Morning came too fast. Mist still clung to the roots of the Great Tree when we stood at the exit of the Forest Town. Saying goodbye to Mira was short, but heavy—she hugged me tight and whispered another hundred instructions in my ear about taking care of myself and not breaking the seals. She headed for the Academy, and her silhouette flashed between the trees for a long time before finally dissolving into the green.

  I stood there watching her go until Riza touched my shoulder.

  “So what now, Zenhald?” she asked quietly. “Do we go back to the city? Or stay here?”

  I turned to her, breathing in the fresh morning air. “No. I want to see the sea, Riza. I want to feel salty wind and look at water that has no end.”

  Riza lit up, her eyes flashing with excitement. “The sea… I want to see it too! But…” She glanced back at the cozy elven houses. “It’s good here. Why are we in such a hurry?”

  I gave a sad little smile, looking at my childish hands. “It’s wonderful here, Riza. And that’s the problem. You elves and demons have time. I don’t. I can’t afford to get stuck in one place for decades, enjoying peace. My moment is too short to waste it on waiting.”

  Riza froze for a heartbeat, feeling the weight of my words—then nodded firmly and stepped closer.

  “Then I’ll go with you. Anywhere. To the edge of the world, even across the sea.”

  “I had no doubt,” I said with a faint smile, ruffling her hair.

  “Don’t think I’m letting you two go on a journey like that alone,” Elvindor’s voice came from behind us. He walked up, adjusting his travel cloak and leaning on a new staff. “Leaving children—however ‘gifted’—unsupervised on major roads is reckless. I’ll accompany you. Besides, sea air is good for thinking about magic.”

  “And I’m coming too,” Lucida stepped out of the trees’ shadow, lazily twirling the Ice Blade. Cold curiosity was written across her face. “I have my own goals. I need to study this world… and you, Zenhald. There are too many riddles in you that won’t leave me alone. And the sea is a fine place to test just how deep your Darkness runs.”

  And so our strange company set out: a twelve-year-old boy with the soul of an ancient king, a little demon girl, a great elven mage, and a fallen Archangel.

  We left the forest’s shade behind, heading south—toward the place where, in legends, the sky meets the ocean.

  The southwest called to us with the smell of salt and the cries of distant gulls. Elvindor, who knew every hidden trail, led us confidently toward a fishing village where, he said, the sea kissed the shore with the gentlest surf.

  We decided not to waste time on horses. Why churn dust with hooves when we had magic? Riza spread her dark wings with delight, I simply pushed off the ground and surrendered to levitation, while Lucida and Elvindor wrapped themselves in streams of air and glided smoothly through the height.

  While the “old ones” flew a little behind, absorbed in their “grandpa topics”—eras I was already starting to forget, intrigues I’d never cared for—Riza and I turned it into real racing.

  “Catch me, Zen!” she laughed, slicing through a fluffy cloud.

  We shot higher than the clouds, where the air turned cold and crystal-clear, then dropped like stones, nearly grazing the tops of the pines.

  “Look, Riza!” I pointed at a strange cloud on the right. “It looks like a giant bird.”

  “And that one looks like a shield!” she chimed in. “Oh—and that one on the horizon is totally a horse!”

  The game went on forever. For her it was the world opening up; for me it was a rare moment when a twelve-year-old body won over a thousand-year mind.

  When we landed for a rest, I carved a familiar bowl in the earth for a basin. Riza—no longer needing commands—filled it in a record five minutes.

  “Not bad,” I nodded. “But water isn’t only volume. It’s pressure. And sharpness.”

  She looked at me expectantly. “I want something new, Zen.”

  I taught her Water Spear and Water Blade. We practiced cutting strikes—when a jet of water under monstrous pressure can slice through a tree trunk. Riza caught everything instantly. Her movements grew precise, predatory.

  At the end of training I tore a chunk of solid boulder from the ground and set it in front of her.

  “Watch. You don’t just hit. You concentrate all the mana into one point—like a drill.”

  I demonstrated, leaving a tiny, perfectly smooth hole in the stone. Riza narrowed her eyes; her aura trembled. On her second attempt she drove the water spear through the rock, punching straight through.

  “Good. Now split it in half with the blade. Exactly along the line.”

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  Strike. The boulder cracked cleanly in two, as if touched by a red-hot knife.

  “That’s enough for today,” I wiped my forehead. “You’re improving.”

  When we returned to the tent, Lucida—watching from the shadows—smiled approvingly.

  “You’re a good magic teacher, Zenhald. And your student is very diligent,” she winked at Riza, and Riza glowed.

  “And what are you two doing—resting your legs?” I smirked at Lucida and Elvindor. “Why aren’t you training, while you’ve got a chance to practice with the King himself?”

  “We were just talking about old times,” Elvindor replied.

  “Ohhh, yeah, that’ll take an eternity,” I rolled my eyes.

  “But, Zenhald,” Lucida squinted, studying me, “you don’t teach Riza manners at all. She behaves like a little hooligan, not a lady. Though… why am I even talking? You yourself are a walking catastrophe for etiquette.”

  “She’ll learn,” I waved it off.

  “And wash already, finally!” Lucida wrinkled her nose.

  “What do you mean?! I washed two days ago! I rinse my hands and face every day—”

  “Aren’t you disgusted with yourself?” She crossed her arms. “You smell like a campfire, burnt boar, and dust from three roads.”

  “Until my hair starts annoying me, I don’t see the point,” I muttered.

  A heavy slap of water—conjured straight from the air by Lucida—hit me in the face.

  Splash.

