The salt-heavy air of the Mirveren coast didn't bite with the chill of the city; instead, it wrapped around August like a phantom shroud, smelling of ancient depths and forgotten things. He found a jagged outcropping of rock that overlooked the churning surf and collapsed onto it, his legs feeling like lead.
From this distance, the lights of Mirveren looked like a scattered handful of amber jewels thrown against the velvet dark of the rising night. Somewhere in that cluster was a building with a swinging sign that bore his father's name—a building that felt more like a tombstone every passing hour. He sat there, his chin resting on his knees, staring out at the horizon where the sea met the sky in an indistinguishable line of indigo.
In that silence, August allowed himself to dream. He wished for a Renaissance, a rebirth of the stone and timber that made up Bruno's Tavern. He didn't just want to save a business; he wanted to transform it. He imagined a place where the chaos of the kitchen was replaced by the cold, beautiful precision of a clockwork machine—a culinary institute where logic reigned supreme. But the dream felt like smoke in his hands. He was a boy with a ledger and no legacy, a mathematician without a formula for hope. His mind drifted, floating on the tides of "what if" and "if only," lost in the vastness of his own inadequacy.
Then, the world changed.
At first, August thought it was a trick of the moonlight on the foam. A ripple moved against the current, a silhouette emerging from the breaking waves. But as the figure approached the shore, August's breath hitched in his throat. It was a child, perhaps no older than ten, walking out of the depths as if the ocean floor were a paved garden path.
The most jarring detail was not the child's presence, but his state: he was bone dry. As he stepped onto the sand, his skin didn't reflect the dull light of the moon; it seemed to generate its own. A soft, rhythmic shimmer pulsed beneath his skin, a golden-white glow that made the surrounding pebbles cast long, dancing shadows.
August scrambled backward, his hands scraping against the rough stone of his perch. He rubbed his eyes so hard he saw spots of red, but when he opened them, the boy was still there, trotting across the sand with a playful, light-footed energy.
Hey! August shouted, his voice cracking with a mixture of fear and confusion. Hey kid! Stop right there! Where have you been? It's nearly dark—the tide is coming in! Do your parents know you're out here?
The boy stopped at the base of the rock and looked up. He didn't look like a drowning victim or a lost local. His face was serene, his eyes holding a depth that seemed to mirror the very ocean he had just exited. He wore a simple tunic that looked woven from starlight itself. Instead of answering the frantic questions, the boy simply smiled. It was a warm, radiant expression that hit August's chest like a physical wave of heat, melting the icy knot of anxiety that had lived there since his father's funeral.
I came here for you, the boy said. His voice wasn't high-pitched like a child's; it had a resonant, melodic quality that seemed to vibrate in the air. I came to be with you. I know you are troubled, August. Do you need someone to talk to?
August felt flustered, his logical mind screaming in protest. A glowing child offering him a therapy session on a deserted beach? It was beyond bizarre. Was this a hallucination? Had the fumes of the scorched kitchen finally damaged his brain? Or was he already dead, and this was some strange gateway to the afterlife?
He pinched his arm. It hurt.
Hey, come on, the boy nudged, climbing up the rock with effortless grace and sitting beside August. Let's talk about it. It's heavy, isn't it? Carrying a mountain when you were built to measure the stars?
August stared at him, speechless for a moment. I… I don't even know who you are.
I'm Aeon, by the way, the boy said, swinging his legs over the edge of the cliff. What's your name?
The normalcy of the introduction amidst the supernatural glow settled August's nerves just enough for him to speak. I'm August, he replied, his voice small. It's… it's nice to meet you, Aeon.
Aeon kicked his heels against the stone. So, what's your deal, August? Why is the heir to the greatest tavern in Castellanza sitting on a rock looking like he's about to jump into the Maw?
The dam finally broke. Perhaps it was the kid's glowing presence or the sheer exhaustion of the day, but August began to speak. He told Aeon everything. He spoke of the suffocating weight of the Bruno name and the way the smells of the kitchen felt like a foreign language he couldn't translate. He described the merchant Giraud's purple-faced rage and the way the adventurers had looked at him—not as a person, but as a disappointment.
