There was no impact.
No fall.
No wind.
Just a blink—
and then Lauri was gone from the Pavilion.
Gone from the world.
Gone from light.
A WORLD WITHOUT SOUND
Darkness stretched around him, but not the suffocating kind.
It felt… curious.
Alive.
Every breath he took stirred a ripple of black mist, drifting like smoke on a still lake.
He touched his chest.
His heartbeat echoed—
not in his ribs,
but all around him.
As if the world itself shared his pulse.
He whispered, "Where am I?"
His voice didn't travel.
Instead, the darkness answered.
"Home."
A shape emerged—slowly, like moonlight leaking through a crack in reality.
It had no true form.
It shifted between silhouettes: tall, childlike, monstrous, human.
But every transition carried the same sensation:
Recognition.
A terrible, intimate recognition.
Lauri stepped back—
but the ground beneath him rippled like water, refusing distance.
"You're not my home," he said quietly.
The shadow tilted its head.
"You were born here."
Cold slid through his spine.
"No," he whispered. "I was born in Vasa. In winter. By a lake."
A low, almost affectionate sound rolled from the entity.
"Yes. A lake we could not reach. A realm we were barred from. A mother who stole you from our thread."
Lauri's breath faltered.
"She didn't steal me. She saved me."
A pause.
Then laughter—soft, ancient, amused, terrifying.
"Is that what she told you? No… she told you nothing. She died too quickly."
Lauri's fists tightened.
He didn't shout.
He didn't break.
His anger was quiet—
a northern storm building under ice.
"What do you want from me?"
The shadow drifted closer, circling him.
"Completion."
Lines of thin white frost crawled along the black mist beneath their feet as the shadow's presence intensified.
"You carry half of what you were meant to be. A thread torn in childbirth. A lineage divided. You are incomplete."
Lauri forced his breathing steady.
"And you think you can fix that?"
"Yes. By reclaiming what belongs to me."
Something cold brushed his chest.
The black thread beneath his skin pulsed in answer.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Pulse.
Faster.
Stronger.
Hungrier.
Lauri staggered backward.
The ground rippled again, but this time it allowed him distance.
He whispered to himself:
Don't panic. Don't rush. Stay steady.
Just breathe.
Sisu.
THE ROOM OF MEMORY
Light flickered.
Suddenly he wasn't standing in darkness anymore.
He stood in his childhood sauna.
The wood was warm.
The stones hissed.
The air glowed orange.
And on the bench across from him—
His mother sat.
Not an illusion.
Not a trick.
Something about her presence was too exact.
The tiny scar on her thumb from a fishing hook.
The way she tucked her hair behind her ear when thinking.
The warmth in her eyes.
She looked at him with no shadow, no malice, no distortion.
"Lauri," hon she said softly, "sit with me."
His legs trembled.
"Are you… real?"
She smiled sadly.
"I'm what remains."
His heart clenched.
He sat beside her, the heat enveloping him in a familiar embrace.
"Why didn't you tell me the truth?" he whispered.
Her eyes shimmered.
"Because truth has weight. And you were just a child."
"Did you steal me?"
The words hurt to say.
Her hand came to rest on his cheek—warm, real, trembling.
"I saved you," she said.
"But yes… from a fate you weren't meant for."
Black frost crept along the sauna door, cracking the wood.
The Devourer's voice seeped in.
"She lies to comfort you. She always did."
His mother stood, placing herself between Lauri and the door.
"You do not speak his truth," hon said sharply.
"You speak your hunger."
The Devourer replied:
"He belongs to me."
"No," she whispered. "He belongs to himself."
Black cracks split the walls.
The sauna flickered.
Reality wavered.
Lauri reached for her.
"Mom—!"
She caught his hand, squeezed it tightly.
"I can't hold this form much longer," hon said.
"So listen closely."
Her eyes—warm, fierce, full of love—met his.
"You are not half of anything. Not broken. Not incomplete.
You are forged of two worlds.
Not inherited—chosen."
The Devourer roared beyond the door.
"You stole him! Gave him weakness!"
"No," she whispered. "I gave him silence. Strength. Sisu."
The sauna shuddered.
His mother pulled Lauri forward and pressed her forehead to his.
"Your first meridian is awake. Now awaken your second."
"How? I don't know how—"
"You do," hon said.
"It's the same lesson I taught you when you were small."
The sauna cracked, splintering.
"What lesson?" Lauri begged.
His mother smiled, tears finally spilling.
"Stay calm… even when the world burns."
The sauna exploded into darkness.
Her hand slipped from his.
"Mom!"
Her voice echoed as she faded:
"Your breath is your blade.
Your silence is your shield.
Temper your heart, Lauri."
THE SECOND MERIDIAN AWAKES
Blackness returned.
The Devourer loomed over him now, all forms collapsing into a single, towering silhouette.
"You cannot escape me."
Maybe not.
But he wasn't running anymore.
Lauri inhaled.
Slow.
Deep.
Steady.
His mother's voice echoed in the breath.
Stay calm… even when the world burns.
White frost flared across his veins.
The Devourer recoiled.
Its voice cracked.
"…Impossible…"
Lauri exhaled.
A ring of white light erupted beneath his feet—
bigger, sharper, more focused than anything from the first meridian.
Lines of qi ignited along his arms, chest, back.
The second meridian opened—
not from rage,
not from heritage,
but from silence.
Pure, northern silence.
The Devourer screamed as frost exploded outward.
"NO—!
NOT FROM CALM—"
White light shattered the shadow realm.
The world cracked like a sheet of ice—
Then Lauri fell through it.
IN THE REAL WORLD
He gasped awake on the stone floor of the Pavilion.
Mei knelt over him, tears streaming down her face.
Yanmei held off the Devourer with a barrier of dying frost.
Prince Xier stared in disbelief.
The Pavilion Master trembled.
Because Lauri's eyes—
Were glowing.
White.
Ancient.
Silent.
And the Devourer—
for the first time—
stepped back.
Afraid.
Lauri rose to his feet, frost steaming from his hands.
The second meridian pulsed.
Mei whispered:
"Lauri… what did you do…?"
He looked at the Devourer—
not with fear
but with calm.
"I tempered my heart."