Chapter 1: The God of the Common Blade

  [POV: John]

  My father earned the title of "hero" not by birthright, but through a trail of blood, severed monster limbs, and deeds that are now slurred by half-drunk bards in every tavern from here to the Dragonbone Wastes.

  Alongside his legendary party, The Six Cords, he had plunged into the Abyss, saved the Princess of Veridia, and struck down the terrifying Demon Lord, Toragora. To the peasants in the mud, he was a literal champion of humanity descending from the heavens. But to those who truly understood the rigorous, ugly art of combat? He was revered as nothing less than the God of the Common Blade. He didn't need flashy magic or divine weapons. Give the man a rusted iron stick, and he could parry a dragon’s breath.

  For saving the kingdom's only heir, the King offered my father the ultimate reward: the hand of the very princess he had rescued. He married Sorina, and when the old king passed, the Golden Knight was crowned.

  In the long peace that followed, they built a family. Seven children in all.

  First came the elder brothers. Cenric, born in 1374, was nineteen—a broad-shouldered sword prodigy who practically sweat political ambition. He stood six-foot-two, two hundred pounds of pure, disciplined muscle, always wearing pristine, high-collared military tunics of royal blue and silver. He had inherited Father's flowy , blond hair and his sharp, inviting blue eyes.

  Next was Rowan, born in 1376. At seventeen, he was a charming, silver-tongued rogue. He was slightly leaner at six feet flat, with a mop of stylized blond hair and bright, calculating green eyes. He despised armor, preferring tailored velvets and deep emerald vests that looked good at banquets but could still hide a throwing knife.

  Then came the sisters. Fae, born in 1377, was the sixteen-year-old quiet peacekeeper. She stood five-foot-seven, with our mother's striking dirty-blonde hair and soft, storm-gray eyes. She moved like a scholar, her posture rigidly straight, always wearing modest, perfectly pressed high-necked dresses.

  Born in 1379, fourteen-year-old Lyra was the exact opposite. She was the wild-hearted archer who stared out the castle windows like a caged hawk. She had already shot past Fae in height, a wiry and athletic girl who kept her dark-blonde hair tied back in a messy braid. Her eyes were a piercing, deep purple. You’d never catch her in a dress; she lived in dark brown hunting leathers and scuffed boots.

  The fifth child born was a son. Me. John the Second. Born in 1381, doomed to carry his heroic name, his title, and absolutely none of his freakish muscle mass. Now, at twelve years old in 1393, I was a frail four-foot-ten and barely ninety pounds. I had pitch-black hair and cold, gray eyes that looked more like the void I commanded than any family lineage. I mostly wore loose, oversized charcoal tunics—mostly because they were comfortable to hide in.

  After me came Olric, born in 1382. Even though he was only eleven, he was a freak of nature. He was already five-foot-five and pushing a hundred and fifty pounds—built like a thick brick wall with a heart of gold. He had warm, doe-like brown eyes and a mop of curly brown hair, usually dressed in simple, sturdy iron-gray sparring leathers that stretched tightly across his wide shoulders. It was humiliating having a younger brother who could bench-press me.

  Finally, there was the youngest sister, Jessalyn, born in 1386. At seven years old, she was a tiny four-foot-five, seventy pounds of pure, chaotic energy. She had big, innocent blue eyes, a messy halo of dirty-blonde curls, and a tendency to wear somewhat frilly, bright yellow dresses that she immediately ruined by playing in the dirt.

  But when Mother died under mysterious circumstances, the light in Castle Veridia died with her.

  Clang. Clang. CLANG.

  I hit the dirt again. The smell of turned earth, rusted iron, and my own metallic blood filled my nose. My vision swam as Father’s heavy wooden practice sword cracked mercilessly against my ribs. He wasn't just teaching me to fight anymore; he was trying to break me.

  The training yard was a wide, unforgiving expanse of packed dirt, surrounded by high stone walls that trapped the midday heat. I scrambled backward, gasping for air, the rough sand tearing at the skin of my palms. I locked eyes with my brothers watching from the wooden sidelines.

  "Useless. Pity doesn't block a sword," Rowan snapped. He leaned casually against the wooden fence, tossing an apple in one hand with an infuriating smirk. In Rowan’s arrogant eyes, Father could do no wrong. "This is necessary. Father knows best. John is weak, and Father is making him strong. If he dies, he dies."

  Beside him, Cenric’s face was a warzone. He desperately craved the "Golden Knight's" approval, but seeing me bleed was tearing his conscience apart. "Show... show a little compassion, Rowan!" Cenric finally choked out, his jaw tight. "He's our younger brother! Look at him, he's bleeding!"

  I barely raised my guard in time to catch another crushing blow from Father, my arms screaming as the wood met bone. My specialty was spatial magic—specifically 'phasing.' I could make myself a phantom. But here? In the dirt? Giving me a sword is like giving a fish chopsticks and telling it to walk.

  "Your strikes are shallow! Your footwork is all over the goddamn place!" Father roared.

  His paranoid, bloodshot eyes were wild, seeing enemies that weren't there. He rushed me again. My panic-stricken brain screamed the correct tactical response: Duck, you idiot! Cast Phase!

  But my physical body—the useless, ninety-pound meat sack I was trapped in—just froze.

  BANG.

  The heavy wood didn't just hit my skull; it practically rang it like a church bell. A sickening, wet thud echoed inside my own head, instantly followed by an explosion of white-hot stars. My knees turned to overcooked noodles, and I slipped into the void.

