It's been three days since that void tried to swallow me whole.
Three days since I collapsed in the bathroom, since Angy's tears fell on my skin, since Shenhe's cold hands held my head and brought me back from wherever I'd gone.
Three days of Angy and Shenhe orbiting around me like nervous moons, their usual playful chaos replaced by a silent, watchful care that felt more like a quarantine than concern.
They moved through the house with a new economy of motion—passing each other without their usual bickering, without the shouting matches about who stole whose snacks, without the arguments about "who got the bigger boobs" that somehow always ended with both of them measuring and declaring it a tie.
The silence in this modern, six-room house was worse than any battlefield's aftermath.
At least in battle, the silence meant something. Meant you'd won. Meant the enemy was dead. Meant you could breathe.
Here, the silence meant they were waiting.
Watching.
Worried.
I caught them looking at me when they thought I wasn't watching.
Angy's dark red eyes would linger on my hands, as if expecting them to shake. She'd watch me eat, watch me drink, watch me breathe—like I might shatter at any moment.
Shenhe's cool blue gaze tracked my breathing. Rising and falling. In and out. Making sure it didn't stop. Making sure I was still alive.
They were waiting for the next collapse.
I hated it.
I tried to go to my training room. The small space at the back of the house where I kept my blades, where I practiced forms until my muscles burned and my mind went blank.
But the door was guarded.
One white-haired queen stood in front of it, arms crossed, expressionless face somehow conveying absolute authority without a single word.
"Your highness, can I enter?"
I looked at her eyes. Those blue depths that always seemed to see more than they should. That missed nothing. That judged everything.
She didn't blink.
Didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Just stared.
I changed my decision immediately.
"Nevermind."
I walked away.
Behind me, I swear I heard the faintest sound—almost like a suppressed chuckle.
Traitor.
So instead of training, I read.
Some books, I mean. The ones I'd bought because of my admission to this school. Textbooks. History. Geography. Literature.
Things I'd never had time for in Aventic because I was too busy learning which angle to swing a blade to decapitate a Star Class Duman, or how to identify a Demon Class by the pattern of its horns, or which organs to stab for maximum effect with minimal effort.
I sat on the couch, book open in my lap, and tried to focus.
The Great Ilas Treaty of 1672 established trade routes between the northern and southern regions, creating a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity that lasted nearly a century.
Peace. Prosperity. A century.
In Aventic, peace lasted a few hours between missions.
Prosperity meant having enough ammunition for the next fight.
A century was something you hoped for but never expected to see.
The words blurred.
I closed the book.
The email from school arrived like a dispatch from another universe entirely.
"Dear Nams Namaska, Our records indicate an unexplained absence. Please provide documentation or meet with administration to discuss."
I stared at the words on my laptop.
In Aventic, an unexplained absence meant a missed mission briefing. A potential breach in the perimeter. A reason for disciplinary review.
Sometimes it meant someone had died and no one had reported it yet.
Here, it meant I'd missed a history lesson about dead kings and a chemistry test I could have passed in my sleep.
The disconnect was a physical ache in my chest.
Two different worlds.
Two different lives.
Two different versions of me.
I needed space. Not the careful, measured space of worried glances and guarded training rooms. Real space. The kind that let me breathe without someone counting my breaths.
I stood up.
Walked to the living room.
"I'm going out."
I announced it flatly, my voice cutting through the afternoon stillness.
Two heads turned in perfect sync.
Angy was halfway through polishing a vase that already gleamed. She'd been polishing it for twenty minutes. The same spot. Over and over.
Shenhe had been staring at a book without turning a page for even longer. I'd noticed when I walked in. Same page. Same spot. Same unreadable expression.
"Master, your constitution—" Angy began, already rising.
"Is fine." I said it sharper than intended. I saw her flinch—just slightly, just for a moment—and softened my tone.
"I'm not running a marathon. I'm walking. In the village. Where the biggest threat is tripping over a chicken."
I paused.
Looked at both of them.
The women who'd raised me. Who'd been there since I was three. Who'd seen me at my worst and never once looked away.
"Can I go now, my lovely moms?"
The words came out before I could stop them. A joke. A plea. A question I didn't know I needed to ask.
Angy's eyes went wide.
Shenhe's expression cracked—just for a second, just barely—before she recovered.
