Stoney pulled the Witch toward himself and helped her to her feet. Without hesitating, the Witch placed her hands on Stoney's chest and then rested her head against him. Stoney's face turned red instantly; he had no idea what to do.
"Hey, woman, what are you doing? You're embarrassing me in front of the kid."
Lane, meanwhile, spoke without changing his expression.
"Master, I'm leaving the room. Make yourselves comfortable."
Stoney's face had turned completely crimson. Being put in a situation like this in front of his own student embarrassed him badly.
He immediately pushed the Witch back slightly.
"Anyway, enough of this nonsense. There are things I need to talk to you about."
The Witch first straightened her wrinkled clothes, then gathered herself and became serious.
"Stoney, I told you not to come here. Why did you come? And what is there left for you to talk to me about?"
Hearing her words, Stoney lowered his head slightly. His voice was quiet.
"What happened, happened… We need to look forward now."
The Witch felt a pang of sadness when she heard Stoney mutter that. But right after that, a serious expression settled back onto her face. She raised her hand and cast a teleportation spell. In an instant, everyone was seated on the sofas.
"So then, tell me. Why did you come here?"
She took a sip of her tea, then continued:
"Stoney, you wouldn't come here out of kindness. You came to ask for something for tomorrow's meeting, didn't you?"
Stoney briefly glanced around, then fixed his eyes on the Witch.
"Yes. Tomorrow I'll be meeting with the King, and things in the kingdom are a little complicated. I want your help."
The Witch fell into thought.
"Hmmm… I see. But who said I would help you? What made you come to that conclusion?"
Before answering, Stoney slipped his hand into the pocket on his chest. He took out a necklace. Raising his hand, he let it sway lightly.
"Do you recognize this, I wonder?"
The Witch's eyes widened at once. Her face flushed slightly, but at the same time sorrow settled into her. She said nothing.
Lane, meanwhile, sat across from the two of them, watching everything like he was watching a scene unfold. He thought to himself:
What exactly am I witnessing right now? Two little doves that are about to cry from loneliness. And the tea is so good it's unreal.
Stoney rose to his feet. With slow steps, he approached the Witch and moved behind her. Then he lifted his hand toward her long, lively, wavy hair.
"Don't worry…"
The Witch's face turned completely red by then. Even Stoney's own hands were trembling. The necklace swayed lightly in his fingers. Lane, meanwhile, had tilted his head up a little and was forcing himself not to laugh.
I'm getting embarrassed on Stoney's behalf right now… Aghhh… Is this really what a person becomes like when they fall in love?
Stoney slowly slipped the necklace around the Witch's neck and then fastened it at the back. The necklace itself was purple; it was a fairly large piece, surrounded by medium-sized diamonds. It was neither too flashy nor so small that it would go unnoticed. The diamonds were just right; they caught the eye without screaming for attention.
The Witch slowly raised her hand to the diamonds. Her eyes grew misty. She quickly turned her face to the side and wiped her tears away.
Stoney was about to pull his hand back when the Witch suddenly took hold of his hands.
"I want… to stay like this for a little while…"
Stoney said nothing.
He simply waited.
The silence inside the room was heavier than all the words that had been spoken. Neither Lane spoke nor did Stoney pull his hand away. The Witch's fingers were holding Stoney's hands tightly, as if something would go missing the moment she let go.
The embarrassment on Stoney's face had already turned into something else. Inside that hard man, a fragility he had kept buried for years was quietly rising to the surface. The tears in the Witch's eyes were not only for that necklace; they were for everything left unfinished in the past, for everything unsaid, postponed, and delayed.
Lane, meanwhile, was still silent. At first, he had watched what was happening with mild amusement, but now he could feel the atmosphere in the room changing. This was no longer just the strange closeness of two people. This was something carried for a long time finally breaking through. The weight of unfinished feelings, stubbornly hidden longing, and moments that came too late had filled that small silence.
The Witch lowered her head slightly. Her fingers were still resting on the necklace.
As if that necklace had not touched her neck, but her heart directly.
