In Glavendell, things rarely changed. The sun rose over the same low, golden hill every morning, the dogs barked at the same noisy chickens, and Melia's bread still smelled just as sweet, even though she claimed, every week, that she was making it worse. In this small corner of the world, secrets lasted less than freshly baked bread, and rumors were swifter than mountain crows.
The forge opened before the rest of the village woke up. The sound of Vern, the blacksmith's hammer, was like the rooster's crow for some. His apprentice, Toman, barely sixteen, had learned to sweat before breakfast. As they stoked the embers, Toman murmured, without looking away from the window:
"I swear I saw a stranger last night. He went into the chief's house. He had a strange cloak... and he walked like his soul was old."
Vern grunted, more out of habit than disinterest.
"Strangers come and go, boy. Though it's true I haven't seen one without mud up to their eyebrows in over five years."
At the inn, Lira, the soft-voiced widow with calloused hands, was finishing preparing sage tea when two local travelers let it slip at her table: "They say Chief Eunid received a stranger last night. That he let him into his house without asking who he was or where he came from."
"And did he have luggage?" asked Velma, the healer, who happened to be passing by at that very moment, as she often did when rumors began to sprout like mushrooms after rain.
"They say no. Only a staff, a small satchel, and a gaze that looked at nothing in particular."
Meanwhile, at the nearest farm, Fania, Melia's daughter, arrived agitated from the mill with the same news.
"Mom, I swear, Noa saw him pass. She says he had hair white as the moon and a voice that sounded like cold wind."
"And what were you doing talking to Noa, if you said you were going straight to the mill?"
Fania lowered her head. Her mother raised an eyebrow, but then firmly went back to kneading.
The bread doesn't wait, not even for a stranger.
In the library, Belnisia stayed with her book open to the same page for half an hour, thinking about how little she knew about visitors in Glavendell. Her cat, an old, scruffy animal, purred as if it also had questions.
At the mouth of the mine, Jorvan told his companions what he had heard in the tavern.
"And I'll tell you something else: the guy didn't look like a peasant. Not with that straight back. I say he's a noble. Or a fugitive. Or both."
And in the village chief's house, Eunid, his wife Anidia, and their three daughters—Casia, the sensible one; Frila, the rebellious one; and Cadin, the little one who observes everything without speaking—tried to continue their routine, but not even breakfast tasted the same with a stranger sleeping in the guest room.
"What if he's a wizard?" whispered Frila.
"What if he's hurt?" Casia asked, worried.
"He has sad eyes," Cadin said, unprompted.
No one in Glavendell yet knew why that man had come, how long he would stay, or what he sought. But everyone agreed on one thing: something about him seemed to carry stories older than the mountains surrounding the village.
And when that morning, Dyan Halvest, the stranger with white hair and an unfathomable gaze, walked out of the chief's house with a calm stride, the eyes of the entire village fixed on him from cracks, windows, barely ajar doors. They watched him with that mix of fear and fascination that only small towns know how to cultivate with mastery.
Thus began his story in Glavendell. Not with thunder, nor with battle, but with warm bread, whispers, and the warm scent of a life that didn't yet know it was about to change.
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Dyan stepped onto the threshold of the village chief's house, his gloved hand resting on the carved wooden frame. The morning breeze descended from the still frost-covered peaks, bringing with it the scent of pines and the fresh smoke of recently lit hearths. The wind stirred his silver hair, casting glints like moonbeams under the early light. Around him, the houses seemed to have sprouted from the landscape, irregularly and serenely, as if time in Glavendell had fallen asleep among its stones.
From inside, Eunid, the village chief, approached with a calm stride, adjusting his leather belt. He was a broad-shouldered man with a face weathered by the years, though his eyes still held a spark.
"Do you like the village, esteemed one?" he asked in a deep but kind voice, stopping in front of him.
"You probably don't remember me," Dyan replied, with a slight nod. "I came many years ago with my master."
