Chapter 4 – The Feather and the Ledger

He walked across the room, bread abandoned on the table.

The morning sun streamed through the kitchen windows, dust motes drifting in lazy spirals. Mira's handwoven rugs, a chipped pot marked by steam, and the half-eaten loaf of rye on a timber board all seemed to wait patiently. Leo hardly noticed.

His gaze was fixed on something on the ground.

Sunlight glinted off an ivory feather, delicate and impossibly light. 

It lay at odds, as though it had fallen from the sky and rolled just once to rest before him. His heart started pounding, and he lifted it between his fingertips.

It pounds faintly, liIt pulsed faintly, like a tiny heartbeat. The air around it vibrated, not with wind but with expectation. Leo felt warmth seep into his palm, as if the feather carried hidden embers. When he inhaled, he detected a scent that was neither woodsmoke nor river, but something lost to time, reminiscent of the air after a storm and jasmine at midnight. from ruins. It wasn't from any world he knew.

And with that, shimmering proof, Leo realised he could no longer ignore the pull of the ruin Stones or the truth about who he had become.

Mira had left for her work. 

That left Leo alone with silence, daylight, and his own restless thoughts—questions circling round in his mind like crows over fresh hoofprints.

He climbed the narrow stairs. Each step creaked a familiar welcome. Dust motes drifted through a half-open windows, carrying the scent of honeysuckle and dew. 

At the end of the floor, a plain wooden door stood slightly ajar—his room.

His hand hesitated a bit on the cool and worn handle. 

He didn't didn't remeber this room... but it remembered him.

He opened the door slowly.

Insidethe room, parchments and bound volumes lay in quiet chaos. 

A desk bore ink stains and tattered maps, and a chipped quillholder sat empty, as if waiting for a new stroke. Rays of light carved a path across the desk, illuminating a lone feather resting on the top of the open journal. Dust spins in the glow.

Leo put the newly found feather beside his journal, as though they were bookends of two worlds. Then he took the journal and opened it.

Its pages are filled with the coordinates, hastily sketched symbols, half-written thoughts, the ink blur where hands had trembled—all spoke of urgency and obsession. And in the margins, written large enough to tremble off the page:

memory loose

anchor point lost

sister holds the key

His heart was pounding hard. Sister. Mira.

A flush of heat rose beneath his skin, and the room tilted.

He starts to see thing illustions its like memories from Leo's

He was wandering through a forest at night. Black bark reached him and tore his sleeves. The undergrowth snagged his boots. Moonlight cut through the mist. 

Behind him, voices yelled in a tongue he half-knew—half-forgotten, half-etched into bone.

In his hand, the ivory feather, its quill stained dark as wet clay. Blood.

A lantern bobbed ahead, swinging to an unseen rhythm. At its edge, a figure halted him—Mira, older, her armour etched with sigils that flickered like embers.

"Leo, you can't go back."

Her words hammered inside him, and then the memory shattered like glass.

He snapped back to the desk, gasping. His knuckles bit into the leather cover. His chest heaved. Before he could think, his mouth moved:

"I have to leave. I have to leave."

The words were ragged. Both unfamiliar and intimately his own. He squeezed his eyes shut. The panic threatened to rise again, and he forced clarity through clenched teeth. Slowly, the storm quelled, and fragments of his life drifted back:

My name is Leo.

I've bartered secrets in shadowed alleys. I've laughed in this room with people who trusted me.

I've sought the truth behind those ruins Stones.

He was not Liam. Liam had died at dawn. Now he was Leo Vale, and he would stop fleeing the past he had reclaimed.

He left the journal on the desk, the two feathers forming a silent across its pages. Then he came down.

Outside, the light glowed in late-morning. Smoke curled from chimneys across the village. Children's laughter danced from the house yards. The river to the south roared against reed beds. Berries ripened on hedges. Every breath Leo drew tasted of a fresh start and possibility.

He followed the stone path toward the village heart. The air filled with life: a smith's hammer rang sharp through the village, clattering against an anvil; the baker's son carried crates of fresh loaves, the yeast warm under his arm; and a merchant cart rattled, piled high with apples, sending perfume into the air.