  [Narrator]

  Following Queen Sorina's death, the King’s paranoia grew into a suffocating fog. Under the mandate of "protection," he forbade his daughters from ever stepping foot outside the castle gates. The bustling city markets and vibrant festival streets they used to run through as children were replaced by the cold, luxurious vault of the Queen’s Tower. They aren't prisoners in a dungeon, but they are captives all the same. While the boys are beaten into the dirt below, they are forced to watch from above, their entire world reduced to a castle.

  [POV: Lyra]

  I gripped the cold stone ledge of the arched window so hard my knuckles turned white. Below us, in the dirt, John dropped. He didn't fall like a warrior; he crumpled like a broken toy, his small body going completely limp after Father's wooden sword cracked against his head.

  Beside me, Jessalyn let out a high, terrified squeak. She slapped her small hands over her mouth, but the sob tore out of her throat anyway.

  "Lyra, make him stop!" Jessalyn cried, burying her face into my side. She was only ten years old. She still slept with a stuffed wool griffon and believed that knights always saved the weak. Her small shoulders shook violently against my ribs, her tears soaking right through my silk tunic. "It's too loud! He's hurting him! Why is Father so mean?"

  I wrapped both my arms around her, pulling her warm, trembling body tight against me. My own heart was pounding against my ribs, but it wasn't fear making my blood rush. It was a hot, suffocating anger.

  "I can't, Jess," I whispered, my voice shaking with a rage I didn't know how to handle. "I can't make him stop."

  "It's not fair!" she wailed, her voice muffled against my clothes. She pointed a trembling finger down at the heavy, leather-bound books scattered across our beautiful, useless rug. Books about grand quests and righteous magic. "The heroes in the stories wouldn't let this happen! They would jump out the window and save him!"

  "But we aren't allowed to be heroes, Jessalyn," I spat. I glared down at the yard."We're just the princesses. Kept behind high walls while Father loses his mind."

  "At least you have your archery targets in the courtyard, Lyra," Fae’s voice cut through the room, smooth but lined with a quiet, biting frustration. I glanced back. My older sister was sitting by the hearth, her posture impeccably rigid as she drove a silver needle through an embroidery hoop. "I turn seventeen next year," Fae continued, her storm-gray eyes fixed entirely on her stitches. "When Mother was alive, we used to walk through the lower city. We visited the markets, spoke to the guild masters, and actually saw the kingdom we are supposed to be leading. Now? Most noble daughters my age are touring the allied capitals and attending galas to secure alliances. Father won't even let us past the inner portcullis. How am I supposed to marry? Am I to die an unwed spinster, trapped in this stone box until my hair turns white?"

  "Is a husband all you care about right now?" I snapped, pointing out the window. "Father is down there beating our brothers !"

  "I care about our family's future," Fae countered softly, her voice barely a whisper. "And a husband means a household of my own. It means leaving this castle."

  At fourteen years old, I was already taller than Fae, and I wanted nothing more than to grab my bow and put an arrow right through Rowan's stupid apple. "We're just the princesses. We're just supposed to sit up here and brush our hair while Father loses his mind."

  I looked at the wooden sidelines down below. Olric, our giant older brother, was just standing there.

  "Look at them," I hissed, pointing down at the boys so Jessalyn would look. "Olric and Cenric. They're huge. They have swords and hammers, and they just stand there like cowards hiding behind 'duty'. Family shouldn't hurt each other, Jess. But the boys won't do anything about it. They're pathetic."

  [The Narrator]

  Lyra’s assessment was harsh, but born of a profound helplessness. What the twelve-year-old girl couldn't see from her high tower was the physical toll that cowardice was taking on Olric.

  Olric was the steady one, the solid commander. He lived by a code of loyalty that his grieving father had twisted into a choking leash. But a leash can only be pulled so tight before it snaps. Later that evening, unable to scrub the metallic smell of his little brother's blood from his memory, Olric marched toward the King's private study.

  [POV: Olric]

  The study didn't smell like a king's sanctuary. It reeked of spilled brandy and the sour, unwashed scent of a man burying himself alive.

  I stood in the doorway, my spine locked in rigid military posture, my hands clasped tightly behind my back to hide how badly they were shaking. The room was dark, lit only by guttering candles that cast long, sickly shadows across the walls.

  Father sat behind his massive desk, carved from ancient shadow-oak. His massive frame was slumped, his eyes locked onto a painting of Mother that hung on the far wall. The sour tang of unwashed anger and cheap brandy burned the inside of my nose.

  "Father," I began. My voice sounded too loud in the dead, quiet room. "The training for John. It's counter-productive."

  He didn't look at me. He just slowly lifted his silver cup.

  "He's useless while in recovery," I pushed on, desperate to appeal to his tactical mind. "It's inefficient to have our most magically gifted asset spend months bleeding in a cot. He is a magic prodigy."

  BAM.

  Father slammed his silver cup down. Brandy sloshed over the rim, staining the kingdom maps spread across his desk. When he finally looked up at me, his eyes were completely bloodshot, sunken deep into his skull.

  "'Inefficient'?" He let out a harsh, barking laugh that grated against my ears like two stones grinding together. It held absolutely no humor. "He's weak, Olric! His magic is a crutch. His body is soft. I'm beating the weakness out of him before the world does!"

  "You aren't hardening him," I stated, refusing to back down, though my heart was hammering so hard I thought it might crack my ribs. "You are breaking your own asset. You're breaking my brother."

  "Leave me alone!" Father roared.

  It wasn't just a shout. A blinding flash of his divine power—the raw, suffocating golden aura of his hands burning the table. The sheer, physical pressure of it hit me like a solid wall. The heavy glass bottles on his desk rattled violently, and the windowpanes shivered in their frames.

  My breath caught in my throat. I felt like a bug about to be crushed under a boot.

