Aron opened his eyes slowly, the weight of sleep still pressing down on him. He lay still for a moment, then pulled himself upright and began dressing — moving carefully, mindful of the bandages wrapped around his chest, his shoulder, and both hands. The wounds weren't fresh, but they weren't finished healing either. He moved with the particular stiffness of a man who had pushed his body further than it wanted to go and was only now being made to reckon with the cost.
He stepped outside into the cool morning air and made his way to the well. He lowered the bucket, let it fill, then hauled it back up hand over hand. When the water came clear and cold over his face, he exhaled — long and slow. The world sharpened. He felt more like himself.
---------------
He went to the barn next.
The horse heard him before he arrived and was already moving toward the gate by the time Aron stepped inside. The animal pressed his nose forward, drawing in Aron's scent, and let out a low, familiar neigh.
"You must have been alone for a while, big guy," Aron said quietly, reaching up to pat him along the neck. "Sorry about that. How are you holding up?" The horse shifted closer, easy and unhurried, the way animals do when they trust someone completely. Aron prepared the feed and set it down, then filled a bucket with water and placed it alongside. He watched the horse eat for a moment, then settled back against the wall.
"I may be leaving," he said, almost to himself. "Today or tomorrow. For good, this time." He looked at the horse — really looked at him. "I think I finally know my path."
The horse stopped eating. He turned and stepped closer to Aron again, lowering his head gently — as if he understood every word, and was offering the only farewell he knew how to give.
-------------
Aron left the barn and crossed to the blacksmith room at the far end of the property.
The furnace was cold and empty. He loaded it with coal, got the fire started, then fed it air until the heat concentrated and the glow deepened to a fierce, steady orange. While the furnace built its temperature, he turned and retrieved the blade from where it had been stored — wrapped in cloth, exactly as he'd left it. He unfolded it carefully and studied it for a moment, then placed it inside the furnace to heat.
He let it sit. He prepared the hammer. He filled a bucket with water and set it nearby, running through the steps in his head the way a craftsman does — methodical, patient. When enough time had passed, he drew the blade back out.
It was exactly as it had been before. Unchanged. Untouched by the heat.
Aron frowned. He turned the blade over in his hands, then placed it back inside. He waited longer this time, pushing the furnace hotter. When he pulled it out again, the result was the same.
"What is wrong with this thing?" he muttered. The frustration came quickly — not the slow, building kind, but the sharp kind that arrives when you've done everything right and the world still refuses to cooperate. He threw the blade down, closed the furnace, and walked out.
--------------
He went to the mountain.
There was a spot he returned to whenever his thoughts became too loud — a flat stretch of rock with a wide view of the valley below, where the wind moved steadily and the noise of everything else fell away. He sat down, jaw tight, turning the problem over in his mind.
*The furnace wasn't working. The hammer wasn't working.* He had even tried that, swinging at the cold blade in frustration, and accomplished nothing. He let out a sound — long and raw — that carried every bit of his irritation out into the open air.
*Now what?*
Then, in the quiet that followed, he heard a voice.
"What happened to you?"
Aron turned. Carlos was sitting on a broken tree a few feet away, watching him with an expression that was somewhere between concern and amusement.
"You always show up when I'm at my worst," Aron said flatly.
Carlos placed a hand on his shoulder and sat closer. He looked out at the view — the rolling valley, the distant tree line, the sky stretching open above all of it — and let out a breath of genuine appreciation. "I have to say, this is a beautiful spot. Makes you wonder why anyone would choose war when a place like this exists."
Despite himself, some of the tension left Aron's shoulders.
"The blade," he said. "I tried to repair it. I maxed out the furnace — nothing. I tried the hammer — nothing. It won't respond to anything. Something is missing and I don't know what."
Carlos was quiet for a moment. "Maybe the blade isn't asking for heat or a hammer," he said. "Maybe it's asking for something else. Do you treat it like your own?"
Aron gave him a look. "It's metal. Metal with some kind of power that only ever seems to pull toward darkness."
"You're wrong about that," Carlos said, simply and without judgement. "A blade that has been with you through real battles — it carries something. I'm not talking about ordinary ones. I'm talking about the kind that stays with you, that's there when everything else falls apart." He paused. "Has it ever protected you? Even when you didn't ask it to?"
Aron went quiet. He turned back through his memory — the moment against the Black Reaper, when the blade had moved almost ahead of his own intention. The same in Ray Village. Twice now, at least, it had done something he hadn't directed.
"Yeah," he admitted. "It has. More than once."
"And did you ever acknowledge it?"
Aron said nothing.
Carlos stood and extended his hand. "There's a bond there that hasn't been built yet. Go build it."
Aron reached up and took his hand —
-----------------
And opened his eyes.
Morning. Just barely. The sun had only begun to arrive, pale and thin along the horizon. He sat up, breathing hard, the dream still vivid and immediate around the edges of his thoughts.
*Was that a dream?*
He looked at his hands. He looked at the room. Everything was exactly as it had been, still and ordinary and real. And yet the lesson inside the dream sat in him like something solid — not the kind that fades with waking, but the kind that lodges.
He shook his head once, got up, and moved.
He went back to the chamber, pushed open the old wooden door, and stepped inside with the death blade in hand. He set it down in front of him and crouched, studying it properly for the first time.
The letters carved along the blade were written in Augusta — the language of the norms, ancient and deeply intricate, drawn from texts that were thousands of years old. He had seen the markings before but never truly looked at them. Now he did.
He reached out and wrapped his hand around the grip.
The blade turned molten in an instant.
Aron released it and stepped back, breath caught — but then he looked at his palm. It had burned. He had felt the heat reach his skin. And yet there was no pain.
He stared at his hand for a long moment, understanding beginning to form at the edges of something he couldn't yet name.