Chapter 291: Bonding
The days that followed were strange.
Not because anything exciting happened. Because nothing did. No Outer Gods. No Unwritten messengers. No traces of Evelyn. Just walking. Just talking. Just two people moving through a world that didn’t care about either of them.
Lucian didn’t use his power to skip distance anymore. He let Finn lead. Through alleys and over bridges, through market crowds and along canal paths. The kid knew this city like the lines on his own palm. Every shortcut, every hiding spot, every vendor who wouldn’t ask questions.
"You’re not in a hurry," Finn said on the third day.
"I’m always in a hurry. I just don’t show it."
"That doesn’t make sense."
"Welcome to my life."
They stopped at a food stall. Finn ordered something fried on a stick. Lucian watched him eat, then paid with a coin he’d created from nothing. The vendor didn’t notice. No one ever noticed.
"You’re going to get caught one day," Finn said, mouth full.
"By who?"
"I don’t know. Magic police."
Lucian snorted. It was almost a laugh. "Magic police."
"It’s a thing."
"Is it?"
"I don’t know. I’m not a mage." Finn finished his food and tossed the stick into a canal. A fish jumped. He watched it with the kind of attention only hungry people have for food they can’t catch. "But I’m going to be."
Lucian raised an eyebrow. "A mage?"
"When I turn eighteen. That’s when you can take the Awakening Trial. If you pass, they let you into the Academy. Free tuition. Room and board." Finn’s eyes were distant. "Three meals a day."
"That’s why you want it. The meals."
"That’s why anyone wants it." Finn kicked a stone into the water. "The magic is just a bonus."
They walked in silence for a bit. The city was waking up. Shopkeepers opening shutters. Children running to school. A woman yelling at a man about something neither of them would remember by noon.
"How does it work?" Lucian asked. "Your magic."
Finn shrugged. "I don’t know the theory. Never went to school. But everyone knows the basics. There are seven affinities. Fire, water, earth, air, light, dark, and spirit. Most people have one. Some have two. Rare ones have three."
"What do you want?"
"Doesn’t matter what I want. The Trial decides." Finn’s voice was matter-of-fact. "You go into a chamber. They hook you up to a crystal. The crystal glows whatever color matches your affinity. Then you get sorted into a house based on your potential."
"And if you have no affinity?"
Finn laughed. It was a bitter sound. "Then you go back to the streets. Or the factories. Or the army. Anywhere but the Academy."
Lucian nodded slowly. He understood systems like this. They’d existed in every world he’d visited. Ways to sort people into worthiness. Ways to decide who got to eat and who got to starve.
"What about spirit affinity?" he asked. "What does that do?"
Finn’s step faltered. "Spirit affinity is... different. They say it’s not really magic. It’s something else. Connection to other worlds. Other realities." He glanced at Lucian. "People with spirit affinity can see things normal people can’t. Sometimes they go mad. Sometimes they disappear."
"Disappear how?"
"No one knows. They just... stop being there. One day they’re in their bed. Next day, empty sheets. No one remembers their face after a while." Finn’s voice dropped. "They say that’s why the Academy doesn’t like spirit affinities. They’re unstable. Hard to control."
Lucian stopped walking.
Finn stopped too, turning to look at him. "What?"
"Nothing." Lucian started walking again. "Just thinking."
They crossed a bridge. Below, a boat drifted past, carrying crates of fish. The sailor at the helm nodded at them. Finn nodded back. Everyone knew everyone in this part of the city.
"The world is bigger than this city," Finn said suddenly. "You know that, right? You’ve probably seen it."
"I’ve seen a lot of worlds."
"How many?"
"I stopped counting."
Finn’s eyes widened. "That many?"
"That many."
"Which one was the best?"
Lucian thought about it. Really thought. Not about power or scale or beauty. About the one where he felt most at home.
"There was a world," he said slowly, "where people didn’t fight. Not because they couldn’t. Because they chose not to. They had everything they needed. Food grew on trees. Water was clean. The weather was always perfect."
Finn stared. "That sounds fake."
"It was boring."
"Boring?"
"Terribly boring." Lucian almost smiled. "No conflict means no growth. No growth means no stories. Everyone just... existed. For thousands of years. The same conversations. The same meals. The same sunsets."
"What happened to it?"
"It’s still there. I left."
Finn considered this. "So you’re saying conflict is good?"
"I’m saying conflict is necessary. Like fire. It can warm you or burn you. But without it, you freeze."
They walked past a temple. Incense drifted through the open doors. A priest was chanting something in a language Lucian didn’t recognize. Finn paused, touching his forehead, then his chest, then each shoulder.
"Old habit," Finn said, catching Lucian’s look. "My mother made me do it every morning. Said it kept the bad spirits away."
"Did it work?"
