Chapter 2: A Learning Eviction
The morning after the crater incident, the cottage smelled faintly of ozone, scorched wood, and lingering traces of old power.
Tor lay sprawled across the wide leather sofa as though gravity itself bent for him. One leg draped over the backrest, the other stretched across scattered game cases. A half-eaten hamburger rested on his chest, grease glinting in the rising sun. The television flickered with a paused fighting game; the controller lay abandoned beside him.
Uncle Mike, arms folded, sat opposite, watching the boy with the patient exhaustion of a man who had cleaned up too many impossible messes before breakfast. He didn't speak immediately, instead letting Tor chew, blink, and reorient to the morning.
"You carved a new skylight straight through half the mountain," Mike said finally, gravel-rough.
Tor chewed with casual precision. "I was aiming for the ceiling. Overshot a little."
The front door opened without ceremony.
Great Elder Ter stepped inside, crown tilted at its impossible angle, mantle fluttering though no wind touched the room. The air thickened, dense with expectation, as it always did when he entered casually.
Tor didn't even sit up.
"Morning, Uncle Ter. Come to measure the hole?"
Ter's eye twitched. "You destroyed a training hall that has stood for three thousand years."
"And gave everyone a view of the sky. Progress."
Ter exhaled sharply, echoing Mike's sigh from the previous night.
"You are leaving the mountain today," he said.
Tor paused mid-chew. "Today today?"
"At noon. The spatial gate opens. You will walk through it and not return until you have seen a sky that isn't mine."
Tor wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "So… school?"
"Eventually."
Tor grimaced. "Disgusting."
Ter flicked his wrist. A narrow rift tore open beside the sofa and spat out two items: a matte-black credit card and a single folded sheet of parchment. Both landed neatly on Tor's stomach.
"Unlimited funds. A destination. Try not to start any wars before lunch."
Tor caught the card between two fingers and unfolded the map with the other. His eyebrows rose fractionally.
"Interesting choice."
"I thought you would approve."
Tor tossed the empty wrapper toward the bin; it arced perfectly, landing without touching the rim.
"Worst guardian ever."
"And yet here we are."
Ter turned to leave, pausing at the threshold.
"One more thing. Certain factions consider your departure… inconvenient. I have informed them they are welcome to voice objections in person."
Tor's eyes gleamed — the first real spark of interest all morning.
"So it's a going-away party?"
"Exactly," Ter said, thin smile sharp as a blade. "Paperwork is hell if you kill everyone, so show restraint."
The rift swallowed him.
Silence returned, broken only by the low hum of the console.
Mike lit a cigarette off thin air. "Need anything packed?"
Tor stood, stretching until his spine cracked, headphones resting around his neck. The silver bracelets at his wrists and ankles flashed once, warning beacons against anyone foolish enough to forget their presence.
"I travel light."
He paused at the doorway. Sunlight spilled across the lawn, already healing from last night's fire. Fresh green shoots pushed through ash; the mountain's regeneration arrays worked fast when properly motivated.
Tor inhaled the crisp air, tasting pine and distant snow.
"Uncle Mike."
"Yes, young lord?"
"If anyone asks, I'm being cruelly exiled for being too awesome."
Mike snorted. "I'll spread the word."
Tor stepped outside. Flip-flops slapped stone.
Far below, near the spatial gate, blades were already being sharpened, speeches rehearsed, and mandates readied. The elite successors in their mantles waited, whispers exchanging between them about Tor, the boy expelled yet rumored to survive impossible odds. Bloodlines had long dominated this place, and the power of the spatial mandate marked its inheritors as superior — yet the boy coming up from the Black Mountain did not belong to any of them, and that made the anticipation almost unbearable.
Tor turned up the music, bass thrumming in his bones. Track title: Ready to Die.
The mountain air filled with tension as the crowd of nearly a hundred watched him approach. Eyes flicked to his bracelets, noting the faint shimmer of stored power. Some elders whispered quietly about the potential political fallout; some successors gritted their teeth, eager to test a child rumored to be more dangerous than half the fortress combined.
With every lazy swing of his arms, Tor's bracelets caught the light. Each movement was unconcerned, yet in every flicker lay a subtle reminder that space itself answered to him — the difference between eviction and permission a thin, unspoken line.
The spatial gate loomed ahead, its stones etched with runes that pulsed faintly, almost sentient. The mist curled tighter around the arch, as though respecting its imminent use.
Some villagers craned their necks to get a glimpse. Some feared the consequences of a child stepping into the sacred spatial field. Yet all knew — if he survived the mountain, the gate, and the factions below, he would carry power no elder or successor had yet measured.
Tor's lips curved into a smirk. Flip-flops slapped rhythmically against the stones, each step a beat in the overture of chaos about to unfold.
The cottage doors closed behind him automatically, leaving only the lingering hum of drones, silent sentinels under Uncle Mike's watch. The boy descended, unhurried, each step teasing both the mountain and the fortress below.
Ahead, the fortress waited — oblivious to the difference between eviction and permission, between inherited entitlement and raw, unpredictable talent. Somewhere in the shadows, the successors flexed fingers and readied rifles, unaware that the real lesson had yet to begin.