  "I am making you all strong!" Father bellowed, his voice cracking with a terrifying, raw agony. "I won't be weak again! I won't lose anyone else because they couldn't hold a sword! Now get out!"

  I didn't salute. I didn't say goodnight. I simply turned on my heel and left the stinking room, forcing my face into a mask of stone until I was safely out in the dark corridor.

  I leaned my back against the cold stone wall and let out a shaky breath. It's not about strength, I thought, closing my eyes. It's about Mother. He's lost his mind.

  There was no reasoning with a man who was fighting a war against his own grief. If John was going to survive this family, we couldn't rely on the King. We had to break the rules.

  [The Narrator] Castle Veridia was an ancient, sprawling fortress of grey stone, designed to withstand sieges, dragon fire, and the wrath of the Demon Lord. It was not designed to comfort children.

  In the dead of night, the long, drafty hallways seemed to stretch into eternity, filled with shadows that danced in the torchlight. For the adults of the castle—the guards, the maids, the brooding King—it was a place of duty and grief. But for the seven royal children, the castle was a terrifying maze where the rules changed depending on how much brandy their father had consumed.

  Down in the medical wing, far away from the Queen's Tower, a twelve-year-old boy was trying to solve the problem of his own survival as if it were a math equation he could just puzzle out. He didn't understand the complex, dark politics of the world. He only understood that he was small, his father was big, and the math was severely out of his favor.

  [POV: John] I woke up to a throbbing pain radiating from my jaw all the way into my teeth.

  The sharp, sterile bite of dried bloodweed and the sickly-sweet stench of restorative jelly flooded my nose. I didn't even need to open my eyes to know where I was. Honestly, they might as well carve 'John's Loser Lounge' into the oak headboard.

  I peeled my eyes open, wincing at the harsh sunlight streaming through the narrow arched windows. I had spent so much time staring at the ceiling of Garder's infirmary that I had the water stains memorized. My favorite was the one right above my cot. It looked exactly like a fat, lumpy goblin flipping the middle finger. I used to pretend it was cheering me on. Today, it just looked like it was mocking me.

  "He knocked you around pretty good," Garder said.

  The old head mage was standing over me. Garder was a profoundly unsettling man to look at. He was tall—easily six-foot-one—but he slouched so aggressively that he looked like a vulture perched over a fresh kill. He couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and forty pounds; his skin was pulled tight over a skeletal, spindly frame. He wore heavy, layered robes of midnight black that seemed to swallow the light around him, and the fabric permanently reeked of bitter herbs, dried bloodweed, and antiseptic.

  But it was his eyes that always made my stomach turn. They were a pale, milky yellow, like the eyes of a dead fish, and they never seemed to blink when he looked at you. He reached out with long, knobby fingers, dabbing a glowing white goop onto the side of my face.

  The goop felt like cold aloe vera, if aloe vera stung like a swarm of angry hornets before going numb.

  "Yeah... I guess," I mumbled. My tongue felt too big for my mouth, like I was trying to talk around a mouthful of marbles. My entire left side felt like it had been trampled by a stampeding minotaur. "Don't remember... how I got here."

  "Your father hit you with the flat of his sword and shattered your jaw," Garder stated. He might as well have been describing the weather. "I've used intermediate healing spells, and applied the jelly to fuse the bone, but those bruises... they aren't going anywhere soon."

  A cold sweat washed over me, chilling me right down to the bone. Shattered? I pulled my knees up to my chest, suddenly feeling very, very small. I lifted my trembling hands to hide my ruined face, my fingers gently tracing the swollen, hot skin.

  "Father is going to kill me," I whispered, my voice cracking. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, hot and humiliating. I tried to blink them away. Princes don't cry. "This training is getting too harsh, Garder. He's crazy. I'm not going to survive this. Another week? Another year? He’ll accidentally take my head off!"

  My bruised brain spun, trying to treat this like one of my magic theory tests. I analyzed the variables. Brute force? Hilarious. Output equals zero. Run away? With these stubby little legs? I wouldn't make it to the courtyard gates before he caught me.

  That left exactly one option. I needed an exploit. A secret passageway. Some tiny, pathetic crack in his "perfect swordsman" armor that I could use against him, like finding the fatal flaw in a supposedly unkillable beast.

  "He has to have some kind of weakness," I muttered aloud to the goblin on the ceiling.

  Garder’s hands suddenly stopped. The harsh smell of the antiseptic seemed to hang suspended in the air. The room went dead quiet.

  Then, Garder whistled. Just a few notes. A low, soft, haunting tune.

  My head snapped up, sending a fresh spike of agony shooting down my neck. I knew that tune. Mother used to hum it when she was reading her old leather-bound tomes.

  "You know his weakness, don't you?" I demanded. The throbbing in my jaw was Motherentarily forgotten. Adrenaline spiked in my blood. I felt like a genius who had just figured out a riddle.

  Garder turned his back to me, suddenly incredibly interested in organizing a jar of pickled goblin ears. "Maybe."

  "Garder, come on," I pressed, grunting as I forced my battered, ninety-pound body into a sitting position on the scratchy wool cot. My feet dangled off the edge; they barely touched the floor. "You know, don't you? You have to tell me!"

  Garder turned slowly. His smile was thin, and it didn't quite reach his eyes. Looking back, as an adult who has seen the end of the world, I realize now what I was looking at. Garder’s eyes held a dark, suffocating brightness. An ancient, hungry malice.

  But at twelve years old? I was completely blind to it. I just thought he was being a dramatic old teacher. I thought I was so incredibly smart for playing his little game. I had no idea I was just a naive pawn being pushed onto a board by a predator.

