The chamber was still heavy with silence when Alatar finally stood. His legs, stiff from two and a half decades folded against stone, did not tremble. His body had changed in that silence. His breath was longer, slower. His movements carried a quiet certainty born not of arrogance but of stillness lived long enough to leave an imprint. The ash drifted around him as though reluctant to part with the rhythm they had known for twenty-five years.
He gathered them with a thought, and for the first time in decades, Alatar turned his steps toward the doors.
They creaked open reluctantly, as though unused to being disturbed, spilling a faint echo into the corridors beyond. The sanctum's halls had not changed—the cold walls of carved obsidian, the faint, unyielding light flowing from crystalline sconces—but his eyes saw them differently now. He walked slowly, the weight of his years of silence pressing against his back like an unseen mantle.
It was Barachas who found him.
The elder was seated in one of the sanctum's high corridors, his vast frame draped across a stone bench that seemed too small for him. His expression was as calm as it always was, though his eyes brightened when he saw Alatar approach.
"You return," Barachas said, voice deep enough to stir the still air. "And not empty-handed, I think."
Alatar inclined his head. His voice cracked when he first tried to use it; the sound startled even him. It took a long breath before words emerged smooth again.
"I have… seen something," Alatar said. "In the ash. An application. Not form alone, but purpose. I know what I want of it."
Barachas rose slowly, folding his arms. "After twenty-five years, you speak not of power claimed but of direction sought. That pleases me. Tell me, Alatar—what shape does your will now see?"
They began walking together through the halls, Alatar matching his slower pace to Barachas's steady stride. The sanctum's corridors stretched in long, echoing arcs, their steps sounding faint beneath the towering arches.
Alatar spoke. He did not embellish. He recounted his silence, his years of simply sitting—letting the ash drift like snow while his body and mind held still. He spoke of how his thoughts had unraveled and reformed, how he ceased trying to command the ash and instead listened to it, how time had ceased to mean anything after the first decade.
"At first, I sought control," Alatar admitted, eyes lingering on the faint carvings in the walls—sigils long faded, whose meaning he could not yet decipher. "I wanted smoothness, refinement, absolute obedience from the ash. But the longer I sat, the more I saw that control is a shadow of understanding. When I let them move, when I ceased to speak to them, I saw their nature more clearly than I ever did when commanding. They are part of me, yet they carry their own weight, their own… rhythm."
Barachas's lips curved faintly, the closest he came to a smile. "Good. Many waste lifetimes trying to master what they never pause to know. You have done what few can—wait."
Alatar nodded once, his gaze distant. "And in waiting, I found what I want of them. Not merely to bind or to destroy, but… to express. To shape what I am into what they can be. The idea is still raw. But I see the path, Barachas. I see the beginning."
They came to a wide hall where the ceiling arched into a dome, a mural etched in faint silver above. It depicted no figure, no face—only abstract swirls of line and shape, like frozen motion. Alatar stopped beneath it, his ash whispering faintly as if remembering their long dance in silence.
Barachas turned to him fully. His presence was like stone—immovable, vast, patient. "Tell me of the path."
Alatar closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling. The memory of twenty-five years of stillness pressed against him, urging him to speak not in haste but with care.
"I will not reveal the details," Alatar said finally, voice steady. "They are not ready to be spoken. But I know this: the ash will not remain as simple extension. They will carry my will not as command but as essence. I will not bend them like a tool. I will let them become what I envision, each particle an echo of intent. From there, form will follow—forms greater than shapes, structures, ideas."
Barachas regarded him long, eyes unreadable. Then he inclined his head once.
"You speak of weight, not play. That is good. Power without direction is a torch in dry grass—it burns bright, then dies in ashes of its own making. But power with weight… that becomes foundation."
Alatar turned toward him, searching his face. "Do you think it possible? To imbue them not with obedience but with self?"
Barachas's answer came slowly, as though each word bore centuries of reflection.
"Possible? Perhaps. Dangerous? Certainly. When you press your essence into what is not flesh, you risk losing the distinction. Many have tried to create extensions of themselves and found only hollowness when they returned to their own skin. But—" His voice grew firm, resonant. "You have already done what most never manage. You sat for twenty-five years without losing yourself. If you survived stillness, you may survive expression."
Silence stretched between them, deep but not heavy. Alatar's eyes wandered back to the mural above, silver lines glinting faintly in the light. They seemed to shift as he looked, as though hinting at movement he could not yet grasp.
"I will return to the chamber," Alatar said at last. His voice carried quiet resolve. "It is not yet time to test recklessly. First, I will refine. I will learn to hold the idea steady, to temper it until it does not waver."
Barachas nodded once, approving. "Good. Fire too eager burns itself out. Temper, Alatar. Let your idea rest in your hands until it no longer trembles. Then test."
Alatar's lips curved, the faintest shadow of a smile. "You sound almost proud."
For a moment, Barachas's stern face softened, though only slightly. "I am. Not of what you wield, but of what you have endured. Twenty-five years of silence would break most. You emerged with clarity. That is worthy."
The words struck something deep in Alatar. For all his composure, for all the weight of time he had borne, he felt something stir at the recognition—an ember long buried, flaring softly.
He inclined his head, his voice quiet but firm. "Then I will not waste it. Tomorrow, I return to the chamber."
Barachas placed one massive hand on his shoulder, heavy as stone, steady as the earth. "Good. I will watch. Not to shield you—your path is your own—but to see what you make of it."
The contact lingered for only a moment, but it was enough. A silent acknowledgment. A bridge between elder and student, between stone and ash.
When Alatar left the hall, his steps no longer echoed with hesitation. They carried the weight of twenty-five years distilled into resolve. The chamber awaited, and within it, the long silence would give way—not to noise, but to something shaped, refined, and soon tested.