Chapter 18: Dreams & Departure

The candles had burned low, wax pooling in their holders like frozen tears, when Oren looked up from his reading and saw the way his brothers and cousin slumped in their chairs. Bran’s eyes had taken on that glazed quality that came before sleep, his book propped open on the table though his gaze had long since stopped tracking the words. Tavik’s head nodded forward, jerking upright at intervals, fighting exhaustion even here, even safe, some part of him unable to fully surrender to rest.

Nix had curled sideways in his chair, his chin resting on his folded arms on the table. His runes pulsed with the slow rhythm of approaching sleep, gentle waves of green light washing across his pale blue skin like tide against the shore.

“Bed,” Oren said, his voice cutting through the drowsy hush with quiet authority. “All of us. We need proper sleep before morning.”

Bran lifted his head, blinking against the candlelight that swam in his vision. “Just a bit more. This passage about the crystalline bridges...”

“Can wait.” Oren closed his own book with finality, the sound of pages closing sharp in the quiet. “Whatever we’re walking towards tomorrow, we’ll need our strength. Come on.”

Tavik rose without protest, his body already moving towards the stairs, following the pull of rest like a compass finding north. The tether hummed beneath his ribs, steady and insistent, Nix’s presence a constant warmth he’d begun to grow accustomed to tracking. Bran sighed but obeyed, marking his place with a strip of cloth before setting the book aside with reluctance. Nix uncurled slowly, stretching with feline grace, his small frame barely filling the chair he’d occupied.

They climbed the winding stairs together, their stockinged feet silent on the worn wood, each step groaning softly beneath their weight. The loft opened before them, warm and welcoming despite the cold pressing against the walls outside. Four beds arranged in a gentle arc beneath the sloping ceiling; their frames carved from the same ancient wood as the tree house itself. Fairy lights strung overhead pulsed with soft luminescence, painting the space in shades of amber and gold that shifted with each breath of air. The beds themselves seemed to call to them, covers turned back as if by invisible hands, pillows plump and inviting, promising rest that might actually come.

Each claimed a bed. Oren took the one nearest the stairs, old habits of protection never quite leaving him, his body positioning itself between his brothers and cousin and whatever might climb up from below. Tavik settled beside him, close enough to wake his brother with a touch if needed, close enough to feel the steady rhythm of Oren’s breathing through the darkness. Bran chose the bed by the small round window, where moonlight spilled through warped glass in silver pools that rippled across the floorboards. Nix took the bed furthest from the stairs, tucked into the corner where the ceiling sloped lowest, a den within a den, safe and small and his.

They settled beneath the covers, the blankets soft as cloud and warm as summer grass, the weight of them comforting without being oppressive. The fairy lights dimmed of their own accord, fading to the barest glow, just enough to paint the edges of things without disturbing sleep’s approach. Outside, the forest whispered its endless song, branches swaying in winds too high to hear, the ancient consciousness of the Eldertree holding them close.

Oren lay on his back, hands folded across his chest, feeling the weight of the day settling into his bones. The crown of light had faded from his head, but he could still feel its presence, a whisper of potential, sleeping just beneath his skin. The thought should have frightened him, but here, in this place, with his brothers and cousin breathing softly in the darkness, he felt only a strange, quiet certainty.

Beside him, Tavik lay on his side, one hand tucked beneath his pillow, the other resting over his heart where the tether pulsed with gentle insistence. He could feel Nix’s presence in the corner, could sense the boy’s breathing evening out, the pain in his chest dulled to manageable ache. The tether sang between them, a connection he’d never asked for but couldn’t imagine living without now. One half of something. Incomplete alone. The thought didn’t frighten him as it once might have.

By the window, Bran watched moonlight carve patterns across the ceiling, cold light on dark wood. The threads. He could almost feel them now; the ones Nix had spoken of. Somewhere out there, two threads stretched away from him. His mother. His father. Both alive when they should have been ash and memory. The threads existed, luminous and undeniable, but distance made them strangers. Two years they’d mourned their father. Fifteen years his mother had been gone. The threads proved they lived, but living and present were not the same thing.

