The sound of a chime. Like the wind chimes at the enchanted gardens of the Palace. Little blue silver bells clinking in the breeze. Eiden heard the sweet little chime again.

Smell. A flowery smell. Eiden didn't recognize it. But, he took a deep breath that filled his lungs with cool air coated with flower scent. Soft. And warm. Did he fall asleep again in the garden? Whatever. It's good.

Voices. He heard hushed voices close to him. He sighed. So comfortable. Should he bother about voices?

Something touched him and he involuntarily flinched. Then he felt magic, waves of cool and comforting magic. He relaxed as it washed over him, soothing his unknown worries.

“Eiden, can you open your eyes?” a gentle voice asked.

Why? But he did. The Surroundings were dimly lit and it took him a moment to see clearly the yellow ceiling above him.

“Eiden?”

Eiden turned his head to see a tall and elegant-looking woman in long pink and white gown, sitting beside him. She smiled at him lovingly.

“Let me help you to get up.” She held one of his hands and with the other under the shoulder, helped him to sit up. Eiden couldn't remember where he was, or who she was.

Then, Eiden thought her face was familiar looking, almost like someone he knew. She took a glass of water from the stand beside the bed and offered it. His hands were slightly trembling, but he held it tight and drank a little. It was sweet and refreshing, one sip felt equal to drinking a gallon of strengthening elixir. He noticed that he was wearing a long white shirt and soft silken long pants.

“Do you feel better?” She asked. He nodded and observed her once again.

“Papa? You look like Papa!” he exclaimed with widened eyes.

Fire. Everything was on fire. Pain. Fear. Guilt. Blood. Memory after memory assaulted his mind. Eiden doubled in pain clutching his head, he couldn't breathe, he was drowning.

“Shh..Eiden, it's over now.” He was gathered into a warm embrace.

“It..it was real? Or..or.. an awful dream?” he whispered, clinging to her, tightly closing his eyes as if that would prevent him seeing the burning world.

“It was real. I'm sorry.'' he felt she stroked his hair.

“Mother...” he gasped. She released him from the tight hug, took his face in her hands, and planted a kiss on his forehead.

“Come with me.” she extended her hand.

Eiden let her take his shaking hand. They walked outside of the room. It opened into a wide hallway led to a large circular room like a lobby. But they didn't go that far. There was a closed side door, which was an entrance to a spacious balcony with a variety of flowers in full bloom.

He smelled crispy fresh air and a cool breeze ruffled his hair. The unknown flowery fragrance was circling all around them. He heard laughter and merry chattering. As she stepped out, he followed her.

“Look.” She pointed.

The First Tree. It didn't look like a tree anymore, but was like a mosaic painting of white and red paint strewed on a large blue canvas. The north wind was brushing smooth over the flowered crown, creating ripples on the red and white sea. Eiden was hypnotized by the ethereal beauty of the magical tree. He slowly looked down from the canopy to the bottom, and he saw a group of people walking towards the city from a distance.

He turned to the hostess. Without a word, she took his hand and they appeared at the city square just beneath the tree. Eiden didn't wait for another second. His bare feet recognized the rough texture of the stones, as he ran to the oncoming group like an escaped tornado that was imprisoned for a thousand years. Later, he was teased about his jumping capabilities, yet, Eiden didn't regret his actions even a little bit.

Eiden launched himself into the air and straight into the arms of the man who clearly understood his mission, jumping forward just in time to catch the falling star. In the past, he was often scolded about jumping without a second thought. But, today wasn't one of them. He clung to the strong shoulders like a drowning man to the last straw. There were no words exchanged because no words were needed.

Long wooden benches and tables were arranged to sit and talk under the First tree. They sat on a bench and Eiden changed his position to hug his mother and grandfather.

“Star.” Mother lovingly caressed his cheek.

Eiden looked into the warm blue eyes, then into glowing amber orbs. He saw nothing but love and understanding underlined with deep sorrow. His hostess walked to them, with a group of others, and they set several dishes and drinks on the table.

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“Where..where is Papa?” his voice was trembling.

“What happened after..after…” his voice broke. Even though he wanted to hear it, Eiden didn't think he could listen to that story without support. He clung to his parents with all his might and demanded answers to all the questions he could think of.

It was a long story.

Evan had teleported to the iceberg aligned with Northstar, and his arrow tied secularly to a message encasing the crystal with Eiden's blood had reached somewhere closer to the fog bank.

The water people already began to have some suspicions about the group even though Enya was present, Kara had felt something like fear lingering around the group. Therefore, they had been on alert for a distress signal. When they found the message, Kara, one of their leaders, had led a troop of soldiers to the ships.

Kara had advised her people to restrain and knock the guards out without causing lethal harm to them because the guards were influenced by the dark magic, and therefore only a few lives were lost in the confrontation.

