It was the hour of pause.
The sun filtered lazily through the tall windows of the eastern wing, gilding the pages scattered across the old wooden table. The scent of warm tea and toasted bread mingled with the ever-present aroma of dried ink and medicinal herbs that hung like an invisible shroud over Elise's home.
Elian sat hunched over his personal grimoire, fingers still stained with ink, his gaze lost in the morning's notes. Beside him, Elise wrote in the treatment ledger — her handwriting firm and clean, like someone who had recorded more deaths than a gravedigger.
Until a few days ago, Elian could barely write. He read with difficulty — letters taught by his mother between one harvest and another — but forming sentences felt like trying to cross a river with no bridge. His script was shaky, uneven, as if the quill resisted the paper at every stroke.
But something had awakened that week.
Perhaps it was the lingering memory of a previous life, where books were tools and knowledge was survival. Perhaps it was the weight of urgency. Whatever it was, between smudges, mistakes, and attempts, Elian had begun to write with a speed that surprised even himself. The letters were still ugly — but they held steady. The sentences came whole. Structured. Intentional.
Elise noticed.
She said nothing on the first day. Nor the second. But on the third, when she saw him copy an entire page of arcane terms from memory without a single error, her eyes narrowed — not in judgment, but in observation.
There was something unusual about that boy. More than intelligence: there was memory. Or perhaps, too much past inside a body too small.
"A peasant's son doesn't learn that on his own..." she thought. But kept it to herself.
Elian, in turn, pretended not to notice her growing curiosity. He continued writing, redrawing diagrams as naturally as breathing — because, deep down, that's what it felt like.
"You return home tomorrow, hm?" Elise said, her eyes still fixed on the page.
Elian looked up, briefly surprised. Then smiled gently, genuinely.
"Yes, Mistress. I can't wait."
She merely turned the page and kept writing. But that sentence marked the end of a cycle.
During that week, Elise had introduced him to what was called magical anatomy — an essential field of study for the healers of the Golden Dawn. Here, healing was not just science or faith. It was the comprehension of life's hidden architecture, where flesh and magic intertwined in a silent... and sometimes brutal, dance.
In the natural world, blood carried nutrients. In magical anatomy, it also carried arcane energy — the vital flow. Invisible to the eye, but sensed by those who learned to listen.
"The body has three layers," Elise had explained on the second day. "The first is physical: bones, organs, muscles. The second is energetic, where the vital flow runs. The third is symbolic — the soul. A good healer accesses the first two. An exceptional one... touches the third, even if only in passing."
Elian had written it all down with near-obsessive precision. He tried to turn each word into drawings, mental models, associations. Lungs, liver, heart. Nerve plexuses. And now: dispersion points, arcane nodes, conduction channels.
"Physical pain and spiritual pain are not always separate. Sometimes, a stomach illness is born from a loss. A trauma in the chest comes from a memory," she had said, pointing to a diagram where arteries blended with glowing filaments of magic.
To Elian, it made sense — but not in the way others felt it. He didn't "sense" the flow like Elise described, as warmth or a living presence between the hands. But he could see it. Mentally. Like a technical blueprint. And imagine where the magic should act.
It was like dismantling and reassembling a machine. Like tightening the right screw so the engine would turn again.
And still, something separated him from the others: pain.
Elian carried invisible scars — marks from another life, heavy as chains. The memories of what he had lost, what he had become, the blood he had spilled... all surfaced whenever he tried to heal. As if his very soul, deformed by the past, rejected the instinct to save.
Maybe that's why he couldn't feel the flow. Maybe the energy avoided those who once chose to destroy.
But he persisted.
He had learned, for example, that the kidneys had an "arcane dispersion zone," responsible for filtering both physical and spiritual toxins. That the lungs, in many magical cultures, were organs of grief. Hence their connection to ailments born from silence and longing.
"The Golden Dawn believes that healing is, above all, interpretation. The body is a text," Elise had said. "And like any text, it changes depending on who's reading."
Elian had written that sentence down by itself.
"The body is a text."
He returned to it repeatedly, as if trying to decipher a sacred verse. Healing had stopped being an act. It had become reading. Translation. Almost a confession.
In the afternoons, Elise proposed simulated cases. He had to diagnose. Sometimes he forgot a layer. Sometimes he got it wrong. But gradually, the world seemed to reorganize within a logic he could understand.
It wasn't about feeling.
It was about understanding.
And there, between cold tea and worn-out books, he found a truce. A small one. But real.
"You're starting to understand," Elise said one day, watching him mark flow points on a hand-drawn intestine.
She crossed her arms, evaluating.
"On your first try, you almost fainted trying to sustain Sanare. You did it... but drained so much of yourself you looked like a snuffed-out candle. Then came the mistakes — I had to intervene more than I'd like." Her voice held no judgment. Only care.
"But now, you're able to form the first circuits of healing magic acceptably. Still flawed, but stable. That's more than many born with gifts manage in such a short time."
She stepped closer. Touched the grimoire with a fingertip, right on a line he had drawn.
"Understanding comes at a cost. And you're paying the right price."
Elian said nothing. He simply looked at the drawing. The spiral intestine reminded him of a labyrinth. As if the human body were a riddle — and magic, the key.
But at the center of that riddle, there was something no master could teach him.
Himself.
Elise's words echoed like needles soaked in truth: "Understanding comes at a cost. And you're paying the right price."
But what, exactly, was that price?
The constant exhaustion? The quiet aches in his chest? Or the nightmares — screams rising from the depths of a dark well, leaving his eyes burning and his throat dry?
"Elise speaks as if magic is earned through effort…" he thought. "…but what if the obstacle is your own body? What if the weight that keeps you from healing… is the same weight that helped you survive?"
