The training began the next morning, before dawn, when even the manor's rats were still asleep.
Isolde placed Alaric on a blanket in the center of the library floor, surrounded by a circle of sigil stones that hummed with a low, almost inaudible frequency. The stones were supposed to create a "quiet room"—a space where mana couldn't enter or leave. It was like trying to learn to swim in a puddle.
"Now, child," Isolde said, her voice soft but insistent. "Look at your hand. Look at the Mark."
Alaric looked. The violet eye on his palm stared back, unblinking.
"Mana responds to will," Isolde continued. "But for Sovereigns, it responds to intent backed by emotion. If you want to hide, you must first learn to feel nothing. No fear. No anger. No desire."
Easy for you to say, Alaric thought bitterly. You have a body that obeys you.
Outwardly, he gurgled and tried to stuff his fist in his mouth.
Isolde gently pulled his hand away. "Focus. Watch the Mark. Will it to fade."
She demonstrated, pressing her own palm over his. For a moment, her brown eyes flickered with violet light, and Alaric felt the mana in the room bend toward her, then away, as if she'd shoved it aside.
"See? I am not Sovereign-blooded, but I can manipulate ambient mana. You must do the same with your own power. Push it down. Bury it."
Alaric understood. He could feel the Mark as a knot of heat in his palm, a constant pulse of potential energy. He could sense how it connected to the larger flow of mana in the world, how it pulled at the invisible threads around him.
If I wanted to, I could probably snuff it out completely. Or at least dim it to nothing.
But he couldn't.
If he succeeded on his first try—at four months old—Isolde would know. They'd all know. The secret would be out, and he'd lose the only advantage he had: their belief that he was just a gifted child, not a full-grown consciousness wearing baby skin.
So he pretended.
He stared at the Mark, furrowed his tiny brow in concentration, and then... let out a frustrated wail. He kicked his legs. He arched his back. He did everything a baby would do when failing at an impossible task.
Isolde sighed, picking him up. "It's too soon. I shouldn't have—"
No, Alaric thought as she rocked him. Push me. Keep pushing. I need to learn this, even if I have to hide how fast I'm learning.
She tried again that afternoon. And the next day. And the next.
Each session was a performance. Alaric would listen to her instructions—meditate on emptiness, focus on the sigil, visualize a closed door—and internally execute them perfectly. He could feel the Mark respond to his will, could sense its light dimming to a whisper.
But externally, he would screw his face up, go red with effort, and then burst into tears. Sometimes he'd let the Mark flare brighter by just a hair, making it seem like his attempts were backfiring.
"Stubborn," Theo muttered on the fourth day, watching from the doorway. "Like his mother."
Alaric caught the look that passed between Theo and Seraphine—bitterness, old wounds. He filed it away.
By the second week, he had the suppression down to an art form. He could hold the Mark at a dull, barely-there glow that wouldn't attract attention from more than a few feet away. But in front of Isolde, he let it pulse and flicker, as if struggling.
I hate this, he thought as she soothed him with another pointless lullaby. I hate lying to them. But I hate being helpless more.
The raven watched from the windowsill during every session. Alaric could feel its intent gaze, the way it measured his failures. He made sure to give it a good show.
On the third week, disaster nearly struck.
He'd been holding the Mark suppressed for nearly an hour while Isolde went to fetch tea. He was practicing in private, testing his limits. The sigil was so dim it was almost invisible, a ghost of light beneath his skin. He was proud. He was—
"Alaric?"
Seraphine's voice. Right behind him.
He startled. The Mark flared, brilliant and violent, before he could stop it. The sigil stones around him cracked, their quiet hum shattering into dissonance.
Seraphine stumbled backward, her hand flying to her mouth. "You—you suppressed it. For that long. I felt it go silent."
Alaric's mind raced. He was caught. He'd have to confess, to explain—
He opened his mouth and wailed. Not a baby's cry of frustration, but a full-throated scream of infant terror, letting the Mark spike again, making the stones shatter further. He made himself shake, made his eyes dart around as if confused, as if the power had overwhelmed him.
Seraphine rushed to him, scooping him up. "Shh, shh, it's alright. It was a fluke. Just a fluke. The stones must have failed."
I'm sorry, he thought as she clutched him close. I'm so sorry.
But he kept crying. He kept pretending.
That night, Isolde removed the broken sigil stones. "Too much, too soon," she declared. "We'll start again when he's six months."
Alaric felt a flicker of triumph beneath his baby's exhaustion. He'd bought himself two more months of learning in secret.
As Seraphine rocked him to sleep, he looked over her shoulder at the raven still watching from the window. For a moment, he could have sworn it tilted its head, as if seeing through his act.
But it didn't call the Inquisitors.
It just watched.
And Alaric, the four-month-old baby with the mind of a dead boy, closed his eyes and dreamed of a day when he wouldn't have to hide.
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