Rrejy's eyes scanned the room, his gaze darting from the open cage to the bird perched on Nard's shoulder, and finally resting on his wife, whose face was wet with tears of disbelief.
"Maria?" Rrejy asked, his voice tight with alarm as he stepped closer. "What's going on? Is he hurt?"
Maria pulled back slightly, her hands trembling as she held onto Rrejy's shoulders. A radiant, shaky smile broke through her tears as she looked at their son, then back to her husband.
"Rejy," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. "Look at him. Truly look at him."
Rrejy frowned, his confusion deepening. "He seems fine. What is it?"
"It's not just fine," Maria said, placing a hand over her own heart, then gesturing to Nard. "He healed it. Claire... the bird was broken, Rejy. Its wings were shattered when he found it."
Rrejy blinked, his brow furrowing as he looked at the bird, which chirped happily at Nard. "Healed it? That's impossible. He has no—"
"I checked, Rejy! I used 'Life Diagnostic'," Maria interrupted, her words tumbling out in a rush of excitement. "There is a mana ring, a perfect, glowing ring around his heart! Our son isn't just a healer; he's doing things even the great Aruzed couldn't do at his age. He's a genius."
Rrejy stood frozen, his fierce eyes widening as the weight of her words settled in. He looked down at Nard, who was watching them with wide, innocent eyes, completely unaware of the magnitude of what he had just achieved.
"A genius?" Rejy repeated, his voice barely a whisper. "But... we thought he would never touch mana again. After we sacrificed his affinity to save his life when he was born... I thought it was gone forever."
"I know, I thought so too," Maria smiled, pulling Nard into another fierce embrace. "But the light is back, Rejy. It never really left him."
Back to the present.....
The warmth of his mother's embrace still lingered, and for a split second, Nard's vision blurred. The laughter of that room faded, replaced by the howling, freezing wind of a day he tried to forget.
He was young—too young—but the memory was etched into him like a scar.
It hadn't been a normal day. The village had been quiet, unnervingly still, until the shadow fell over their home. A beast, a towering nightmare of jagged fur and malice, had descended from the northern mountains. It didn't hunt; it had come with a singular, hungry focus: his father.
Nard remembered the smell of ozone and burnt earth as Rrejy, his father, stood his ground, his tier 3 magic flickering weakly against a creature that belonged in nightmares. He was outmatched. The beast swiped, a claw of obsidian and frost tearing through the air, aimed straight for Rrejy's heart.
"No!"
His mother's scream still echoed in his ears. Maria hadn't hesitated. She didn't have time to weave a protective barrier, not one strong enough to hold back a calamity from the North. She had rushed forward, channeling every ounce of mana her soul possessed.
The light that erupted from her wasn't the soft, healing glow Nard saw in his memories or the diagnostic light she used today. This light was blinding, violent, and absolute. She poured her essence into a single, desperate strike, a barrier of pure life force that slammed into the monster.
The beast shrieked as it dissolved, but the cost was absolute.
Nard had watched, frozen in terror, as his mother's radiant hair turned brittle and grey. The light around her dimmed, then shattered like glass. She had collapsed, her breathing slowing, her hand reaching out for Rrejy one last time before the silence took her. She had saved his father, but she had burned her own life away in the process.
Suddenly, the dead bird he was holding twitched. The memory shattered, the sudden movement pulled him back to the present.
"Nard?"
The boy blinked, the freezing winds of dawn receding to leave him back in the warmth of the sunrise at the entrance of the cave. He looked up, his eyes half-close and shimmering with a reflection of that distant, tragic light.