They were no longer in the same corner where the thugs had beaten Ed.
Almost without Ed noticing—absorbed as he was in the story, in the pauses, in the revelations—Samael had guided them to a more secluded table. A forgotten corner of the bar, where the magical bulbs didn't reach with such intensity and shadows gathered like lazy cats.
But it wasn't just the location. There was something… different in the air around them.
The location was good. You could talk about whatever you wanted, not as if you were in your own room with the doors closed, but almost. With whispers or low murmurs you could utter words that wouldn't see the light, secrets that third parties couldn't hear with complete clarity.
Samael, with an almost imperceptible gesture of his fingers under the table—as if he were controlling invisible puppets—had done something.
It wasn't a great display of power. There were no blinding lights or thunder. It was a whisper of his spiritual energy, a manipulation so subtle that Ed only felt it as a sudden change of pressure in his ears, followed by an abnormal calm. Like when you cover and uncover your ears underwater.
It wasn't a visible smoke screen. It wasn't a crude shield. It was something more sophisticated: a sonic and perceptual barrier, an isolated space within the bustle. A dome in the best sense of the word. A bubble of selective silence.
Inside their bubble, they could speak normally. But for the rest of the tavern, the two men in the corner seemed to be engaged in a silent conversation, moving their lips like fish in a bowl. If someone—a body language expert, a trained lip reader—concentrated very hard, they might catch some loose fragment of Ed's emotional babbling. But never, ever, Samael's clear and measured speech.
It was a barrier for the story itself. Protecting it from prying ears, from curious glances, from unwanted interruptions. Ensuring that the epic of ashes and beasts wouldn't be contaminated by mundane noise.
This was a sacred tale. And they were not going to let any thing, or person, come to corrupt it with their malignant presence.
Ed didn't ask. He didn't understand what had happened, but he accepted it. It was part of the magic of the night, of the story, of the moment.
---
In the cabin, years ago. Inside the bubble of memory.
It's been a long time since I used that book, the grandfather thought mentally, watching Samael. The child was already on the rug, lying on his stomach with the book in front of him, his legs kicking in the air like a fish out of water. What is this curious boy looking for now?
The grandfather approached with silent steps—years as a hunter and warrior had taught him to move without making noise—and sat on the floor, crossing his legs in front of Samael. The book, enormous and open, lay between them like a low, sacred table. Like an altar.
"What are you looking for today, Samael?" he asked.
His voice had completely lost the tone of a battle instructor. There were no orders, no criticisms, no strategies. Now it was soft, warm, the voice of a grandfather sharing a secret with his grandson.
"Do you need my help with something? I don't know… for me to explain something you don't understand?"
"Wait a moment, Grandpa," the child replied, without looking up from the book. "Let me get to the page where I'll need your help."
He turned a page. Then another. His fingers, small but precise, handled the leaves with the care of someone handling something fragile and valuable. With a bit of his saliva—just a touch to moisten his finger slightly—he separated two pages that were stuck together from time and humidity.
"Where was I? I think…"
His eyes scanned the page. Then the next.
"I've seen these illustrations," and he turned the page. "These too," he skipped to another. "Though I didn't understand them and I've already seen them," he turned past them as well.
Until he stopped.
"Aha. This page, Grandpa. It's this one."
His finger rested on the edge of the book, pointing without touching.
"I need a little of your help here. With these illustrations."
The grandfather leaned forward, resting his elbows on his own knees. On his face, a wide, proud smile. His grandson, his little prodigy, was asking him for help. Not in combat, not in brute force, but in knowledge. In wisdom.
"I see. So ask me whatever you want," the grandfather replied, puffing out his chest with pride. "I'm ready for questions, son. Do you want to start now?"
Little Samael nodded.
He turned pages with careful fingers that barely brushed the old leaves. The paper, yellowish and brittle, crinkled softly with each movement. Until he stopped at an illustration that seemed to breathe.
It was the only one that conveyed that aura. That presence, even though it wasn't real. Just by looking at it, the majesty it carried was something… that you couldn't explain with words. It was something like: how can something like this exist? This is impossible.
The illustration on the page showed a bird.
Majestic. Divine.
Its feathers, drawn with such detail they seemed to have texture, formed a gradient of reds, oranges, and golds that evoked living flames. It wasn't a static drawing; it seemed the fire moved, the feathers rippled, the heat emanated from the paper.
Its eyes, a deep and intense amber, seemed to follow whoever looked at them. No matter what angle you observed from, those eyes were looking at you.
"The… Phoe-nix," Samael read, dragging the syllables with a concentration that furrowed his small brow. He pronounced each letter with the care of someone deciphering a secret code. "Isn't that what it says there, Grandpa?"
"Yes. The Phoenix," the grandfather nodded. His calloused finger, marked by decades of wielding a sword, gently pointed at the mythological creature. "A being that exists in the limbo between the real and the symbolic. Between what was and what could be."
And Samael began to pay attention. Not like when he trained, when his attention was that of a fighter assessing threats. It was something else. It was the attention of a child discovering that the world was bigger, deeper, and stranger than he had ever imagined.
"It is said," the grandfather continued, his voice adopting the slow rhythm of ancestral storytellers, "that when it reaches the end of its cycle, of a life that can span centuries…"
He paused. His eyes changed. They took on a tone that made the child pay even closer attention to the next words. As if what he was about to say was the key to everything.
"It does not die like others. It explodes into a fire so pure that it consumes its body completely. Down to the last feather. Down to the last bone. Down to the last memory of what it was."
"It doesn't die?" Samael asked, and there was genuine confusion in his voice. The beasts he had seen die, the ones he had helped hunt in training, never came back to life. Once dead, they stayed dead. "Why does this happen to it? How is it possible?"
"Well, I don't know," the grandfather replied, shrugging with a disarming honesty. "We don't know. No one really knows. Some say it's a curse. Others, a blessing. But according to the legends…" he crossed his arms over his chest. "It happens like this."
He leaned forward a little more, as if about to share the greatest secret.
"I already told you: according to legend, from those ashes, still smoking, still hot, still throbbing… a new Phoenix is born. Young. Renewed. As if time had not passed. As if death had just been a dream from which it awakens."
He paused again, letting the image imprint on the child's mind.
"It is a powerful symbol, Samael. Not of death, but of rebirth. That the fiercest hope, the most indestructible, can emerge even from total destruction. Even from the ashes."
The child was silent. His eyes did not leave the illustration.
"I see, Grandpa," he murmured at last, though his voice showed he hadn't fully grasped the explanation. The words were big, the concepts enormous, and his three-year-old mind was just beginning to build the scaffolding to hold them. "But even so, it's… amazing what you told me."
Samael stared fixedly at the illustration. His dark eyes reflected the lines of fire, the reds and oranges, the intense golds, as if flames danced within his own pupils. As if for an instant, he too burned.
Then, without looking up from the bird of ash and fire, he asked.
And his voice was both so small and so large.
"Can everything that burns be reborn, Grandpa?"