I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Yuki. Those eyes. That voice. That weightless way she said her name like it was a whisper too tired to be spoken.

My arms were full of kindling, but my mind was miles away. What happened to her? What is still happening? So many questions, so few answers… Erik told me there was a war before I was born, something to do with that?

When I emerged from the trees, Erik didn’t even glance at me.

“I was about to come looking for you,” he muttered.

I flinched. “Sorry… I didn’t hear you. I was close to the edge of the woods, windy.”

He finally looked up. His thumb was bleeding — a clean slice across the pad. His knife lay beside the block of wood, forgotten.

“You could’ve said something,” he said, quieter now.

I dropped the sticks and knelt down, pulled the canteen from my pack. “You were working,” I mumbled. “Didn’t wanna bother you.”

The water hit his skin and he winced. I didn’t apologize. I just wrapped the bandage tight.

By the time we made it home, dusk had swallowed the sky. Ice clung to our brows and lashes, little white needles that blinked and melted as soon as we stepped inside.

Erik shoved open the door and dropped the sack of tools and carving wood by the threshold with a grunt. His face was drawn and darker than usual. I followed in after him, numb-fingered, and emptied my bundle of sticks into the old leather chest by the window.

In the kitchen, Agatha stirred something thick over the fire. The air smelled like… nothing. No salt, no herbs — we couldn’t afford those. Calista, of all people, was hunched over a book.

Calista reading? Had the world gone mad?

She spotted me and smirked. “Kam? Did you know there used to be dragons?”

I blinked. “W-what?”

She spun the book around. A red-scaled beast reared above a knight, sword raised. “They were real. Like, actually real.”

“You’re lying…” I said automatically, but my feet were already moving closer.

“She’s telling the truth, dear,” Agatha said as she stirred the pot.

Calista shot me a glare, clearly stung. I hadn’t meant to upset her.

“What happened to the dragons?” I asked, softer this time.

Agatha turned to face us, wiping her hands on her apron. “A long time ago, Encor wasn’t like this. It was dangerous, powerful, alive. And at its heart were four dragons—ancient creatures the world called The Four Sages.”

I blinked. “Only four?”

Calista leaned forward; eyes bright. “And they didn’t age. School says they were super-duper old.”

I sat down, pulled in by the story. “So… what happened to them?”

Agatha paused, then smiled. “The Great slew them. All of them.”

A hush settled over the room. Even the fire seemed quieter.

“Why are you smiling?” I asked, frowning.

Agatha chuckled under her breath. “Oh, honey. The Four Sages weren’t some bedtime story myth. They were territorial, destructive. Entire villages wiped out because two of them wanted the same mountain.”

I stared at her. “You’re laughing about that?”

Erik, leaning on the counter with a glass in hand, snorted. “Seems we inherited a few things from them.”

Agatha’s eyes cut to him—sharp. “That’s enough.”

I leaned forward. “So, who’s the Great?”

“A hero!” Calista chirped from the table, practically bouncing in her seat.

“So the story goes,” Agatha said, turning back to her pot. “He carried a sword, glowing with overwhelming power. Rumoured to be forged by god. He hunted them—one by one.”

“A sword?” I echoed, my mind racing.

“Yup,” Agatha said, stirring the pot again, “a huge black and gold blade. But it vanished after the Sages fell. The Great vanished too.”

Her voice had lost some confidence. She didn’t like talking about it. That meant the sword still mattered. Maybe too much.

Erik grunted. “Back during the war, there were rumors… said the sword was split into ten pieces, other swords. Supposedly they can amplify power.”

Agatha’s head snapped toward him. “You never told me that.”

“Didn’t think it mattered,” Erik said, rinsing his glass. “Politics, war games — not my world anymore. You of all people know that.”

Agatha looked down, jaw tight, then back up. “Amplify how?”

Erik placed the glass on the counter with a soft clink. “Mana’s still in the air, just thin. Too weak for our cores to re-emit. But those fragments, they say it can work with your mana core, to boost mana output.”

“WE COULD MANIPULATE MANA?!?!” I blurted.

“Kam! Inside voice.” Agatha’s tone cut through the room like a knife.

Erik just laughed. “We used to, yeah. But not anymore. The world changed.”

All our heads turned to Calista. She sat cross-legged by the fire, eyes shut tight, fingers twitching slightly. Meditating. Reaching.

Trying anyway.