ADAMAH - BOOK I: THE AWAKENING OF THE ASTROS

Chapter 7: The Storm and the Grandparents' House

I. The Road North

Lans Eliot rode north with a single mission: to find the blue dragon.

His father's order echoed in his mind again and again: "Bring the dragon's heart and prove you are worthy of the throne." But the farther he rode from Isagar, the more Arman's voice faded and the stronger another echo became, another memory.

Haruko's words: "Power is more dangerous than any dragon."

And the face of a young woman he did not yet know, but who had been appearing in his dreams for months. A young woman with blue eyes and hair as black as night, who smiled at him from a distance without saying a word.

Lans shook his head, pushing those thoughts away. There was no time for fantasies. He had a duty to fulfill.

The road took him west, skirting the mountains, until he spotted in the distance the green, dense mass of the Galaria Forest.

"I'll cross it," he murmured to himself. "It will be faster than going around."

He spurred his horse and entered the trees.

II. The Storm

The forest greeted him with a blanket of thick fog and an uncomfortable silence.

The trees, immense and twisted, seemed to watch him with their branches like accusing fingers. Sunlight barely filtered through the canopy, creating a world of shadows and whispers. Lans spurred his horse and pressed on, trusting his instinct to find the way out.

But the forest did not cooperate.

Paths forked and vanished. The marks he left on tree trunks disappeared when he turned his head. And the silence, deeper and deeper, began to weigh on his shoulders like a slab.

Hours later, the sky collapsed.

It was not an ordinary rain. It was a deluge that soaked the earth in seconds, accompanied by thunder that shook the soul and lightning that split the tallest trees. The wind howled like a thousand lost souls, and the rain was so dense he could barely see a step ahead.

The horse, panicked, reared and neighed furiously. Lans tried to control it, but it was useless. The animal threw him to the ground and disappeared into the brush, lost in the storm.

Lans fell heavily, hitting his shoulder against a rock. He cursed under his breath as he got up, soaked, muddy, his armor twice as heavy, visibility reduced to nothing.

"This can't get any worse," he murmured.

And then a lightning bolt struck less than fifty paces away, splitting a centuries-old oak in two.

Lans ran.

Without direction, without aim, just fleeing the fire and the thunder. He ran until his legs burned and his lungs begged for air. He ran until he no longer knew if he was fleeing the storm or searching for something he didn't even know he needed.

When he thought he could go no further, he saw a light.

III. The Grandparents' House

A cabin.

Small, of dark wood and thatched roof, with a smoking chimney and a garden of wildflowers that stubbornly resisted the downpour. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, like the ones Haruko used to tell him when he was a child.

Lans staggered toward it, nearly falling several times in the mud and exhaustion. When he reached the door, he leaned against the frame, gasping.

Before he could knock, the door opened.

An old man with a white beard and kind eyes looked at him from the threshold. He wore a simple wool vest and held a candle in his hand, though the light from inside already filtered through the cracks.

"By the ancients..." murmured the old man at the sight of Lans's state. "Come in, son, quickly. You're soaked and frozen."

Lans hesitated for a moment. His training in Felian had taught him to distrust everyone and everything. But the cold chilled his bones, exhaustion clouded his judgment, and something in the old man's eyes told him he could trust.

He entered.

The interior smelled of dried herbs, freshly baked bread, and burning wood. An old woman with an apron stained with flour stirred a pot over the fire, and the aroma of the stew made Lans's stomach roar like a beast.

"Mira, Mira," said the old man, "we have a visitor. A young man lost in the storm."

The old woman, whose name was Mira, quickly approached, leaving the ladle aside.

"Poor creature!" she exclaimed, seeing Lans's state. "Theron, help me take off that armor. He's completely soaked."

Together, the two elders helped Lans strip off his armor, which fell to the floor with a weight that revealed how exhausted he was. They offered him a dry blanket and sat him by the fire.

"Thank you," Lans murmured, shivering. "I don't know what I would have done if..."