  "A weakness?" Garder whispered. "Your father's power is divine. A gift from the very gods he emulates. But your mother... she was a brilliant woman. She always said that to understand the divine, one must also understand its... opposite. Its shadow."

  "What are you talking about?" I demanded, kicking my heels against the cot in frustration. "Mother didn't fight. She read."

  "No, but she was a researcher," Garder said softly. "She believed in balance. Your father, however, believes only in his sword. He locked her work away after she died. Said it was 'unfit' for the royal archive. He keeps her 'heretical' research under lock and key in the West Wing."

  The West Wing. The oldest, most dilapidated part of the castle. We had been told it was structurally unsound, a place where the floorboards would swallow us whole. A complete lie.

  "What exactly was she studying, Garder?" I asked, my voice barely a rasp.

  Garder tapped the side of his nose. "Power that doesn't come from on high. A king's only true weakness, young prince, is often the truth he tries to bury."

  The implication hit me. The opposite of the divine.

  Dark magic. I didn't need a better sword. I needed a different dimension entirely. I looked down at my palms. They were small, calloused from gripping a sword hilt I absolutely hated. But these hands could bend space. What good is a magically sealed stone wall against a boy who can become a literal phantom?

  Garder reached into his robes and held out a small, corked vial of dull purple liquid. "A high-grade painkiller. A king's weakness... or a prince's opportunity."

  I took the vial. I popped the cork with my thumb and downed the potion in one swallow. It tasted like cold peppermint and dirt, burning a path down my throat and instantly numbing my chest.

  "Thank you, Garder," I said, trying to make my voice sound flat. Cold. Like an adult. Like a calculating rogue.

  The old healer nodded, his eyes shining with twisted satisfaction. "Be careful, Your Highness. Some truths... they bite back."

  I pushed myself to my feet. My body ached, but the potion's numbness gave me a false sense of invincibility. Tonight, I was going into the West Wing. I was going to be a phantom.

  But even a phantom needs help. If I was going to break into a haunted, forbidden wing of the castle, I couldn't do it alone. I needed my brother and sisters.

  [The Narrator] The plan formulated in John's mind was brilliant, analytical, and entirely born of a child's understanding of danger. He treated the castle like a game board, assigning his siblings "roles" like a party of adventurers from the stories they read.

  He didn't consider the political treason of breaking into a King's sealed vault. He didn't comprehend the soul-corrupting danger of the "heretical" magic his mother had supposedly researched. He only knew that if he had a new magic spell, his dad couldn't hit him with a stick anymore.

  [POV: John] I found Olric first. I knew he’d be back in the Great Library.

  I didn't walk through the door. I phased through the floorboards directly across the mahogany table from him, my body shimmering into existence like a ghost.

  Olric gasped, his large hand instinctively flying to the dagger at his belt. His eyes went wide, but when he saw it was me, his shoulders slumped. He looked exhausted. He was built like a brick wall, but right now, looking at his bitten-down fingernails and the dark circles under his eyes, he just looked like a tired teenage boy trying to carry too much weight.

  He was reading a book called The Adventurer's Almanac. He liked that one because it had big, colorful pictures of dragons, and he was a little slow with long words.

  "I'm changing the terms of the game, Olric," I whispered, leaning over the table. "I'm going to find a new weapon. Something Father can't parry. It's in Mother's archive in the West Wing. I'm going through the wall."

  Olric closed his picture book with a heavy thud. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "The West Wing? John, that's a death sentence if he catches you.."

  "I'm not going alone," I pressed. "I can phase myself, but I can't fight what's in there. I need your strength inside. I need you to be the muscle, like the knights in your book."

  Olric looked at the nasty, purple-and-black bruises blooming across my jaw. He looked at his own massive hands. He nodded once, trying to look brave. "Midnight. In the antechamber."

  The girls were last. I phased up into the Queen’s Tower, slipping through two locked doors and appearing right in the center of their sitting room.

  "Ahhh!" Jessalyn shrieked. She stumbled backward, tripping over the hem of her oversized white nightgown and landing hard on her bottom, clutching her stuffed wool griffon to her chest.

  Lyra, who was also in her nightclothes, was already in motion. She grabbed a heavy brass candlestick from the mantle, shoving Jessalyn behind her and stepping forward with her chin tucked, ready to bash my brains in.

  "Who's— John!" Lyra breathed, her heart racing as she lowered the candlestick, her messy hair falling in her face. "You idiot! I almost killed you!"

  "You can try, but you'd just swing through air," I said, offering a small smirk to show I wasn't scared.

  Quickly, I laid it out. The hint from Garder. The archive.

  "He'll kill us if he finds out," Lyra whispered. But she was already putting the candlestick down. The terrifying reality of our father was temporarily overshadowed by the sheer, intoxicating thrill of going on a real-life adventure. "Mother's research... it'll be journals and ciphers. I'm coming with you. I can read really well."

  I turned to Jessalyn. She was still sitting on the floor, peeking out from behind Lyra's legs, her large eyes swimming with tears. She looked so small.

  I knelt down so I was at her eye level. "Jess," I said, making my voice as gentle as I could. "I need you to do the hardest job. I need you to be the scout. Can you play hide and seek with Father?"

  Jessalyn sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Hide and seek?"

  "Yeah. You're the only one he ignores because he thinks you're just clumsy. I need you to sneak down to his study. Hide behind the tapestry. If he comes out, if he even looks like he's heading for the West Wing, you have to create a diversion. Break a vase. Scream that you saw a ghost. You just have to buy us time so we can run away."

  Lyra looked down at her little sister. "He separated us, Jess," she said, her voice shaking with angry tears. "He locked us up here. We have to be brave. Like the heroes in our books."

