Destiney of the Sword God

Chapter 7 - Reunited At Last

The next day....

Rowan pushed open the heavy doors of the Adventurer's Guild Hall, bracing himself for the cacophony within. His expectations were exceeded - the huge chamber echoed with a clamor to rival the busiest city streets. 

Hundreds of voices overlapped in boisterous conversation, laughing and arguing in equal measure. Steel flashed as blades were sharpened or drawn in exaggerated miming of past exploits. Colorful flags bearing infamous sigils hung from every rafter, each claiming a stake in legends unfolding daily under far-flung skies.

Smoke wreathed the vaulted ceiling from three great fireplaces. The musicians struck up a lively reel, coaxing hardened warriors and rogues into an impromptu jig amid peals of laughter and applause.

Rowan paused just within the doorway, still overwhelmed by the cacophonous atmosphere and sheer density of adventurers crammed into every nook and cranny. Eyes that had faces beasts in dim borderland forests struggled to take it all in at once.

This was the blistering heart of dreams made manifest through steel and spell, where fortunes were won or lost with each new dawn. And within this maelstrom, clues to his beloved's fate and new chapters in legends of his own forging surely awaited, if only he could pierce the sensory din to find them. Rowan navigated the exuberant crowds, eyes scanning every joyous face for one glimpse of moonlit locks or summer-sky eyes. The years apart faded into memory's mist as instinct drew him unerringly through the tumult.

Then by chance his gaze alit upon her figure, radiant as dawn breaking over glade and glen. Elia stood at the bar, smiling and chatting animatedly with a stout dwarf. At that moment, she glanced up - and froze, breath catching audibly even over the surrounding din.

Their eyes met across the crowded hall, locking with a magnetic pull defying time and distance. His name shaped soundlessly on her lips, ripping his name from depths where only memory kept it. Then with a cry, Elia shoved through the throng, heedless of curses tossed in her wake.

They raced to meet, feet flying swifter than any steed across the open floor. And then she was there, flinging herself into his waiting arms. Rowan crushed her slight frame to his chest, breathing her scent like rich wine after a long draught. Tears spilled unheeded down both faces, smiles cracking cheeks nearly numbed by sheer joy surging after years unsaid. Rowan embraced Elia tightly, lifting her small frame from the floor as joyous tears spilled down both faces. Years of solitude melted away in an instant, all the stifled longing for separation rending them utterly overcome.

Elia clung to Rowan's neck, raining kisses upon his cheeks between gasping sobs. "Oh Rowan, I never stopped dreaming of this moment!" His name spilled from her lips like pure magic, renewing his spirit as thoroughly as the first rays of dawn.

Setting her down gently, Rowan drank in her features, more radiant than any vision solitude and memory could contain. "Elia, my dearest heart, you shine brighter than ever." Her swollen eyes glittered, reflecting myriad facets of love and hope rekindled by their long-awaited reunion.

All around, the boisterous hall faded into a hazy dreamscape, the remainder of its throngs' dull specters crowding peripheries of vision. In that moment, the reunited lovers embraced once more, renewed tears washing away every darkened creek and hollow left by years of lonely wandering. Their souls sang a rapturous duet, reaffirmed and everlasting in its beauty. Once tears subsided, Elia linked her arm with Rowan's and led him to the bar. There she procured flagons of mulled wine, its warmth and spices richly comforting as hearth fire after dark woodland trails.

Over drinks, Elia regaled him animatedly about the wonders beheld within academy's hallowed halls. Rowan listened raptly to tales of spells binding wind and rain, of stars and constellations mapped in fiery script across ink-dark nights. She spoke of ruins upon ruins long decayed in new illumination with demeanor, and legends reborn through clever invocations piecing together tongues since lost to antiquity's crumbling pages.