Eunid raised an eyebrow, searching his memory.
"Your master?"
"The Archmage of the Tower of Scabia..."
The chief's eyes lit up.
"Ah... old Edictus." He let out a brief chuckle. "Now that you mention it, he was last here with a child. Don't tell me that little boy..."
"Yes. That child was me."
Eunid laughed louder this time, slapping his thigh.
"By all the heavens! How the years fly. And how is that stubborn old man?"
Dyan barely lowered his gaze. The mention of his master caused him a pain that time had failed to soften.
"He passed away almost ten years ago," he said, without embellishment.
Eunid's smile immediately vanished. He pressed his lips together, shaking his head with sorrow.
"No wonder he never came back... Perhaps...?"
Without another word, the old man turned and disappeared into a back room, muttering something to himself. Meanwhile, life inside the house continued with its warm, domestic rhythm. Eunid's wife, Anidia, organized the table with the kind efficiency of one who has done the same for decades. The daughters moved through the kitchen, filling the air with laughter, the rustle of baskets with freshly baked bread, and the sizzle of eggs in the pan.
Cadin, the youngest, flitted about with a wooden spoon held high like a war banner. Seeing the stranger stopped at the door, his gaze fixed on the floorboards, she approached with childlike curiosity and not a hint of shyness. She gently tugged on his trousers.
"Mister..." she said in a tiny voice. "Don't be sad. Cadin gets like that too when she's hungry."
Dyan blinked, and a small smile formed on his face. He knelt to be at her height.
"I was just remembering a friend. Do you have friends?"
"Cadin has many friends. Rett and Noa, and... Rett again and... Noa. And my sisters," she replied without hesitation, then took his hand with the naturalness of one who knows no distrust. "Eating makes Cadin happy."
Dyan let himself be guided by her to the table, as if with that simple gesture his invisible weight lightened a little.
Anidia, who must have been about his age but whose vitality seemed eternal, gestured him to a chair.
"Eunid told me you came from the capital. What is a young man like you doing so far from everything?"
Dyan settled somewhat clumsily, and Cadin triumphantly handed him her spoon. He accepted it with a slight bow, and caressed her head with gratitude. The girl smiled as if she had completed a great mission.
"I plan to stay in this village," he finally said. "Perhaps, even to spend my last days here."
"Your last days?" replied Casia, the eldest daughter, listening from the kitchen with a ladle in hand. "You look too young to be thinking of retiring."
"Casia, please," her mother reprimanded her, with a look that could have frozen a river. Then she pointed at her with a kitchen knife. "Go check the bread before it burns. And you, Frila, help her."
The girls grumbled, but obeyed.
Dyan observed the scene with a mixture of bewilderment and affection. There was something in the way this family intertwined in their daily gestures that completely disarmed him.
"It doesn't bother me. On the contrary, I appreciate your hospitality," he said, glancing at Cadin, who was still glued to him as if she were already his personal guardian.
"Did he say he was a wizard?" Casia blurted from the other room, with no attempt to disguise it.
"Casia!" Anidia exploded, raising the knife again. "Stop interrupting, you busybody. Get those eggs ready at once or I'll make you swallow them raw."
Dyan laughed, sincerely this time. The warmth of that home began to seep into the cracks of his invisible armor.
"Wizards usually look younger than we really are," he explained, and then added, "In fact, I'll soon be thirty-eight."
Anidia gasped, covering her mouth with her flour-dusted fingers.
"By all the gods! You're my age. You're not joking, are you?"
Dyan smiled, a little uncomfortable, hiding his embarrassment under a mask of serenity.
"Not at all. It's a side effect of ascending the paths of magic."
"How enviable," Anidia said with a sly smile, as she turned to the stove. She effortlessly picked up a frying pan. "Do you like bacon?"
"Yes, of course. I love it," Dyan replied, though he hadn't eaten it since his apprentice days. In the Tower, cured meats were frowned upon by the more purist scholars. Still, he hadn't forgotten the crispness or the smoky aroma of good bacon sizzling in a pan.
