The night Kariel was born, the midwife dropped her bowl.
It hit the stone floor of the Larzon family bedroom with a loud CLANG and rolled all the way to the wardrobe. Nobody picked it up. Nobody even looked at it. They were all too busy staring at the baby.
Because the baby had opened his eyes.
And his eyes were purple. Deep, burning, swirling purple with red bleeding into the middle of them — like a wound in the sky at sunset. They glowed. Not strongly, not like a torch, but the way embers glow when someone blows on them in the dark. Soft. Steady. Alive.
The midwife, Hasha — a thick, serious woman who had delivered over three hundred babies and liked to say nothing surprised her anymore — pressed herself flat against the wall and stared.
'"Those eyes," she whispered, voice shaking. "What in the name of the Garlion are those eyes?"
Galzo Larzon, standing at his wife's bedside with his hands locked together so hard his knuckles had gone white, leaned forward. He was a lean man with sharp black hair and brown eyes, and right now those brown eyes were very, very wide.
'"They're... purple," he said slowly. "And red."
'"Yes, Galzo." Eria's voice was hoarse from three hours of screaming. "I can see that."
'"That's not normal."
'"Still can see that, yes."
'"Eria. Our baby has the eyes of a — of a — I don't even know what has eyes like that."
'"Well," she said, pulling her son closer against her chest, "he has eyes like that. And he is mine. So come here before I throw something at you."
Galzo crossed the room in about two steps. He stood over the baby and just looked. The baby looked back. Completely calm. Not crying, not squirming, not doing any of the things babies were supposed to do when they first arrived in the world. Just watching, with those impossible glowing eyes, like he was already studying his father and forming quiet opinions about him.
Then Galzo Larzon — who had not cried when he failed his Marion Academy entrance exam, not cried when his father died, not even cried the time Eria threw a dinner plate at his head and hit him square in the forehead — burst into tears.
'"He's perfect," Galzo sobbed. "He is absolutely perfect."
'"He looks like he's going to be a problem," said Hasha from the wall.
'"That's fine," Galzo said, still crying. "That's completely fine."
'"He's going to cause trouble."
'"All the best people do."
'"Sir, those eyes—"
'"Are perfect," Galzo repeated firmly, tears running freely down his face. "Those eyes are perfect and I will fight anyone who says otherwise."
Hasha looked at the man crying onto the baby. She looked at the woman in the bed watching her husband with an exhausted smile. She looked at the baby, who was watching everyone with those glowing purple-red eyes like he was already filing things away for later use.
'"I'm charging a hazard fee," Hasha said. "On top of the normal rate."
'"Fair enough," said Eria.
✦ ✦ ✦
Forty minutes later, after the sheets were changed and the midwife was gone and the baby had been cleaned and wrapped in soft blue cloth, the second great catastrophe of the night began.
The name.
'"Ezron," Galzo said confidently. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, the baby in his arms, bouncing very gently. "Strong. Short. Easy to remember. Ezron Larzon."
'"No," said Eria.
'"Why not?"
'"Say it fast."
Galzo said it fast. His face fell.
'"It sounds like a sneeze," he admitted.
'"It sounds exactly like a sneeze."
'"Okay. Marlo?"
'"Baker's name."
'"Darren?"
'"Tax collector."
'"What is wrong with tax collectors?"
'"Nothing. But look at his eyes, Galzo. He is not collecting taxes."
Galzo looked at the baby. The baby's glowing eyes stared back at him with quiet authority.
'"Fair point," Galzo said.
'"Bren? Kael? Varro? Oh — what about Varro? Like the rank—"
'"We are not naming our son after a Marion rank. He'll get a big head."
'"He's three hours old, he doesn't have—"
The baby sneezed. Both parents stared at him.
'"Was that an opinion?" Galzo whispered.
'"Absolutely," said Eria.
'"He can't have opinions. He was born today."
'"Then why did he sneeze when you said Varro?"