He detailed the math of it all: the dwindling gold, the empty tables, and the heartbreak of letting Michelle and Diane go. I'm a creature of equations, Aeon, August finished, his head hanging low. I see the world in numbers. I see the symmetry in the stars and the logic in the tides. But there is no logic in a stew. There is no geometry in a loaf of bread. I am trying to run a legacy built on 'feeling' with a brain built for 'fact.' It's a zero-sum game, and I'm losing.
Aeon listened with a gravity that belied his youthful appearance. When August finished, the boy looked out at the sea. That was so unfortunate, Aeon said softly. But you know what? You are looking at the problem from the wrong side of the equals sign.
August frowned. What do you mean?
You just have to see things based on your mindset, August. How you see things clearly in ways of your comprehension—that is your greatest weapon. You think your love for numbers is a barrier to the kitchen, but what if it is the key? You can use your way of seeing the world to view things you never knew would work.
How is that possible? August asked, leaning in despite his skepticism. Cooking is an art. It's about intuition.
Aeon turned to him, his glowing eyes locking onto August's. What you are capable of understanding might be the same way if you apply it to others. Your problems, the tavern, the food—it's all just another system of variables. If you can understand the math of the universe, can you not understand the math of a flavor?
I really don't get it, August admitted, his brow furrowed. Logic doesn't taste like rosemary. Equations don't satisfy a hungry merchant.
Aeon laughed, a sound like silver bells. You will get it soon enough. You think you are alone in this, August, but you will realize soon that there are also people in this world who care for you. People who are waiting for you to stop trying to be your father and start being the first August.
How can you know that? Who cares for a failing innkeeper?
Aeon didn't answer with words. Instead, he stood up and pointed his finger toward the horizon. Look, August. The sun is gone, but the light remains.
August turned his head, following the line of the boy's finger toward the final, thin sliver of gold on the edge of the world. For a split second, he was captivated by the perfect arc of the sun as it vanished beneath the waves. It was a moment of absolute mathematical beauty.
But when August turned back to ask another question, the space beside him was empty.
Aeon? August called out, his heart leaping into his throat. Aeon!
The boy was gone. There were no footprints in the sand below, no splash in the water. It was as if he had evaporated into the salt spray. August stood up, spinning in a circle, his cloak billowing around him. He felt a surge of panic. Was it a ghost? A god? A cruel trick of his mind?
Then, he saw it.
A small, floating orb of yellow light, no bigger than a marble, was hovering exactly where Aeon's heart had been. It was shimmering with an intensity that made August's eyes water. He tried to speak, to yell for help, but as he opened his mouth in a gasp of shock, the light moved.
It didn't drift; it launched.
The golden spark flew through the air with the speed of a falling star, heading straight for August's open mouth. He didn't even have time to raise his hands.
The light collided with the back of his throat—not with the heat of fire, but with the searing, electric sting of a thousand new ideas. August fell to his knees, clutching his throat as the glow slid down his esophagus and bloomed in his chest like an exploding sun.
He tried to scream, but no sound came out. His vision began to fracture. He didn't see the beach anymore; he saw lines of light. He saw the chemical composition of the salt air. He saw the thermal currents of the ocean as golden equations. The world was being rewritten in front of his eyes.
His heart hammered against his ribs—thump-thump, thump-thump—matching the rhythm of a complex fractal. He felt a surge of information so vast it felt like his skull might split open. It was the math of everything. The geometry of heat. The calculus of taste.
August collapsed onto the wet sand, his body twitching as the golden light settled into his very marrow. He lay there, gasping for air, as the darkness of the night finally claimed the shore.
What had the boy done to him? What was this burning clarity in his mind?
As the tide began to lick at his boots, August's eyes snapped open in the dark. They were no longer just brown. For a fleeting moment, they glowed with the cold, brilliant light of a dying star.
I need... I need a pen, he whispered into the wind.