In the corner, Nix lay on his side, hands tucked beneath his chin. The wound in his chest throbbed with dull persistence, but Tavik’s healing had eased it enough that sleep felt possible. He thought of his cousins, of how they’d changed in just these few hours, growing into themselves in ways they didn’t yet recognise. Their pointed ears twitched in sleep now, responding to sounds too subtle for human hearing. Their breathing had synchronised with the forest’s rhythm. They were becoming what they’d always been, just hidden. The thought brought him comfort, a warmth that had nothing to do with the blankets.

The tree house breathed around them, the wood settling with soft creaks and sighs, a living thing cradling its guests with ancient patience. The fairy lights dimmed further, fading to the barest suggestion of glow, and sleep crept in on silent feet.

One by one, they slipped beneath the surface of waking.

Oren moved through a forest that was and wasn’t the Eldertrees. Light fell differently here, not from sun but from the trees themselves, pouring from bark and leaf in streams that had weight but no heat. He reached to touch a trunk and his hand passed through, insubstantial as mist.

Behind him, voices. Speaking a language he didn’t know but somehow understood at the edges. When he turned to look, figures moved between the light-giving trees, their forms unclear, faces impossible to see. Family? Strangers? The distinction felt meaningless here.

The crown sat on his head, but different now. Not weight. Not burden. Just... there. As natural as his own breath. He tried to speak, to call out to the figures, but his voice wouldn’t form. Instead, light spilled from his mouth in streams that joined the light from the trees, indistinguishable, part of something larger than himself.

Someone walked ahead. Always ahead. He followed but the distance never closed.

Tavik stood in grey space. Not empty. Just... between.

The tether stretched before him, not silver cord now but something else. A river? A road? It pulsed with rhythm that matched his own heart, and he couldn’t tell if he was following it or if it was part of him, threaded through his chest like veins.

At the other end, Nix. But he couldn’t see the boy, could only feel him, a presence that completed something Tavik hadn’t known was incomplete until the tether formed.

He tried to walk closer, but movement meant nothing here. Instead, he felt the tether pull, taut as rope, binding them. One half. The other half distant but present. Two parts of something that only worked together.

The grey space shifted. Other connections flickered at the edges, potential rather than real, threads that hadn’t formed yet but might. The future spreading outward like cracks in ice, beautiful and terrifying.

Bran stood in a room he’d never seen, but the walls weren’t walls. They were made of threads, thousands of them, glowing faintly, stretching in every direction. Some thick as rope. Some fine as spider silk. All of them connecting, binding, weaving a pattern too complex to understand.

He reached out and the threads hummed beneath his fingers, vibrating with life. He could feel the connections they represented. Oren. Tavik. Nix. The threads binding them to him pulsed warm and steady, close enough to touch.

But beyond them, two other threads stretched away into distance he couldn’t measure. These were different. Older. Formed before he was born but somehow still vital, still living. He tried to follow them with his gaze, but they disappeared into mist, leading to places he couldn’t see, to people who’d once been close but had chosen distance.

His mother. His father. The threads proved they lived, but distance made them strangers.

He grasped one thread, tried to pull it closer, but it slipped through his fingers like water. The not-knowing ached worse than any wound. Why had they left? Where had they gone? The threads held no answers, only the brutal truth of continued existence somewhere beyond his reach.

Nix was flying but also falling. Wings spread that weren’t wings. Constellation maps written across nothing. The wind tasted of violet light, of his own wound singing.

Below, MirMarnia fractured into pieces. Not land, but time. Not places, but moments stacked atop each other, all happening at once.

A face formed in storm clouds. Pale blue. Storm-marked. Eyes that shifted colour with each blink. Not familiar. Not strange. Both. Neither.

Words without sound: “You are the paradox that breaks and mends.”

