Kael woke up with a start, a deep breath filling his lungs with familiar air, thick with the smell of wood and metal from the hardware shop.
It was his bed, in the small room above Uncle Borin's workshop, lit by the faint light of a late morning filtering through the window. The feeling of fatigue was profound, but it was physical exhaustion, the healthy tiredness of a body that had been inactive for too long, not the weary, ethereal depletion of the Dream Realm. He felt grounded, present, every fiber of his being aware that he was awake.
He rose slowly, his muscles a bit stiff, and looked around. Everything was exactly as he remembered it, but with a crispness he had missed for weeks. The patterns on the ceiling, the cracks in the wall, the stack of dusty books on the bedside table. There was no dreamy haze, nor the unreal colors of a vision. This was reality, in all its concrete form, wrapping him in an unexpected warmth.
He walked down the stairs, hearing the familiar creak of the wood beneath his feet. The scent of freshly baked bread and coffee tickled his nostrils, a fragrance he hadn't perceived for months, but which now flooded him with an almost overwhelming pleasure. He found his Uncle Borin sitting at the kitchen table, engrossed in an old newspaper, spectacles resting on his nose, with a steaming cup of coffee beside him.
Borin looked up, and his eyes, usually veiled with silent worry, widened. "Kael! My boy! You're awake! Finally!" He sprang up, nearly overturning the chair, and embraced him in a tight, almost desperate hug. It was an embrace that spoke of relief, of past fear, of unconditional love.
"Uncle," Kael returned the hug, feeling the reassuring warmth of his sturdy figure. "I'm home."
Borin pulled back, his heart full of emotion. He overwhelmed Kael with a hug, then began to sob, "Finally! I almost gave up hope!"
Then he burst into a liberating cry.
Kael hugged him back, patting Borin's shoulders. "Don't worry, Uncle, I'm fine now, much better than when I fell asleep. Now let's sit down, I'll tell you everything, but first..." he turned towards the kitchen.
"Oh, sorry, Kael, you're right!" Borin said, noticing where Kael's gaze had settled. "You must be starving after all this time!" He rushed into the kitchen, grabbed some bread and coffee, placed them on a plate, and set them on the table. "Have a seat!" he said with a smile that made his beard rise, pulling out a chair for him.
Kael sat down, and his uncle did too. The aroma of bread and coffee filled his nostrils; he closed his eyes to fully experience the fragrances, then began to eat.
Breakfast was an almost sensory experience. Kael savored every bite of crunchy bread, every sip of bitter, hot coffee. Borin couldn't stop watching him, his eyes glistening. "You don't know how worried I was. You've been asleep for weeks, Kael. Sometimes you'd mumble, sometimes it almost seemed like you were struggling in your sleep. The healers... they didn't understand. They just said you were in a deep sleep. But I..." Borin put down his cup. "I felt it. A kind of heaviness in the air, you know? As if a cloud of sadness had enveloped the village. And then, over the last couple of days, it almost seemed to... lighten. I don't know how to explain it, but it was like the air was cleaner. And now you wake up!" His deductions, made without knowledge of the Dream Realm, were surprisingly accurate.
Kael listened, and a sense of guilt washed over him. Anya's sacrifice, the battle in the Veil of Distraction that lasted only a couple of days, the Silent Ones' deception... Everything had happened while his uncle watched over him, unaware of the true scope of the events.
"Uncle, there are things you can't fully understand," Kael began, choosing his words carefully. "It was... a peculiar illness. Not physical. A sickness that struck the mind, the heart. And yes, your feeling was right. My struggle... it influenced things here. But now I'm awake, and I'll be with you for a while." Kael told him about the Keepers, the Dream Realm, and the Cinder, using simple language that omitted the more complex and dangerous details. Borin listened, nodding, his eyes widening with wonder and a little fear, but above all with a palpable relief that washed over his face.
In the afternoon, Kael felt an uncontrollable need to move, to reclaim the world with every fiber of his being. He went out into the village, feeling the warm sun on his skin, the light breeze in his hair. The town of Aris was alive, pulsating: voices of children playing in the square, the buzz of daily activities, the smell of fresh bread mingling with the smoke from the chimneys. For the first time in a long time, Kael felt a sense of normalcy, an anchor of salvation he had missed in the Dream Realm.
"Kael!" Lia yelled, who threw herself into his arms with a cry of joy and a suffocating hug, her little eyes full of tears of relief. "Where were you?"
"You're back among us, are you, boy?" said Mara, Lia's grandmother, and she wrapped him in a warm embrace smelling of spices and home. Her elderly eyes also filled with tears as she held him tight, as if to make sure he was real. His return was a small celebration for all those who loved him.
He returned to the shop, where Uncle Borin, with a relieved smile, asked him, "So, boy, since you're awake and strong, how about giving me a hand with inventory? These nails won't count themselves!" Kael gladly accepted, feeling the reassuring weight of a practical task, the sound of iron, and the smell of machine oil bringing him back to a lost daily routine.
"I left you alone for a bit this morning," Borin said, "but you should know that strange things happened here too while you were... on the other side." Kael looked at him with a frown: "Like what?"
Borin told him about the beggars, then the shadowy, silent figures that had been lurking around the village, the story of the soldiers with the three mysterious men near the bridge, and the silent figure that stopped to look and then vanished.
"Then they weren't seen again. I imagine it's because of the deception you used to drive them away from Aris... and from you," his uncle said.
"Yes. What you're telling me reassures me a little and confirms that the Dream Keepers' plan is working," Kael smiled.
In the evening, after a day full of work and rediscovery, they gathered for dinner, which Mara and Lia hosted. Laughter filled the kitchen, a sound Kael thought he would never hear again, so free and carefree.
After thanking them and saying goodbye, they returned home as dusk settled.
Then, one after another, the lights in the village went out. Uncle Borin, with a final yawn, also retired to his room.
Kael lay down on his bed, but sleep wouldn't come. He listened to his uncle's steady breathing in the next room, the crickets outside the window, and the silence of the night. He didn't feel tired; he wasn't sleepy. He closed his eyes, but his mind was strangely vigilant, his consciousness sharp, unable to slip into restful oblivion.
He was awake: sleep had abandoned him.