Chapter 521 - 521: Goodbye Aris

Argon was safe.

With Ragna gone and the angels stopped, the world slowly began to breathe again. Silva stood on a hill for a long moment, watching the smoke thin out above the ruined land. Then he turned and headed for the elf home.

Amber was waiting at the gates.

She was leading the elf race now, in charge of everything, and it showed in the way she carried herself. Her back was straight, and her robes were clean and fine. But the moment she saw Silva walking up the path, all of that fell away.

"Silva!" she called, and ran to him.

She stopped just short of throwing her arms around him, caught herself, and grinned. "You're back. You're really back."

"I told you I would be," Silva said.

"You did." She hooked her arm through his and pulled him inside. "Come on. You have to see everything."

She walked him through the city. The streets had been repaired, and new towers rose where the old walls had cracked. Banners hung from the balconies. Elves stopped in the road to bow as they passed, and Amber waved at them, still talking a mile a minute about what she had changed. She showed him the new training grounds, the rebuilt library, and the markets that were open again. She pointed out the garden she had planted around the World Tree.

"I didn't have the time to do half of what I wanted," she said. "But it's a start."

"It's a lot more than a start," Silva said.

She glanced at him, and her ears turned slightly pink.

They talked for a long while after that. They sat on the palace balcony and watched the sun sink behind the trees, trading stories about everything that had happened since they last saw each other. She laughed at his worst moments. He laughed at hers. Somewhere in the middle of it, they stopped noticing how much time had passed.

The air between them changed slowly. A look lingered a little too long. A hand rested a little too close. When Amber finally went quiet, he felt her eyes on him, and he turned his head.

Neither of them said anything.

Things got heated between them, in a good way.

And they ended up spending the night together.

Silva was not really sure what had led him there. He had not planned it. But he fell into it without resisting, and they both enjoyed themselves, passionate and unhurried, the world outside forgotten.

When he woke up the next morning, sunlight was pouring through the window, and Amber was asleep with her head on his arm. He looked at the ceiling for a while.

He did not regret it at all.

[…]

By noon, everyone had been called.

The massive dining hall of the palace was filled with people. Long tables stretched across the room, covered in food. Drake and Lily sat near the middle. Elsa swung her legs on a chair that was too tall for her. Dawn, Fang and Gallan sat further down. The elf elders took their places, and attendants hurried back and forth with pitchers.

They all waited for Silva to arrive. There was a lot to talk about now, and none of them could settle without him.

But at that same moment, Silva was somewhere else.

He was standing on a quiet terrace outside the palace, talking with Aris [the demigod].

Aris leaned against the stone railing, looking out over the forest. He had been quiet for a while, and when he finally spoke, his voice was soft.

"It's good that you have a family here, you know."

Silva glanced at him.

"A special place where you can live freely. Where you can be who you are." Aris shook his head with a small laugh. "I'll be honest. I'm jealous. I wish I had something like that too."

"You can stay here," Silva said. "No one would mind."

"I know. And I appreciate it more than you realize." Aris turned and met his eyes. "But I've been thinking. I need to go back to my home world. There's a lot there that's broken, and I want to fix it. And maybe, somehow, I'll find my own family there."

Silva said nothing for a moment. Then he nodded.

"Alright."

They talked a bit longer about other things, small things at first, like the road ahead and what Aris would do when he arrived. Silva gave him a few pieces of advice. Aris listened to all of it with a serious face. When there was nothing left to say, Silva stepped back from the railing.

His body stretched and darkened, scales sliding over his skin, wings unfolding from his back, until a massive dark dragon stood on the terrace. He lowered one wing.

Aris climbed on.

Silva shot into the sky.

The forest shrank beneath them. They rose through the clouds and up into the thin, bright air, and when they were high enough that the world looked like a painting, Silva reached out with his mind.

Ophelia.

I'm here, her voice answered, warm and clear.

The sky rippled around them. The light shifted, and in a blink, they were no longer in the air. They were standing in a wide white space with a floor like polished glass, in the plane where Ophelia lived.

She stood in front of them, smiling softly.

"I need the cube," Silva said. "The one you used to bring him here."

"I was already planning on giving it to you." She lifted her hand, and a small glowing cube floated into it. She passed it over. "It's yours."

Silva took it. It was warm in his palm. He turned back to the open space and raised the cube. Energy pulsed through it, and a crack of light split the sky in front of them. It widened into a rift, a swirling doorway of white and gold.

It was connected to the world Ophelia had carried them from. Aris could use it to go home.

Aris looked into the rift for a long moment. He was a demigod, so he was capable of surviving the crossing. He stretched out his arms, and the circles on his back lit up and glowed in sequence. Divine energy poured over his body, wrapping around him in a thick shell of light.

He turned and looked back at Silva.

"Thank you," he said. "For everything."

Then he flew.

He shot into the rift and vanished into the light. The rift held for a few more seconds, rippling quietly, and then sealed itself shut.

Silva stared at the empty space where it had been.

He stayed there for a while, saying nothing. Then he turned to Ophelia.

"I'll be back."

She nodded.

He vanished.

He dropped out of the sky fast, wings pulled tight, the forest rushing up toward him. The elf city came into view, the palace glinting in the afternoon sun. He flew straight in, and when he was close, he let himself fall into a dive and changed back into his human form before his feet touched the ground.

He landed on the marble steps and brushed his hair back. Then he walked inside, past the guards and down the long corridor toward the hall.

The great doors were already open.

He walked through them.

The noise stopped instantly. Everyone in the room got to their feet at the same time, chairs scraping across the floor. Hundreds of eyes followed him as he crossed the hall.

Silva did not smile. His face was calm and his steps were measured as he walked all the way to the head of the table and stopped at his chair. He rested his hand on the back of it.

He stood there and looked at all of them, one by one.

And then a bright smile broke across his face.