I caught Edric sneaking out of the house at midnight.
Not intentionally. I'd gotten up to use the bathroom — one of the many indignities of having a child's bladder — and heard the creak of the back door through the hallway.
I padded to the window and watched my older brother slip through the garden gate, moving with the careful precision of someone who'd done this before. He was carrying a leather satchel that I'd never seen.
Interesting.
I didn't say anything the next morning. Or the morning after. I watched, and I waited, because that's what I did.
Over the next week, I pieced it together.
Edric was seventeen. Expected to enter seminary next year to begin his training as a clergyman, following Father's footsteps. This was the default path for a Saint's eldest son — not mandatory, but heavily assumed, socially enforced, and quietly non-negotiable.
But Edric's concealed book wasn't an anomaly. It was a pattern.
His "scripture study" sessions in his room lasted hours, but when I found an excuse to peek at his desk, the notes weren't theological. They were mathematical. Trade calculations. Supply and demand curves. Profit margins for goods moving between Verath and the neighboring kingdoms.
His midnight trips — there were three that week — took him to the merchant district. I couldn't follow without being noticed, but I could infer: he was meeting someone. Learning something. Doing something that required secrecy.
My brother wanted to be a merchant, not a priest.
And he was terrified of anyone finding out.
I confronted him on a Thursday evening. Or rather, I engineered a situation where confrontation was natural.
"Edric, can you help me with math?"
He was in his room, door half-open, hastily covering his desk notes with a scripture textbook when I appeared. "Math? Don't you have a tutor for that?"
"Mr. Haverston is boring. You're better at explaining things."
Flattery. Effective on older siblings since the dawn of time.
He sighed but waved me in. I climbed onto the chair beside his desk and looked at the textbook he'd placed over his notes.
"Chapter twelve of Advanced Scripture Commentary?" I read the cover. "That's your math book?"
"I was reading before you—"
"Edric." I looked at him. "I can see the trade ledger under it."
His face went through several stages. Surprise. Alarm. Calculation. And finally, the exhausted resignation of someone whose secret had been discovered by the last person he'd expected.
"How long have you known?"
"About three weeks. The book cover swap was good, but you always read the merchant book faster than the scripture book. Your eyes move differently."
He stared at me. "You've been watching my reading speed?"
"I observe things."
"You're seven."
"People keep saying that like it changes something."
He rubbed his face. Seventeen, and he looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. The weight of expectation was physically visible on him — in the set of his shoulders, the tightness around his mouth.
"You can't tell Father," he said. "Or Mother."
"I won't."
"I mean it, Lucien."
"I know. And I won't. But..." I hesitated. Not because I didn't know what to say, but because I needed to say it in a way that sounded like a seven-year-old's innocent wisdom rather than a twenty-six-year-old's bitter experience.
"But what?"
"Why don't you want to be a priest?"
He was quiet for a long time. Outside, the evening bells from the temple were ringing — the call to vespers, which Father would attend and we were excused from on weeknights.
"It's not that I don't want to," Edric said slowly. "It's that I want something else more. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"I think so. I believe in the Goddess. I respect what Father does. But when I read scripture, I feel... dutiful. When I read about trade routes and market dynamics and the flow of goods across borders, I feel..." He searched for the word.
"Alive," I offered.
He looked at me sharply. "Yes. How did you—"
"Because that's how I feel when I read about mana theory. Like the words are pulling something out of me that was already there."
Another silence. Longer this time.
"You're really not a normal seven-year-old," Edric said softly.
"Normal is relative."
He almost smiled. "Who says that at seven?"
"Someone who reads too much."
This time he did smile. Small, tired, but real.
"Don't tell anyone," he repeated.
"I won't. But Edric?"
"What?"
"You should tell them eventually. Father would understand."
"You don't know that."
"I know Father. He loves you more than he loves the church."
Edric's jaw tightened. For a moment, I thought he might cry. He didn't. But it was close.
"Eventually," he said. "Not yet."
"Okay."
I hopped off the chair. "But you still have to help me with math."
He laughed. A short, surprised sound, like he'd forgotten he could. "Fine. Get your workbook."
I didn't tell anyone about Edric's secret. But I thought about it a lot.
In my old life, I'd taken the safe path. Every time. The stable job, the reasonable apartment, the practical choices. I'd been so busy being responsible that I'd forgotten to be happy, and then I'd slipped on a wet floor and died, and the sum total of my life was a logistics spreadsheet and a studio apartment that took two weeks for anyone to check on.
I wouldn't let Edric make that mistake.
But I also wouldn't push him. He had to get there on his own.
Some things you can't learn from a book, no matter how many you read.