Galzo had no answer to this. He tried a few more names — Darko, which Eria said sounded villainous; Ren, which she said was too short; Elvan, which Galzo himself rejected after saying it out loud twice — and then he gave up and looked at his wife.
'"You pick."
'"I already know," she said.
'"Then why did you let me go through all of those?"
'"Because it was funny."
'"ERIA—"
'"Kariel," she said quietly.
And the room went still.
Galzo said it to himself, very quietly. Tasted it on his tongue. Felt the weight of it.
'"Kariel Larzon," he said.
'"Yes."
He looked at his son. The baby — Kariel — blinked once. Slow and deliberate, like someone signing their name on a document.
'"He agrees," Eria said, smiling.
'"He is three hours old—"
'"He agrees, Galzo."
Galzo looked at those purple-red eyes for a long moment. Then he very gently pressed his forehead against his son's head and whispered:
'"Hello, Kariel. I'm your father. I am already completely unprepared for you. I'm sorry in advance."
Eria laughed. Kariel made a small sound that could have been agreement.
Outside, Zargon City went on, loud and alive and completely unaware that something had just been born inside it that would one day make the whole kingdom pay attention.
✦ ✦ ✦
By the next morning Galzo had told six neighbours. By the end of the week the whole district had heard: the Larzons had a son with the strangest eyes anyone had ever seen on a child born in the middle class. Healers came to do the baby's wellness check and exchanged looks over their notebooks. One wrote 'unremarkable' in the records, which was a lie so enormous it should have caught fire on the page.
Galzo told anyone who would stand still long enough to listen.
'"My son," he announced to his coworker Pervan the very next morning, before Pervan had even sat down, "has the eyes of a Vairo Marion. Maybe stronger."
'"He was born yesterday," said Pervan.
'"Exactly. Imagine in twenty years."
'"Galzo, you haven't slept."
'"Sleep is for people who didn't just have the most extraordinary child in the Kingdom of Zargon."
'"You need to go home."
'"My son glows, Pervan."
'"Please go home."
Eria, meanwhile, held her baby and watched his eyes slowly trace the ceiling of their bedroom with that strange calm focus. She thought about all the old stories her own mother had told her when she was small. Stories about children born under wrong signs. Children who walked extraordinary paths.
Whatever you become, she thought, kissing his forehead, I will be the one standing behind you. Every single step.
Kariel blinked at the ceiling. Peaceful. Unworried. As if he already knew exactly what he was going to do and was simply waiting for the world to be ready.
By the time Kariel was four years old, Galzo had developed one specific fear above all others.
Not Gargons. Not illness. Not money troubles.
Questions.
Kariel's questions, specifically.
Not normal questions like 'what is that' or 'why is it raining.' Kariel asked the kind of questions that stopped adults in the middle of sentences and made them very suddenly interested in looking at the floor. And worse — much worse — he remembered every single answer he was ever given, word for word, and would bring those answers back at the worst possible moments like tiny weapons he had been storing for exactly the right time.
'"Papa, why does Lord Hennan get to ride through the market on his horse but the fruit seller has to move out of the way even if he drops everything?"
'"Because Lord Hennan is a noble."
'"And the fruit seller isn't?"
'"No."
'"Why not?"
'"Because he was born differently."
'"If they were both born in the same kingdom, why is one born differently?"
Galzo stared at his son. Kariel stared back with those glowing purple-red eyes, completely serious, waiting patiently.
'"Because... that's how the kingdom works," Galzo said, which was the most useless answer he had ever given in his life and he knew it.
'"But who decided how the kingdom works?"
'"The king, I suppose."
'"And who decided the king got to decide?"
'"Kariel—"
'"Papa, I'm asking a real question."
'"I know you are. That's the problem." Galzo rubbed his face. "Go ask your mother."
'"She sent me to you."
'"Of course she did."
✦ ✦ ✦
Kariel learned about the three districts the same way he learned about everything — by walking through them and asking questions until the answers formed a complete picture in his head.