Anidia nodded contentedly and skillfully placed several slices on the hot pan. A joyful crackle began to fill the kitchen. The aroma began to envelop the atmosphere with promises of warmth and sustenance. Meanwhile, the daughters of the house scrambled eggs, toasted bread over a clay grill, and warmed freshly milked milk, which Eunid had gone to fetch at dawn from Melia's farm. The domestic bustle had a harmonious rhythm, as if each family member knew their part in a well-rehearsed choreography.
Frila, with a timid gesture, handed little Cadin a small bowl of fresh butter. Cadin held it with both hands, as if carrying a sacred jewel, and walked slowly and concentrated towards the table. Her tongue slightly protruded between her lips, and her eyes were fixed on the rim of the bowl.
It was then that Eunid returned from his room with an old key in his hand, which he shook in the air like a banner.
"Esteemed one, look what I found!" he exclaimed with a wide smile. He approached the head of the table and dropped the key onto the wood with a hollow sound.
"Old Edictus, the last time he came, commissioned the construction of a house on the outskirts. He said he wanted a quiet place to retire. But suddenly, he stopped sending money to finish it... I suppose it was because of his death."
Dyan observed him, surprised. He didn't remember his master having such plans, much less that his first trip to the village had that purpose.
"I had no idea he had left something unfinished here. If I had known, I would have taken care of it."
"The construction stopped, of course, but it was quite advanced." Eunid tossed the key with a quick gesture from his seat, making sure Anidia didn't see him. "I'm sure he would have wanted you to occupy it. He was a reserved man, but generous with small towns like ours. The house has suffered from neglect, but... it has character. And you seem like someone who knows what to do with forgotten places."
Dyan caught the key mid-air, still incredulous. It was heavy, forged from iron blackened by time, with the spiral shape of an ancient arcane mark on the handle.
Anidia crossed the kitchen just then, with a basket overflowing with freshly baked loaves of bread. The warm aroma of wheat invaded the room like a comforting wave. Behind her, Frila left a tray of toasted bread near Dyan, trying not to meet his gaze, though the blush on her cheeks betrayed her.
"It's a peculiar house," Anidia said, stopping by the table with a thoughtful expression. "Now that I know it was for a wizard, everything makes sense... those strange windows, the foundations marked with symbols. It wasn't like the normal houses in the village."
Dyan carefully tucked the key into the inner pocket of his jacket. For an instant, the gesture almost felt ceremonial. His master, even in death, continued to weave threads in his destiny. That echo of shared will moved him more than he would have admitted.
"Thank you very much. It's a kindness I promise to repay somehow."
"Don't worry, boy," Eunid replied, stroking his thick beard with his calloused hand. "It's what that stubborn old man would have wanted. In a way, you remind me of him... that same tired, yet determined look. He also arrived with snow on his boots and a sky in his head."
A soft laugh rippled around the table, followed by the sizzle of the pan, announcing that breakfast was about to begin.
Breakfast turned into a small festival of homey scents and sounds. The sizzling of bacon in the pan was accompanied by the crunch of toasted bread, the gurgle of boiling milk, and the light laughter of Cadin, who was trying to tell an incoherent story about a mouse living inside a cup. Frila listened patiently, nodding and adding details that made even Anidia laugh, though she maintained the firm demeanor of a busy mother.
Dyan sat at the table, still surprised by how much human warmth could emanate from a simple village kitchen. He watched each of the girls at their tasks: Cadin with a full mouth, telling something with crumb-covered lips; Frila carefully serving sausages, never lifting her gaze to him; and the eldest, Casia, quickly collecting empty cups, while Anidia supervised everything from the center, like the sun dictating the rhythm of a small family system.
Eunid, for his part, dedicated himself to filling his plate as if he hadn't eaten in days, interjecting comments between bites and sips of hot milk.
