Inside the barrier, the initial panic among the guards quickly subsided. The alarm that had begun to wail cut off abruptly as they recognized the intruder.
"It's the Young Master! He's back!"
Kaelen nodded to the people as he walked, the path familiar beneath his feet. He headed straight for the Butterfly Mother's palace at the summit of Phoenix Butterfly Ridge.
In a long, open-air pavilion filled with fluttering butterflies and laden with plates of roasted meat, Kaelen found his mother, Sophia.
"Mom."
As a child, he had called her "Butterfly Mother," mimicking the clan. But as he grew older and stronger, he dropped the title. To him, she wasn't a matriarch or a queen. She was just Mom.
"My child, you've finally returned!"
Sophia stood on her tiptoes, reaching up to touch Kaelen's broad shoulder.
