Leaving the capital felt heavier than arriving.
I didn't understand politics the way adults did, but I understood weight. The kind that lingered in conversations after they ended, in pauses that lasted a little too long. The capital had been vast, loud, alive with ambition. Even from inside a carriage, even from the height of a child's perspective, I had felt it pressing in on me.
Expectation lived there.
Our departure was quiet. No crowds. No ceremony. Just wheels rolling over stone and the slow retreat of walls that seemed tall enough to scrape the sky. I watched the capital disappear through the carriage window, its towers shrinking until they blended into the horizon.
Part of me was relieved.
Another part knew this was only the beginning.
Patrick sat across from us, posture straight, gaze distant. Melinda held me close, her presence warm and steady. I didn't cling to her out of fear. I clung because… I wanted to. The realization unsettled me more than it should have.
In my previous life, affection had been conditional.
Here, it wasn't.
And that terrified me.
…
Time passed.
Not in a dramatic way. Not in neat chapters. It passed in lessons, in quiet meals, in afternoons spent watching sunlight shift across the floor. The capital became a memory, then a story, then something distant enough to stop hurting.
Years slipped by.
I was four when everything changed.
The Ayer ducal estate was different from the capitalquieter, broader, less suffocating. No towering walls were closing in on themselves, no endless stream of nobles and envoys. Here, space existed. Silence too.
And within that silence, I found myself.
The ducal library became my sanctuary.
It wasn't a place meant for children. The shelves were tall enough to make me tilt my head back until my neck hurt, filled with books bound in leather, cloth, and materials I couldn't name. The air smelled of age and ink and dust disturbed only by time.
And mana.
Faint. Diffuse. Untouched.
I sat on the rug near one of the tall windows, legs folded beneath me, a heavy book open on my lap. Sunlight filtered in softly, catching dust in the air like drifting stars.
Introduction to Magical Theory: Core Formation and Affinity.
I had long since memorized its structure.
To wield magic, one needed a magic core. That much was absolute. Without it, mana was nothing more than an invisible presence in the world.
Lineage could helpbut it was never a guarantee. A child of mages could be born mundane. A peasant could awaken power that reshaped history. Blood opened doors. It did not decide who walked through them.
Affinity was shaped by the environment.
Volcanoes birthed fire.
Forests nurtured the earth.
Mountains favored the wind.
Oceans shaped water.
Holy grounds were steeped in light.
Darkness… appeared wherever it pleased.
Places where magic was used repeatedly left traces behind. The book cited examples of battlefields warped by spells, sanctuaries saturated by purification rites. Mana remembered.
The Ayer library had no dominant nature.
Which meant balance.
I closed the book.
Then my eyes.
I had been meditating like this for months now.
At first, there had been nothing. Just stillness and frustration and the faint awareness of my own breathing. But graduallyslowlyI began to feel it.
Mana.
Not seen. Not heard.
Felt.
Tiny particles drifted into my awareness, like embers suspended in water.
Green.
White.
Red.
Blue.
I guided my breathing, calm and measured, gathering them gently. The book warned against force. Mana responded to intent, not command.
As the particles drew closer, something shifted.
Pressure bloomed in my chest.
Not painnever painbut a growing density, as if something invisible was taking shape where there had once been nothing. My thoughts wavered.
A memory surfaced.
A desk too large for a child.
Books on law, economics, and diplomacy.
A voice saying, "You need to understand this. One day you'll represent us."
I pushed it away.
I wasn't there anymore.
The pressure intensified.
Mana flowed inward, converging, condensing. I could feel something forming, stabilizing. The world seemed to fade at the edges, my awareness narrowing to that single point inside me.
Then
Everything surged.
The air shattered.
A shockwave erupted outward, ripping through the library. Shelves groaned. Books flew. Dust exploded into the air as if the room itself had exhaled violently.
And then
Nothing.
I was vaguely aware of falling. Of warmth rushing toward me. Of a voice Melinda'scalling my name, sharp with fear.
Then darkness took me whole.
When consciousness slipped away, one thought lingered faintly in my mind:
I've become a mage.
And the world went silent.