Stoney remained where he was without saying a single word. His hand had stopped trembling, but his breathing still had not fully steadied. Maybe there was a lot he needed to say, or maybe no words could have carried the weight of that moment. So he stayed silent.
There are moments when a person does not speak. Because if they do, everything they have held inside for years falls apart at once.
And this was exactly one of those moments.
Lane finally couldn't hold it in anymore and coughed.
The moment they heard the sound, Stoney and the Witch both snapped back to themselves. The Witch smiled lightly and thanked Stoney. Stoney, as always, lowered his head and awkwardly tried to say it was nothing.
After a brief silence, the Witch turned her gaze toward Lane.
"Stoney, then who is this child?"
Stoney answered immediately:
"He's the son of a very close friend of mine. And at the same time, he's my student."
The Witch stood up and walked toward Lane with slow steps. Then she placed her hands on Lane's head. Lane did not understand at first what she was trying to do, but he did not move from where he was.
The Witch spoke in a serious tone:
"Stay still. For you to come out of that spell with your sanity intact is almost impossible. I need to check your condition."
Lane remained silent and stayed still.
The Witch's hands began to glow. As the spell took effect, Lane's hair began to ripple slightly. The Witch strengthened the spell a little more each time, but she was not getting the result she expected. Her brows knitted slightly.
"Your mental state seems fine for now… How did you manage to come out from under that spell?"
The moment Lane heard that question, he remembered the hand inside the void. At that moment, he realized that it had not been the Witch who had saved him. He sank into thought all at once.
If the Witch didn't heal me… then was it that person inside me who did it? I need to meet him. There is definitely something strange going on here.
Lane was thinking so deeply that he did not even hear Stoney calling to him. Suddenly, Stoney grabbed Lane by the arms and lightly shook him.
"LANE! Are you okay?"
Lane jerked in surprise.
"Huh? What happened? What's going on?"
Stoney frowned at him.
"Kid, you were thinking so deeply that you didn't answer when we called you. I thought something had happened to you."
Lane took a short breath, then tried to calm himself.
"I'm fine, Master. Something just got stuck in my head. In the lady's spell, my family was being slaughtered. After that, I was taking my own life… but then I was floating in a pitch-black void. And at the very end, a hand touched my head, and I came back to myself."
The Witch cut in halfway through Lane's sentence with a slight smile.
"Stoney, your boy is calling me 'my lady' and all that. He's quite respectful, apparently…"
Then her smile slowly faded, and her face became serious again. She fixed her eyes directly on Lane.
"You say you saw a hand touching you?"
Stoney turned toward the Witch and grumbled lightly.
"Yeah, yeah… Lane is a respectful one."
Lane ignored his tone and continued speaking.
"Yes. A hand touched my forehead, and I woke up from that sleep instantly."
This time, the Witch was looking at Lane with an entirely different kind of attention. She no longer looked like just a healing mage, but like someone trying to understand something much deeper. Then she began asking him questions related to his condition.
"So, are you alright now? Do you have any pain anywhere? Did you feel anything else strange? To be honest, this is the first time I've heard something like this from someone like you."
Stoney turned to the Witch impatiently.
"So is this a bad thing or a good thing?"
The Witch was silent for a few seconds. It was as though she was choosing her words carefully.
"I can't call it bad. Because when I looked into his mind, that thing seemed more like it was protecting Lane. So saying it is directly bad would not be wise."
Then her voice grew heavier.
"But I can't call it good either. Because I don't know what it wants, or what its purpose is. All I know is that there is someone in Lane's mind… and that being has been with him since the day he was born."
The moment Lane heard that, his eyes widened. The thought racing through him did not show on his face, but his mind was suddenly thrown into confusion.
Wait a second… If it has always been with me, then why is it appearing now? Why didn't I see it before? Why now?
At that moment, none of those questions had an answer. There was only a mystery growing heavier.
The Witch clapped her hands together, as if she wanted to scatter at least some of the heaviness in the room.
"Now let's eat. Besides, from what I've heard, people from the empire will also be coming to tomorrow's royal meeting."
Stoney nodded. Lane did not object either. The Witch then snapped her fingers and used her teleportation spell again.
