Warm, soft, and tangled up with Cade, Aurelius woke up enveloped in peace. They'd slept in the bed meant for one. The room was illuminated by sunrays from the window. The shadows were a light shade of silver. Even the ones on Cade's chest and under her chin.

Aurelius watched for what felt like seconds but may have been hours for all he knew. He stirred slightly and saw Cade's eyes flutter. She rubbed her cheek on the pillow, so cute Aurelius was tempted to kiss her. Then he remembered he could and did.

When he pulled away, she pulled him back in, and they continued. Her shoulders relaxed at his touch. Her cheeks reddened when his hands trailed down. When they pulled apart, Aurelius caressed her cheek, looking into her eyes. Their large pupils and brown irises that he could've gone on about for eternity. Oh, the seductiveness in the way she blinked. That couldn't be intentional.

She grabbed him by the waist and smiled up. She wrapped herself around him. There was something about the way she moved. Flowing and flexible but dangerous with a hint of intrigue and wariness. Her hips. Her stomach.

Her fingers traced his abdominal muscles. He flexed, and she giggled.

"I wonder if you realize how severely nature played favorites when she made you," she said with a lopsided smile.

"Said a tree to another," Aurelius countered.

"At least I don't have golden hair," she said, ruffling his hair.

"Yeah, but you have—" Aurelius reached down beneath the blanket.

Cade squealed, pushing him off before giggling and pulling him into a kiss again. Aurelius fell quiet, thinking about everything they'd been through. What a miracle it was that they had endured. A miracle of Cade's making.

"I love you," Aurelius whispered.

Cade stopped and pecked him on the nose. "I know," she whispered back with a toothy grin.

Aurelius chuckled and rolled out of her grasp and threw his clothes on. It was time for his icy swim, so he wished his warmth goodbye. Cade frowned playfully from under the blanket as he left.

***

Once more, Aurelius ran his finger along the surface of the gray fjord. It had grown lighter and lighter as spring neared.

Aurelius didn't plunge in. He submerged himself gradually, but without hesitation or slowing down. The freezing cold did not numb him even as it attacked from all sides with unyielding ferocity. He felt every single sting of it, and he relaxed his body along with his mind.

When he got out, he did not hurry to wrap himself in his coat. He breathed as he dressed in his shirt and pants. A particular mountain peak caught his sight, and he walked off in a trance. With his barefeet, he traversed the snowy plains. They grew red as he sank them into the untouched layers of white.

He swept his frozen wet hair to the side, thinking of how the black dye was fading with each plunge. When his feet began turning blue, he realized what he was doing.

"How long did I walk?" he asked himself as he looked back to see the trail. What a senseless thing. However, the peak was almost in his grasp.

And so he kept going.

Once he had run with vibrant vigor. A sixteen-year-old boy with no knowledge of the world or his place in it. No real sense of purpose and only a fragile conception of identity.

At times, he had despised that moment in which he claimed the world to be his for all to hear. Now he felt no great emotion but acknowledgment and acceptance.

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When he made it to the peak, he climbed up top and stood tall. From there he could see the villa, the fjords, and the mountains lined up as far as the eye could see. He felt himself among those in the company of all who had ever risen to a peak. Filled with awe at humanity, he realized he was akin to a channel. A channel for nature's love of her creations.

A white bird sang in a near inaudible high pitch, flapping its wings thrice as it crossed by him.

Aurelius watched it go, his body relaxing at the sight.

"There is no more beautiful a sight.

Then a bird spurred to flight in the night with all its might," he whispered only to have his voice swallowed by the wind. "But it's day." He laughed, gazing at sun.

Golden rays lit up the snowy peaks and made the metallic waters sparkle with life. Aurelius' eyes fluttered as he raised his arms on his sides. He flicked his wrists up. His body breathed as he ran his fingers through the air. Cade crossed his mind, her sleeping figure silently wrapped in the blankets.

'Dear nature,' he thought, as he shifted and flowed. He was paving a path in the snow. It was a slow dance guided by his body, which he mindfully observed. 'Even though you are often cruel, I find your beauty as indescribable as your ugliness.'

He drew a breath of something beyond air. It coursed through his body, moving through his pathways. He entered his ideal world, but not like before. There was something more complete to it. There was something more to him. A newfound maturity.

'I don't need to possess you. I will not ask you to bend to my will. I just want to be with you.'

Tiny specks of light blue jumped at his fingers. Sparks grew to a flame that spread throughout. Aurelius felt lines of essence draw through his lower pathways. One, two, then a hundred all at once. A burst of power ran through Aurelius, but he continued in his sweeping motion like nothing had happened.

He gave no commands, yet essence rushed through his body, filling it from head to heel. The cold disappeared, and his footing steadied. His muscles wrapped around his bones, nimble but powerful. Not near the brutally intense power he had last felt but a firm embrace.

By that time, there was a wave of essence at his hand the size of the villa. It moved alongside him like a wave without form. He swiped his hands in a circular motion. The essence curled and rose into the shape of a tornado above every peak. Aurelius brought his hands together. The essence condensed. His hands spread, and it dispersed.

The million flickers of blue veiled the sky.

No paint, no canvas.

Just an artist at the mercy of his nature and his masterpiece.

***

Solomon watched quietly from the villa as the boy moved the world. It was a wave of essence even he couldn't comprehend. Aurelius moved it calmly and with ease.

Solomon had never borne witness to such grace. He had never seen someone walk on the edge of the real and ethereal.

Nature truly loved the boy. Perhaps more than anyone else.

'I wonder what the two of you share," Solomon thought, thinking of Aurelius and Gadreel.

The two had grasped the true essence of nature over a decade before even he and Ares had gotten around to it. Gadreel may have possessed a peerless intellect, and Aurelius an otherworldly amount of talent, but there was more to it.

They must've seen the world differently. They'd witnessed it from end to end and grasped the secret underlying its surface.

But if all that had done for Gadreel was make him seek spectacle and death, what would it do to Aurelius? The ancient thaumaturges knew the true essence of nature better than anybody, and they'd gone extinct.

So even while in awe of his achievement and sure of his limitless potential, Solomon had to ask if he'd done right by teaching Aurelius. Was the gamble worth it?

Watching the tornado rise and disperse so wide it spread even above him, Solomon wondered what direction he'd pushed the world into and whether it was too late to ever pull it back.

***

Cade stood gazing out of the window, clutching the blanket around her in a trance. At first she'd thought it was Solomon, but nobody else besides Aurelius moved like that. It was him. He had returned.

After half a year, Cade had gotten used to the Aurelius, whose teeth clattered when freezing and who would fight a losing battle even though he already had too many scars.

Now Aurelius would no longer be cold; he would not fight losing battles, and perhaps he would gain no new scars.

Still, Cade found herself wiping her eyes.

***

In the Great Zalfarian Empire, a man with long golden hair awoke to no sound at all. He rose from bed and donned his robes before tying his hair by himself. He'd sent all the servants away yesterday.

Arriving at his worktable, he gazed down from the window at the capital city with its squares, parks, and Zog River crossed by only three bridges and populated with large trading ships. In a year's time, the statues would probably be hacked down, the parks burned, and Zog would run with blood.

The man looked down at his draft from yesterday. It was sloppy, drunken, and pathetic. He rubbed his temples. Bargaining with his own life was useless. He was facing an enemy that understood only one thing: power.

Sleep had cleared his mind. His father's promise to Ares was a remnant of the past that had held him back for too long. What was integrity to skeletons?

He crumpled up the draft, dipped a pen in ink, and began another, titled "Search Order for Aurelius, Son of Ares."

It was time to bring his nephew home.