"Remember when your master crossed the threshold of the house that winter and slipped on ice at the doorstep? He got so angry he melted all the snow on the path with a spell!" He laughed.
The girls burst into laughter in unison; even Frila offered a shy smile without looking up.
Dyan couldn't help but smile too. He didn't remember that scene, but he could clearly imagine it. It moved him to see how his master was part of the history of that house, of that family. In life, he had been stern, wise, sometimes cold... but here, his figure blended with warm anecdotes and memories full of humanity.
As he held his rough earthenware mug in his hands, Dyan allowed himself something dangerous: to desire. To desire to belong.
That table full of voices, crumbs, warmth... reminded him of everything he never had. His childhood had passed in the silent corridors of the Tower, with the heavy words of books and solitude as his only companions. He had learned not to need, not to seek anything more than knowledge and mastery over magic. But in that instant, with the sun filtering through the window and the aroma of breakfast permeating every corner, he understood something that years of study hadn't taught him: that the soul also hungers.
Perhaps, he thought, it would have been good to have a family. A kind wife who baked bread in the mornings. A laughing daughter who told absurd stories and brought him butter with both hands as if offering a treasure. A house with laughter and barefoot steps, not just dusty bookshelves.
The image of Eleanor flashed through his mind. Her pale face, her voice always on the verge of reproach, her elegant stride through the palace corridors. A part of him had loved her. Another part never fully understood her. She wouldn't have fit at a table like this. And he... perhaps not either. But in that moment, he deeply wished that wasn't true.
"More milk, Master Dyan?" Casia asked, her empty cup in hand, looking at him with her enormous eyes.
"Yes, please," he replied, with a smile that came more naturally than he would have expected.
Breakfast ended amidst comments about the weather, the struggling cabbage harvest, and news brought by passing merchants. Finally, Eunid wiped his hands on a napkin, stood up, and stretched, as if concluding a sacred ceremony.
"Alright. It's time to show you your new dwelling," he said in a deep, calm voice. "Frila, accompany him. You know the way well. Show him Edictus's house and make sure he enters through the main entrance; the back is covered in nettles again."
Frila finally looked up, surprised, and nodded quickly, though she avoided looking directly at him.
"Yes, father. I'll take him."
"Good girl," Eunid murmured, then looked at Dyan with a half-smile. "I leave you in good hands. Frila has a better memory than I do for the nooks and crannies of that house."
Dyan stood, silently grateful. Frila was already waiting near the door, a folded shawl in her arms. He followed her, as the house remained behind with its scent of bread, its trace of voices, and the warmth, that strange warmth he still felt in his chest, as if a spark had ignited something long dormant.
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As soon as the door closed behind Dyan and Frila, Casia collected the last small bowl from the table with a speed that revealed her true intentions. She glanced at her father—still absorbed in stirring the ashes in the fireplace—and at her mother—busy scrubbing pans—and without another word, she slipped lightly out the back door of the house.
She took a shortcut through the corrals, dodged a couple of noisy chickens, and crossed the vegetable patch that separated her house from Mila's farm. She knocked twice on the back door and opened it without waiting for an answer.
"Fania!" she whispered loudly. "You have to hear this!"
Fania appeared from the kitchen, a cloth still in her hand, covered in flour up to her nose.
"What did you do now?"
"Nothing! It's not me. It's him." Casia closed the door behind her and dropped onto the bench by the table.
"He arrived this morning. He came with the fog and only a cloth bag and his elegance. He's a wizard!"
Fania narrowed her eyes.
"A wizard? Here? Is he not just another herbalist in disguise?"
"No! He's real! Father knew him from before; he treated him like an important guest. He's tall, has a voice like a fairy tale, and..." she leaned closer "...he has silver hair! Long. Like moonlight on water."
Fania burst out laughing.
"Casia! Are you sure it wasn't a forest spirit?"
"I swear it wasn't! And Frila is taking him to Edictus's old house right now. They say it was for him, that the old wizard had it built before he died. Imagine that."