  Jessalyn squeezed her stuffed griffon so hard its little wool wings popped out. She looked at my bruised face, then took a deep, shuddering breath. She gave a firm, determined nod.

  "I can do it," she squeaked. "I'm a good hider. I won't let the monster get past me."

  [The Narrator] Midnight in Castle Veridia was not a peaceful time. The massive stone structure, built to withstand the end of the world, seemed to breathe in the dark. The torches in the long corridors flickered, casting warped, dancing shadows that looked like grasping claws against the masonry. To the guards on patrol, it was just the wind whistling through the high battlements.

  But to a group of children sneaking out of their beds, the castle was a sleeping dragon, and they were walking right across its teeth.

  They had divided their party like the heroes in Olric’s picture books. There was the muscle, the scholar, the rogue, and the scout. But there were no magical healers waiting in the wings, no divine gods to smile upon them. There was only a cold, drafted hallway, the terrifying prospect of their father's wrath, and a locked door that hadn't been opened since their mother died.

  [POV: Jessalyn] The stone floor was freezing against my bare feet. I had left my slippers in the tower because Lyra said they slapped too loudly against the ground, but now my toes were completely numb.

  I clutched a ripped-off wool wing from my stuffed griffon in my right hand, squeezing it so hard my palm sweated. I am a brave scout, I chanted in my head over and over. I am a brave scout playing hide and seek. The monster won't get past me.

  I tiptoed down the Grand Hallway, my heart thumping so loudly in my ears I was terrified the guards two floors down would hear it. The air smelled like old lemon wax and the sour, stale wine that always seeped out from under Father's study door.

  I reached the heavy, moth-eaten tapestry of the First King’s coronation. I slipped behind it, pressing my back flat against the freezing stone wall. The ancient wool scratched my cheek, smelling like dust and dead spiders. It was so dark behind the curtain that I had to squeeze my eyes shut just to stop my imagination from creating glowing red eyes in the shadows.

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  My entire world shrank to the tiny, glowing sliver of amber light leaking out from beneath my father's heavy oak door, just ten paces away.

  Just stay still, I told myself, biting my lower lip to keep my teeth from chattering. Don't breathe. Don't sneeze. Please, John, be safe. Please, Lyra, hurry up.

  [POV: John] In the antechamber of the West Wing, the air was ten degrees colder than the rest of the castle. It smelled like abandonment.

  I stood before the massive iron-bound door. It was covered in glowing, golden magical seals—my father’s divine magic, locking away my mother's secrets.

  Olric stood to my left, holding a real, sharpened broadsword he’d stolen from the armory. His face was chalk-white, and he looked like he might throw up. Lyra stood to my right, wearing her dark hunting leathers, a satchel slung across her chest, and holding an unlit lantern.

  "Okay," I whispered, looking at my big brother and older sister. "Stay close. This is going to feel... weird. Like your skin is being turned inside out."

  I closed my eyes and reached for that cold, hollow space in my chest—my mana core. I pictured the Void dimension, the empty gray space that existed just behind our reality. I expanded the Phase magic, pushing the chilling energy out of my body and wrapping it around Olric and Lyra.

  We stepped forward, not toward the door, but directly toward the solid stone wall beside it.

  "Oh, gods," Olric whimpered as we hit the stone.

  The world dissolved into a blur of grey static. The sound of the wind vanished into a complete vacuum. The transition was jarring—like stepping out of my own skin and letting the freezing current of the dimension pull us through the solid masonry as if it were mere vapor. I have Phased hundreds of times before but I have never done it with other people.

  And then, we stumbled forward, emerging on the other side.

  Olric dropped to his hands and knees, gasping for air as if he had been drowning. He gripped his sword hilt so hard his knuckles popped. "That was... unnatural," he wheezed, his eyes wide with panic. "I hate it. It felt like dying."

  "Shh!" Lyra hissed. She didn't complain about the magic. Her eyes were already darting around the darkness.

  I let the Phase magic drop, solidifying us back into the real world. We were in the archive. It was a massive, circular vault filled with towering, two-story bookcases that reached up into the gloom. The air was incredibly stale, smelling of old parchment, dried ink, and rotting wood.

  "We're in," I whispered, a spark of triumphant excitement flaring in my chest. We had actually done it. We broke into the forbidden room!

  "John," Lyra whispered, her voice trembling. She pointed a shaking finger upward, toward the top of the highest bookshelf.” He left a Guardian golem up there." My stomach dropped. Perched atop the mahogany shelf was a massive brass-and-obsidian owl. Its feathers were layered razors, and when it turned its head, the metal shrieked with a sound that made my teeth ache.. Our father must have placed it here the Motherent he sealed the wing, a magical sentry left in the dark for years.

  With a grinding screech of metal on metal, the owl swiveled its head a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. Two glowing, blood-red gemstone eyes locked dead onto us.

  "Olric!" I yelled, abandoning all stealth.

  The owl launched itself off the bookcase. Its heavy metal wings cut through the air with a terrifying, predatory whistle. It was a blurring mess of talons and beak, diving straight for Lyra.

  Olric didn't freeze. The terrified boy vanished, and the protective older brother took over. He shoved Lyra hard to the ground and swung his broadsword upward, meeting the construct’s dive head-on.

  CLANG!

  The sound of steel smashing against brass was deafening, echoing through the hollow vault like a cannon shot. Olric groaned, his boots skidding backward across the dusty floor as he caught the full weight of the metal beast. He pinned the owl's chest against a stone pillar with his shoulder, but the construct thrashed wildly, its obsidian beak snapping just inches from Olric's face.

