The raven didn't return the next morning. Or the next week. Or the next month.
Alaric watched for it every day, expecting its violet eyes to appear at the library window like a bad omen. But the windowsill remained empty. The bird had dissolved into smoke when Varyan burst through the glass, and whatever magic had sustained it had been severed.
Good, Alaric thought, though a part of him wondered if its absence meant something worse. One less watcher.
The Mark remained dormant. After that single, disastrous flare in the library, Alaric learned to keep it buried so deep even he could barely feel it. The violet eye on his palm became nothing more than a faint birthmark, easily overlooked. He never let it pulse. Never let it breathe. He treated it like a wild animal that would betray him the moment it sensed weakness.
Two years passed.
Two years of pretending to be a child while his mind raced with strategies. Two years of stumbling when he could have walked, of babbling nonsense when he could have spoken in full sentences. Two years of listening to his family talk over his head, believing him too young to understand.
He was two years and four months old now. He knew how to walk. He'd known for months, mastering it in secret during the long nights when the manor creaked with settling wood. He'd sneak from his crib—he'd learned to pick the simple latch with his tiny fingers—and practice in the moonlit hallways, placing each step with care, learning balance and silence.
By day, he played the part. He toddled. He fell. He cried for help and let Isolde scoop him up with exasperated affection.
"You'll be the death of me, child," she'd mutter, wiping his tears. "So clumsy for your age."
No, he'd think, burying his face in her shoulder. I'm just careful enough to survive.
His speech followed the same pattern. In private, he practiced Valerian until his accent was perfect, until he could mimic Theo's gruffness and Seraphine's lilting poetry. In public, he spoke in fragments. "Mama," "Granna," "Papa," simple words that aroused no suspicion.
It was exhausting. The mental strain of splitting himself in two—competent adult within, helpless child without—wore on him. Some nights, he dreamed of Tokyo. Of his real mother, Sophia, whose face grew blurrier with each passing month. Of Haruto, whose betrayal still burned like a hot coal in his chest. He'd wake up trembling, and the Mark would throb dangerously against his will.
He'd force it down, gasping, tears streaming down his face for real now. Seraphine would find him, hold him close, and whisper, "Shh, it's just a nightmare."
But it wasn't. It was a memory. And memories were dangerous.
The manor itself changed over those two years. Isolde sold more furniture. The library became a storage room for crates of dried goods. Theo spent longer periods away, returning with grim faces and fewer supplies. Seraphine taught Alaric to read—discreetly, using old chalk slates—while pretending to teach him the alphabet song.
"He's slow," Theo complained once, watching Alaric struggle to stack wooden blocks. "Shouldn't he be forming sentences by now?"
"He's cautious," Seraphine defended, her violet eyes sharp. "He knows the world is dangerous. He's being careful."
She's closer to the truth than she knows, Alaric thought, deliberately knocking over his tower with a clumsy hand.
The most important lesson he learned in those two years was patience. He'd spent his first life rushing—rushing to school, rushing through homework, rushing to please everyone. That had gotten him killed.
Now, he had time. He had silence. And he had a secret that could unmake him if he revealed it too soon.
On his second birthday, they gave him a gift: a small wooden horse carved by Theo's own hand. Alaric wanted to admire the detail, the craftsmanship. Instead, he stuck it in his mouth and drooled on it. Isolde laughed. Theo smiled, just for a moment.
It was the first time Alaric felt guilty. These people—this family—weren't his. They were protecting a ghost, a stranger. Yet they loved him with a ferocity that terrified him. They'd die for him. They were dying for him, slowly, in this exile.
That night, he practiced walking in the hallway again, the wooden horse clutched in his hand. He stopped by the window where the raven used to perch.
Where did you go? he wondered. Did you finish your report? Did they decide I'm not a threat anymore?
Or were they waiting? Biding their time until he was old enough to be a real problem?
The questions haunted him.
The next morning, Isolde announced a change. "The Inquisitors have moved north. They've been recalled to the capital. Something is happening with Prince Varyan—some ceremony. We're safe. For now."
She looked at Alaric, who was sitting on the floor, stacking blocks with deliberate, childish slowness.
"And you," she said, her voice carrying an edge he hadn't heard before, "need to start learning faster. No more pretending to be a baby."
Alaric's hand froze mid-stack. His heart lurched.
Had she figured it out?
But her next words revealed a different suspicion. "You're almost two and a half. Even common children walk and talk by now. If you don't show progress, the neighbors will talk. And talk brings questions."
She knelt before him, her brown eyes level with his. "So tomorrow, you will walk to me. You will say your first sentence. And you will act like a child who is trying to grow, not one who is hiding."
She doesn't know, he realized with a flood of relief. She just thinks I'm developmentally delayed from the trauma. Or that I'm naturally slow.
He met her gaze and, for the first time in two years, gave her a real smile.
"Okay, Granna," he said, his voice clear and childlike, but his eyes holding a promise.
I'll walk. I'll talk. And you'll think I'm finally catching up.
But I'll still be running circles around you in my mind.
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