This world is my home now, Leo thought.

Then someone suddenly shouted to him from reverie:

"Leo! You alive, or just sleepwalking through morning?"

He turned. Jack loomed—towering, irrepressible—grinning like sunrise itself. Jack's leather training vest was still damp with sweat. His dark hair clung to his forehead, and his every breath carried the scent of pine resin from his sparring gloves.

Beside him stood Ralph, the quiet counterpoint. Pale and lean, with silver hair that caught every tip of light. His grey eyes were keen as a hawk's, and a leather notebook dangled from his belt. He follows calm calculation.

"You're late," Ralph said with dry humor. "We nearly debated staging a rescue."

Leo only had time for a short nod before Jack's hand thudded into his back, nearly sending him stumbling forward.

"Market first—then the notice board."

Leo exhaled, letting Jack's easy confidence wrap around him like a blanket.

They turned onto the main road. Golden fields stretched on either side, each stalk of wheat shimmering like spun bronze. A lazy breeze carried the faint cry of gulls from the river delta.

Farmers on wagons waved, loaded with hay and squash. Jack waved back with theatrical flair; Ralph offered a polite nod.

Jack's voice bubbled over: "You should have seen me at dawn—I bested the upperclassmen in sword drills. A dozen of them."

Ralph winced. "He exaggerated by at least three," Ralph corrected, sketching arrows in the dirt with a stick.

Leo smiled. This was the banter he'd missed: Jack's booming laughter and Ralph's precise, amused retorts. They weren't just friends—they were exact in a life that had fractured and reformed in shadow and stone.

The path dipped, unveiling the market town—stone walls ringed around bustling streets. Towering flags of navy and gold snapped overhead. The open gates spilled merchants, farmers, and travelers into a tableau of color: scarlet silks, saffron spices, green gourds piled high.

Inside, the marketplace pulsed with energy. Leo gasped deeply: roasted chestnuts, spiced meats, sweat-scented leather from passing horses, the musky sweetness of incense from a wandering acolyte. Sunlight gleamed off polished copper pots at one stall; a seamstress pinned vibrant cloth on a line; a street minstrel's lute sang sorrowful tunes that twined through the chatter.

Jack nudged Leo. "First round's on you. We've been stranded too long."

Jack feigned shock. "You're no fun, Ralph."

Leo chuckled and handed the stallkeeper a copper coin for two loaves of freshly baked bread. The vendor's smile was as warm as the loaves. Leo bit into one: the crust cracked, revealing a soft, steaming interior. Butter melted into every crevice. The taste grounded him: earthy, rich, real.

"It's good to be back," he said, though his voice trembled with memory's aftershocks.

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. "You hear that? Our Leo is back—real and breathing."

Ralph offered a rare grin. "And apparently eating like a champ."

They continued weaving through stalls: a potter offered a delicate cup; a cloth-dyer displayed brimming jars of indigo; a butcher trimmed meat with precise strokes. Leo touched each surface: the rough clay of a jug, the soft fibers of dyed wool, the cold steel of a dagger blade. Each sensation anchored him deeper.

As they approached the notice board—a tall oak slab outside the barracks—Leo's pulse quickened. Rows of parchment fluttered with the newly posted training rosters for the military exam. Banners from different divisions noted names: archery, infantry, and engineering.

Mira's name topped the officer list again: "Commandant Mira Vale"—the words glowed in gold ink. Leo felt a surge of pride and something else: awe tinged with uncertainty. His sister had become.

Jack nudged him. "You going to check your own listing or stand there gawking?"

Leo stepped forward, lips parted. His name was there, too—just below the engineers' roster. "Infantry Candidate: Leo Vale," it read.

He swallowed. This was no longer a foreign name on a foreign body. This was his name, stamped in ink for all to see.

He felt the weight of possibility settle on his shoulders—both thrilling and terrifying. If Liam had died for this life to begin, Leo would honor that sacrifice.

Ralph stepped beside him. "You ready?"

Leo looked at his two friends—Jack's eager grin, Ralph's steady gaze—and nodded.

"Ready."