  "Its eyes, Olric!" Lyra yelled from the floor, scrambling backward. "It's a sentry! If it stays active, it’s going to raise a magical alarm!"

  I didn't have a sword, and my physical strength was a joke. But I was the rogue.

  I focused my mana, dropped into a partial Phase so my footsteps made absolutely no sound, and sprinted up behind the thrashing metal owl. I drew my small iron dagger. Waiting for the exact second the owl reared its head back to snap at Olric, I lunged under my brother's guard.

  I plunged the dagger straight up into the construct's "throat," right into the tiny gap where the brass neck plates met the obsidian chest. I felt the thick, humming resistance of its magical core, and then a satisfying pop as I severed the internal mana lines.

  The red gemstone eyes flickered rapidly, dimmed, and died.

  The heavy metal carcass went completely limp, sliding off Olric's sword and hitting the floor with a heavy, dead thud.

  We stood there in the sudden, ringing silence, panting heavily. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped my dagger.

  "He really didn't want anyone in here," Olric grunted, kicking the dead metal owl with his boot. He wiped a streak of sweat from his pale forehead. "Are there more of them?"

  "No," Lyra said, her breathing ragged as she pushed herself up from the floor. She ignored the owl and ran straight to a small, beautifully carved reading desk in the corner of the room. "He didn't want to protect this room, Olric. He wanted to bury it."

  She ran her hands along the underside of the desk, finding a hidden latch. A thin drawer popped open. She pulled out a small, velvet-wrapped bundle and unrolled it on the table. Inside were two identical, small scrolls of parchment, perfectly split down the middle.

  "A whisper-link," Lyra breathed, her eyes wide with wonder. She touched the paper like it was sacred. "Mother's design. I remember her telling me stories about these before bed. You give one half to your friend and keep the other. Whatever you write on your half... it appears on theirs. Instantly. No matter where they are."

  She looked at me, the excitement fading from her face, replaced by a cold dread. "John... Father comes here. When he's drunk and the grief gets too loud, he uses a key to bypass the seals. He just stands in the middle of the room and stares at her things. I saw him doing it last month from my tower window."

  My blood ran cold. We weren't just in a forbidden room; we were standing inside a ticking time bomb. If Father walked in right now, Olric's sword wouldn't save us.

  "Perfect," I said, snatching one half of the whisper-link scroll and shoving it into my pocket. I tried to sound braver than I felt. "You and Olric stay here. Search the shelves for the magic books. Bar the iron door from the inside; if Father comes, he'll just think his old magical seals are jammed. He won't expect anyone to be inside."

  "Where are you going?" Olric asked, gripping his sword.

  "I'm going to find Jessalyn," I said. "I'll be your eyes out in the hallway. This scroll will be my voice. If he leaves his study and moves toward the West Wing, you'll be the first to know."

  Lyra nodded, clutching her half of the link tightly against her chest. "Be fast, John. Please don't get caught."

  "I'm a phantom, Lyra," I said, forcing a cocky smirk. "Getting caught isn't in my rubric."

  I closed my eyes, pulled on my mana core, and dissolved back into the stone, leaving them in the cold, dark heart of our mother's secrets.

  [POV: Father] The study stank of stale brandy, burnt candle wick, and failure.

  I sat heavily in my oak chair, staring at the half-empty crystal decanter on my desk. The liquid inside caught the dim candlelight, glowing a deep, beautiful violet. It reminded me violently of Sorina’s eyes.

  I slammed my heavy fist onto the desk, rattling the stacks of military reports, trade agreements, and kingdom maps I hadn't read in weeks.

  Useless. All of it, I thought, my mind a blurred, heavy mess of grief and alcohol.

  I closed my eyes, but all I could see was John's face in the training yard today. The defiance in the boy's eyes right before I struck him. The sheer, infuriating fragility of his small body hitting the dirt. It was the exact same, helpless fragility I had seen in Sorina during those final weeks in her sickbed.

  I was the "God of the Common Blade." I was the "Golden Knight." I had severed the head of a Demon Lord. Yet, all my titles, all my legendary strength, hadn't stopped the light from leaving her eyes. I couldn't cut disease with a sword. I couldn't parry death.

  I’ll get it out of him, I told myself, pouring another glass of the violet brandy with an unsteady hand. I have to. I won't let my children be weak. The world will eat them alive if they are soft. I won't lose another one.

  But the anger felt hollow tonight. Brittle, like aged parchment. It was a mask I wore for my sons, and it was beginning to crack. Beneath the rage was only the familiar, gnawing void that no amount of liquor could fill.

  "Weak..." I muttered to the empty room, my voice a gravelly rasp.

  I pushed my heavy chair back. The sound of the wooden legs scraping against the stone floor was obscenely loud in the quiet castle. I looked at the west wall of my study.

  The impulse, born of liquor and profound loss, pulled at me like a physical chain. I had to go there. I had to stand in her archive. I had to smell the old paper and pretend, just for a minute, that she was sitting at her desk.

  Just to look. To make sure the magical seals are holding, I lied to myself.

  I didn't bother grabbing a candle; I knew the way by heart. I moved to the door, my large hand resting on the iron latch. I opened the door and stepped out into the freezing Grand Hallway.

  I paused, my bloodshot eyes sweeping the dark corridor. I was drunk, but my senses were still honed by years of surviving the Abyss. I was a predator, and this castle was my territory. Everything was silent.

  Satisfied, I turned left, my heavy boots thudding against the stone as I walked toward the West Wing.

  [POV: Jessalyn] He's up. The monster is up!

  My heart hammered against my ribs so violently I thought it might crack my chest open. Through the tiny gap in the tapestry, I watched my father step out of his study. He looked massive in the dark, a towering shadow with broad shoulders and heavy, stomping boots.

