Shanika’s POV
Shanika pushed open the door, the scent of wild herbs clinging to her shawl, and stepped into the hush of the hut. The hearth still held warmth, the last embers whispering under the ash. Outside, the wind shifted in the trees—high, restless. She paused, a hand on the frame, listening. The air inside was different. Still, but not empty.
Her bones ached from the climb back from the ridge, a pleasant ache—the kind that reminded her she was alive, useful. That life still moved in simple ways. But the moment her eyes found him, she stilled.
He was standing near the window, back to her, outlined by the last gold rays of sun breaking through the canopy.
And just like that, she knew.
Something had changed.
Not in the way children grow, slowly, leaf by leaf. Not the way he’d grown these past years—taller, sharper, hungrier for answers she couldn’t yet give. This was different.
This was soul-deep.
He didn’t turn right away. He didn’t need to. She felt it in the stillness of him. The quiet hum of completion in the air. As if the storm that had always stirred just beneath his skin had, at last, calmed.
Her throat tightened.
She stepped forward slowly, her basket forgotten at her side. Every footfall was heavy with memory—him toddling across these floors with jam-sticky hands, the tantrums, the stories, the way he used to curl beside her in the cold months, whispering questions about the stars.
He turned.
And she saw him.
Really saw him.
The boy was gone.
In his place stood someone else. Taller now, shoulders squared and steady. His frame was lean and muscled, not from chores or youthful bursts of strength, but from something more—something honed, defined by the soul within. His face bore the sharp lines of his parents: the proud angle of Rudravan’s jaw, the fierce intensity of Anika’s gaze.
His presence settled in the room like a drawn blade. Not threatening. Just… certain.
And his aura—subtle, grounded, thrumming with power held in restraint.
The bond was complete.
She drew in a shaky breath.
“It happened,” she said softly.
He nodded. “Last night.”
A long silence stretched, not awkward, but reverent. The kind of silence that only exists between people who have shared too many words, too many lifetimes, to need them now.
She walked past him, her movements slow, deliberate. Sat near the fire, where the warmth kissed her knees and the familiar world still lingered. She poured two cups of tea, though she doubted either of them would drink.
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“There’s a story I’ve waited a long time to tell you,” she said at last, her voice low and full of the weight she had carried all these years. “And now that your soul has come home to itself… you deserve to know it.”
He sat beside her, silent, waiting.
So she told it.
Of a kingdom wrapped in mist and mountain, where stormclouds bowed to a queen whose laugh echoed like bells through marble halls, and a king who wore silence like armor. Of peace—a rare, hard-earned peace—shattered by a cousin’s ambition. Of betrayal dressed in honeyed words and bloodied hands.
Of the capital burning.
Of his mother—pressing a pendant into her hand, eyes blazing even as death closed in. Her voice firm, unshaken, as she gave one final command:
“Take him. Keep him safe. Let him grow free.”
She told Jai how she fled with him into the wilds, how she buried her name and shed her past like a worn cloak. How she swore to raise him not as a prince, but as a boy. A child. Hers.
“I taught you to carve, to cook, to read the sky. I raised you to be kind before strong, patient before proud,” she whispered, voice like a breeze across old stones. “And I prayed, every day, that your soul would wait long enough to bond naturally, without force or fear.”
She reached into the folds of her shawl and pulled out the pendant—a small silver disc with a faint sunburst carved into it, edges worn smooth from years of fingers tracing it in the dark.
“She gave this to me,” Shanika said, pressing it into his palm. “Your mother always wore it. It was the last thing she touched before she handed you to me.”
He stared at it. Turned it once in his fingers. Closed his hand around it.
She watched him—not the way one watches royalty, or legend, or prophecy—but the way a mother watches her child balance on the edge of something vast.
She reached out, brushed a lock of hair from his brow like she had when he was small. Her fingers trembled.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she murmured. “Not yet.”
The fire popped softly.
“I promised her I would keep you safe. That you’d have time to grow without the weight of duty pressing you down.” Her voice caught. “But time… time runs out.”
She stood. Slowly. The motion felt final, like the end of a season.
At the door, she paused. The stars had begun to scatter across the sky—the kind Jai used to whisper wishes to when he thought she wasn’t listening.
“There are two paths before you now,” she said without turning. “One leads back to your birthright—to the crown your mother died protecting, to the people still living under the man who betrayed her. To vengeance.”
She turned slightly, eyes catching the firelight. Her jaw tightened.
“Duty would have me urge you toward that path. To rise. To reclaim. To avenge.”
Her voice softened.
“But I’m not just your guardian. I’m the one who rocked you through fevers, who sang when your dreams turned dark. And as your mother in all but name…” Her hand gripped the doorframe. “I just want you safe.”
She turned fully now, tears in her eyes, but her gaze steady.
“If you want peace, a quiet life, free of the ghosts and blood, you have that right. No one will shame you for choosing it.”
She took a breath.
“Whichever path you choose—it will demand more than strength. It will ask everything of you. And I can’t prepare you for it anymore. I’ve taught you what I can.”
The breeze stirred her shawl.
“You’ve outgrown this place, Jai. You’ve outgrown me.”
She smiled—small, tremulous, proud.
“The academy entrance exam is next week. That’s where you must go next. Not for legacy. Not for vengeance. For yourself. To become the man only you can be.”
She lingered for one last heartbeat.
“I’ll be at the elder’s hut tonight,” she said, voice soft with farewell. “But I think you’ll want the quiet.”
Then she stepped out into the dark, and the wind took her scent of herbs and home with her.
But just outside the door, when the moonlight hit her face, Shanika’s breath hitched. She stopped, back against the hut’s wall, hand pressed to her mouth.
She hadn’t cried in years.
Not when Anika fell. Not when she buried her name. Not when Jai, barely a babe, screamed with fever and she thought she might lose him.
But now, her eyes blurred, hot tears tracking down her cheeks.
Because this goodbye was different.
Not the end of a duty.
The end of a chapter she never wanted to finish.
The boy she raised was gone.
And the man he would become was walking a path she could no longer follow.
Behind her, the fire inside still burned.