It wasn't the flow that eluded him.
It was himself.
He drew another line on the paper, connecting two points with precision. But deep down, he knew: there was far more beyond anatomy. Something deeper than muscle or blood.
Something broken.
And perhaps, to heal others, he would first have to discover…
if there was still healing left for him.
★★★
The day had passed without incident.
The morning unfolded peacefully, the studies concluded without haste. In the afternoon, Elian spent his time reorganizing his notes, preparing for the return to his village home. Elise, as always, remained occupied in the healing wing, but the mood inside the house was light. Nothing hinted at what was to come.
When night fell, Elian's body finally surrendered to exhaustion. He lay down without resistance, the weight of the week dragging down his eyelids like chains. But what awaited him was not rest.
It was a warning.
The evening light bathed the fields in gold, and a warm breeze swept through the crops. Emanuelle stood beside him, smiling, her face freckled with dust yet serene. They were both practicing simple spells under a clear sky—tiny conjurations of light, barriers, water manipulation. Nothing complex. Just beginner magic. And for a brief moment, there was peace.
Emanuelle's laughter rang like music. Elian turned to her, about to say something, when a movement on the horizon caught his eye.
An owl.
Silent as death, it perched upon the scarecrow Anthony had set up in the field to assist with his training.
It was no ordinary owl.
Its feathers were split into three distinct colors: white like untouched snow, deep red like congealed blood, and absolute black—the absence of light itself. Its gaze pierced through Elian like frozen blades.
Without warning, the owl spread its wings.
On the right wing, the Tree of Life shimmered—golden branches of the Sephiroth, glowing like constellations. On the left, the Qliphoth—twisted, black, like rotting roots piercing the void.
Both structures pulsed. Alive. Time seemed to freeze around them. Emanuelle's voice fell silent.
And then the world shattered.
Night fell in the blink of an eye.
The field was ablaze.
Smoke rose in dark spirals, licking the sky with soot-stained teeth. Screams. So many screams. The house cracked and groaned in the distance as flames consumed it, but the true horror stood in the center of the field—where the scarecrow had been.
There was no straw anymore.
There was Arthur.
His body hung limp, suspended by the neck, arms dangling, legs motionless. Where once was a head, now there was only a stump. His severed head swung by a thread, eyes wide open, lifeless—still staring at Elian despite having no soul behind them.
He tried to run, but his feet wouldn't move.
To the side, Anthony crawled across the earth. Half of his face was melted, burned down to bone. His fingers were raw flesh, and the stench of charred skin stabbed Elian's nostrils like acid.
"E-Eli... Elian..." Anthony gurgled, coughing blood and smoke. "Help me… please… I don't… want… to die…"
Elian tried to kneel, to reach out—but then he heard another sound.
Crying. Muffled screams.
He turned. Emanuelle and Maria were being dragged by two masked, hooded figures. Emanuelle's arms flailed, her nails clawing at the ground, trying to hold on to anything—but there was no ground left. Only mud and blood.
"MOTHER! ELIAN! PLEASE LET ME GO! MAMA!"
Maria sobbed, pleaded, her clothes torn, her face streaked with blood. Elian shouted, screamed with everything he had—but no sound came out.
His feet were locked. His arms, limp. All he could do was watch.
"ELIAN! HELP ME! PLEASE! DON'T LET THEM TAKE US!" Emanuelle screamed—and then the sound vanished, swallowed by the rising veil of darkness.
Everything turned black.
Elian woke up gasping. The scream still caught in his throat:
"EMANUELLE!"
His body was drenched in sweat, the bedsheet clinging to his skin. His breath came in ragged bursts, his heart pounding like a war drum. His hands trembled. The images still throbbed behind his eyes: Arthur's hanging corpse, Anthony's scorched face, Emanuelle's screams as she was dragged away...
The door burst open.
Elise entered, dressed only in the light robe she wore at night, her hair loose. Her eyes were sharp, alert.
"What happened?! Elian?!"
He curled up in the bed, eyes wide, brimming with tears.
"I saw it… I saw it… they're going to die! They're going to die, Master!" he cried, his voice cracking, thoughts a storm. "They… they were being killed… and I couldn't do anything!"
Elise rushed to him and held his face tightly, forcing him to breathe.
"Calm down. Breathe. It was a nightmare. Just a nightmare."
"No! It wasn't!" He grabbed her wrists. "It was real! I swear! The owl… the same one from the grey place! It showed the Trees! Then… then came the fire! I saw Arthur, Emanuelle… please… please…"
His words broke into sobs, splintered between shallow breaths and the pain etched in his gaze.
For a moment, Elise felt her stomach sink. This wasn't the crying of a boy haunted by ordinary dreams. There was something else—something ancient, deep, and real—that defied logic. It was like looking into the eyes of a survivor of a war that hadn't happened yet. His fear was so raw, so violent, it crawled beneath her skin like a chill. And though her trained mind tried to reason through it, some older part of her—the instinctual, the magical—already believed.
Elian wasn't just afraid.
"Take me there now!" he begged, breathless, his voice laced with panic. "I have to see them… I have to save them… please, Master… before it's too late!"
Elise looked at him.
For one long moment—too long for someone on the edge of collapse—she remained silent. But in her eyes, a storm of decisions brewed. This wasn't just worry; it was the recognition that maybe, just maybe, this omen was true.
Then she stood with sudden resolve.
"Get dressed. Now." Her voice was firm, but trembled on the edge of suppressed fear. "We leave immediately."
She left the room without another word, her footsteps echoing through the sleeping house like an omen.
Elian sat frozen for a second. His heart still pounded, fists still trembling. The taste of blood and smoke still danced in his throat.
It wasn't just a dream.
It was a warning.
And time… time might already be slipping through his fingers.