  He looked down the hall, right at my hiding spot. I stopped breathing entirely, squeezing my piece of wool wing until my fingers ached. Don't see me. Don't see me.

  After a terrifyingly long Motherent, he turned left. He was walking toward the West Wing. Toward Lyra and Olric.

  Now. It has to be now. My legs felt like jelly, but I forced myself to move. I gave him ten paces, just enough for him to commit to walking away. Then, I stepped out from behind the tapestry. I purposely caught my bare foot on the heavy hem of the fabric, stumbling forward onto the cold stone so it looked real.

  "Father?"

  My voice was a small, trembling, pathetic thing in the vast, dark hallway. It echoed off the walls.

  Father stopped dead in his tracks. The sound of his title, spoken by a child at this hour, seemed to cut through his drunken haze. Slowly, deliberately, the massive shadow turned around. His eyes narrowed, trying to focus on my small, pale shape shivering in my white nightgown.

  "Jessalyn?" His voice was a low, rumble, thick with suspicion and a cold anger. "I gave strict orders that you girls were to remain in the tower after curfew. Do you think because you are small, the rules of this castle do not apply to you? Should have the guards lock your doors from the outside?"

  All the brave hero lines I had practiced in my head completely evaporated. I was just a ten-year-old girl staring at the man who had shattered my brother's jaw hours earlier. My hands, balled into fists at my sides, were slick with sweat.

  He's angry. Oh, gods, I made him angry. I can't do this. He's going to hurt me too.

  He took a heavy step toward me.

  Just as my courage was about to shatter completely, I felt a sudden, impossible cold against the palm of my left hand. It felt like a block of ice had brushed against me. A second later, the dry, crisp texture of rolled parchment was pressed firmly into my fist.

  I flinched, a tiny gasp escaping my lips, but my father, still ten paces away, mistook the gasp for fear of him.

  John.

  My brother was an invisible phantom of cold air and shadow, pressed against the stone wall right beside me. He had phased through the castle walls, arriving just in time to slip the whisper-link into my hand. I couldn't see him, but the physical proof of the paper in my fist was like a steel rod shoved down my spine. My brother was right here. I wasn't alone.

  "I asked you a question, child," Father growled, taking another intimidating step toward me. "Why. Are. You. Here?"

  I clutched the whisper-link so hard my nails dug into my palm. I lifted my chin. I let the real, terrifying tears I’d been fighting finally well up in my eyes, weaponizing the very weakness he despised.

  "I... I had a nightmare," I stammered, making my voice shake. It wasn't hard. "I couldn't sleep. I thought I saw... I thought I saw her."

  I let the forbidden word hang in the freezing air. Mother.

  The word struck the God of the Common Blade harder than a dragon's tail. The anger in his eyes faltered instantly, melting away, replaced by a raw, haunted, broken look. The terrifying predator was gone; only a sad, drunken widower remained. He completely forgot about his trip to the West Wing.

  "Where?" he demanded, his voice suddenly desperate and strained. "Where did you see her?"

  It's working, I thought, a tiny spark of victory fighting through my terror. Keep him here. Keep him away from the others.

  I lifted a trembling hand and pointed down the hall, in the exact opposite direction of the West Wing. "By the main stairs," I lied, tears spilling down my cheeks. "She was... she was crying."

  Father stared past me, staring down the empty corridor like he expected a ghost to walk out of the shadows. He was completely hooked.

  Beside me, I felt a rush of cold air leave my side. John was gone, racing back through the walls to the archive, leaving me to hold the line against the King.

  [POV: John] I thought it was cruel for her to bring Mother up as a distraction, I thought as I sprinted through the dense masonry of the castle walls, my physical body blurred into grey static. I don't like Father... but using his grief against him feels dark. Still, it worked.

  I navigated through the castle's interior geometry, keeping the complex hand gestures required to maintain my phantasmal form locked tight. I finally reached the thick walls of the West Wing archive.

  I didn't fully materialize. Instead, wanting to break the suffocating tension, I stuck only my head through the heavy wooden door into the room and loudly whispered, "Booo."

  "Ahhhh!!!" Lyra shrieked.

  She spun around with terrifying speed, wielding a heavy, black leather book like a weapon. She threw her entire body weight into a massive swing aimed right at my face.

  I just laughed, dipping slightly back into the Phase. The heavy book swiped harmlessly right through my incorporeal head. The Motherentum caused Lyra to completely lose her balance, and she fell to the dusty floor with a highly ungraceful oomph.

  Olric, who was standing by the desk, erupted into a loud, booming laugh. "Hahahahahahha!"

  "That will never, ever get old," I wheezed, stepping fully through the door and solidifying my body, my ribs aching as I laughed.

  Lyra elegantly stood up, aggressively dusting off her hunting leathers. Her cheeks were bright red, and her purple eyes flashed with adventurous irritation. "Younger brother, I think we found what you are looking for. I'm going to give it to you right after I’m done strangling you, of course."

  Olric grinned, holding up a bright red book with shiny gold lettering. "Look what I found! It's called the Adventurer's Almanac: Guide to the World's Top Powers, and Guide to Love."

  I blinked at my giant, sweet brother. "What?"

  "Ignore him," Lyra sighed, rolling her eyes toward the high ceiling. "He can't even read half the words in that thing. He just likes looking at the pictures of the dragons and the glowing swords."

  "Hey, shut up! I can read fine!" Olric shouted, his face turning the same color as the book. "I'm just a little slow with the long words! You try reading tiny print in the dark!"

