The journey back from the Wailing Barrows was long and silent. Mehandi walked, but his movements were slower, heavier. The righteous fury that had driven him had burned itself out, leaving behind a cold, desolate emptiness. He had won. His brothers were broken, their twisted power stripped away. The necromancer was dust. But he carried the weight of what he had done and what he had lost.
As he walked, he felt the lingering corruption of the necromancer's magic on the land, a sickly film of decay. He knelt, placing his palm on the withered soil, and for the first time, his magic was not a weapon of force, but a gentle tide. He reached into the earth and coaxed the aether to cleanse the blight, to coax life back into the barren ground. It was a slow, deliberate process, a quiet act of healing that settled his own troubled spirit. He was not meant to be a destroyer. He was meant to be a guardian.
He arrived at the manor at dawn. The morning mist clung to the ground, but through it, he could see the shimmering light of the aether-veins he had infused into the walls. The roses in the garden were in full bloom, their petals glowing with a soft, ethereal light. The air was clean, alive. He had healed his home, and in doing so, he had begun to heal himself.
Elara was waiting for him at the great oak door, his face a mix of relief and profound awe. He looked at Mehandi, at the haunted look in his eyes, but also at the new, quiet authority in his bearing.
"My Lord," Elara whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "You've returned."
Mehandi simply nodded, stepping into the hall. The servants who had remained watched him from the shadows, their fear replaced with something akin to reverence. They had heard the whispers of his victory, a ghost who had walked into the boneyard and returned the master of his domain.
He walked through the silent halls, a stranger in a familiar home. The memories of his parents and their final, heartbroken words were still fresh, but they no longer fueled a blind rage. Now, they fueled a solemn resolve. He had avenged their deaths, but the Volkov name was still tarnished. His brothers' petition to the Magisterium remained, a black mark on the family's honor. The world saw him as a pretender, a rogue mage, not the rightful heir.
Mehandi sat in his father's old study, the silence of the manor pressing in on him. He had fought a battle of magic, but now he would have to fight a battle of reputation. He would have to prove not only that he was the true heir, but that the Volkov legacy was not one of ambition and greed, but of life and light. The war was over, but the work of a guardian had just begun. He was no longer a boy seeking revenge; he was the head of a powerful house, and the mantle of his new life, heavy and unyielding, was finally his to bear.