Chapter 46: The Moment I Felt Safe
(Alash Vortex’s POV)
The world folded around me.
For one brief instant, there was nothing.
No ground.
No air.
No sound.
Only the nauseating pressure of space twisting around my body.
Then, cold air struck my face.
My boots slammed onto solid ground.
Sound returned all at once.
"Someone appeared!"
"Sir Valerian!"
"Ready yourselves!"
Steel scraped against sheaths.
Mana surged.
My vision blurred for half a heartbeat before finally settling.
And the first thing I saw was him.
Blonde hair.
Brown eyes.
A weapon already in his hand.
Mana rolled from his body in heavy waves, pressing against the air around him.
Master Valerian.
I stared at him.
He stared back.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
There was something strange about his expression.
I had seen my master annoyed.
Amused.
Proud.
Disappointed.
Exasperated.
Usually because of me.
But never this.
His eyes were wide.
His face completely still.
He looked as though someone had reached inside his mind and stopped every thought at once.
My own exhausted brain finally pieced everything together.
Master Valerian.
Soldiers in grey uniforms.
The familiar defensive walls beyond them.
The border.
I was back.
Actually back.
A strange pressure formed inside my chest.
I ignored it.
Instead, I smiled.
There were probably many reasonable things someone should say after disappearing for nearly two months.
’Master, I’m alive.’
’I’m sorry.’
’You won’t believe what happened.’
All of those sounded far too serious.
So naturally, I raised one hand.
"Master."
Valerian didn’t answer.
I gave him a small wave.
"Did you miss me?"
Silence.
Hmm.
Tough audience.
I tilted my head and looked him over more carefully.
He looked terrible.
His hair wasn’t as neat as usual.
There were shadows beneath his eyes.
Even his posture looked heavier somehow.
My smile widened.
"You look awful."
Several soldiers around us stared at me.
Valerian still said nothing.
I nodded solemnly.
"This is disappointing, Master. Have you been sleeping properly?"
Nothing.
"Eating?"
Still nothing.
I narrowed my eyes.
"Bathing?"
His eye twitched.
There.
That was better.
For the first time in what felt like forever, something was familiar.
Master looking as though he regretted taking me as a disciple.
Me annoying him anyway.
Normal.
I could do normal.
Normal was easy.
"I suppose you don’t have to look so shocked," I continued. "I was only gone for...."
Valerian vanished.
My instincts screamed.
My body tensed.
I barely had time to react before something slammed into me.
Two arms wrapped around me.
Hard.
My brain stopped.
For one ridiculous second, I genuinely thought Master had decided two years of dealing with me was enough and murder was finally the simpler option.
Then my mind caught up.
He wasn’t attacking me.
He was hugging me.
I froze.
Completely.
Valerian Alzette was hugging me.
My master.
The man who considered a nod generous praise.
The man who responded to every achievement by finding something harder for me to do.
That man was hugging me.
I stared blankly over his shoulder.
Several nearby soldiers were doing the same.
One of them actually had his mouth open.
Good.
At least I wasn’t the only one finding this deeply unnatural.
Slowly, I raised my hands.
"Master?"
His arms tightened.
Very hard.
I winced.
"Master, while I appreciate this sudden discovery that you possess affection, I’ve suffered quite a few injuries recently. If you break my ribs during our reunion, the irony would be..."
"You’re alive."
I stopped.
His voice was low.
Almost too low to hear.
"You’re alive."
My smile remained.
But something behind it shifted.
"Of course I am."
The words came easily enough.
Good.
My voice still sounded normal.
"I should be offended that you doubted me."
Valerian didn’t answer.
I forced a small laugh.
"I survived your training for two years. Clearly, ordinary death isn’t enough to stop me."
Nothing.
His grip didn’t loosen.
The strange pressure inside my chest grew stronger.
I swallowed.
"Although disappearing for nearly two months was perhaps slightly irresponsible."
Still nothing.
"I’ll leave a note next time."
No response.
My smile weakened.
Why wasn’t he asking questions?
That was what I had expected.
Where were you?
What happened?
Who took you?
Why didn’t you return sooner?
Questions were easy.
Questions had answers.
Even terrible answers were still answers.
But Master wasn’t asking anything.
He was simply holding me.
As though letting go might make me vanish again.
And then I realized something.
I was safe.
The thought came quietly.
Almost harmlessly.
Safe.
No one was chasing me.
No blade was coming for my throat.
No one around me needed protecting.
There wasn’t another patrol hiding between the trees.
I didn’t need to calculate an escape route.
I didn’t need to decide who could be saved first.
I didn’t need to survive the next minute.
Master was here.
The border was here.
I was home.
And the moment my body truly understood that, something inside me cracked.
A voice appeared in my memory.
"Your legs are really short."
My fingers twitched against Valerian’s coat.
Vessa.
No.
Not now.
But the memory didn’t care.
I could see the moonlit forest again.
Vessa walking beside me, grinning as if insulting me was an essential part of the journey.