Eiden's friends, Clade, Cissa, Nub, and Ivar were released and they found his father and grandfather with their military group tied up in a cell. Taking the blood had greatly weakened them. Lord Hadrian, Simon, Marcus, and Mashu were the only people who had been awake and insisted on accompanying them to the island. Kara had sent others to their city for immediate medical treatments.

When they came to the island, at the gate, they encountered the group of guards led by Renin, who had completely surrendered himself to the shadow influence. A few of their group were fatally injured, and most of the guards had fallen.

His friends had told him about the creature ancestry being immune to the dark magic of the shadows, so his father had left Simon and Marcus, the only human guards who weren't badly injured, outside of the gate. However, even though he was already contaminated with dark magic, Evan had refused to stay outside.

During the confrontation with Esme, Evan had tried to stab his father with Eiden's dagger which he carried since their escape from the shadow dimension. Clade had interfered and hit Evan on the neck, knocking him out for a long while and had gotten stabbed in the shoulder, luckily the wound wasn't fatal.

Eiden didn't want to hear what had happened next. He wanted to beg and scream until they would tell him it was one long dark dream that he must forget. But, it wasn't and he buried his face in Father's chest, and listened with a numbed heart.

The backlash of breaking the bond between him and them had hit his mother and papa hard. If his father hadn't broken the barrier, they could have died from the impact. But, conveniently, the barrier had gone down just in time and Kara had thrown a water shield around them absorbing much of the groundbreaking impact.

They couldn't reach Eiden due to the magical field surrounding Eiden and Esmeralda. The dagger however specially made to injure the dark magic contaminated black dragons was able to pierce through the magical field.

At first, they had thought both Eiden and Esme had perished in the cleansing fire. However, Eiden, whose bond had still been connected to the First tree, was found barely alive. Esme wasn't that lucky.

His fire had completely destroyed the shadow dimension and had destroyed the bond between the source of power of the shadows and the tree. That had caused a massive release of power enough for the tree to absorb and recover from the magically induced winter hibernation state, which could have led to its demise if the power transfer hadn't stopped.

However, Eiden being the only living creature attached to the First tree at that crucial moment, almost had become a part of the life-giving tree. At first, Mother's analyses had shown that Eiden wouldn't survive by separating from the tree, like a leaf or a flower picked from a plant, his life would slowly wither and extinguish.

Papa had woken up the inhabitants of the city, immediately after the events. With the newly revived First tree, their magical foods soon strengthened and rejuvenated their wasting bodies and reduced magic. Yet, even their renowned physicians had the same results from their diagnosis that there was no hope for Eiden. However, they hadn't given up hope, and they had been brainstorming for a solution.

Meanwhile, Mother and father had to leave him in their care to straighten the affairs of the palace, and see others who were left in Kara's care. Ravik and his grandfather were greatly weakened by blood loss, but timely treatments from water people saved their lives.

Unfortunately, Raki who had been heavily contaminated by dark magic had died at the same time when the source of dark magic had died in Eiden's hands. Gorga, who wasn't a strong Nesol and had been contaminated by dark magic during the blood collection, hadn't regained consciousness and later passed away.

Mashu, who was fatally injured during the fight at the gate, would have to use crutches for quite some time, but Mother thought he would recover just fine. Father had taken a group of guards and arrested everyone who'd kept Ierma, Sage, and Guru under house arrest.

Mother had accepted the acting monarch title due to being one requirement short of her official title, as the heir wasn't available at the moment. At first, it looked like a long and tedious task to remove the traces of dark magic from the Palace, but then the extigunation of the power source helped for effective cleaning and cleansing.

They had come a week and a half later, empty-handed to see Eiden, as they weren't able to find any solution to safely detach him from the magical tree. And then…

Papa, who had been recovering, had informed his parents that he had thought of a way. He had explained to them that he'd spent his life to the fullest, and it was time for him to leave the mortal plane. Expressing his heartfelt sincere happiness to see Neina, his daughter again, and the painful truth of Nexus's fate had given him much pain, but he said that his belief of Eiden's actions might have freed her from such dark existence.

The healers had warned his parents and papa, that Eiden needed to be removed as soon as possible before the tree started flowering because the need of a large amount of power for the tree's progression might drain his remaining magic to the tree.

Through a whole day-long slow operation, they had incorporated Papa into the Eiden's magical link to the tree. After the link had settled, Papa had deliberately let his life force leave his body naturally, severing the magical link and carefully sealing it.

Though the separation didn't affect the tree adversely, Eiden was left very weak even with the power transfer by Papa through the blood bond they shared. Finally, Eiden was placed in a concentrated magical field for the healing sleep in the islet of Cora, with his parents traveling back and forth to see his progress.

Mother's hold tightened around him. Eiden realized retelling the story must be as painful as listening to it.