"You don't have to thank anything," said Theron, sitting beside him. "In this house, everyone is welcome."

Lans nodded, letting the fire's warmth penetrate his numb bones. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling life slowly return to his body.

When he opened them, he saw something that left him breathless.

In a corner of the room, next to a bookshelf full of books, a young woman was reading.

IV. The First Glimpse

Her hair was black as a starless night, falling in soft waves over her shoulders. Her skin, white as milk, contrasted with the fire burning behind her. And her eyes... her eyes were blue. Light blue, like the sky at dawn, like the water of mountain lakes, like everything pure and beautiful that Lans had forgotten existed in the world.

She looked up from the book and looked at him.

For an instant, Lans felt time stop. The crackle of the fire, the murmur of the rain — everything disappeared. Only those blue eyes looking at him remained.

"Grandparents," she said, her voice soft as a caress. "Who is he?"

"A lost traveler," Theron replied, placing Lans's armor near the fire to dry. "The storm caught him in the forest. He'll spend the night here."

The young woman nodded and returned to her book. But Lans noticed that, from time to time, her eyes rose above the pages to observe him with curiosity.

And every time that happened, he felt a strange warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the fire.

"My name is Lans," he said, feeling the need to break the silence. "Lans Eliot."

The young woman looked up again.

"I am Serenity," she replied, with a shy smile.

And at that moment, the storm roared louder outside, as if the very sky wanted to warn them that something important had just begun.

V. Dinner

Mira served the stew in steaming wooden bowls. Theron cut the bread and shared it. Lans ate as if he hadn't tasted food in days, which was true.

"Where do you come from, boy?" asked Theron as they ate.

"From Isagar," Lans replied between bites. "Well, originally from there. But I've spent the last few years training in Felian."

"Ah, Felian," said Theron, nodding wisely. "The land of warriors. Tough training, I've heard."

"The toughest," Lans confirmed. "But it has made me what I am."

"And what has it made you?" asked Mira softly.

Lans stopped, his fork halfway to his mouth. No one had ever asked him that.

"A warrior," he replied, but even to him it sounded hollow.

Mira and Theron exchanged a look that Lans could not interpret.

During the rest of dinner, the elders spoke of simple things: the harvests, the garden flowers, the stories the wind brought from distant places. Lans listened in silence, but his attention drifted again and again to the corner where Serenity continued reading.

She barely participated in the conversation. She only smiled from time to time and nodded at what her grandparents said. But there was something in her presence, in her silence, in the light that seemed to emanate from her, that hypnotized him.

When they finished dinner, Mira pointed to a small loft.

"You can sleep up there," she said. "It's not much, but it's dry and warm."

Lans nodded, grateful.

Before going up, he looked once more toward the corner. Serenity was still reading, but at that moment she looked up and their eyes met.

"Good night," she said.

"Good night," he replied.

And as he climbed to the loft, Lans felt that something inside him had changed. Something he couldn't explain, but that made him wish the storm would last forever.

VI. Epilogue: The Echo of the Forest

That night, while Lans slept in the loft and the rain continued to beat on the roof, Serenity stayed awake by the fire.

She couldn't stop thinking about that young warrior. His green eyes, tired but with a glimmer of hope. The sadness he hid beneath his armor. The way he had looked at the fire as if searching for answers he couldn't find.

"Can't you sleep, child?" asked Mira, approaching with a blanket.

"I can't," Serenity replied. "Grandmother... who is he really?"

Mira sat beside her and looked at her with tenderness.

"I don't know," she admitted. "But I know one thing: he didn't come here by chance. The forest doesn't let just anyone in. Especially not in the middle of a storm like this."

"So?"

"So," said Mira, stroking her hair, "it means destiny has brought him to us. And destiny, Serenity, is never wrong."

Deep in the forest, Anyanka watched the cabin from the shadows, smiling.

"It has begun," she murmured. "The warrior has found the path to the light."

And the storm, little by little, began to subside.