He hit ground that wasn’t ground. A crystal forest pulsing. Three figures reaching. Their hands glowed different colours but the same source, same root, and together they were weaving something that looked like salvation but felt like a question he couldn’t answer.

Morning came grey, dawn filtering through warped glass in shades of bruised silver. The fairy lights had guttered to nothing in the night, leaving only natural light, thin and cold as winter breath. The air held the particular stillness of early hours, that fragile time before the world wakes and noise returns, when even birdsong waits.

Oren woke first, as he always did, his body attuned to dawn’s approach after years of keeping watch. He lay still for a moment, fragments of dreams clinging like frost on glass, there and not there, impossible to grasp but heavy with meaning. The loft was cold, the warmth from last night’s fire long since faded, replaced by the honest chill of morning. His breath misted faintly in the air above him.

He pushed the blankets back slowly, careful not to disturb the quiet, and rose. His bare feet met worn floorboards that creaked their morning complaint, the wood cold enough to make him draw breath sharp through his teeth. Deep forest cold. The kind that woke the body without shocking it into panic.

Tavik stirred at the sound of movement, some part of him always listening even in sleep. He sat up slowly, blankets falling away from his shoulders, one hand pressed to his chest where the tether hummed its quiet insistence. His hair stood up at odd angles, face creased from the pillow, but his eyes were already alert, tracking Oren across the space between beds. He met Oren’s eyes, and a nod passed between them. Agreement. Understanding. They’d both dreamed, and the dreams had weight, but morning wasn’t the time for examining shadows.

Bran woke next, blinking against grey light that seemed too bright after the darkness. His hand reached instinctively for the window beside him, fingers spreading against cold glass as if something beyond might still be visible. But there was only forest, branches swaying in winds that bent the smaller trees and set the Eldertree limbs groaning overhead. Morning birdsong was beginning its tentative chorus, robins and thrushes testing their voices, notes falling through mist like stones through water.

Nix stirred last, uncurling from a tight ball with feline slowness. His runes pulsed gently, reflecting what dawn light there was, casting faint green shadows across the pillow. His eyes opened clear and sharp, no grogginess clouding his awareness, his body moving from sleep to waking in an instant. Dreams scattered like startled birds the moment he tried to examine them, leaving only impressions, sensations that refused to coalesce into meaning.

They rose without speaking, the morning too new and fragile for words. Each moved with quiet purpose, the silence of people moving in shared space with careful consideration. Fabric rustled as blankets were shaken out, the sound soft and domestic, each of them smoothing covers and plumping pillows, leaving the beds as neat as they’d found them. The tree house deserved their care, their respect for the shelter it had offered. Stockinged feet padded soft on wood, the floorboards creaking in places, silent in others, a language they were learning without conscious thought.

They gathered what few belongings they’d unpacked, tucking things back into packs with efficient movements born of days on the road. Tavik checked the straps on his pack, testing the weight distribution, adjusting a buckle that had worked loose. Bran folded his spare shirt with careful precision, smoothing out wrinkles that didn’t matter but gave his hands something to do. Nix’s movements were economical, wasting no motion, each gesture serving a purpose.

Downstairs, the main room waited in grey morning light. The hearth sat cold and clean, ash swept into neat grey drifts, the stones patterned in swirls from last night’s fire. The air smelled of old smoke and lavender, beeswax and the green scent of living wood that pulsed slow and ancient through the dwelling’s bones.

Oren moved to the narrow shelf where the books rested, his fingers trailing over spines with something like reverence. Each volume had offered them knowledge they hadn’t known they needed, had opened doors to futures they couldn’t yet imagine. He lifted them one by one, feeling their weight, the leather covers worn smooth by countless hands before his. “Awakening at Twenty-Two: The Path of the Lightweavers.” “Rupture and Resilience: The Peril of Early Light.” “Crystalsong Echoes: The Elves and Their Fractured Kinship with the Caelvarae.” Each settled back into its place on the shelf with a soft sigh, as if the shelf itself offered them comfort, patient as stones, waiting for the next travellers who would need their wisdom.

