“A second chance,” the creature had called it.

  For the creature, it was a gift. For me, it felt like a bad joke.

  “It's a boy.”

  The voice is deep. Masculine. The words... strange. Completely strange. And yet I understand them as if they had been burned into my brain.

  I try to open my eyes. Everything is blurry, too bright.

  I am wrapped in soft cloths. The warmth returns. Someone wipes something from my face—liquid, sticky, and warm. Then I am moved, handed over to other hands.

  My vision slowly clears. I see her face. Pale. Exhausted. Covered in sweat. But her eyes... bright green, almost unnatural, like emeralds glowing from within. Her hair is white, not gray like old people's, but pure white, like fresh snow. She smiles weakly. At that moment, I feel an instinctive connection. This is my mother.

  A man approaches. Taller, broader. His hair is also white, tied back. The same green eyes, but sharper, more calculating. He puts a hand on the woman's shoulder and looks down at me.

  Not with love. Not with joy.

  With... judgment.

  I analyze his face: the scar above his eyebrow. The military posture. This man is used to giving orders. My father. He just grunts in agreement as the doctor explains something. I sink into the warmth of the towels. My body is weak, powerless, helpless. That will change.

  The first period of this life is pure torture. For months, I can do nothing but lie there, stare, and take things in. At first, the foreign language sounds like random noise, but with each passing day, I understand more. My brain soaks up the new language like a sponge, just as God promised. My father's name is Daemon. My mother's name is Maelis. And I am Kael. Kael Aranthor. A name I have never heard before.

  The voices in my head are quieter here, perhaps because of my undeveloped baby brain. But they are there. A whisper at the edge of my consciousness. My medication is hidden in a kind of pocket between dimensions, but I can feel it.

  *Now it's time to understand the language perfectly. I have to quickly grasp what's going on around me.*

  Time passes slowly. When I can finally walk unsteadily on two legs, I begin to observe. I stand in the courtyard and watch the guards training. Maelis sits on a bench under a tree, a servant beside her. They speak quietly. I play with a wooden toy, pretending not to listen. “He already speaks so well,” says Maelis. There is concern in her voice. “Is that... normal?”

  The servant smiles politely. “Some children are early developers, my lady. Especially in families with strong mana.”

  Mana. That word again.

  “But he's so... quiet,” Maelis continues. “As if he's thinking. Observing. Sometimes I look into his eyes and... they sometimes look so cold, so empty.”

  My heartbeat quickens. Not good. Not good.

  “Children are enigmas, my lady,” the servant says gently. “Give him time. He'll open up when he's ready.”

  I drop the toy. Crawl over to Maelis. Lean against her leg. Look up at her with big, innocent eyes.

  “Mama.”

  Her face relaxes. She strokes my hair. “My little Kael.”

  I smile. A perfect, childlike smile. Damn close. I have to be more careful.

  My siblings don't make things any easier. Aurora, my sister who is five years older than me, annoys me with her constant attempts to play. And then there's Eamon, who was born just a few months ago. A screaming bundle that has no strategic relevance yet, but keeps Maelis' attention. That gives me peace.

  But Cassian, my oldest brother, is different. He is nine, tall, and has our father's calculating gaze. On my third birthday, he approaches me while I am studying the knights in the garden. I am analyzing their mistakes in swordplay when his shadow falls on me.

  “You don't talk much,” he says. “Tired,” I reply simply. “Liar.” His gaze is sharp. “You're not tired. You're watching. Always. Like Father.” I force my small body to remain relaxed. “I don't like you,” Cassian says calmly. “You feel wrong. But Father says family is important. So I won't betray you.” He leans forward. “But I'll keep an eye on you.” He leaves, leaving me with a bitter realization: He's smart. That's going to be a problem.

  To survive, I need knowledge. One night, about a year later, I sneak into the library. There I find Orin, an elderly servant whom no one else pays any attention to. “Orin,” I say.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He flinches. Turns around. “Young Master Kael! What... what are you doing here? It's late—”

  “I can't sleep.” I step closer. “You come here often, don't you?”

  He hesitates. “Yes, my lord. I clean the library every evening.”

  “Can you read?”

  Silence. Then, quietly: “Yes. My father was a scribe. He taught me before he died.”

  I nod. “Good. I need your help.”

  “My lord?”

  “I want to learn. About this world. About magic. About everything. But I can't read well enough yet.” I stare at him with my new, intense green eyes. “You will read to me. Every night. And you won't tell anyone.”

  “My lord, I... that's impossible,” he blurts out. He crumbles under my direct gaze. “The books are private. And if the lord finds out that I'm using his library for... well, for lessons. I'll lose my job.”

  “The risk is known. So is the price.” I pull out a small gold coin that I stole from Daemon's desk. It looks huge in my childish hand. “Here's the first part. More than you earn in three months. And there'll be more every week if you keep quiet.”

