Pain came before memory.
That was the first truth Jules learned.
Not the sharp, screaming kind that made even adults cry out, but the slow, grinding ache that lived in muscle and bone—the kind that taught the body what it could survive, what it had to endure. He learned it on cracked stone floors beneath an open sky, where the sun scorched during the day and the freezing cold bit at night. He learned it while counting breaths, because counting kept him conscious.
"Again."
The voice was without emotion, belonging to his mother, Julianne.
She was a woman in her mid-forties, yet her appearance rivaled that of a twenty-three-year-old beauty queen. Golden-blonde hair framed her face, blue eyes like the ocean watching everything and missing nothing. Her narrow waist and generous curves strained against her shirt, her entire figure seeming almost unreal—perhaps one of the benefits of transcending mortality.
Jules pushed himself up on trembling arms. His vision swam. Somewhere beside him, Ruby rose too—but where his movements were sloppy and delayed, hers were clean, precise. She didn't wobble.
She never did.
They were six years old.
"Again," their mother said, calm as the wind.
Jules collapsed halfway through the next motion. His cheek struck stone. For a moment, the world narrowed to soundless pressure and heat behind his eyes. He waited for her to tell him to stop.
She didn't.
Ruby finished.
She always finished.
"Stand," their mother said.
Jules tried. His arms betrayed him. His body felt too heavy, like gravity had chosen him personally. He clenched his jaw and forced himself up anyway, knees shaking so badly he thought they might snap backward.
Their mother finally nodded.
"That's enough for today."
Relief hit Jules so hard he nearly cried.
Ruby barely looked tired.
They trained like that every day. No neighbors. No witnesses. No explanations. Other children played. Jules and Ruby learned how long they could hold their breath underwater, how far they could run before their vision tunneled, how much pain they could endure without screaming.
Their mother never explained why.
She only said, "If your body fails before your power wakes, it will certainly kill you."
Jules believed her.
He believed everything she said. He always did.
At night, when exhaustion pinned him to the bed and his muscles burned even in sleep, he listened to his mother walk the house, checking doors and windows that had never been touched. Sometimes he heard her stand outside their room for a long time, breathing slowly, like she was afraid of something waking up inside.
When Jules asked what she was afraid of, she smiled and said, "Nothing you need to carry."
Ruby asked fewer questions.
Ruby was always watching instead.
The day Ruby changed, it happened quietly.
No lightning. No shockwave. No scream.
They were sparring—bare hands against bare hands, as they always did. Jules rushed her, clumsy but determined. He slipped past her guard—actually slipped past—and for one perfect heartbeat, he thought he'd won.
Ruby caught his wrist.
Not with strength.
With certainty.
Jules felt it then. A pressure, like the air itself had decided to stop him. His bones didn't break. His skin didn't tear.
He just… couldn't move.
Ruby stared at her own hand like it didn't belong to her.
Their mother was there in an instant.
She didn't shout. She didn't celebrate. She dropped to her knees in front of Ruby and grabbed her shoulders, eyes sharp, scanning, calculating.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
Ruby swallowed. "Heavy," she said. Then, after a pause, "Strong."
Their mother closed her eyes.
Jules lay on the ground, wrist still tingling, heart pounding so loudly he thought the both of them could hear it hear it. He waited for her to look at him too.
She didn't.
That night, Ruby slept.
Jules didn't.
He lay awake staring at the ceiling, flexing his fingers, willing something—anything—to answer. He replayed the moment over and over, searching for a spark he might have missed.
Nothing came.
After that, everything tilted.
Ruby trained longer. Harder. Different. Their mother brought out equipment Jules wasn't allowed to touch. She corrected Ruby's stance, her breathing, the way she focused her eyes. When Jules made mistakes, his mother smiled and told him he'd do better tomorrow.
Tomorrow never came.
People started visiting the house. Serious people. Quiet people who spoke in low voices and looked at Ruby with interest that made Jules uncomfortable. When they looked at him at all, it was with polite confusion—like he was furniture they hadn't expected to see.
"Late bloomer," someone said once, kindly.
Jules nodded and pretended it didn't hurt.
It did.
He trained anyway. Longer than Ruby. Harder than he should have. He trained until his hands bled and his vision blurred, because stopping meant thinking.
Thinking meant noticing how his mother's hand rested on Ruby's shoulder now.
How praise came quicker for her.
How silence followed him.
Still, at night, Jules crawled into his mother's bed when the pain got too bad. He pressed his face into her side and listened to her heartbeat steady and impossibly strong.
She stroked his hair.
"You're doing fine," she whispered.
Jules believed her.
He had to.
—
On his seventh birthday, Jules made a wish he didn't say out loud.
He didn't wish for power.
He wished not to be left behind.
Outside, the wind rattled the windows. Somewhere far away, something ancient shifted, unnoticed. Jules sat between his mother and
his sister, cake untouched, smiling hard enough that his face hurt.
No one saw the moment pass.
But something did.
And it remembered him.