The wind swept through the village like a restless whisper, carrying dust and the scent of gunpowder.
Gunshots echoed in the distance — the war had never ceased.
The sun hung high and unyielding over the walls that had turned the place into a fortress.
Eight months since Éreon fell into silence.
Éon walked through the center of the village, now overtaken by barricades, runes, and armed sentinels.Beside him, Marcus watched everything with a heavy brow.
"Eight and a half months," Marcus murmured. "Blackthrone keeps sending assassins. The Democrats are mobilizing troops along the borders. Two empires have gone to war. And they say altars have ignited… and that gods walk again.We're surrounded by enemies… and by uncertainty."
Éon didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on the old tavern — or what was left of it.
An invisible barrier pulsed there, alive, breathing, like the heart of something furious and dormant.No one crossed. No one dared to touch it.
"I know what weighs on you," Éon said, his voice low. "But until he returns… we won't move a step."
Marcus let out a long breath.
"In all my life — aside from the day we saw the gods — I've never felt anything like it. Such destructive power. Doesn't even seem like the same one who saved this place."
Silence...
The barrier vibrated — quiet, yet hungry.
"Good thing those creatures were bound to him," Marcus murmured as he stepped away. "If not for them keeping that thing contained… we'd be dead."
Éon stayed. Motionless.As if waiting for a sign.
"Luck… or destiny?" he whispered.
The barrier pulsed. Hard. Like a heart awakening.
Pain came first — sharp, absolute.
Her name still echoed inside him when the world tore apart.
Fire, blood, the scream… everything shattered like glass under divine pressure.
Time collapsed.
Sound.
Light.
Silence.
An invisible force pulled Éreon backward, as if fate itself ripped him from death and hurled him across centuries.
Memories fractured.
Voices whispered forgotten names.
One last vision: Medeia's golden eyes, glowing with a longing no god could erase.
Then — nothing.
Only darkness.
And a warm weight upon his chest.
The world began again.
Sound first: a distant echo, muffled, like the world breathing behind a wall of stone.
Then, the weight.
Something pressed against Éreon's chest — light, warm, beating with the rhythm of two small hearts.
Slowly, sight returned.
Light filtered through cracks in the vault.
Dust danced.
The cold scent of ancient stone.
He blinked.
Two faces rested upon him.
A girl and a boy.
Both with black, tousled hair, strands stuck to pale skin by sleep.
Time seemed to hold its breath.
The children stirred, slowly.
Eyelids fluttered.
Their eyes opened.
A purple — a cold, pulsating glow, like fire burning in silence.
For an instant, their pupils narrowed like those of a serpent — cold, ancient, sharp as blades.
But with a quick blink, the strange light vanished, and their eyes were once again those of ordinary children, innocent, as if nothing had happened.
Éreon remained still, his gaze fixed upon them.
The girl watched him calmly, head slightly tilted, as though studying a face long forgotten in a dream.
The boy held his tunic, small fingers firm, unafraid.
The sound of dust falling.
A ray of light slid across the floor and stopped upon the children's faces.
And then Éreon realized: the chamber was the same where he had fallen… but time was not.
Something had brought him back. And fate, it seemed, had not brought him alone.
Silence stretched — heavy, almost sacred.
Éreon tried to inhale — the air entered rough, aged, as though it had crossed centuries before reaching his lungs.
His chest burned, and he choked, the pain familiar… yet distant, like a memory trapped within flesh.
His fingers trembled when he tried to raise his hand.
Nothing.
Only a faint shudder — as if the world itself were still deciding whether to accept him back.
The children stared, unblinking.
No fear. No doubt.
As if they knew he would awaken.
As if they had been waiting.
The girl stepped closer — violet eyes, far too deep.
Too young for the weight of such a gaze.
The boy slowly released the tunic but didn't retreat.
His fingers slid across the stone beside him, tracing an ancient rune —a rune Éreon didn't remember existing there before.
The room had cracks where once there were none.
Moss covered stones that had once been smooth.
And on the walls, marks — scratches, ancient symbols.
How many years?
How many worlds?
The question rose, not on his lips… but within his chest.
The girl tilted her head, as if listening to something he couldn't hear. Then, with a small, fragile voice — yet unnervingly clear — she whispered:
"You have returned."
The word reverberated through the stone like a muffled bell.
Éreon blinked, trying to form sound.
Nothing came.
The boy rested his forehead on his shoulder.
A simple, human gesture — but filled with a strange melancholy devotion, like one embracing a forgotten monument.
Outside, something changed.
A faint vibration.
The stone beneath them breathed.
And, far away, the world seemed to hold its breath.
A crack split the air.
The runes trembled.
The barrier flared — not destroyed, but… open.
Like an eyelid lifting after an ancient sleep.
Two guards turned at once — instinctive, predatory.
"…Did you feel that?" one murmured.
The ground vibrated beneath their boots.
A bracelet of runes lit up on the other's arm — white, frantic light.
"He's… coming back."
Silence.
Fear.
Reverence.
Inside.
The air shifted.Dust fell like silent snow.
The children's eyes did not blink.
Éreon felt — for the first time — his body choosing him back.
A finger moved.
Then another.
Every muscle seemed to be born in that instant.
The boy stepped back only half a step, as one makes way for a king to rise — or for a god to remember his name.
The girl touched the floor with her fingertips — activating another rune.
Ancient.
Familiar.
Medeia had once drawn that mark.
The girl awakened the rune.The stone answered with a slow, deep, living glow.
Éreon's chest burned — a slash of air, a blade cutting through memory and flesh.
His throat moved.
A hoarse sound escaped.
And for the first time since fate tore him from the world, his voice broke the silence:
"Ho... —" the sound faltered, rasped."How… did you get here?"
The children looked at him — serene, as if expecting that exact question.
But before any answer could exist, the world quaked.
A low tremor reverberated through the stone.
The barrier outside cracked, silent lightning tracing across its surface.
Then — it fell.
It didn't explode.
It didn't shatter.
It opened.
Like the sigh of the universe, like an ancient eye awakening.
Muffled screams reached him — distant voices, confused, exultant.
The girl laid her hand upon his chest, light gesture, almost reverent.
The boy yawned silently, as if the moment were the most natural thing in the world, and lay back down on Éreon's shoulder, closing his eyes.
His body responded — muscles reclaiming existence, life returning drop by drop.
Éreon drew a long breath — slow, controlled.
He gathered himself.
His voice now firm, low, but carrying the weight of ages:
"Stay. Rest."
The girl nodded.
The boy only nestled again, a small, weary guardian before the return of his king.
Éreon rose.
Each step seemed to tear veils between worlds.
The corridor ahead was the same — and not.
Old stone, new breath.
Air heavy with restrained power.
He crossed through.
The light outside received him.
Silence.
Then — like a breaking wave —
every knee touched the ground.
Éon stood there, head bowed — not in submission, but in respect, equal to equal.
Behind him, the entire village — men, women, warriors, healers — all bowed.
Some trembled.
Others wept.
All knew.
The tavern — now a temple of stone and silence — had opened its doors.
And Éreon had returned.