Fania sat opposite her, her eyes sparkling mischievously.
"A handsome, mysterious wizard with his own house... Are you sure Frila isn't going to fall in love on the way?"
"Frila didn't even look at him once," Casia said, laughing too. "Though I certainly did. A lot."
Both laughed, as if sharing the best secret in the world. In a village where news usually revolved around births, harvests, or missing chickens, the arrival of a wizard from the capital was a jolt to Glavendell's quiet soul.
"The only bad thing is he probably won't stay long," Fania said, lowering her voice a little.
Casia shrugged, though her gaze drifted towards the window.
"Perhaps he will. Father gave him the key to that house, and Mother brought out the guest crockery. Do you know what that means?"
"That she liked him. And that Mother Anidia wants to keep a close eye on him."
They laughed again, even louder.
And for the first time in weeks, both girls felt that the day brought them something new, something different, something with possibilities. Because wizards from the capital didn't arrive by chance, much less in a place as forgotten as Glavendell.
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The path to Edictus's house wound through meadows damp with morning dew and old dirt trails that only the villagers' feet knew well. Frila walked a couple of steps ahead of Dyan, in a silence that wasn't uncomfortable, but tense.
Each time she glanced at him, her cheeks flushed an obvious red, as if the mere presence of the wizard emotionally exposed her. And each time that happened, she pretended to be focused on the path or on a branch she pushed away with her hand.
Dyan, sensing this, decided to speak softly.
"In the capital, mornings don't smell like this," he said, still looking at the open sky over the field. "The air is usually drier, laden with dust and smoke. Carriages never stop, and the streets never sleep."
Frila looked at him this time without hiding as much.
"And do you like it better there or here?"
"There are many useful things there, and many wise people... but here there's room to breathe." He smiled, barely.
She nodded, lowering her gaze.
"My mother says you're her age." She looked directly at him now, with a mixture of disbelief and curiosity. "But... you don't look it. You look... young."
Dyan chuckled softly.
"It's true. I am older than I appear. Wizards don't age like others. Not visibly. But it's a trick, you know? You shouldn't trust a wizard's appearance."
"That's... difficult," she murmured, looking back at the path. "One... becomes enchanted."
He didn't reply, and Frila was grateful he didn't. The silence that followed was not tense this time, but serene, like a small truce in the adolescent storm of emotions she carried within.
They passed the old willow tree that marked the village boundary, and the path narrowed as they descended towards the riverbank. In the distance, hidden among the trees and embraced by wild vegetation, stood the house.
It was a large construction, bigger than Dyan had imagined. It had two floors and a dark stone basement, its entrance barely visible under a tangle of brambles. Part of the first floor was intact, with firm walls of aged wood, but another section was half-built: roofless columns, rooms open to the sky, beams creaking with the wind.
The second floor was even more precarious. Incomplete walls, frameless windows, and fallen tiles covered the ground of the back garden. Vigorous vines climbed the walls, embracing the house like a memory that didn't want to let go. Blackberries had taken over the main entrance, as if protecting it from anyone who wasn't its true owner.
Frila stopped just before the rickety gate.
"Here it is. Sometimes the village children dare to enter and tell ghost stories..." She smiled, but didn't dare to look at Dyan this time. "But I always knew it was special."
Dyan walked to the threshold, observing the structure with keen eyes. He didn't just see ruins. He saw the traces of his master, the foundations of an unfinished dream... and, perhaps, a refuge he could still claim.
"It is," he murmured. "It's a good place to start anew."
Frila remained silent for a few seconds, observing him in profile, as if engraving that moment in her memory. Then, in a timid voice, she said:
"If you need help cleaning it... I can come with my sisters. Or alone. If you prefer."
Dyan looked at her, kindly but without promises.
"Thank you, Frila. Perhaps I will need it."
And so, under the clear sky and the distant murmur of the river, began the first steps towards what would be his new home... and perhaps, a new beginning.