"I’m still here. So maybe."
Lucian didn’t answer. He was looking at the temple’s spire, at the way the morning light caught its edge, at the shadows it cast on the street below.
"You know what I think?" Finn said.
"What?"
"I think you’re not looking for Evelyn."
Lucian’s gaze snapped to him. "Excuse me?"
"I think you’re looking for yourself." Finn’s voice was younger now, less sure. "I think you lost something important, and you think finding her will fix it. But it won’t. Because what you really lost was... I don’t know. Purpose? Meaning?" He shrugged, embarrassed. "I’m just a kid. What do I know."
Lucian stared at him for a long moment.
Then he laughed.
Not a bitter laugh. Not a sarcastic one. A real laugh. The kind that surprised him, that came from somewhere he’d forgotten existed.
"Kid," he said, "you’re going to be insufferable when you grow up."
Finn grinned. "That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me."
They kept walking.
---
A week passed.
They left the city. Not because Lucian wanted to, but because Finn insisted. "The old docks were a dead end," the kid said. "But there are other places. Villages. Ruins. Places where magic doesn’t work right. Places where people forget."
"People forget everywhere," Lucian said.
"Yeah, but some places forget harder."
The countryside was green. Rolling hills, small farms, narrow roads that wound between stone walls. The air smelled different here. Cleaner. Less like desperation.
Finn talked the whole time.
He talked about the Academy, about the tests they made you take, about the hazing rituals older students used on younger ones. He talked about the capital, which he’d never seen but had heard stories about. He talked about the king, who was supposedly a mage so powerful he could level mountains, but no one had seen him use magic in decades.
"He’s old," Finn said. "Like, really old. Some say he’s been alive for five hundred years."
"That’s not that old," Lucian said.
Finn gave him a look. "For a normal person, it is."
"I’m not a normal person."
"I’ve noticed."
They stopped at a stream to refill Finn’s water flask. Lucian sat on a rock, watching the water flow. A fish jumped. He thought about the fish from the canal, the one Finn had watched with hungry eyes.
"Tell me about the Trial," Lucian said. "The Awakening one."
Finn sat beside him, pulling off his shoes to dip his feet in the water. "It’s dangerous. Some people don’t wake up. Their bodies just... give out. The magic is too much for them."
"How many?"
"One in ten. Maybe more. The Academy doesn’t publish the numbers."
Lucian frowned. "And you still want to try."
"I don’t have a choice." Finn’s voice was flat. "It’s the only way out. Either I take the Trial and maybe die, or I stay here and definitely die. Slow. Hungry. Alone."
"You’re not alone now."
Finn looked at him. Really looked. "You’re leaving."
"Soon."
"Then I’ll be alone again."
Lucian didn’t have an answer for that. He looked at the stream, at the fish, at the way the light played on the water’s surface.
Finn was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Do you think she still remembers you? Evelyn?"
Lucian’s hand stopped moving.
"I don’t know," he said. "I hope so."
He threw the stone into the stream. It skipped once, twice, three times, then sank.
They sat in silence until the sun began to set.
---
That night, they camped in an old barn. The roof had holes in it, but the hay was dry and the rats kept their distance. Finn fell asleep almost immediately, curled up like a cat, his hand still clutching the water flask.
Lucian sat by the barn door, watching the stars.
He’s not wrong, Cael said.
"About what?"
About you. About the search. You’re not just looking for Evelyn. You’re looking for a version of yourself that still believes in happy endings.
Lucian didn’t respond.
The boy is perceptive.
"The boy is hungry. Perceptive is a luxury for people who’ve eaten recently."
You’re deflecting.
"I’m tired."
You’re infinite. You don’t get to be tired.
Lucian closed his eyes. The stars watched. The wind blew. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called out.
"Maybe I’m looking for both," he said finally. "Evelyn. And myself. Maybe they’re the same thing."
That’s very philosophical for a god.
"I’m not a god."
Your stats say otherwise.
"My stats are a joke."
They’re not. And you know it.
Lucian opened his eyes. The stars hadn’t moved. The wind hadn’t changed. But something felt different. Lighter. Like a weight he’d been carrying had shifted to a more comfortable position.
He looked at Finn, sleeping in the hay.
The kid was right. Conflict was necessary. Fire warmed. And sometimes, the people you saved were the ones who saved you back.
He closed his eyes again.
And for the first time in two months, he slept.
Not because he needed to.
Because he wanted to.
When he woke, Finn was already awake, sitting cross-legged, eating a piece of bread that definitely hadn’t been there last night.
"You made this?" Finn asked, mouth full.
"No. You sleep-baked it."
Finn snorted. "Magic police."
"Shut up."
They laughed. Both of them. The sound echoed off the barn walls, startling a pigeon from its perch.
Comments