The forest was not a place for children.
It never had been.
The air was thick, heavy with moisture and the constant scent of wet earth and old leaves. There were no marked paths, no signs, no human voices. Only insects, wind… and the lingering feeling that something was always watching.
Lucan no longer walked like someone who was lost.
He moved like someone who belonged there.
"You're stepping too hard," Eldric said without looking at him.
Lucan rolled his eyes.
"I wasn't."
Eldric lifted an eyebrow slightly.
"Three branches. Two dry leaves. One loose stone."
Lucan looked back at the ground behind him… and scoffed.
"No one would hear that."
Eldric finally looked at him. His face always seemed carved from stone, but his eyes missed nothing.
"I did."
Silence.
Lucan clenched his jaw, then returned to a stealth posture. This time, he moved more carefully.
It wasn't the first time they had repeated this exercise. Not the tenth. Not the hundredth.
But something had changed.
Lucan no longer got frustrated like before. He no longer argued out of pride. Now he argued… out of habit.
"What if the enemy is deaf?" Lucan muttered.
"Then they'll smell your fear," Eldric replied.
Lucan smirked.
"I don't smell like fear."
"Not yet."
Lucan vaguely remembered his first day with Eldric.
He had thought it would be a test.
He had tried to attack him from behind with a stick.
Eldric disarmed him effortlessly, threw him to the ground, and said:
"Good. At least you didn't run."
He didn't ask his age.
He didn't ask where he came from.
He didn't ask if he was afraid.
He only said:
"If you stay, you train. If you train, you survive."
Lucan stayed.
He didn't ask questions as he followed Eldric along the stone path between the mountains. The air was thin and cold, and silence felt more natural there than words.
He expected orders. He expected pain. He expected someone to tell him how close he was to breaking.
Eldric stopped in front of a dark wooden cabin built into the mountainside, as if the mountain had accepted it reluctantly.
"Inside," he said.
Lucan obeyed.
Inside there was only the bare minimum: a table, two chairs, a bed, a stone hearth, and blankets folded with almost military precision. No instruments. No markings on the floor. Nothing that looked like a training ground.
Eldric placed a bowl on the table.
"Eat."
Lucan looked at the food as if it were part of a test.
"What do I do after?" he asked.
Eldric watched him for a second.
"You sleep."
Lucan blinked.
"That's it?"
"You're not dying tonight," Eldric replied, removing his cloak. "That's a good start."
Lucan didn't understand why those words tightened something in his chest.
That was his first lesson.
No one here was going to measure how much he could endure before collapsing. Here, first… he had to stay alive.
Training began at dawn the next day.
No speeches. No warnings.
Eldric led him to a clearing between gray rocks where the wind passed like a constant whisper.
Eldric threw the first punch without warning.
It wasn't strong.
It wasn't lethal.
But it was real.
Lucan reacted too late.
The impact knocked him onto his back, knocking the wind out of him with a dry thud. He rolled by instinct, scrambling to get back up as if staying on the ground were the most dangerous thing in the world.
Eldric stepped forward.
Lucan didn't ask him to stop.
He didn't complain.
He didn't get angry.
He didn't ask what he had done wrong.
He stood up.
Guard high. Breath controlled. Eyes alert… but not afraid.
That made Eldric frown slightly.
Most children, after their first real hit, hesitated. They got angry. Frustrated. Complained about the pain or the unfairness.
Lucan didn't.
Lucan braced himself as if the hit had been expected. As if the world had always worked this way.
Eldric attacked again, faster this time.
Lucan blocked poorly. The impact jolted his arm. It hurt. A lot.
He didn't look at his arm.
He didn't step back.
He adjusted his stance.
Eldric stopped.
"Who taught you to get up so fast?" he asked.
Lucan took a second before answering.
"No one."
It wasn't pride.
It wasn't defiance.
It was a fact.
Eldric watched him silently for a few seconds longer.
He didn't ask what had happened before he arrived.
He didn't ask who had hit him first in his life.
But he understood.
This wasn't a child learning to endure pain.
This was a child who already knew that falling wasn't the problem.
Staying down was.
"Show me," Eldric said.
And this time, his gaze was different.
Not softer.
More attentive.
Lucan hesitated.
No one had ever asked him to use his power without restraints, without instruments, without fear in their eyes.
He clenched his fists.
The air behind his back vibrated. The seal beneath his clothes burned like a freshly opened scar. The stones around him trembled slightly.
The energy came out uneven, heavy, as if space itself were struggling to breathe.
Lucan lost balance and dropped to his knees.
He waited for shouting.
He waited for orders.
He waited for someone to grab him.
None of that happened.