  I was soaked head to toe.

  “No girl will look at you in the future like that,” she smirked.

  Grumbling and cursing “archangelic забота,” I went outside to wash properly. When I came back, Riza was already sleeping sweetly, curled up on the furs. I sat beside her, feeling sleep roll over me like a wave.

  “She’s unusual,” Lucida said quietly, looking at the girl.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “Zenhald,” Elvindor spoke up. “You’re taking on too much. You carry the world on your shoulders, even though at your age children should just play, laugh, and make stupid mistakes.”

  “You’ll regret it later,” Lucida added. “You’re skipping the only time when you can be just a child. Without responsibility. Without memories of war.”

  I smiled, staring up at the dark ceiling of the tent. “That kind of life… is probably boring. And definitely not for me. I don’t know how to ‘just play.’”

  They exchanged glances and laughed softly.

  “You haven’t even tried,” Lucida whispered. “You have no idea what it’s like.”

  I closed my eyes. Wind hissed in my head, and somewhere far away—past the edge of hearing—I could already sense the deep hum of the real sea.

  “How much longer to that fishing village?” I asked, squinting into the bright sun.

  “At our pace—about three days,” Elvindor answered, gliding smoothly in the air currents.

  We were back in the sky. Levitation had become as natural to me as breathing, but for Riza it was pure joy. She spun around me, diving down and then soaring up to the thinnest clouds.

  “Zen, you’ll never find me! A-ha-ha!” she shouted—and vanished into a thick white bank of cloud.

  Of course I could feel her mana—she burned in the astral like a small campfire—but I pretended to be confused.

  “Hm… I feel like you’re somewhere around here…” I drifted past slowly, putting on an “I’m searching” face. “Could it be I’ve lost my student?”

  A muffled giggle came from the cloud. Suddenly she burst out right in front of me, shining with pride. I lunged after her, and we tore between towers of cloud until we were both breathless.

  Then the games got even stranger.

  “Look, Zen,” Riza froze midair, eyes wide. “I’m going to out-stare the sun! I won’t blink, I swear!”

  Her demonic eyes were far more resistant to light than my current human ones. After half a minute I was already squinting hard, while she bounced in the air triumphantly.

  “I won! I stared longer!”

  “That’s cheating,” I grumbled, rubbing my eyes. “Your eyes are just better than mine. That’s not fair!”

  She only laughed, delighted with her little victory.

  When we landed for a rest, it was time for real work. No “fill the basin in five minutes”—today was practice.

  I raised my hands, and golems began rising from the earth. First one, then five, ten… and in the end I sent a full hundred stone warriors at Riza.

  She spun like a whirlwind. Her water spear flashed like lightning, splitting stone and knocking golems off their feet. Ten minutes later, only a heap of rubble remained on the clearing.

  “Not bad, Riza,” I smirked, rolling my shoulders. “But quantity is for the background crowd. Quality is what matters.”

  I took a stance.

  “And you’re already shedding sand, teacher!” she teased, shifting her grip on the spear.

  “Stop calling me that. It makes me feel like a hundred-year-old grandpa,” I grumbled—though inside I was… having fun.

  The fight began. I built situations, forcing her to adapt on the fly.

  “What do you do if the enemy is a long-range ice mage—keeps distance and rains spears on you?”

  “I rush in at high speed, knocking them away with water!” she yelled, lunging.

  “Good. And what if he’s a close-range defense master?”

  At that exact moment thousands of stone spikes grew from the ground under her feet. Riza snapped back into a backflip.

  “And now he freezes the ground under your feet to trap them!”

  “Then I fly!”

  “Yeah? And you’re in a cave. Ceiling’s too low—you can’t take off.”

  We argued and fought until darkness. Riza was exhausted, but her eyes were burning—she was starting to think in battle, not just swing metal.

  The moment we entered the tent, a familiar slap of water hit me.

  “Go wash!” Lucida stood with her hands on her hips.

  “ZENHALD!”

  “Alright, alright… come on, Riza…”

  We cleaned up quickly and returned. But the “execution” wasn’t over. Lucida sat Riza down in front of her and took a comb.

  “Look. Your hair should always be neat. Yours has turned into a crow’s nest already.”

  “Why?” Riza touched her messy locks in confusion. “They’re pretty already.”

  “You’ll end up like Zenhald—forever scruffy and dusty,” Lucida cut in.

  “Why?! What do you mean?!” I protested from my corner.

  “Zenhald,” Elvindor looked at me with fatherly reproach. “When was the last time you actually combed your hair properly?”

  “Well… that… doesn’t matter. It’s fine!”

  “Exactly!” Riza chimed in, solidary with me.

  Lucida patiently explained to Riza why taking care of yourself mattered, while Elvindor essentially forced me under the comb.

  “Ow! That hurts! Gently!” I yelped while the elf untangled knots.

  “There. Normal now. Happy?” he asked when I finally looked like a decent boy instead of a forest goblin.

  “Zenhald,” Lucida said, “the one who should be happy isn’t me—it’s you. Being clean and neat feels good for you. And other people don’t suffer when they look at you.”

  “Alright, alright, don’t get worked up,” I muttered, collapsing onto the furs. “At your age anger is bad for your health.”

  I closed my eyes, slipping into sleep. Riza crawled closer and began lazily stroking my hair the way Lucida had yesterday.

  “And here our little grump fell asleep…” she whispered.

  It felt so good that all my objections evaporated. I drifted off completely to the steady sound of wind outside, feeling… like a simple twelve-year-old boy, with someone there to take care of him.