At first, Glavas' heart was moved when the children asked him to teach them something. While he would not admit it out loud, the idea of passing knowledge to someone else fascinated him. And since both of the kids refused to become hunters, this seemed like an interesting second chance for the young elf to become a teacher. However, as the night progressed and constant and endless repetitions of the word "Neho" filled the room, he began feeling less and less enthusiastic about his "class".

Alma and Surdi were both squinting their eyes at the candles he had given them. The task was simple: light them with fire magic. This way, they would not risk hurting themselves and the relatively tiny candles proved to be an excellent exercise to temper their focus. And yet, even fifteen minutes later, neither of them has made any progress. Alma was too impatient. She imagined herself as a powerful wizard, throwing fireballs around and calling forth rain whenever needed to help farmers deal with a draught. But seeing the reality of the training and its difficulty slowly and steadily chipped away at her determination. Surdi, on the other hand, did not seem to lack the necessary patience, but Glavas' words from earlier that evening refused to leave him.

"You should not focus on the common magic right now. Dragons have their innate element. Exhaling some toxic and flammable fumes is child's play. Instead of messing around with candles, you might want to consider improving your ability to create and control various chemicals."

The hunter was right. Surdi was way more skilled with his innate magic than the common one. His lack of proper articulation also made the whole ordeal way harder. He had mastered pronouncing Neho only in his mind, but the moment they would move on to a different word, he would be at a great disadvantage. There was no way for him to know how it sounds, and therefore, how to think about it. However, training the magic he was born with was confusing in its own way. Glavas knew little about how dragons should train and so in this matter, his input was simply lacking. The book they stole also did not mention anything about dragons. In the end, Surdi simply accepted that for the time being, it would be best to truly learn how to utilize fire magic without the assistance of his breath.

"Are you sure you don't want to call it a night?" Glavas asked, too fed up with the constant muttering of "Neho", which he had been listening to for so long now.

"No, not until it catches fire!" Alma protested.

"But people train this for days! You can't hope to simply get the hang of it in a few minutes. Understanding magic takes time. There is a certain... breakthrough in thinking that you need to reach. At some point, it will all make perfect sense to you, but right now, you are hoping to become professional divers after one lesson of swimming."

[I can make a few sparks, so I am not a beginner. I will learn how to do this!]

Glavas sighed. It seemed that their stubborn nature would simply not allow them to quit.

"Neho!" Alma shouted, and precisely at that moment, as if the universe wanted to have some fun, somebody knocked on the door. The girl's eyes briefly turned away from the candle and the sudden shift in her thoughts proved to be exactly what she needed. A small flame formed out of her wishes and slowly began licking the door, coloring the wood black.

"Shit!" Glavas jumped out of the bed and began patting on the wood with his pillow, hoping to put the fire out. The man standing on the other side was more than surprised when in a response to his knocking, someone began to rather violently knock back.

"Umm... may I enter?" the voice behind the door asked.

"One moment!" Glavas replied and try to fan away the smoke coming from the freshly extinguished wood. Only after it seemed to have disappeared at least to some extent did he open the door. "How may I help you?" For a moment, Glavas' mind returned to the book. With his body blocking the way, he waved a hand behind his back, signaling the children to get rid of it. For a moment, they frantically looked around the room, before Surdi panicked, opened the window, and chucked the beautiful piece of literature right out of it.

"Are you Glavas? The description seems to fit. Short, for an elf, long black hair, always dirty clothes. Pardon if you are insulted by my words, but I am only reciting what my commissioner has told me."

"Hey, you came knocking, so you should be introducing yourself first! Who the hell are you?"

"A messenger. I have been hired to deliver a letter to someone named Glavas. For the past six months, I've been trying to catch up to you."

"Six months?! Why the hell would you be so persistent?!"

"I have been paid a whole year of salary and given a letter that I must absolutely deliver to you by the end of this month. And look, I still have two weeks of a reserve."

Glavas frowned, not sure if he heard right. "What?! Who in all of Ezma would pay a messenger an entire year's worth of their services just to find me?!"

"I cannot disclose any personal information about the commissioner. My guild has standards, you see? But I can at least tell you the name on the envelope. It says that it came from someone named Glintwood. No return address, no titles, nothing else."

The hunter's eyes widened and the moment he saw the man pulling out the aforementioned envelope, he snatched it from him. Truly, the sender's name was Glintwood.

"I... Okay, what do I do with this?" he asked in his confusion.

"Well, normally, you thank me for my services, then open the envelope and read what is inside. That is how letters work."

"Oh, right, well, thank you very much for your service."

"Thank you! Now that I got this done, I have lots of money to enjoy for the next few months. Hope that letter will please you." The man saluted and quickly left. Glavas shut the door behind him and leaned against the table, unable to take his eyes off of the envelope.

"Umm... we kinda... tossed the book out the window..." Alma admitted that what they did was most likely a mistake. The elf, however, completely ignored her. Like a ravenous beast, he tore open the object he received from the messenger and began reading the text inside. His eyes slid down the lines without blinking and with incredible speed.

"Hey, Glavas? Talk to us! What is going on? Who is writing you? What kind of a guy is this... Glintwood?"

"My father," Glavas muttered.

"Your father?!"

"Yeah..." His eyes widened.

