Lys stood just inside the front door with Tresta beside him. The two bags sat on the floor near his feet. Elara, Mira, and Selene stared at them from the middle of the room.
Seeing Lys bringing a woman home with almost no notice, the air inside the house felt thick with questions no one had asked yet.
With the intention of breaking the ice, Selene spoke first. She rubbed her eyes one more time and stepped closer. "Oh, Lys, you came back," she said, her voice light like this was any normal day.
"Oh, you brought someone with you, I see." She tried to sound surprised as best as she could, even though she knew very well Lys was going to bring her back.
Lys gave a small nod and stepped aside to introduce Tresta. "Yeah. This is Tresta. The person I was talking about yesterday."
Before anyone could say anything, Mira moved forward, knowing it was better to take Tresta out of her now.
She smiled at Tresta in a quick, practical way. "Come on, Miss Tresta. Let's not make you stand in front of the door too long. I'll show you the room upstairs where you can stay. It's small but clean. You can rest there for now. Let's leave them here to talk."
Feeling what Mira meant by "talk," Tresta picked up one of her bags. Mira took the other one before Tresta could try to. They started up the wooden stairs together. The steps creaked under their weight.
Tresta paused halfway up and looked back down toward the room. Her eyes met Lys's for a second. She did not say anything.
Lys gave her a small nod.
It was enough for her to know that Lys can handle it. Tresta turned and continued up with Mira.
-----
Upstairs, Mira pushed open the door to the spare room. Sunlight came through the small window and lit up the simple bed, a wooden chair, and an empty shelf.
"This is it," Mira said as she set the bag down near the bed. "The blanket is clean. And there's water in that pitcher on the table. If you need anything else, just tell us. We're all downstairs."
Tresta set her other bag down slowly. She looked around the room without much expression on her face. "Thank you," she said quietly. "This is more than enough."
Mira nodded with a dry smile. She did not try to fill the silence with too many words. "The bathroom is at the end of the hall downstairs. And dinner will be ready soon. I'll call you, okay?"
Tresta just nodded and sat down on the bed.
Mira gave Tresta one last look, then turned and headed back downstairs.
-----
Downstairs, Lys sat on the edge of a chair. Elara stood near the kitchen entrance, her arms crossed so tight her chest looked like getting suffocated. Mitsu had come in behind them and now stood quietly by the table, her eyes darting between everyone like she was trying to figure out whether to stay or disappear. Selene stayed close to Lys, her hand resting lightly on the back of his chair.
Elara looked at Mitsu first. "You came alone? Didn't you see Helga out there? She went to find you at the market."
Mitsu shook her head. "Huh? No. I didn't see her. The market was already chaotic when I left. So I just came straight home."
Elara's frown deepened. The lines around her mouth pulled tight, but then they loosened once again. "She should be back by now."
"Should I go out to look for her?" Mitsu asked.
Elara hesitated. For a moment, something flickered across her face, worry, maybe, or the weight of yet another thing she couldn't control.
But then she shook her head. "No. Don't go out looking for her now in this chaos. Stay inside until things calm down. She'll likely come back on her own when she can't find you."
Mitsu nodded. "Okay."
Then Elara's eyes moved to Lys.
Her whole body shifted. Her arms stayed crossed, but her shoulders squared. She took a step forward, then stopped, like she was physically holding herself back from saying something she might regret. When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter than Lys expected, but that somehow made it worse.
"Lys. I thought you said you were just doing normal things today. But now I hear about a dungeon break, and you bring a woman from the outer settlement without letting me know beforehand." She paused, her jaw working. "Are you trying to make me angry on purpose?"
Lys sat up straighter. The chair creaked under him. "But didn't I tell everyone last night that I planned to invite Tresta to stay with us?"
Elara's voice rose, not a yell, but something sharper than before. "Yeah, I admit that you mentioned it. But that was all. You mentioned it for a brief second, and I also said that the matter should be on hold. We have enough going on already, Lys. And now with everything happening outside..." She stopped, pressing her lips together like she was trying to swallow the rest of the sentence.
Lys leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees. "There wasn't any time to keep it on hold, Mom. If I didn't bring her today, she would have stayed in her house outside the village walls. Do you understand what that means? When the dungeon break hits…"
"I know what it means." Elara cut him off. Her voice cracked on the last word. "I'm not stupid, Lys. I know exactly what's coming."
She took a breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was steadier but somehow more tired. "I know. But that doesn't change the fact that you made a decision that affects all of us without saying a word to me first."
Lys rubbed the back of his left shoulder. His shoulders were feeling tight. "I know. I'm sorry. But things are moving way too fast. The outer settlement has almost no protection. Tresta is already sick from a curse. If monsters came out of the forest, she wouldn't have had a chance. So, I had to act."
Elara stared at him. Her arms loosened slightly, then tightened again. "You used to tell me everything. Before you did anything, anything, you'd come to me. You'd ask what I thought. You'd listen." Her voice dropped. "But now you just... do things on your own."
The room went quiet. Mitsu had stopped fidgeting entirely. Selene's hand on the back of Lys's chair had gone still, too.
Lys looked at his mother. The way her fingers pressed into her own arms, the way her chest rose and fell too fast, the way her eyes stayed fixed on his face like she was trying to find something she used to see there.
Noticing all of those, he kinda felt sorry for some reason he didn't understood. Without knowing, he blurted out words, "I'm sorry," he said.
"I didn't think about how it would feel from your side. I just... I saw what needed to be done, and I did it. That's how it's been lately. Everything is moving so fast, and if I stop to ask permission every time, people might die, Mom."
Elara's face softened just a fraction. The hard line of her mouth trembled. "I'm not asking you to ask permission, Lys. I'm asking you to include me. To trust me. I'm still your mother. I still... I still need to know that you see me. That I'm not just someone who cleans the house and makes the meals while you go out and put yourself in danger without me knowing."
Lys felt something crack open in his chest. He stood up slowly, crossed the room, and pulled his mother into a hug before she could step away. She stiffened at first, surprised, then her arms came up and wrapped around him too, and she held on tight.
"I see you, Mom," he said quietly into her hair. "I'm sorry for making you feel like this all this time."
Elara didn't say anything. She just held on.
Selene stepped between them, her voice gentle but firm. "Okay. Let's put a hold on this for now. We have a guest in the house. We shouldn't show her our bad sides on her first day here."
Before anyone could reply, footsteps came from the stairs. Mira and Tresta walked down together. Tresta looked a little more settled, though her face stayed tired.
Elara pulled back from Lys quickly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand before anyone could see. She smoothed her apron and turned toward the kitchen, her voice almost normal. "I'll start dinner."
The subject dropped. Lys noticed it right away. His mother did not want to seem cold or angry in front of a woman who had just moved her entire life into a single room in a stranger's house. He felt grateful for that.
He also realised something else. Elara was not particularly angry about another woman coming into the house. The tension came from a different place, from him making big decisions without her, from watching her son become someone she didn't fully recognize, from the fear that she was becoming irrelevant in her own family.
Lys understood it all now. He made a mental note to talk to her later, alone, when things weren't so heavy.
Bang!!!
He was still thinking about that, and the Veyne house had just started to breathe again when the sound hit.
A loud bang came from outside.
Once.
Twice.
Then a long, flat note from a horn. It was not an ordinary signal. This was the horn used for one thing only: an attack from outside the village walls.
Everyone in the house went still at the same time. The horn continued to sound in the distance.
Lys and Selene looked at each other across the room. No words were needed. Both of them understood exactly what it meant.
The dungeon break had finally begun.