Kaelen didn't leave.
He stayed through the summer, through the harvest, through the first snows of winter. He took up residence in the smallest guest room—a Spartan space with a cot, a trunk for his gear, and a single candle that burned until dawn. He said he was "between contracts," but Alaric knew better. The Bladebound were never between contracts unless they chose to be.
He was here to watch.
Every dawn, the training sessions became a performance. Theo would demonstrate a form, Alaric would mimic it with deliberate clumsiness, and Kaelen would lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, eyes like storm clouds measuring every twitch.
"His balance is off," Kaelen commented on the third morning. "He's putting weight on his back foot."
"He's seven," Theo replied, but Alaric heard the hint of defensiveness.
"At seven, I could stand on a rope over a canyon."
"You were also starving and had to steal to survive," Isolde called from the kitchen window. "Stop comparing him to your tragedy."
Kaelen grinned, but his eyes never left Alaric. "Tragedy forges better men than coddling."
That was the pattern. Sharp observations, veiled insults, constant pressure. Kaelen wasn't trying to teach Alaric swordsmanship—he was trying to break him. To force him to slip.
Alaric almost did.
On a humid afternoon in late summer, Kaelen changed the game. Instead of wooden swords, he brought out a pair of blunt-edged training daggers. Light. Fast. Designed for close work.
"Let's see how the boy handles a real blade," he said, tossing one to Alaric.
Alaric's hand shot up to catch it. His fingers closed around the hilt with the practiced ease of someone who'd been catching thrown weapons for years.
Shit.
He realized his mistake a heartbeat too late. The dagger was in his hand, caught mid-air, his stance balanced and ready. Not the clumsy fumble of a child. The reflex of a trained fighter.
The yard went silent.
Theo stared. Isolde, watching from the porch, froze with a basket of herbs in her hands. Even the cicadas seemed to stop their droning.
Alaric's mind moved faster than he ever had. He looked at the dagger, then up at Kaelen, and his face crumpled. He dropped the blade, let his bottom lip tremble, and burst into tears. Loud, messy, childish tears.
"Too heavy!" he wailed, rubbing his eyes with closed fists. "It hurts!"
Theo was at his side in an instant, scooping him up. "Kaelen, he's a child, not one of your mercenary recruits."
Kaelen didn't answer. He simply picked up the fallen dagger and studied Alaric over its edge. There was no anger in his gaze. Just... calculation.
"Odd," he said softly. "The way his fingers closed. It was... instinctual."
"He's a Drake," Isolde snapped, her voice sharp as a whip. "We have good reflexes. Even the children."
Kaelen inclined his head, conceding the point. But Alaric saw the truth in his eyes: he wasn't convinced.
From that day forward, the tests grew subtler.
Kaelen would leave a book open in the hallway—an advanced treatise on mana theory written in High Valerian. Alaric would walk past it, glance at the pages, and show no recognition. But later, in the dark, he'd recite the passages from memory, mouthing the words in silent practice.
Kaelen would speak of the old Drake estates, dropping names of forgotten battlefields. Alaric would blink in confusion, but his mind would map every location, cross-referencing them with Isolde's stories.
The Bladebound was trying to catch him in a moment of unguarded competence. And Alaric was playing a game of millimeters, never letting his mask slip more than a hair's breadth.
It took a toll.
He began having nightmares—real ones, not memories. Dreams where Kaelen's gray eyes turned violet, where his sword split Alaric's skull open and found not a child's mind but the rotting corpse of a Tokyo schoolboy. He'd wake gasping, the Mark flaring so brightly it lit his room like a candle.
He'd shove it down, panting, tears streaming. Seraphine would find him, hold him close, and whisper, "Shh, it's just a nightmare."
But it wasn't. It was his own mind fracturing under the strain of constant deception.
On his eighth birthday, Kaelen gave him a gift: a small, silver pendant shaped like a shield. "For protection," he said, his voice neutral.
Alaric took it, turning it over in his hands. The metal was cold. There were runes etched into the back—runes that, when read backward, formed a phrase in High Valerian: "The liar's tongue is sharp, but the truth cuts deeper."
He looked up at Kaelen, his heart in his throat.
Kaelen smiled. "Do you like it, boy?"
Alaric forced a child's grin. "It's shiny!"
He knows. He knows, and he's telling me he knows.
That night, Alaric sat in his room, the pendant clutched in his hand. He could feel the Mark pulsing beneath his skin, responding to his fear. He could feel the mana of the world pressing against the windows, curious, hungry.
I can't keep this up forever.
But he had to. Because if Kaelen told Theo—if he told Isolde—if they learned their son, their grandson, was a ghost in a borrowed body...
He'd lose them. And they were all he had.
A knock came at the door. It was Kaelen.
"May I come in?"
Alaric's blood turned to ice. He shoved the pendant under his pillow, flopped onto his bed, and feigned sleep.
The door opened anyway. Kaelen stood in the doorway, a silhouette against the hallway light.
"I know you're awake, boy," he said softly. "I also know you're not what you seem."
Alaric's heart hammered. He kept his breathing slow, even.
"But here's what you don't know," Kaelen continued, stepping into the room. "I don't care what you are. Drake blood or not, magic or mundane, child or... something else. I care that Theo loves you. And I care that you keep him alive."
He placed something on the nightstand. A second pendant, identical to the first, but without the runes.
"Wear the clean one in public," Kaelen said. "Keep the other secret. And stop dropping your guard when you think no one's watching."
He turned to leave, then paused. "One more thing. If you ever do learn to use that Mark of yours... make sure you're pointing it at the king's men. Not at your family."
The door clicked shut.
Alaric opened his eyes. On the nightstand lay two pendants. One a lie. One a promise.
He picked up the clean one and put it on.
In the darkness, the Mark on his palm flared once, bright as a star, then settled into perfect, obedient darkness.
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