[Uh-oh, I don't like that look. Someone died, right? A relative? Or your father himself?]

"No, not yet."

"Ah, that's a... wait, what do you mean not yet?!"

"He's been trying to reach me for a while apparently. His Path of the Flame is at an end. He's going to take part in this year's Extinguishing." He let the hand with the letter fall down beside his body. His eyes flew to the opposing wall and stared at it as if he himself was trying to cast some sort of a new spell. The children looked at each other with questions scrunching up their foreheads.

"Path of the Flame... I've heard about that. Like an elven way of life, right? Something like a cultural creed?"

"That does not even scratch the surface of it."

[So then what is it?]

"It's something that the culture I come from sees as the absolute truth. A solution to life, so to speak."

"Wow, that really clears it up."

Glavas turned to her and frowned upon hearing the snarky remark. When the girl's eyes met with his stern gaze, she quickly averted them.

"I'm a moon elf. In all of Ezma, you'd probably never find a more religious bunch."

[Really? You never seemed religious.]

"That's because I've rejected the customs of my homeland. They are... strange. At least to me. Path of the Flame is just one example of what is wrong with my people. It's something like a coping mechanism to help us deal with our lifespans. An average elf can live for even a thousand years, give or take a few decades. That can take a toll on one's mental state. Since the dawn of time, all sorts of elves have been dealing with it in different ways. Moon elves came up with the Path of the Flame. When young elf reaches the age of forty, they should already know what they want to do with their life. Every year, there is a celebration in the name of our goddess, who is said to be living inside the moon. During this time, elves partake in all sorts of activities to celebrate. One of them involves youngsters going into a cave inside the mountain and saying out loud what they want to do for the rest of their life. Their lifelong dream. Since they have centuries for it, most choose to cure illnesses, build cities, become political figures, or similar goals. That is the Path of the Flame."

"So, what did you choose?"

"Nothing. I rejected that tradition, which is why the priests of my hometown hate me. For years, I've been openly going against our customs."

[Right. But your father took that path, is that what the letter implies?]

"Yes. He said that he would build homes for every single homeless person in the city, and a hundred more for those yet to come. Since we come from the most impoverished district, it meant that people would always need more homes and they would be difficult to build, since the materials wouldn't come cheap. Somehow though, that son of a bitch actually did it. He says so in the letter at least. I'll believe it when I see it."

"But isn't that awesome? Resolving homelessness sounds like a fantastic goal! Yet you seem all gloomy. Come on, spill the beans already!"

[Extinguishing, right? Is that what you called it? Why do I don't like the name of that?]

"Because you can probably guess what it means. Path of the Flame gives our long lives meaning. But once it's over, most elves face a great internal crisis. Imagine spending many centuries doing something and now you are done with it. You are too old to start another such project, yet too young to be counting your finals days. From what I've heard, in the past, most elves suffered a feeling of emptiness and a lack of will to live on because of it."

"Sound a lot like what you felt in Rotler."

"It is often associated with that, yes. Sometimes, the feeling tends to be similar. This is why our tradition contains the Extinguishing. When one's life goal is finished and the Path of the Flame walked in its entirety, on the day of the annual festival, such a person can choose to willingly end their life."

The children almost literally jumped up. From being comfortably seated on the floor, they instantly leaped up on their feet, eyes wide with the shock that such a thing could even be real.

"What?! Are you serious?!"

[Would your father really do such a thing? That is nonsense!]

"Maybe to you. But in our culture, a willing death which comes during the festival with all the necessary rituals... well, that is an honorable end. It is celebrated and considered a happy occasion. The person lived their life to the fullest and did what they set out to do. Now their journey is complete and they are ready to rejoin the goddess. She will most likely assign them a new life and the cycle starts anew."

"That's just... I can't really imagine that."

"Don't worry about it. Most members of the other cultures don't. We are... weird, so to speak."

[So your father chose to die? But he's still alive and is informing you about it? Or was it already... carried out? I don't get it. You say that it is a happy occasion, but you seem sad.]

"He's still alive. The festival happens in a couple of weeks, but it's... complicated. For years, our relationship has been... a bit tangled up. He never approved of my way of life, and now, all of a sudden, he wants me to be his Parasavrra. That is difficult to translate, but... its meaning is similar to that of an executioner. Although that is not exactly correct." The hunter took a moment to think, while the children were staring at him with unblinking eyes, the word "executioner" refusing to leave their minds. "It's the person of highest honor. When one undergoes Extinguishing, they are killed painlessly by a special, magical flame. They choose who is the one to bring forth their departure, and usually, that is the person closest to them. The Parasavrra then takes the flame that took one's life and carries it in a lantern all the way to the top of the mountain on which the city is settled. There, the fire is released in a little balloon, which is supposed to ease the person's journey to the moon."

Alma wiped the stray tear from the corner of her eye. "That's terrible! Your birthplace is fucked up!"

"I know. That's why I left." Glavas leaned against the wall behind him. His sight slid up toward the ceiling and he sighed. "But I should be there. To see him. To accompany him. Different opinions or not, he's still my father. We can't really make up for the lost years, but... maybe at least we can find a bit of common ground before the event."

[So... What are we going to do exactly?]

"Travel, of course. You're coming with me back home."