But she recovered.
Shenhe studied me with that unnerving blue scrutiny. Her pale lashes fluttered once. Twice. Assessing. Calculating. Running through whatever tactical scenarios lived in that beautiful, impossible head of hers.
After what felt like a full military assessment, she gave the barest nod.
"One hour. Not a minute more."
A pause.
"Or we mobilize."
I almost smiled at the RAW terminology slipping into her domestic threat. The woman had never held a gun in her life—as far as I knew—but she could threaten like a veteran commander.
"Understood."
I smiled like a child who'd just been given permission to go outside for the first time.
Because in a way, that's exactly what it felt like.
• • •
The late afternoon air of Ilsa hit me like a blessing.
It smelled of turned earth—rich and dark and alive. Woodsmoke from somewhere distant, probably someone cooking dinner early. And underneath it all, the faint, sweet decay of fallen fruit from the orchard behind the house.
Real smells.
Normal smells.
Things that didn't smell like blood or ozone or the inside of a helicopter.
I walked without direction, letting the village paths guide me. Past houses I was starting to recognize. Past corners where children played. Past gardens where old women sat and watched the world go by.
Some farmers waved. Their hands were caked with rich, black mud from the rice paddies. They smiled like they meant it. Like waving at strangers was just something you did.
So this is how they live their life?
Is it bad?
I don't think so.
Children chased a ball made of rags. Their laughter was high and unburdened—the kind of laugh that came from never knowing real fear. From never waking up in the middle of the night wondering if today was the day everything ended.
An old woman sat on her porch, shelling peas into a bowl. Her hands moved with a rhythm as ancient as breathing. Shell. Drop. Shell. Drop. She'd probably been doing it for decades. Would probably keep doing it until she couldn't anymore.
I watched it all.
Like a ghost haunting a world of the living.
There was a small stall near the village center. Nothing fancy—just a wooden cart with some vegetables and fruits laid out. But people gathered there. Talking. Laughing. Sharing news about nothing important.
I wonder what they talk about.
In Aventic, people gathered because of news. Because somewhere, another portal had opened. Because another city had fallen. Because another team hadn't come back.
Here, they gathered because... the weather was nice? Because someone's son had done well in school? Because the vegetables looked good today?
Probably... this is the peace I wanted.
So why do I feel like I'm standing guard over a dream I'm not allowed to enter?
I walked more.
Past the last houses. Past the vegetable plots. Past the point where the village ended and the wild began.
A narrow dirt track wound its way toward the western fallow fields. I followed it. Let my feet carry me away from everything—from the worried glances, from the silent house, from the memories that wouldn't stop.
I passed a primary school. Small. Single room. Through the window, I could see children—seven, eight years old—sitting at desks, learning something from a teacher who moved between them.
Why am I smiling?
I didn't know.
Probably because this place had life. Real life. The kind that didn't involve watching your friends die. The kind where the biggest worry was a test you hadn't studied for.
Unlike A—
I stopped the thought.
Come on, Nams.
Not now.
• • •
The field opened up before me.
Vast. Endless. A sea of wild grass and late-blooming flowers swaying in a lazy breeze that seemed to exist just for this moment.
This was the edge. Beyond lay only the gentle rise of wooded hills and the immense, quiet sky.
Sky.
I looked up.
Empty.
No black clouds gathering. No red sky bleeding into blue. No ominous portents of doom.
Just blue. Normal, infinite blue. With clouds scattered across it like someone had painted them there and forgotten to finish.
When was the last time I saw a sky like this?
When was the last time I looked up and didn't expect something to fall out of it?
I couldn't remember.
Golden light, thick and honeyed, poured over everything. The sun was starting its slow descent, elongating shadows and setting the seed heads of the grass ablaze with color.
The field was empty.
Perfectly, utterly empty.
I walked into it anyway.
The grass whispered against my legs. The breeze touched my face. The sun warmed my skin.
And for a moment—just a moment—I forgot.
Forgot about Marcus. About the thing wearing his face.
Forgot about Angy's tears and Shenhe's silence and the way they looked at me like I might break.
Forgot about Aventic and Dumans and missions and death.
For just a moment, I was just a boy standing in a field.
Watching the sun set.
Trying to remember what peace felt like.
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