The first lesson was silence.
Seri led him away from Hometree, to a small clearing where a stream bubbled over glowing stones. She sat on a moss-covered rock and gestured for him to do the same.
"Listen," she said.
So he listened.
At first, he heard nothing but the stream and the distant calls of animals. But as he sat, as his breathing slowed and his mind quieted, other sounds emerged. The whisper of wind through leaves. The rustle of small creatures in the undergrowth. The hum of insects. The creak of branches rubbing together. The pulse of his own blood in his ears.
And beneath it all, something else. A low, constant vibration, like the world's deepest note, felt rather than heard.
"What is that?" he whispered.
"You feel it?" Seri's voice was surprised, almost suspicious. "The sky-people never feel it."
"I don't know what it is. But yes. I feel it."
She studied him for a long moment. "That is Eywa. The Great Mother. The connection between all living things. She is in the trees, the water, the air. She is in you, dream-walker, even if you don't know it."
Kaelen closed his eyes and tried to focus on the vibration. It was there, steady and constant, like a heartbeat. The planet's heartbeat, he thought. Or maybe my own. Maybe they're the same thing.
The second lesson was movement.
Seri led him through the forest at a pace that seemed casual to her but left him gasping. She leaped across gaps he would have crawled around. She climbed trees using handholds he couldn't see. She waded through streams without disturbing the water.
"You think too much," she said, watching him struggle across a log bridge. "Your body knows how to move. Your mind gets in the way."
"My mind has been in charge for thirty years," he panted. "It doesn't know how to shut up."
"Then teach it." She jumped down from the log, landing silently on the forest floor. "Feel the forest. Feel where it wants you to step. The ground will tell you, if you listen."
The third lesson was connection.
She took him to a grove of trees with glowing, vine-like tendrils hanging from their branches. "These are the roots of Eywa," she said. "They connect all things. Watch."
She reached out and touched one of the tendrils. It wrapped gently around her arm, and her eyes fluttered closed. For a moment, she seemed to be somewhere else entirely, her face peaceful, her breathing slow.
When she opened her eyes, they were wet with tears.
"What happened?" Kaelen asked.
"I spoke with my grandmother. She passed into Eywa when I was small. But she is still here, in the memories of the forest." She looked at him, and for the first time, her gaze held something other than suspicion. "Try."
Kaelen hesitated. Then he reached out and touched the tendril.
It was like being struck by lightning.
Images flooded his mind—not his memories, but hers. Seri as a child, laughing, running through the forest. An older woman—her grandmother—teaching her to shoot a bow. A ceremony, fires burning, drums pounding, the whole clan connected in song. And then darkness. Sorrow. A funeral. Seri's face, streaked with tears, placing her hand on her grandmother's chest as the woman's eyes closed for the last time.
He pulled away, gasping.
"How..." He couldn't find words.
"Eywa remembers," Seri said softly. "Everything. Everyone. Every joy and every sorrow. She holds us even after we leave this world."
Kaelen stared at the tendril, still pulsing with soft light. For the first time since arriving on Verath, he understood that he wasn't just on a planet. He was in something. Something vast and ancient and alive.
And he realized, with a shock that went deeper than words, that he wanted to stay.