"Again," Eldric said.
Lucan lifted his head, confused.
"You're not trying to extinguish it," Eldric continued. "Learn to stay on your feet while it exists."
That was his second lesson.
It wasn't about becoming normal.
It was about not breaking while being different.
That night, they sat by the fire.
Lucan spun a stick between his fingers.
"Have you ever been to a big city?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"It's loud."
"That's it?"
"Too many people who don't know they're in danger."
Lucan frowned.
"I want to see the world someday."
Eldric didn't answer immediately.
The fire crackled.
"Seeing it isn't hard," he said at last. "Surviving in it is."
Lucan lowered his gaze to the flames.
"I still want to see it."
Eldric didn't say no.
But he didn't say yes either.
As months passed, Lucan showed something Eldric had never seen before.
He was kind.
He helped without being asked. Brought extra firewood. Fixed small things. Asked gentle questions, as if afraid of bothering the world just by existing in it.
But when training turned serious…
He changed.
One afternoon, a ledge gave way under his feet during a climb. Rock broke loose with a sharp crack.
Lucan didn't scream.
He didn't panic.
His expression emptied. His movements became precise, economical, exact. He pushed toward a stable outcrop, grabbed it with one hand, and stabilized his breathing as if fear were an unnecessary luxury.
When he returned to the ground, Eldric watched him in silence.
"You didn't get scared," he said.
Lucan brushed dust off his clothes.
"That wouldn't have helped."
Eldric held his gaze a second longer than usual.
Lucan didn't lose control.
He stepped away from himself… and kept only what was necessary.
From that day on, Eldric watched him more closely.
Time passed.
Lucan could now hold eye contact during sparring. He no longer stepped back on reflex. He no longer closed his eyes when a strike came toward his face.
But the most notable thing… wasn't that.
It was the shift.
Normally, Lucan talked. Asked questions. Made jokes.
"If I die, can I blame you?"
"No."
"That's unfair."
Or…
"When I get strong, I'm going to beat you."
"No."
"One day."
"No."
But in combat…
He disappeared.
His expression emptied.
His breathing slowed.
His movements became precise.
No anger.
No fear.
No emotion.
Only decision.
Eldric had noticed months ago.
That kind of mind wasn't common. Not in someone so young.
It wasn't talent.
It was something deeper.
Something dangerous.
Not everything was training.
Sometimes they went down to small villages where no one asked questions if you paid quietly and left the same way.
Lucan watched people like he was studying another species. Children running. Merchants arguing over coins. Elderly people sitting in the sun.
"They're loud," he muttered once.
"They're alive," Eldric replied.
Lucan didn't know what to say to that.
People, without knowing why, tended to step slightly aside when he walked past. Not open fear. Instinctive discomfort.
Lucan noticed. He never mentioned it.
Their relationship wasn't warm.
But it was steady.
Eldric never asked if he was hungry. He just served food.
He never said "well done." He said "again."
If Lucan got hurt, he treated him in silence, with firm hands and precise movements.
One night, sitting by the fire, Lucan spoke without looking at him.
"Did they send me away because I'm dangerous?"
The crackling fire filled the space before the answer came.
"No," Eldric said at last. "They sent you away because they were afraid."
Lucan lowered his gaze.
There was a difference.
And for the first time, someone had told him that.
Sometimes, letters arrived.
Few. Brief. No unnecessary details.
Alaric.
Eldric handed them to him without comment. Lucan read them by the fire, in silence.
They didn't talk about the past.
But they always ended the same way:
"Keep training. Stay alive."
Lucan replied in clumsy handwriting at first, firmer as the years passed.
"I'm not dead yet."
Eldric once read that line over his shoulder.
"How inspiring."
Lucan glanced at him sideways.
"Don't strain yourself praising me."
Eldric snorted. For him, that was almost a laugh.
Years passed.
Lucan grew.
Taller. Stronger. More stable.
The seal no longer reacted like an open wound, but like something deep… latent. Not gentler. But more coherent.
One night, while the wind battered the cabin walls, someone knocked on the door.
Three knocks.
Eldric opened it.
A messenger cloaked for travel extended a sealed cylinder. He didn't speak. Didn't wait. He immediately left down the mountain path.
Eldric broke the seal and read in silence.
Then he looked up at Lucan, who was watching from the table.
"What happened?"
Eldric calmly rolled the message closed.
"It's time."
"Time for what?"
Eldric held his gaze.
"To go back."
Lucan felt something strange in his chest.
Excitement.
Nerves.
Fear.
Something close to… destiny.
The fire crackled between them.
And for the first time since he had arrived in the mountains…
The world began to move again.
End of Chapter 2