"You are barely taller than me."
"Still taller."
"By what? Three centimeters?"
"Three very important centimeters."
I had ignored her.
Or tried to.
Then came another memory.
Her asking if I wanted to be carried.
My refusal.
Caelum quietly saying he wouldn’t mind carrying me.
And me seriously considering surrendering my dignity because my legs were tired.
My breath hitched.
Three weeks.
It had only been three weeks.
Why could I remember every stupid conversation?
Another memory came before I could stop it.
The unconscious bear patrolman.
Vessa crouched beside him, searching his pockets.
"What are you doing?"
"Gathering intelligence."
"You just stole his money."
"Financial intelligence."
A laugh almost escaped me.
Almost.
Instead, my chest hurt.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Wrong decision.
My pillow.
Gone.
I remembered sitting upright in complete disbelief.
Then seeing her beside the fire.
Using it.
My pillow.
"Vessa."
"Al."
"Why do you have my pillow?"
"It’s comfortable."
"Give it back."
"No."
I could still see Nyra turning away because she was laughing.
Caelum wisely pretending the entire conflict had nothing to do with him.
Vessa hugging my pillow as though she’d discovered divine treasure.
"I understand you now."
And then the betrayal on her face when I summoned a second pillow from my storage ring.
"You have another one?"
"Of course."
"How many pillows do you have?"
"Enough."
The Great Pillow Conflict.
Four days.
Four entire days of Vessa trying to discover how many pillows I carried.
She never succeeded.
I had intended to take that secret to my grave.
My throat tightened.
She was supposed to keep trying.
That was how it was supposed to work.
She annoyed me.
I complained.
She ignored every complaint.
Then did something worse.
That was supposed to continue.
My breathing became shallow.
No.
Think about something else.
Anything else.
Then Caelum appeared in my mind.
Quiet.
Massive.
Walking behind me with that enormous spear across his back.
Pale antlers occasionally forcing him to duck beneath branches.
I remembered looking up at him during the fifth night.
"Do your antlers ever get caught on branches?"
"Yes."
The answer had been so simple that I hadn’t known what to do with it.
"Often?"
"More often when I was younger."
"What happens?"
"I become caught."
I had stared at him.
Then came the story.
Fourteen years old.
Panicking.
Pulling down a "small" tree.
"How small?"
"Perhaps twice my current height."
I remembered looking at the enormous deer man.
Then at the surrounding trees.
"Your definition of small concerns me."
And he laughed.
Quiet.
Deep.
Genuine.
The first time I’d heard it.
My fingers tightened around Valerian’s coat.
Caelum barely spoke.
Yet somehow, silence around him had never felt empty.
I remembered the stream.
The frostwort growing between rocks.
"Frostwort."
Caelum looking down.
"You know it?"
"Useful for inflammation. Terrible taste."
"My people use the roots."
"The roots?"
"For fever."
We had spent an entire hour comparing human and beastkin medicinal practices.
I had been genuinely interested.
He had been too.
An hour walking beside someone who barely needed words.
It had been comfortable.
Simple.
I hadn’t appreciated how rare that was.
My throat tightened more.
Then, Nyra.
The memories of her were slower.
Quieter.
She hadn’t been like Vessa.
There had been no immediate barrage of nonsense.
At first she treated me like cargo.
Something important she was responsible for moving from one place to another.
"Four hours."
I remembered staring at her.
"That’s not sleep."
"Yes, it is."
"That’s an extended nap."
"Then take an extended nap."
"I need eight hours."
"No."
"Seven?"
"No."
"Six?"
"No."
"Five?"
That stare.
"Four."
"You’re worse than Master Valerian."
"I don’t know who that is."
"You’re fortunate."
I almost smiled.
Then I remembered the fourth day.
Six hours of sleep.
Her claiming it was only because the route ahead was clear.
Me declaring it affection.
Her threatening to return it to four.
I had stopped mentioning it.
But after that, small things changed.
By the second week, she started teaching me.
Branches.
Tracks.
Silence.
"Birds."
"What about them?"
"There aren’t any."
I remembered listening to the forest.
Nothing.
"Something scared them away."
"Good."
I had smiled immediately.
She frowned.
"Don’t look so pleased."
"You praised me."
"I said good."
"That’s praise."
"It was an observation."
She had walked faster after that.
Definitely praise.
My breathing caught.
And later, she stopped treating me like cargo.
Not all at once.
Gradually.
She asked if I was tired.
If I was injured.
She adjusted our pace without announcing it.
She stood a little closer.
Looked at me a little longer.
Her affection had started slipping past the careful walls she kept around herself.
Not enough that either of us had spoken about it.
But enough that I noticed.
Of course I noticed.
I noticed everything.
I just hadn’t known what to do with it.
Nyra ahead.
Me somewhere in the middle.
Caelum at the rear.
Vessa wherever she felt like being.
That had become normal.
Our rhythm.
Three weeks.
Just three weeks.
And somehow my mind had accepted that arrangement like it had always existed.