  Orin stares at the gold. He looks at me. My childish appearance doesn't match the icy determination in my eyes.

  “This is bribery,” he mutters hoarsely. “The price of betrayal is too high, my lord.”

  My voice drops to a barely audible whisper. I use the sharpest tool I have: the truth about his miserable existence.

  “The lord will not find out, Orin,” I say. “No one will find out. You're a ghost in this house anyway, aren't you? No one sees you when you sweep the floor. You're invisible. And it's that invisibility I need.”

  I drop the coin into his hand and say nothing more. I let the sharp silence finish the job.

  “As you wish, young master.” His voice is thick with fear.

  In the nights that followed, the world unfolded before me.

  Orin read to me by the flickering light of a single candle, the scent of old parchment filling the air. I traced my tiny fingers over the maps. Aeloria lay at the heart of it all—bloated and self-satisfied, a kingdom where five races supposedly lived in harmony. To the south lay Thul, the Shadow Desert, a place that looked hostile even on paper.

  “Orin,” I asked, never looking up. “Have you ever been there? To Thul?”

  The old servant flinched as if I’d struck him, clutching his broom like a lifeline. “No, Young Master. No one goes to the Shadow Desert by choice. They say it’s a graveyard of poisons and demons that—” He cut himself off, glancing fearfully at the library door. “These are no stories for a child.”

  “I am no child,” I reminded him coolly.

  I ignored his discomfort and pushed my finger further east to Sylverne, where the elves isolated themselves, and then to the jagged coastlines of Olyndra in the west. Pirates, spies, and trade—it smelled of chaos. And chaos offered opportunities.

  I opened the next book: a treatise on magic. It wasn’t just a list of spells; it was filled with complex diagrams of mana currents that resembled veins. Fire, water, earth, air… the fundamentals were simple. But there was more—marginalia about sub-types: blood manipulation, metal, lava.

  I felt a tingle in my fingertips. What sleeps inside me?

  The answer came on my fifth birthday.

  The Great Hall of Morhenhall smelled of roasted pheasant and expensive wine, but the atmosphere was as cold as a tomb. I sat stiffly in my cushioned chair, my legs too short to reach the floor, watching the long table. Aurora was laughing at some vapid joke; Cassian watched everything with his typical, bored gaze.

  Dozens of faces surrounded us, all wearing the same mask: snow-white hair, emerald-green eyes. We weren't a family. We were a product line—an army of porcelain dolls bred for the sole purpose of maintaining the most powerful house.

  It began not with pain, but with a sound.

  A high, vibrating hum that sat not in my ears, but deep in my marrow. The air grew thick, charged with static like the moments before a thunderstorm. The fine hairs on my arms stood on end.

  Then, the heat exploded in my chest, as if I had swallowed molten lead.

  “Kael?” Maelis asked, her voice laced with concern.

  I gasped. The crystal goblet slipped from my numb fingers, but it never hit the floor.

  Crack.

  The glass shattered mid-air, pulverized by an invisible pressure wave radiating from my body. Instant silence fell over the hall. Aranthors do not scream, but thirty pairs of green eyes fixed on me in perfect unison.

  “Mana awakening,” Daemon said quietly. Not surprised. Not afraid. Analytical. “Earlier than expected.”

  He did not run. He strode through the chaos like a general crossing a battlefield, his face devoid of pity.

  “Breathe,” he commanded.

  His hand clamped onto my shoulder like an iron yoke. In the next heartbeat, a foreign power invaded me—his mana. It was crushing, a massive tidal wave of ice that smothered my wild mana with brutal efficiency. He kicked my strength back into my core like a stray dog being forced into a cage.

  I slumped forward, gasping for air, sweat soaking my collar.

  Daemon leaned down, his face inches from mine. “Good,” he whispered like a verdict. “It begins.”

  Hours later, my room was dark. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. My body felt raw, hollowed out—yet simultaneously charged. I clenched my fist. The power was there, humming beneath my skin. I was no longer helpless.

  A smile tried to touch my lips, but it froze instantly.

  Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

  The sound didn’t come from the wall. It came from the inside of my skull. They were back.

  “He thinks he’s special,” a wet, shrill voice giggled directly behind my left ear.

  I pressed my hands against my temples. “He’s trash. Garbage. They will see,” a second voice growled. YOU ARE WEAK! THEY WILL SEE THROUGH YOU!

  With trembling hands, I reached under my pillow. My fingers closed around the cool surface of the white box. My only anchor in the chaos.

  A knock at the door.

  I hid the box instantly. “Enter.”

  Daemon stepped in. He didn't ask how I felt. He simply watched me with those piercing eyes.

  “Your training begins tomorrow,” he said. His voice allowed no room for argument. “Be ready.”

  He left. I remained alone with the voices—and with the question: What kind of magic sleeps inside me?