The world felt… soft.
The chaos was gone. The fire, the screams, the guilt, they lived like shadows in the corners of my mind, slipping further away with each passing hour.
I opened my eyes again days later—or weeks maybe. Time was strange in this small body. My thoughts were still intact, my soul heavy with my precious memories, but I was wrapped in flesh that had barely begun to understand the world.
Everything was a blur of warmth and light. Voices danced around me, gentle, melodic. I didn't know the language, not yet, but I didn't need to. I understood what they meant by how they said it.
Love doesn't need translation.
I was in someone's arms cradled like I mattered. A woman. Her heartbeat thundered softly in my ear, steady and calm. She smelled of flowers and wind. Her voice was a lullaby, even when she wasn't singing.
It was so comforting.
I tilted my newborn head, fighting the weight of my own body just to see her.
She was beautiful. Not the way people are when they're dressed for attention, but the way the moon is beautiful—quiet, eternal, distant yet comforting. Her skin was pale, like starlight, and her eyes… silver, like frost on water. Just beneath her left eye, a crescent moon tattoo shimmered faintly.
Aria Reizei.
My mother.
She looked at me as if I was the most precious thing the world had ever made.
"You're safe now," she whispered in that soft language, the words a melody I didn't recognize but somehow felt. "You're home."
Something in me cracked. Not with pain but with something dangerously close to hope.
She wasn't alone. There was another voice. A deeper one. Steady. Calm. It spoke less often, but every time it did, the room felt quieter, like even the wind wanted to listen.
I saw him one morning, just as the soft orange glow of sunrise touched the walls.
He was tall. Broad. A presence. Long black hair fell down his back, loosely tied at the base of his neck. His eyes were a deep emerald, glowing faintly in the morning light, wise, but gentle at the same time. By the corners of his eyes, dark green scales shimmered like polished onyx.
Jonathan Reizei.
My father.
He carried the weight of someone who had seen battle and still chose peace.
I admired him, just by looking at him i wanted to be like him.
How childish of me.
When he looked at me, it wasn't with fear, or uncertainty, or confusion. He looked like he already knew me. Like he had been waiting for me to arrive.
He reached down and brushed his fingers along my cheek, rough hands, scarred with time and duty, but so impossibly tender.
"You'll do great things," he said. His voice was low, warm. "Not because we expect you to… but because you'll choose to."
Those words didn't come from nowhere.
It was like he understood.
Like something in him recognized the weight in my eyes, even if I wore the face of a child.
I didn't cry. Not much, anyway. It felt wrong to wail around them. They deserved better than that. So I watched. I listened. I learned.
I was not Jeremiah Arnold anymore. That life had died in fire and blood and sorrow.
And now…
Now, I was something new.
One day, Aria sat beside my crib. Jonathan stood behind her, arms gently crossed as he watched me with that ever-present calm. The sun filtered through the curtains, painting her silver eyes in hues of gold and warmth.
She leaned in, brushing a kiss to my forehead.
"Noah," she whispered. "That's your name. Our sweet little Noah."
My heart stilled.
They had named me my own name.
And this time, I wasn't a child destined to fail.
It was the dawn of a new beginning.
Jonathan placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled down at me.
"Noah Reizei," he said, with quiet reverence. "Welcome to this world, son."
For the first time in either life, I felt like I belonged.
I had been many things, a student, a soldier, a fool, a failure. But never this.
Never just a child, loved without condition.
Never a son.
The days passed gently. Aria sang to me often, soft celestial melodies that made me think of stars and tides. She would carry me to the garden and whisper to the flowers like they were old friends. Jonathan carved things from wood with patient hands, animals, tiny figurines, even a dragon once, placing it near my bed with a small, proud smile.
They spoke to me constantly. Told me stories. Fed me, held me, comforted me when I couldn't sleep. They didn't know who I used to be, what haunted me behind my infant eyes but it didn't matter.
To them, I wasn't a ghost wearing skin.
I was Noah.
I was theirs.
Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, I remembered her. The girl I couldn't save. Her voice. Her laugh. The way her eyes softened when she looked at me. I would remember the blood. The silence. The sorry that came too late.
And I would feel it rise again... the old rage. The helplessness.
But then Aria would pick me up, hum that haunting tune, and press her forehead to mine.
And it would fade.
Because this wasn't the end.
This was a second chance.
They didn't know who I was.
They didn't need to.
They saw me.
Not my failures. Not my past.
Just a boy. Their boy.
And somehow, that was enough to start healing what death had broken.
One night, as the stars blinked quietly in the sky, Jonathan held me outside beneath a moon so bright it bathed the world in silver.
His dragon scales shimmered under the light.
"Do you feel it, little one?" he murmured. "The mana… It flows strong in you. Just like your mother. Just like me."
Mana.
Magic.
It existed here.
I could feel it, too... something ancient... alive humming beneath my skin. Like a sleeping ember waiting for breath. A power older than cities, older than sorrow.
A gift.
A chance.
He smiled at me, his eyes soft.
"You'll be strong, Noah. Not just in body, but in heart. And when the day comes that the world tries to take what you love… you'll stop it."
He believed that.
So did I.
The vow I made as I died was still alive. But now… now I had something more.
A family.
A future.
A name that didn't feel like regret.
Noah Reizei.
A boy born from flame, but raised in light.
And somewhere deep inside this fragile body, beyond the sorrow, beyond the pain…
Hope bloomed.
End of Chapter.