Entering a new city
In Ronan's palm, a pebble slow pulsed, its glow barely sufficient to illuminate the path ahead. Tugging upon his chest with every tremor, the pulse was an invisible thread that led him forward through twisting roads and unfamiliar lands before him.
Hours passed, a long haul in the danger of dim moonlight, until suddenly, the scenery changed. The split pavements and barren suburbs gave way to immaculate cobblestone streets, smoothened by years of petitioning.
He had finally reached Eldoria.
The city, unlike any Ronan had seen, was wide, opulent, overflowing with the drench of wealth and history. White stone spires soared high into the sky, golden rooftops illuminated by the light of street lanterns flickering far down below. The scent of fresh roses lay thick with the aromatic cedarwood, heavy and pleasant against the damp odour of earth and decay that was remote behind him in the ruins from where he came.
The roads welcomed estates larger than the last; each swirling with wrought-iron gates, specifically carved, with enormous courtyards blossoming with rare flowers. Fountains carved from marble sparkled in the squares, where the water glistened in the light of the moon. Everything breathed power, ancestry, something too old and untouchable, in Eldoria.
This was a place built for the elite. The family and their descendants stayed there in the city of which bloodlines defined worth; commoners like Ronan were hardly shadows against the grandeur.
Even so, he found himself walking these streets, tugged along by the ever-urgent call of the stone in his hand.
The pebble guided him over the crooked alleys away from the tall estates, until the show shifted once more. The gleaming marble streets faded into worn stone paths. The perfumed odors and polished wood woods had grown humble—roasted meats, fresh bread, and sharp snaps of ale.
Ronan had now reached The Copperside District, the working quarter of Eldoria. The city poured with life, unlike the pristine elegance of the noble residences. Dim-lighted bars were alive with chatter, and food stalls pitched up on the street. Workers down from shifts gathered together huddling for some stories over cheap drinks.
He spotted a casual food tavern wedged in between two bigger shops—a wooden shack, really, with mismatched tables and the smell of roasting meat wafting out of an open grill. Probably these workers served in the grand estates, attending royalty while living on scraps.
Ronan kept moving, his gaze scanning the area. The stone in his palm vibrated harder, the pull sharper, more urgent.
Then, at the far end of the food joint, standing in the flickering glow of a lantern, he saw him.
A boy.
Dark eyes. Sharp features. A presence too quiet for someone so young.
Isaac.
Finding the boy
Ronan froze, pulse hammering in ears.
Isaac looked nothing like the description the men from The Hollow Coin said; maybe that was why they had not been able to track him down.
The boy changed.
He was taller than Ronan thought-his frame lean but strong, built for running, surviving. His hair, once described as a striking black curls, had been dyed a dark brown so blended in with that of the city's commoners. His clothes would not attract attention and were quite simple and worn, yet clean, one of those that-they looked like an ordinary street kid.
But there was something else about him.
Something in the way he held himself-rigid, cautious, and ready to flee at a moment's notice.
And most definitely of all, the way his eyes flicked around, scanning the crowd, assessing threats.
This was a boy who had been hunted before. A boy who knew danger.
And now he was looking at Ronan with a blend of wariness and something nearly fear.
"Who are you?" Isaac asked, his voice steady, but his fingers curled tightly into his sleeves.
Ronan didn't move. He kept his tone even, careful. "I'm Ronan. Your nanny sent me."
A flicker of something crossed Isaac's face-confusion, disbelief-but he didn't relax. If anything, he seemed even more tense.
"Prove it," he said, his voice firmer now.
Ronan hesitated for only a moment before he reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, glowing pebble.
Isaac's eyes widened.
Slowly, almost hesitantly, he reached into his own pocket.
When he pulled his hand free, a second pebble lay in his palm.
Identical.
Glowing.
Neither of them spoke for a long time.
Around them faded the world-the murmurs of workers, crackling fire nearby, the hint of food in the air.
Just them.
Two strangers.
Two pieces of the same puzzle.
And for the first time since Ronan had stepped in Eldoria...
He knew absolutely that he was right where he needed to be.
The embrace
The stone in Ronan's palm trembled—synced perfectly with the one in Isaac's pocket.
As Isaac withdrew his own half, the connection became undeniable. These were no mere pebbles. They were something more.
Ronan slowly moved them closer together, an invisible force drawing them into the same proximity like that of opposite ends of a magnet.
At the instant they touched—
A spark.
An invisible pulse of energy rippled through them: not one half, but two seals, reconnecting at the edges, mending the line as if it had never been broken. In less than a second, the stone regained its composite becoming whole again.
Then it changed before their very eyes.
The surface withered and dulled, color glowing, darkening, shifting until it gleamed with unmistakable royal blue color.
Ronan took a breath.
The enchantment was alive within the stone.
And yet, despite the sudden apparition of power, the streets around them were impossibly still. Quiet hours stretched into deep night—not the late hours before dawn, where the world was fairly suspended between rest and awakening. There was no one to witness what had happily just been.
But Isaac had had enough.
Something within him seemed to come undone: A tensing, a hesitance. His shoulders dipped slightly, the guarded look in his eyes softening. Then for the first time, he truly looked at Ronan; almost for a second he caught himself seeing him not as a stranger but as someone he could trust.
And then—then, without warning, he stepped forward and enveloped him in a hug.
Ronan stiffened—not the response he'd been expecting.
Isaac was still just a boy—a tired, wary child caught in something far larger than he should ever have been. Ronan was now able to see it clearly: the exhaustion engraven into his posture, the weight in his dark eyes. He was running for far too long.
Ronan hesitated for a second, and then moved, laying a gentle hand on the boy's back.