Bran found the broom leaning in its corner where he’d left it the night before, the bristles still holding a faint scent of dust and herbs. He began to sweep though the floor hardly needed it, the motion meditative, a way of giving thanks through action rather than words. The bristles whispered across wood, a sound like wind through dry grass, steady and rhythmic. He swept carefully around the table legs, under the chairs, along the edges where wall met floor, gathering what little dust there was into a small pile by the hearth.

Tavik moved through the space checking their packs one final time, redistributing weight with practised efficiency, muscle memory from years of travel. But his attention was partly elsewhere, tracking Nix through the tether as the boy moved about the room. He could feel Nix’s steady presence, the pain in his chest a dull ache rather than the sharp agony it had been, and satisfaction settled warm in Tavik’s own chest. The healing had worked. Not completely, but enough.

Nix carried the empty plates from last night’s meal to the small basin by the hearth, stacking them carefully so they wouldn’t clatter. The basin held water that had gone cold overnight, a thin skin of ice forming at its edges. He broke through it with his fingers, the ice crackling and fragmenting, and washed each plate carefully. The water was cold enough to sting, turning his fingertips as deeper blue, but he worked methodically, scrubbing away every trace of food, rinsing each dish until it came clean. He dried them with a cloth that had gone soft from years of use, the fabric thin enough to see through in places, and stacked them neatly on the shelf where they belonged. The simple domesticity of the task brought unexpected comfort, this act of tending a space that had tended them. A meditation in gratitude.

When the room was tidy, when everything had been returned to its proper place, Bran reached for his pack and withdrew the coin pouch he’d tucked inside. The acorns-turned-coins clinked softly against each other, warm and oddly alive beneath his fingers, as if the magic that had transformed them still hummed within the alloy.

“We should share them,” he said, his voice the first to break the morning quiet. It sounded too loud in the hush, but necessary. “Equal portions. Whatever they’re meant for, we’re in this together.”

He divided the coins, counting them into four equal piles on the table. The gold caught the grey morning light, throwing back flecks of green and blue, forest magic captured in metal. Each brother and cousin received their share, tucking the coins into pouches or pockets, small weights that felt heavier than their size suggested, as if they carried promise or prophecy, futures not yet written but already taking shape.

“For luck,” Tavik said, though whether he believed in luck or simply wanted to voice something, anything, was unclear.

“For the journey ahead,” Oren offered, his tone making it less hope and more certainty, as if speaking it aloud might make it true.

They gathered by the door, pulling on their boots with the particular care of travellers preparing to return to the road. The leather was still supple from yesterday’s rest, the laces familiar beneath their fingers, each of them tying knots they could manage in the dark if needed. One by one, they stood, packs settled on shoulders with the weight distributed just so, straps adjusted until everything sat right. Ready to step back into the forest’s embrace, to walk whatever path opened before them.

But before they crossed the threshold, they turned as one, looking back into the small room that had sheltered them. The hearth sat cold and clean, waiting for the next travellers who would need its warmth. The table gleamed in the morning light, surrounded by its circle of chairs, each one positioned just so, ready to receive whoever came next. The fairy lights hung dormant overhead, their magic sleeping until needed, patient as the trees themselves. The books rested on their shelf, silent sentinels holding secrets for those who sought them, offering wisdom to any who would listen.

They stepped through the door and pulled it closed behind them, the latch settling with a soft click that felt like a benediction. The ancient runes carved around the frame pulsed once, gentle and approving, then faded to dormant silver.

The Eldertree Forest opened before them, deeper and wilder than the paths they’d walked before, the trees growing taller as they moved inward, trunks thickening from massive to colossal, roots rising from the forest floor like the arches of ancient cathedrals. Morning mist clung to the ground in patches, swirling around their boots as they walked, and somewhere high above, wind moved through the canopy with a sound like the sea.