Some days, I forgot I was still a child.
Then I'd trip on a root and scrape my knee and remember how small I really was.
But even as my bones ached from growing too fast, even as my thoughts sharpened past the point of comfort, the world refused to treat me differently. Adults still saw the messy-haired boy who stared too long at trees. Who mumbled to himself by the river. Who smiled too rarely and watched too closely.
I let them.
Let them call me strange, quiet, distant.
I was.
The bond deepened without warning.
It started with a cut.
A small one — just a careless slip while slicing bark with a kitchen blade.
Blood welled from my palm. Nothing dramatic.
But Aelira screamed.
"Igris!" she shrieked, appearing in a flash of white fire, grabbing my arm though her fingers passed through it. "You're bleeding! Why are you bleeding?!"
I blinked at her.
"It's… normal?" I offered.
She hovered, furious, pacing like a caged wolf.
"It's not supposed to happen to you."
"I'm still human," I muttered.
"You're ours," Solara whispered, stepping beside her, her golden light dimmed by worry. "And that means it shouldn't happen unless we let it."
That made no sense. But a second later, Nyssara emerged from the shadow behind me, arms folded, eyes cold.
"Don't listen to them," she said, almost bored. "Blood is just blood. Pain is just data. Let it teach you."
She was always like that.
The warm one.
The wild one.
The cruel one.
They weren't just voices anymore. They weren't just projections or ideas in my head. They were real to me now. Emotionally real.
I'd felt their fear. Their rage. Their softness.
And in return, I started to feel... tied to them.
Not in chains.
Not in control.
In trust.
That night, I asked them a question I hadn't dared before.
"Why are you with me?"
It was quiet for a long time.
We were in the grove just outside the village, where moonlight pooled like silver water and the trees whispered old secrets. I sat on a flat stone, watching the fog curl around my ankles like friendly ghosts.
Solara was the first to speak.
"You created us"
"That's not true," I said. "I don't remember creating you."
"It happened when you unlocked your anima"Nyssara whispered.
A bubbly laugh came from Aelira"Ha why does it matter we are here now ,that's what counts right."
Nyssara rolled her eyes. "We exist to protect and serve you in any way needed."
"And if I hadn't accessed my anima?" I asked her.
Solara answered this time. "Then we would have had to wait till you did."
They laughed.
Even I laughed.
Over the next few weeks, we began sharing dreams.
At first, I thought I was going mad.
I'd fall asleep and find myself in a burning desert — no sun, no sky — just flame and ash. Solara would be waiting, her form towering and divine, her eyes blazing like twin suns.
There, she taught me how to hold fire without burning.
"I'm not showing you spells," she said once. "I'm showing you truth. Fire wants to live. You don't cast it — you give it permission."
Aelira's dream was the opposite.
Endless skies. Floating islands. Wind that never stopped. She dragged me through clouds by the hand, laughing like a stormchild.
"Don't think," she shouted. "Just move!"
She taught me how to twist aura into speed. How to feel the world through vibration, not thought.
Nyssara… well.
Her dreams were dark forests. Frozen halls. Temples where shadows screamed.
She didn't teach with words.
She taught by watching me suffer.
And then — when I stood, when I fought back, when I learned — she smiled like a proud sister.
"You're not ready yet," she'd whisper. "But you're on the path."
One night, I woke up crying.
I didn't know why.
The tears came without warning. No pain. No dream. Just a deep ache in my chest that wouldn't stop.
Aelira wrapped her light around me like a blanket.
Solara held my hand, humming a tune I'd never heard but somehow knew.
Even Nyssara sat beside me, silent, just present.
And I realized I wasn't alone anymore.
I started talking to them more during the day.
Whispering in my mind. Sharing thoughts. Questions. Worries.
They answered in kind — like sisters. Friends. Guardians.
Aelira teased me constantly.
Solara gave advice no one my age should ever understand.
Nyssara challenged me mentally until I understood or collapsed from a headache.
And they started calling me things.
Not "child."
Not "master."
They called me theirs.
That word meant something.
I didn't fully understand what.
But I wanted to earn it.
By the time I turned four, I could summon a blade of aura light for three full seconds.
I could catch a falling cup with my mind if I focused.
I could will a candle to light.
Not spells. Not techniques.
Just raw will, shaped by trust, fueled by bond.
My father always noticed.
He didn't ask.
He watched me with his sharp eyes.
I didn't know if he understood what I had.
"Most people wouldn't"
I would tell myself
"He wouldn't understand"
All was fine.
This path wasn't made for the world.
It was made for me.
And I'd walk it alone—
—with three voices always by my side.