distant enough that Mourncrest could not cage them.
They sat beneath a tree whose leaves glowed pale blue after sunset. Freya brought blankets. Mugen pretended he did not need one and stole half of Tamura's when the temperature dropped.
For a while, no one spoke.
Tamura remembered Vayrik's question.
What would make you happy?
His answer had sounded simple at the market.
Here, inside the walls, it felt impossible.
"What are you thinking about?" Freya asked.
"The future."
Mugen laughed. "What future?"
Freya kicked his ankle.
"Ow."
"You deserved it."
Tamura ignored them. "I want a house."
Freya leaned back against the tree. "What kind?"
"A big one."
"How big?"
Tamura looked toward the manor's dark windows. He imagined every one of them open. No guards in the halls. No locked rooms beneath the ground.
"Big enough for everyone."
The others understood.
Every talent.
Every servant child.
Every person Mourncrest had purchased, threatened, or taken.
Mugen pulled the blanket higher. "That isn't a house."
"It can be."
"No. That's a village."
Tamura thought about it. "A village is better."
"A village needs food, walls, water, and people who know what they're doing."
"Freya knows things."
Freya smiled. "A few."
"You can read numbers," Tamura told Mugen.
"An inspiring contribution."
"And I can hunt."
"You tried to bite a Rune Howler."
"It worked."
Mugen had no answer to that.
Aylin surprised them by speaking.
"Would there be animals?"
Everyone turned.
The tigerkin drew her knees closer, suddenly uncertain beneath their attention.
Tamura nodded at once. "Lots."
"What kind?"
"Any kind you want."
Aylin considered the offer with the seriousness of a queen negotiating territory.
"No Howlers."
Mugen snorted.
Freya laughed first. Tamura followed. Even Aylin's quiet smile returned.
The sound rose into the branches.
For a single moment, the village existed.
Not in stone or wood, but between four children who had decided there might be a life beyond the walls.
High above them, Vayra watched from a balcony.
She saw Mugen challenge Tamura without driving him away. She saw Freya guide them with a gentleness no instructor had managed. She saw Aylin calm the group simply by being present.
They were forming bonds.
Attachments.
Weaknesses.
Useful things, if handled correctly.
Potential alone meant little. Unrefined power was noise: dangerous, wasteful, temporary. To create something valuable, Mourncrest followed an older process.
Separate.
Starve.
Test.
Reward.
Repeat until obedience felt like relief.
Most children broke beneath pain.
The exceptional ones endured it.
So Mourncrest gave them hope first.
Hope created a shape inside the mind. A future. A home. A person waiting beyond the next punishment.
Once that shape existed, it could be threatened.
Vayra watched Tamura laugh beneath the glowing tree.
The two-year refinement program had claimed stronger children than him. It had turned princes into servants and rebels into weapons. Tamura's regeneration would make the process more difficult.
It would also allow Mourncrest to go further.
Her gaze shifted to Mugen.
The restraint was already beside the flame.
Neither understood its purpose.
Vayra turned away from the balcony.
"Begin before dawn," she told the guard waiting inside.
The man bowed. "All four?"
"Separate rooms. Different routes. Let none of them see where the others are taken."
Below, the children continued planning a village they had never seen.
Across the city, Vayrik stood on the roof of an abandoned bell tower and watched Mourncrest's distant lights.
His careless smile was gone.
He had seen additional guards enter through the servants' gate. He recognized the gray-robed crestwright among them. Two covered wagons waited in the rear courtyard.
"Two years," he murmured.
He could interfere tonight.
He could kill guards, open doors, and carry perhaps two children beyond the walls before the alarm spread.
Then Mourncrest would move the others.
And the city would call him the criminal.
Vayrik closed his eyes.
Power was not the same as freedom. He had learned that lesson too late.
When he opened them again, the first wagon was moving.
"You're going to hate every second of it," he whispered.
The glowing windows passed beneath him.
"I only hope you survive long enough to hate me too."