Seres' voice remained steady, but her gaze drifted away from his face, looking past the river, past the trees, as if seeing another time entirely. The children had fallen completely silent, captivated, their earlier theories forgotten.
"The mountains," she began, her words measured, choosing the simplest terms she knew. "I go. For herbs. High places… good herbs." She mimed plucking leaves from an invisible stalk. "Sky was grey. But… not bad. Then…" She paused, her expression tightening almost imperceptibly. She held out her hands, then suddenly clenched them into fists, bringing them down in a violent, shaking motion. "Wind. Snow. Fast. Too fast."
She hugged her arms around herself, a faint shiver going through her despite the mild morning air. "Veyen… far. I could not… go back." She pointed to her head. "I remember… cave. Old place. From before." She pantomimed crawling, then huddling low, rocking back and forth. "I wait. Storm… three days." She held up three fingers, her eyes wide with the memory of it. "Snow. Always snow. No sun. No sky. Only white. People say… Snow Spirit anger."
Ardyn listened, rapt. He could almost feel the biting cold, hear the howl of the wind she described. Her story was a stark window into the harshness of this world, a reality far removed from the relative safety of the ruins.
She took a slow breath, steadying herself. "Then… quiet." She opened her hands, a gesture of sudden peace. "Storm… gone. Sun." She pointed up at the actual sun, then mimed stepping carefully, her feet high as if through deep snow. "I go out. Look for food. Herbs under snow."
Her movements became more deliberate now, her story focusing. She stopped her walking mime and froze, her body going stiff as she stared at a point on the ground before her. Her pale eyes widened, not with magic this time, but with the echo of shock.
"I see…" She pointed at the spot, then at Ardyn. "You."
She knelt down on the riverbank, her knees pressing into the damp moss, recreating the moment. She gestured to show a form lying prone. "In snow. Much snow." She touched her own cheek, then her side, her expression grim. "White. Like ice. Red… here." She touched her side again, then her temple, indicating where his wounds had been. "Blood. On white snow. Like… fire."
She looked up at him, her gaze intense, pulling him into the memory. "You not move. Breath… small. Very small." She held her thumb and finger a hairsbreadth apart. "Eyes… closed."
She was silent for a long moment, still kneeling, lost in the vision of him half-dead in the endless white. The river seemed to hush its flow in respect.
Then, softly, she spoke the words that would forever bind their stories together. "If I not find you then…" She looked directly into his eyes, her voice dropping to a near-whisper, yet every syllable was clear and heavy with truth. "…you not here now."
The simplicity of the statement was devastating. It wasn't a boast. It wasn't a plea for gratitude. It was just a fact, stark and unadorned. She had been there. He had been dying. She had chosen to act. Everything that had happened since—the healing, the language lessons, the laughter, the sword strike, the confusion over mana—all of it existed because of a single decision made in a frozen wilderness.
Ardyn could only stare at her, the image she had painted burning behind his eyes: the brutal blizzard, the desperate shelter, the sudden silence, and the stark contrast of his own broken body against the pure snow. He had known she saved him, but the abstract concept of being "saved" suddenly crystallized into something terrifyingly immediate and visceral. He had been moments from death, a forgotten statistic in a storm, and her will alone had pulled him back.
Seres remained kneeling in the moss, her story not quite finished. She looked up at him, her head tilted as if listening to a faint echo. "Your lips… moved," she said, her voice even quieter now, almost lost beneath the river's murmur. "In the snow. You spoke… but not words I know." She brought her fingers to her own lips, mimicking their faint, desperate motion. "The sound was… strange. Not from here. It unsettled me." She let her hand fall. "But I carried you. I brought you home."
Her words made Ardyn freeze. A murmur? Something from him, from the depths of whatever he had been before the snow? He closed his eyes, shutting out the river, the children, everything. He strained, reaching back into the consuming whiteness of that memory, grasping for the ghost of those words. What had he said? A name? A plea? A curse?
