Marn was muttering under her breath again, her words half-lost in the quiet of the silent night as she bustled about the small room. The old wooden floor creaked beneath her hurried steps, and her voice trembled slightly with disbelief.
She kept glancing over at Orion like she was afraid he'd suddenly sprout wings and start flying around the ceiling.
"I need to clean you up first," she said, mostly to herself, though she spoke as if the one-year-old could understand fully or respond. "Then… then I'll take you to the family head right away. Lord Kael needs to know. He must know what's happened here…"
'Perfect,' Orion thought dryly. 'Exactly what I didn't want.'
If what she'd said earlier was true - that even his father, the supposed prodigy of Elyndra, had only become an ascendant at ten years old - then this would put an impossible spotlight on him. In his past life, being special wasn't always a blessing, and he was sure it was the same here.
More often than not, it was a target painted on your back.
Sure, it might come with resources, training, and perhaps some sort of twisted praise. But he knew the truth about people well enough. Most of the attention would be suspicion, envy, maybe even fear.
And with his unnerving dark eyes and his mother's apparent weak standing in the Varyn family, it wouldn't take long for trouble to start.
No.
He couldn't afford that.
Not yet.
'For now, it's better to grow quietly,' he thought, his gaze steady even as Marn prepared a small basin of warm water.
'Learn the rules, the power structure, how this world breathes. Understand my eyes, and what exactly they can do. Once I know all that, I can decide who gets dominated first.'
Aside from that, there was one other thing he wanted.
A faint burn stirred in his chest, subtle but persistent. It wasn't rage or greed, but something softer, something unfamiliar. A protective flame. It pulsed whenever he thought of Selene, his frail mother who barely had the strength to stand, yet smiled each time she looked at him.
He couldn't help but desire to help her in some way - call it repayment for birthing him.
'Strange,' he mused. 'I've never cared about anyone this way before. Not really. The only time I ever felt anything in my last life was during the… kills.'
He frowned slightly, his tiny fingers curling as Marn approached. 'It must be this baby's body. The heart's too soft.'
He exhaled, or tried to, the sound coming out as a faint baby sigh. But his mind was running wild.
'I need to stop her from taking me to the family head - or make her forget all this somehow. I could try speaking, but she'd panic even more if a baby started talking. That would just make it worse.'
He watched helplessly as Marn lifted him with surprising gentleness, cradling him against her shoulder. His limbs were weak, his control nonexistent. For a man who had once dictated life and death with his hands, being trapped in this tiny, powerless form was infuriating.
'Control,' he thought bitterly. 'I've always needed control. Over my work, over people, over life itself. And now I can't even stop someone from picking me up.'
But then something clicked in the back of his mind - a spark of memory.
'I remember my birth,' he recalled. 'All of it. And when I first looked at her, at Marn, she fell back, terrified. There was that same heat in my eyes back then.'
He stared up at her now, her lined face tense with worry as she carried him toward the washroom. The lamplight glinted off her grey hair, and her lips were drawn tight.
'I did something that day. I imposed my will on her. She looked into my eyes, and I made her yield.'
He'd replayed that moment countless times in his mind since then, trying to replicate the sensation. He'd stared at her, at his mother, even at other random passerbys.
But there was nothing.
Not even a flicker of that power had returned.
'Still,' he thought, his gaze narrowing as Marn began wiping him down with a damp cloth, "the Eyes of Dominion" - he rolled the words in his head - 'it has to mean I can dominate others. Control them. The prophecy practically said so.'
He felt a small thrill crawl down his spine at the thought. A power that let him bend others to his will, that was more than just rare. That was divine.
'If that's true, then all I need to figure out is how to use it.'
He hadn't had much success in doing so over the past year of being a baby, but maybe things were different now...
Marn hummed nervously as she cleaned the infant, glancing down at him every few seconds. His eyes were unnervingly sharp for a baby, dark yet too focused, as if he could see right through her. She tried to smile at him, but it faltered halfway.
There was something sharp in his gaze that tugged at the memory of that golden flash in his eyes when he was born.
And that was besides the fact that he was born on a solar eclipse, which was ominous to say the least - not that anyone else seemed to care. They just called her crazy or glossed over it as a mere coincidence whenever she mentioned it - but she was certain it had some sort of meaning.
She had tried to refuse the assignment, unnerved by the newborn. But orders were orders, and over the year, Orion had seemed harmless enough. Just an oddly quiet infant with a piercing stare.
While she was reminiscing, the boy in her hands was deep in thought.
'It likely needs Ether to activate,' Orion speculated. The idea came naturally, as if whispered from some hidden part of him. 'That would make sense. But how do I control Ether?'
Doing so made sense theoretically, but could he actually pull it off?
He'd been driven by instinct to subdue the surge of ether and form his ether core, but that was prompted by desperation and pain. Could he replicate it without the same conditions?
Marn had already finished cleaning him up, wrapping him snugly in soft cloth. The air smelled faintly of soap and lavender.
She looked calmer now, resolved.
He, on the other hand, was anything but.
'I've got a minute before she takes me to wherever my supposed father is. I need to figure this out now.'
Closing his eyes, Orion forced himself to focus inward. At first, there was only darkness - then, faintly, something flickered deep within his chest.
It was small, fragile, yet alive. A faintly glowing sphere, like a hazy red ember surrounded by shifting shadows.
His Ether Core.
'So that's it,' he thought, awe creeping into his otherwise calm tone. 'That's the source.'
He tried to pull at it slowly and carefully, like tugging threads from a spider's web. The moment he did, a stream of warmth coursed through him, threading through his tiny vein-like ether pathways.
It was clumsy, shaky, but it moved.
He guided the flow, inch by inch, toward his eyes.
Immediately, his vision began to blur, and his head began to ache.
'This could blow up my brain for all I know,' he muttered inwardly, his concentration wobbling. 'But if it works, it's worth it. I'm not a gambler… but I hate being helpless even more.'
Nothing happened at first. No glow. No spark. Just the quiet sound of Marn wrapping him up warmly in more layers to take him out into the cold night while humming.
Then the heat began.
It started deep behind his eyes, a spark that grew into a flame, spreading through his skull until the world itself seemed to buzz. The faint crackle of ether resonated in the air, and Marn froze, a chill running down her spine.
Orion's lips twitched in the faintest smirk.
'Finally,' he thought, his heartbeat steady despite the burning in his veins. 'Let's see if these eyes truly live up to their name.'