In an instant, everyone found themselves seated at the dining table.
The transition had been so sudden that the heavy conversation from moments before seemed to remain hanging in the air for an instant.
The Witch spoke all of a sudden:
"Ah, by the way, I forgot to tell you my name, Lane. My name is Merry. Stoney and I have been friends since childhood. Though our paths separated after Stoney entered the academy, we came together again later."
Giving in to his curiosity, Lane asked directly:
"Lady Merry, what exactly is your relationship with Stoney? If you don't mind me asking, you seem a little more like lovers than just friends."
Merry responded to the question with a loud and clearly fake laugh.
"HAHAHAHAHA… Do we really look like that? Hahahah… What do you say, Stoney?"
Stoney cut in immediately.
"Hey, you little brat. Eat your food. You're still too young for topics like that."
Lane said nothing. He kept quietly eating the food in front of him. But in one corner of his mind, Merry and Stoney's bond was still there.
The food Merry had made was truly flawless. It tasted as though it had come from the hands of a master chef. As if it had been brought specially from the royal kitchen. Since it had been years since Lane had eaten something this good, he had finished his plate so quickly that he had already moved on to a second one.
While eating, he thought to himself:
I need to find out what is between Merry and Stoney. If I can fix things between them, I can make an unknown but very powerful mage my ally.
At that moment, Merry spoke again:
"So then, what are you planning to do now? The people coming from the empire tomorrow are coming to inspect certain things in the kingdom. And I heard the King is not happy about that at all."
Stoney answered with a serious look on his face:
"That's why I came to you. This child needs an item. Something that will hide his power. Because when we enter the King's audience, we must go in with nothing on us at all. And if this child's dragon mana is exposed, it will cause huge trouble."
Merry's expression changed immediately.
"Lane has dragon mana? Is this child from the SkyDrane bloodline?"
Stoney nodded.
"Yes. He's Kaelric's son."
The moment Merry heard that, she jumped to her feet. In an instant, she threw herself at Lane and hugged him tightly.
"You… you're Selara's son?"
The excitement in her voice was too strong to hide. A muffled sound escaped Lane's mouth involuntarily.
"Ugh…"
Merry had been so excited that she did not realize how tightly she was holding him. She immediately let go of Lane and apologized.
"Sorry, I got excited. Selara and I were very close friends. While those two lunatics were always together, I was the one who became friends with Selara. How is she? Is she well?"
The expression on Lane's face did not change. His voice remained calm, but beneath that calm there was a silent emptiness.
"I haven't had any news about my family for more than three years."
The moment he said that, the happiness on Merry's face vanished all at once. The warmth in her eyes darkened. She clenched her lips, then spoke through her teeth in anger:
"That son of a bitch, the Solarin Emperor… I don't understand what he wants with dragon blood, that bastard…"
The moment Lane heard those words, his eyes widened. It was as if boiling water had been poured over his head. His entire body tensed instantly.
"What did you say… Dragon blood?"
The bloodlust inside him began to surge all at once. The atmosphere at the table changed. The setting that had been warm and intimate just moments earlier suddenly grew heavy under an invisible pressure.
At first, Merry did not understand what was happening. But the change in Lane's eyes was not normal. What was rising inside him was not just anger; it was something darker, something more savage.
The moment Stoney noticed it, he did not hesitate.
He raised his hand and struck Lane hard on the neck. Lane lost consciousness where he sat.
Merry shot to her feet in shock.
"Stoney!"
Stoney caught Lane's falling body, then turned his face toward Merry. His tone was heavier than even his usual harshness.
"That child holds an enormous amount of hatred inside him. And whatever that thing inside him is… it is something terrifying. That is why we need to be careful not to let him get angry."
Then he paused for a moment. He looked at Lane's face, then continued:
"By himself, with only three-star mana, he cast a spell close to six-star power. He did it while demonic creatures were attacking. If he loses control… even I doubt I could stop him."
The shock on Merry's face slowly gave way to worry. Only minutes ago, she had been overwhelmed with joy at finding Selara's son. Now she was trying to understand what exactly that child was carrying inside him.