Eiden was not in the kitchen. His body sat on a heavy, velvet-cushioned stool at the massive marble-topped island that dominated the center of the room, but his consciousness was light-years away. He was drifting through the Fractured Weave, a realm of violet nebulas and screaming solar winds where time ran backward and the laws of physics were merely suggestions. He watched the birth of a star in a distant sector, feeling the heat of its first fusion reaction in his own marrow. He saw the shimmering, ghostly outlines of the Forgotten Dimensions, places where the Great Flow pooled into stagnant, shimmering lakes of pure potential. He was so deep in the aether that the physical world had become a faint, distant hum, like the buzzing of a fly in another room. The steam rising from the pots, the clatter of copper pans, and the muffled conversation of his family were all abstractions, echoes of a life he wasn't currently living.
"Eiden?" The voice was a ripple in the violet nebula, soft and melodic. He ignored it, his mind tracing the golden ley lines of a planet that hadn't been born yet. "Eiden, come back to us." The second call was louder, vibrating through the cosmic weave. He felt a tug on his spirit, a tether tightening around his heart. He saw the faces of the Council members in the stars—Dravien's stern gaze, Morvath's sharp focus—but they were ghosts. "Eiden!" Selyndra's voice cracked like a whip through the celestial silence, accompanied by a sharp, grounding pressure on the back of his hand.
The violet nebulas shattered. The screaming solar winds died instantly, replaced by the sudden, overwhelming rush of gravity. Eiden's consciousness slammed back into his physical frame with a force that made his lungs seize. He gasped, his eyes snapping open as he took in a sharp, ragged breath of air that was thick with the aroma of rosemary-crusted sourdough, thick spiced porridge, and the sharp, clean scent of citrus tea. The pure white marble of the kitchen island felt unusually cold against his palms as his consciousness tethered itself back to the present. The stone was flawless, quarried from the heart of the Aether Peaks, and it hummed with the residual warmth of the nearby hearth. The kitchen was a bustling, warm sanctuary, filled with the glint of copper pots hanging from the rafters and the comforting crackle of the wood-fire stove. The celestial echoes—the feeling of nebulae pulsing in his veins—faded into the mundane but profoundly comforting domesticity of the morning.
"You okay?" Selyndra's voice was now a silken anchor, holding him steady as the kitchen stopped spinning. She reached across the marble surface, her slender fingers grazing the back of his hand. Eiden looked at her, his vision slowly refocusing. Her long golden hair was a radiant cascade over her shoulders, looking like spun sunlight against the dark fabric of her weighted Council robes. Her golden eyes, deep and liquid, searched his with a depth of concern that made his breath hitch. Her touch was grounded and warm, a stark, beautiful contrast to the ethereal chill of the dream-realms he had just been forcibly evicted from.
"Yeah," Eiden said, his voice sounding gravelly. He reached up, his fingers trembling slightly as he adjusted the black hair ribbon that kept his long white hair from falling into his face. He caught a glimpse of his own piercing grey eyes in the reflection of a polished kettle, seeing the lingering starlight in his pupils slowly fade. "I'm fine. Just... lost in thought. The mana winds were exceptionally strong last night. I was caught in a cross-current near the northern rift."
"You've been staring at that bowl of porridge for five minutes like it's a scrying pool," Seraphaine teased. She stood by the stove, her long, curly brown hair a wild halo around her face that seemed to defy the order of the mansion. Her hazel eyes were bright with mischief, and her signature golden necklace glinted against the deep black of her robes. "Did the dream-realm offer better breakfast than we do? Because I checked the pantry, and we're out of celestial manna."
Eiden felt a genuine smile break through his fatigue. "Nothing in any realm compares to this, Seraphaine. I promise." He finally took a hearty, grounding bite of the bread, the crunch of the crust and the tang of the dough helping to center him in his body. On his finger, the black divine metal ring caught the morning light. It was a heavy, unassuming band, yet it pulsed with the collective heartbeat of the eight souls bound to his. He could feel them all in the room—the sharp, predatory focus of Morvath leaning against the doorframe; the steady, rhythmic warmth of Dravien sharpening a blade in the corner; and the flickering, temporal hum of Vaelus, who seemed to vibrate slightly out of sync with the current second.
"How did everyone sleep?" Eiden asked, leaning back against his stool.