"You're not alone anymore," he muttered, the words coming unbidden even though as soon as he said them he knew them to be true.
Isaac just pulled away a bit; he rubbed the back of his eyes as if he'd not meant to be emotional. "Yeah," he mumbled with a soft voice. "I know."
For a second, silence stretched between them. But nagging at the back of Ronan's mind was a question he could not shake off.
It was plain Isaac had been robbed of his magic. But if he had never regained it up until this moment, what in the world had happened to his anchor card?
An anchor card was a conduit placed in the hands of a magic-user immediately after their powers had first stabilized—it was a tether, a leash. Without it, their powers were untamed.
So what had happened to Isaac's?
Ronan frowned, intently asking, "Isaac, what's about your anchor card? When you lost your magic... did you lose that too?"
There was a pause before he replied, the fingers of his left hand biting into the fabric of his shirt while the shadow of something unreadable darkened his eyes.
"No." He voiced it soft, under his breath so that Ronan almost didn't catch it. "By the time I turned ten… my magic was already gone." He swallowed, his throat bobbing. "I never received an anchor card."
Quiet dismay flooded Ronan's chest at the sorrow in his voice. For a child born with magic, that was nonsensical.
Isaac was lucky to have Marta for a nanny to hold his magic for him.
Isaac had never had control. Never had the chance to learn, to grow into his power. It had been ever so removed from him long before he ever really comprehended what it meant.
Before Ronan could fully process what that might entail, he heard himself saying while still grappling in thought:
"Now that you have it back… maybe we should wait."
Wait—until Isaac's magic settled. Until they understood what had just happened. Until they could figure out why this stone had led them to each other.
Isaac let his head bob a little, but that expression of uncertainty flickered across him, as if he were not sure he could afford the luxury of waiting.
As if he were not certain whether they had time.
The boy who ran
Isaac hesitated for a mere second before placing the reunited stone into Ronan's palm.
"It's yours," he simply said.
Ronan furrowed his brow, feeling its weight pressing against his skin, alive with warmth from their strange interaction. He turned the stone in his palm, studying its smooth royal blue surface.
"I don't need gifts," he muttered, shoving it toward Isaac.
But the boy shook his head.
"No," he said quietly with certainty. "It's not a gift. And it's not mine."
Ronan opened his mouth to protest, but Isaac grabbed his wrist and yanked him into a chair before he realized what was happening. With a casual wave, he signalled the server to take his order.
Ronan narrowed his eyes. "Are you seriously trying to feed me to get away from this conversation?"
Isaac only smiled. "Maybe."
Ronan exhaled through his nose; it was a struggle to keep his mouth from curling up in the slightest smirk. "Fine," he said, putting the stone down between them. "Then tell me what this is. Why do you think it's mine?"
Isaac's expression grew serious. He reached over, fingers just brushing the smooth surface of the stone.
"Because Marta told me the story," he said quietly. "She told me everything."
Ronan stopped moving.
Isaac took a breath before elaborating.
"A long time ago...before she ever met me, Marta met someone else," he whispered. "A boy—one who was running, just like I was."
Ronan's fingers tightened against the table.
"She never knew where he had come from," Isaac went on, quieter now. "Only that he looked scared—desperate. He was barely older than I am, all bruised and tired, like he'd been running for miles. And when she bumped into him, he didn't yell, didn't fight. He just…"
Isaac hesitated, his gaze locked on Ronan as though assessing the next set of words.
"He just gave her something. This pendant."
Ronan sucked in a breath.
"She didn't know why," Isaac admitted. "She didn't know what it meant. But the boy told her one thing before disappearing into the night."
He stole another glance at the stone.
"One day I'll find you again, and I'll need you to help me find my way back. This stone will help solve both our problems."
Ronan could feel his heartbeat in his throat.
That can't be right.
That boy—whoever he was—wasn't him.
Was he?
"The thing is," he pondered, "Marta never saw that boy again. Not for years. And she thought maybe she never would."
Ronan sat immobile, unable to take his eyes off the stone.
"But the night she took me in," Isaac continued, tapping lightly on the table, "she did something strange."
"What?" Ronan managed, his voice barely above a whisper.
Isaac's gaze met his. "She broke the stone."
By now, Ronan's lips parted, but no sound came out.
"She broke it in half," Isaac explained, fingers held up as though remembering the moment. "And it didn't just break—it broke clean in half, fair down the middle, right through two identical halves."
His eyes darkened with an unfathomable expression.
"And then she told me to run."
Ronan's fingers felt like they had contracted around the stone.
"She said someone would come," Isaac proceeded. "She didn't know when, but she knew a man would find me, carrying the other half of the stone. And when that happened…"
He breathed out.
"I would know that he was the boy from her story."
Ronan couldn't move.
The realization clawed its way into his chest like something inevitable—something that had always been there, just waiting to be acknowledged.
Isaac was studying him, his dark eyes unblinking.
"That's how I know," he said quietly. "You are that boy, Ronan."
The air between them felt heavier now.
Something unseen clicked into position.
The world tilted.
And for the first time in years, Ronan wasn't sure if he wanted to run toward the truth or from it.
A sharp breath left Ronan's lips, and meanwhile, his grip on the stone tightened as something broke open in his mind.
He had been here before.
Running. Desperate. Afraid.
And somewhere in that forgotten past, he had given up this piece of himself—entrusted it to a total stranger, thinking he would come back for it one day.
Now, after all these years, it had finally come back to him.
Ronan's pulse thundered in his ears.
Isaac was still watching him, waiting.
Slowly, carefully, Ronan placed the stone on the table between them, as though staring at it might make it disappear.
"What was I running from?" he asked.
Isaac's face grew serious.
"I don't know," he admitted, "but I think it's time to find out."