After some time:-
Everyone stepped outside the small house,walking, smiling, happily with joy—towards the transportation gate set up in the back of house.
Butler was holding Elias hand, to guide him, like a father holding his toddler.
Every servant was walking painfully slowly, eyes glued to the ground like they were searching for dropped gold coins. Or maybe landmines.
Honestly, it looked less like a household escort and more like a military bomb squad on high alert.
Who knows where there might be an invisible barrier, or a missile from air or worse....a mole from the ground!!!...Nobody know....
Elias, whose aura had finally made its dramatic comeback—well, not fully, more like a "limited-time trial version" of 7th rank—watched them with mild amusement.
He could sense all their cautious little footsteps. And their breath-holding. And their mental panic.
He didn't say a word. Didn't wave them off.
Nope, he just let them go on with their paranoid procession.
It felt kind of nice, actually. Being treated like some fragile national treasure for once.
Even if that meant being walked to a portal like a toddler on his first day of school.
After what felt like thirty years of exaggerated caution and planning for best route, they reached the gate.
Ah, the gate. Too beautiful to describe.
It was glowing. Like—glowingly glowing the glow.
Sparkly, golden, majestic, the kind of thing you'd expect to find in a fairy tale or behind a final boss.
Definitely overkill.
"Not bad," Elias muttered under his breath, eyeing the glow with a raised brow.
This much is least, he is someone with status just below king....even now.
The servants all inhaled together, like they were bracing for launch.
One of them actually closed their eyes like it was a religious experience.
Then—step.
The group walked towards the portal... and the portal sucks them inside like wormhole.
The world immediately went zoom-mode.
Elias barely had time to think before—
WHOOSH!
Colors. Sounds. Wind. Velocity. A vague feeling of "what just happened?"
Teleportation, it turned out, was not gentle. Or maybe it is reasonable to be not as comfortable, it can't be.
It wasn't just "step in and arrive." It was more like:
> "STEP IN AND GET READY TO SPIN."
The capital arrived way too fast to be believable.
Elias stumbled slightly as they landed, trying to look composed but internally screaming,
> "What the hell, that was a lot. Or is it because I am much weaker now??.."
Elis thought with a constipated expression.
One servant swayed on his feet like he just got off a rollercoaster.
Another whispered, "Did anyone else feel like their stomach did a backflip?"
Butler was steady, holding Elias hand," There, there, don't act like you didn't expected this...hmmm??" He said witha light chuckle that barely reached with eyes while rubbing Elias hand.
The gate behind them slowly faded, and Elias finally exhaled.
"Cool," he muttered. "Let's never do that again."
Butler heard him and smiled while nodding.
----
Capital of Veirdan:-
Ahead was the Capital. Magneficient. The Capital Of Veirdan.
The capital was still the same,never changed. Not really. Elias could feel it.
Even after everything.
Even after he changed.
The sun still fell gently on the white marble spires. Banners still danced lazily in the breeze. The guards still stood tall at the gates, more for show than strength.
And in the middle of it all, a boy—young, pretty,still—walked forward with slow steps.
Blindfolded.
Wrapped in quiet.
Elias.
He hadn't sent a message ahead. He never did. But when he entered through the main gates, the guards recognized his presence before his voice.
The air shifted, just slightly, like the breath before a storm.
Then came the ripple—first one person turned, then another. Heads lifted. Voices quieted mid-sentence. Even the birds seemed to pause mid-flight.
Someone whispered, "It's him."
And suddenly, it wasn't just the guards who noticed.
The vendors stopped yelling prices. One accidentally dropped a whole basket of fruit. Kids froze mid-game, a ball rolling to a stop near Elias's boots.
He was back.
The people didn't run immediately. Not yet. They stared first. Stared like you do at a ghost you hoped would return but never dared to believe actually would.
And then one voice cracked through the silence, shrill and trembling with too much emotion to be steady:
"He's back! Return—he's really back!"
The dam broke.
"Everyone come out! He's here!"
"Lord! Lord has returned!"
They came rushing out—shoemakers still holding boots, bakers with flour-streaked hands, two women fighting over their children
" You witch,how dare you blame my kid?!!"
" Your child started it, that fool of a buy bullied my sweet one"
" Oh, Please!!! don't let me start."
They were going for each other's throat, while their kids were making out in the corner— All turned hearing their lords return, hurrying over, with wrinkled cloth and broom like hair.
Barber letting scissors fall while the customer came out witha cloth wrapped around nd his beard half shaved, a tiny boy dragging a blanket like he'd just woken up from a nap and wasn't sure if this was still a dream.
Elias froze in place, overwhelmed.
He hadn't expected… this.
He'd worried, just a little. What if they'd grown bitter while he was away? What if they'd forgotten him? Or worse, moved on?
But now, standing still as a stone, he only felt one thing: belonging.
He has finally to returned to his rightful place.
Everyone gathered in a matter of few seconds.
They didn't flood him exactly. Not like a mob.
No one dared touch him—not yet. They just stood near. Close enough to see him clearly, far enough not to burden him.
As if afraid that touching him would make him vanish again.
They didn't ask about the blindfold. Or thr illness. No one asked what happened in those years he was away.Not to burden. Not to hurt.
The first words came from a woman holding a child on her hip, eyes wide and trembling:
"You're here."
Elias smiled gently. "Yes," he replied, "I am."
It was like something in the town took a breath after holding it for far too long.
For the first time in what felt like lifetimes, their world aligned.
The air held still, as if afraid to break the moment. Their eyes, glassy with wonder, held no questions—only awe. No language could carry what shimmered in their gaze.
But it was clear: Elias was not merely a lord. He was the heartbeat they had missed, the prayer they whispered without knowing. Too kind for a sword, too tender for war,too precious than a jewel,too luminous to be called only human.
He was hope in the shape of a man—and somehow, impossibly, still theirs.
----
Then came the knights.