"Like logs," Iris chirped, sitting to his left. She was leaning forward, her long black hair swaying like a curtain. Her crimson eyes were bright with energy. "The girls and I spent the morning in the lower gardens practicing some light-weaving. Agora almost took out a marble statue when her focus slipped during a transition."
Agora didn't look up from her tea, but her long blue hair shimmered with a faint, defensive light. Her twelve glowing blue tails twitched rhythmically behind her, their light dim in the morning sun but still casting ethereal blue shadows against the kitchen floor. Her translucent skin seemed to hum with the resonance of the mansion, making her look more like a spirit of the house than a guest within it.
"It was a calibration error, Iris, nothing more," Agora said, her voice melodic and calm. "The marble in the garden holds a different resonance after a lightning storm. I was accounting for the residual static, not the structural density."
Eiden watched them, the conversation flowing around him like a gentle, familiar stream. He noticed Dravien's feline ears flick at a distant sound and how Gavran's massive white wings remained tucked with practiced discipline beneath his cloak. Every one of them was a power capable of leveling a city, yet here they were, debating the structural integrity of garden statues in a kitchen that smelled of honey and woodsmoke. Yet, beneath the domestic peace, Eiden could feel it through the ring—an unspoken tension, a rising heat. It was a promise made in shared glances and soft smiles that had been building for weeks. They were waiting for him to truly return from the stars.
Later that morning, Eiden decided he needed the soil, and send a letter. He walked across the grand estate until he reached the perimeter, where a large white-stone wall rose from the earth, separating the Land of Gods from the mundane world. At the center stood the large white gate, a shimmering blend of marble and celestial glass. He stepped through the iridescent veil within the gateway, and the transition was jarring—a sudden shift from high-frequency divinity to the low thrum of the earth. He preferred to walk these paths on foot. He wanted to feel the grit of the dirt beneath his boots, the humidity of the air, and the smell of decaying leaves. His heavy black robe and cloak fluttered in the breeze, the legendary blades on his body clinking softly with a rhythmic, metallic song.
Near a sharp, treacherous bend in the trade road, he came upon a scene of mundane disaster. A merchant's heavy wagon was tilted at a precarious angle. One of its massive wooden wheels had found a deep, rain-slicked mud rut. The merchant, a stout man with a face reddened by frustration, was heaving against the side of the cart. Eiden didn't hesitate. He didn't announce himself or demand a tithe of prayer. He simply walked to the edge of the road. With a subtle, almost imperceptible flick of his hand, he channeled a thread of kinetic mana through the black divine metal ring. The effect was silent but absolute. The heavy crates rose from the mud as if lifted by a giant's invisible hand, the muck falling away from them in mid-air. They stacked themselves with mathematical precision back onto the wagon bed. With another gentle nudge of his will, the entire wagon lurched upward and forward, settling back onto the solid road. The merchant stammered, looking around wildly, but Eiden was already a dozen paces down the road, his white hair catching the wind.
As he moved deeper into the ancient, shadowed woods, the peace of the afternoon was shattered. A guttural, unnatural roar tore through the trees—a sound that vibrated with the "wrongness" of corruption. Eiden crested a ridge to find a mother and her young child backed against a cliff face. Facing them was a corrupted bear—a creature whose fur was matted with dark, oily ichor that drips onto the grass, hissing as it touched the earth. Its eyes glowed with a sickly, necrotic violet light. Eiden stepped into the clearing, his expression turning to cold, impassive stone. He didn't draw his blades; for a creature this far gone, steel was too slow. He simply looked at the beast, his piercing grey eyes flashing with a cold, absolute light.
"Return to the flow," he whispered. In a silent, blinding burst of pure white brilliance, the bear evaporated. Its atoms, cleansed of the oily corruption by the sheer force of Eiden's mana, returned to the Great Flow as shimmering dust. The mother gasped, clutching her child. Eiden gave her a brief, solemn nod—a silent reassurance that the forest was safe again—before continuing his trek toward Oakhaven. He reached the town's center just as the shadows were lengthening into long, purple fingers across the square. He slid a heavy, wax-sealed letter into the message box near the magistrate's office.
As he turned to begin the long walk back to the mansion, Eiden felt the ring on his finger pulse. It was Selyndra—a flicker of anticipation, a warm wave of "come home." He looked up at the rising moon, his long white hair glowing in the twilight, and felt the first true spark of hunger for the night to come. The stars were beautiful, but the kitchen hearth and the people around it held a warmth the cosmos could never replicate.