But there was nothing. No words. No meaning. The harder he grasped, the more it slipped away, leaving only the sensory imprint of the event itself: the crushing, endless cold, the granular sting of snow against his skin, and the one clear, anchoring point in the chaos—Seres' pale, determined face leaning over him, her white hair like a part of the storm itself, but her eyes fiercely, blessedly alive.
Whatever final secret he had whispered to the blizzard, it belonged to the storm now. It was gone, leaving behind only the woman who had heard it and saved him anyway.
The weight of Seres' story—of his own near-death and his unknowable last words—hung in the air for a long moment. The children's faces were solemn, the usual mischief replaced by a rare, quiet respect.
It was Ardyn who finally broke the silence, his voice hesitant. "The storm… the Snow Spirit. Are they… evil?"
The question was so simple, so fundamental, that it seemed to startle them. Mia blinked. "Spirits aren't evil," she explained patiently, as if to a very young child. "They are… powerful. They get angry if we are disrespectful. The storm was its anger."
Ardyn absorbed this, then tried another. "And adventurers? They fight these spirits?"
This time, it was Kai who laughed, though not unkindly. "No! Adventurers fight monsters. The big, ugly things that trouble the spirits and us! They take contracts to clear them out."
"Monsters trouble spirits?" Ardyn repeated, trying to piece the logic together.
Ethan nodded. "They ruin sacred places. Pollute rivers. The guild pays to make things balanced again."
Each answer was a brick in a wall of understanding, but with every brick laid, Ardyn realized just how vast the structure of his ignorance truly was. He knew nothing of the world's balance, its economy, its very nature. He was a blank page.
Later, as the children resumed their play, Ardyn found a quiet spot by the riverbank, absently picking up a stout, straight branch. His hand curled around it, and instantly, his grip settled into a perfect, familiar hold. He gave it a experimental swing, the motion fluid and precise. It felt more natural than breathing.
He looked from the branch to his own hands, then back toward the ruins where Seres sat. He could split wood he'd never seen, wield a sword he'd never held, yet the energy that flowed through every living thing here—the mana—was a complete mystery to him. It felt distant, foreign.
Seres' voice cut through his contemplation, not sharp, but firm. "Ardyn."
He looked up to find her standing a few paces away, her gaze steady. She didn't offer empty comfort about the mana he couldn't feel or the past he couldn't remember. Instead, she pointed toward the axe leaning against the woodpile, then to the half-empty water skins near the fire.
The message was clear. His strength might be a mystery, but it was not useless.
Nodding, he pushed himself up, the strange unease about his own hands fading beneath the simplicity of a tangible task. He may not have been able to conjure light or summon a flame, but he could split wood with a single, clean strike. He could haul water from the river until the largest pot was full. He could brace a sagging doorframe with his shoulder while Ethan hammered in a new peg, his body, even while healing, providing a solid, unmovable weight.
With every log split, every bucket carried, every physical burden shouldered, the hollowness left by his magical lack began to fill. He was contributing. Not as a mage, or a noble, or a lost hero, but as Ardyn. And for now, that was enough.
2 Weeks Later
And just like that, two weeks went by. The time melted into a rhythm of simple, shared survival. Small moments, ordinary on the surface, began to weave a new tapestry around me. Nico's playful challenges to "duel" with sticks became a daily ritual, his laughter ringing out when I deliberately fumbled to let him win. Mia started saving the sweetest berries for me, pressing them into my hand with a shy smile. Even Ethan's constant vigilance eased, his nods of approval coming more frequently when I managed a repair or carried a heavy load without incident.
Seres' watchful eyes, once so sharp and assessing, softened. She began leaving tasks for me without instruction, a silent testament to a trust that was growing day by day. I learned the names of the herbs she cherished, the best spots for fishing, the children's favorite stories told by firelight.
Every day was a lesson in this strange, vibrant world—its dangers, its wonders, its unspoken rules. I collected these fragments like precious stones, holding them close even as the void of my own past remained a silent, unanswered question. But the ache of not knowing was slowly being soothed by the quiet, steady bond forming in the present. I was still a stranger to myself, but I was becoming something familiar to them. And in the warmth of that belonging, the cold mystery of my origins lost a little of its bite.