The upper district — close to the king's palace — was where the nobles lived. Twenty percent of the kingdom. Wide streets, clean stone, servants and healers and guards who stood straight and looked important. Everything polished. Everything perfect.
The middle district — where the Larzons lived, in a clean apartment above a spice shop — was seventy percent of the kingdom. Merchants, craftsmen, teachers, healers. Not rich. Not poor. Comfortable, but always aware of what was above and always nervous about what was below.
And the lower district.
Kariel saw it for the first time at age four, when he followed his father to make a delivery to a workshop near the district border. He stopped walking. Galzo didn't notice for a full ten seconds.
'"Papa."
'"Hmm?"
'"Why do the buildings lean?"
Galzo turned. He saw his son standing perfectly still, staring at the lower district's entrance — at the narrow grey streets, the crumbling walls, the people moving through them in worn, patched clothes.
'"Because they're old," Galzo said.
'"They're as old as our buildings. Our buildings don't lean."
'"Ours are maintained."
'"Why aren't theirs?"
'"Because the people who live there don't have the money to maintain them."
'"Why don't they have money?"
'"Because..."
'"Papa."
'"Because the kingdom is structured in a way where not everyone receives the same opportunity," Galzo said, slowly, choosing each word like he was picking his way across unstable ground.
'"That doesn't sound fair."
'"It isn't."
'"Then why does it keep happening?"
'"Because the people in charge don't want to change it."
'"Because they'd lose power if they did?"
Galzo stared at his four-year-old son.
'"Yes," he said finally. "Exactly that."
'"That makes them bad people."
'"Kariel, it's... complicated—"
'"If you know something is hurting people and you don't stop it because you'd lose something if you did," Kariel said, with simple, clear logic, "that makes you a bad person. It's not complicated, Papa."
Galzo looked at his son for a long moment. Then he sighed, very deeply, the sigh of a man who has just been out-argued by a four-year-old and knows it.
'"Come on," he said. "We have a delivery to make."
Kariel followed him. But he looked back at the lower district one more time — at the leaning buildings, at the people in their worn clothes — and something quiet settled into the back of his mind and decided to stay there.
One day, he thought. One day I want to understand why this happens. And then I want to make it stop.
He was four years old. He had absolutely no idea how hard that would be.
But he was also Kariel Larzon. So he filed it away and kept walking.
✦ ✦ ✦
The noble incident happened at the market.
Eria had taken Kariel to buy vegetables — a normal, ordinary errand — when a noble's carriage came rolling through. The crowd moved instantly. People pressed to both sides of the street with the fast, practised ease of people who had been doing this their whole lives. The horses didn't slow. The carriage didn't slow. The man inside — fat face, enormous hat, eyes pointing forward and registering nothing — didn't even blink.
Everyone moved except one small boy with black hair and purple-red eyes.
Eria grabbed his wrist and yanked him sideways so hard his feet left the ground.
'"Kariel!"
'"He didn't even look at us," Kariel said. He wasn't scared. He sounded like someone solving a puzzle.
'"That's how nobles are."
'"We had to move for him. He didn't move for us. Not even a little bit."
'"Yes."
'"Does he think we're less important than he is?"
Don't say yes, Eria thought. Don't say yes, because then he'll ask why, and then we'll be here all afternoon.
'"He was raised to think a certain way," she said carefully.
'"That he matters more than us?"
'"...Yes."
'"But he doesn't."
'"No. He doesn't."
'"So he's wrong."
'"Yes."
'"Does he know he's wrong?"
'"Probably not."
'"Does anyone tell him?"
'"Not many people can afford to."
'"That's stupid."
'"Yes, Kariel. It is quite stupid."
'"When I grow up—"
'"Onions," Eria said firmly, pulling him toward the vegetable stall. "We need onions."
Kariel let himself be steered. But he looked back once, at the carriage disappearing around the corner — at the gold trim on black lacquer, at the noble inside who hadn't looked — and he felt something harden in his chest. Small and specific and very, very cold.
I see you, he thought. I see exactly what you think we are.
I'll remember that.
(Chapter 1 Finished)