  "Okay, okay, focus," I said, waving my hands to quiet them down, suddenly remembering we were committing treason. "Lyra, what did you actually find? Did you find the spell book?"

  Lyra’s expression darkened instantly. The playful, childish thrill of the adventure vanished, replaced by a scholar’s grim, adult focus. She walked over and held up the heavy, black leather book she had just tried to hit me with. The cover had no title, just a strange, intricate geometric circle carved into the hide.

  "I found this hidden in a false bottom of her trunk," Lyra whispered, stepping closer to the lantern light. "It's a translated copy of the Book of Flesh Manipulation, originally written by a heretic named T.G. Harmon. John... it's full of spells. Dark spells.."

  She opened the book. The pages weren't just printed text. Every single inch of the margins was covered in frantic, elegant handwriting.

  "I think this is exactly what Mother was studying," Lyra said, her voice dropping to a fearful whisper. "John... it's not just a book. Look at this ink. She found a bunch of these dark spells, and she wrote her own notes on almost every single page. She wasn't just researching this magic to understand it. She was trying to master it."

  I looked down at the dark, forbidden tome, then down at the half-scroll of the whisper-link in my hand. The silence of the massive, dusty archive felt incredibly heavy, pressing down on our young shoulders.

  [The Narrator] The return from the West Wing was a blur of adrenaline and muffled giggles. To the guards, the shadows in the corridor remained still, but within the pocket of John’s phantom magic, four children moved like a single, shivering ghost. Safely back in the tower, the air changed. The terror of the dark hallway was replaced by the giddy, reckless high of a successful prank. They "celebrated" as only children in a castle could—sharing a stash of smuggled honey-biscuits and whispering until their eyes grew heavy.

  But as the others drifted into the deep, rhythmic breathing of sleep, John remained wired. The darkness felt electric.

  [POV: John] I waited until Olric’s snoring sounded like a distant rockslide before I pulled my heavy wool blankets over my head, creating a stifling, secret tent. The air inside smelled like laundry soap and my own nervous sweat.

  I lit a stubby, stolen candle stub. The flame danced wildly, casting giant, flickering shadows of my own hands against the "walls" of my blanket-cave. My heart was still a trapped bird, fluttering against my ribs. I pulled the two books from under my pillow.

  I ignored the Almanac for now—Olric could have his pictures of dragons. I wanted the black one. The heavy one. The one that smelled like Mother’s old study.

  I pried the leather cover open, my breath hitching in my throat. I expected to see diagrams of hearts or complicated magic circles—something "diffrent" and cool. Instead, my stomach dropped. The first page was as blank as a fresh snowfall.

  "Are you kidding me?" I hissed, my voice cracking in the quiet. I felt a hot flash of bratty, twelve-year-old frustration. I’d almost been killed by a metal owl for an empty notebook? I gripped the spine and gave it a violent, annoyed rattle, half-hoping a secret map would fall out. "Work, you stupid thing!"

  I shook it again, harder this time, and then I froze.

  In the dim, orange candlelight, the paper seemed to shiver. Tiny black droplets of ink began to ooze from the fibers of the page like sweat. They didn't just smudge; they crawled. I flinched, nearly dropping the candle onto my bedsheets as the ink wove itself into elegant, spindly letters..

  [The Narrator]

  The return from the West Wing was a blur of adrenaline and muffled giggles. To the guards, the shadows in the corridor remained still, but within the pocket of John’s phantom magic, four children moved like a single, shivering ghost. Safely back in the tower, the air changed. The terror of the dark hallway was replaced by the giddy, reckless high of a successful prank. They "celebrated" as only children in a castle could—sharing a stash of smuggled honey-biscuits and whispering until their eyes grew heavy.

  But as the others drifted into the deep, rhythmic breathing of sleep, John remained wired. The darkness felt electric.

  [POV: John]

  I waited until Olric’s snoring sounded like a distant rockslide before I pulled my heavy wool blankets over my head, creating a stifling, secret tent. The air inside smelled like laundry soap and my own nervous sweat.

  I lit a stubby, stolen candle stub. The flame danced wildly, casting giant, flickering shadows of my own hands against the "walls" of my blanket-cave. My heart was still a trapped bird, fluttering against my ribs. I pulled the two books from under my pillow.

  I ignored the Almanac for now—Olric could have his pictures of dragons. I wanted the black one. The heavy one. The one that smelled like Mother’s old study.

  I pried the leather cover open, my breath hitching in my throat. I expected to see diagrams of hearts or complicated magic circles—something "heretical" and cool. Instead, my stomach dropped. The first page was as blank as a fresh snowfall.

  "Are you kidding me?" I hissed, my voice cracking in the quiet. I felt a hot flash of bratty, twelve-year-old frustration. I’d almost been killed by a metal owl for an empty notebook? I gripped the spine and gave it a violent, annoyed rattle, half-hoping a secret map would fall out. "Work, you stupid thing!"

  I shook it again, harder this time, and then I froze.

  In the dim, orange candlelight, the paper seemed to shiver. Tiny black droplets of ink began to ooze from the fibers of the page like sweat. They didn't just smudge; they crawled. I flinched, nearly dropping the candle onto my bedsheets as the ink wove itself into elegant, spindly letters.

  “Welcome to my journal. How can I assist you?”

  I stared at the paper, my jaw hanging open. My mind went to every book I’d ever seen. I’d seen the "Follower-Tomes" in the library that hovered behind the mages like ducklings. I’d even seen the "Shrieking Almanacs" that read themselves aloud if you poked the spine. But a book that asked a question? A book that wanted to talk?

  I poked the page with a trembling finger. It didn't feel like paper; it felt cold, like the surface of a frozen pond.

  "I... I don't know," I whispered to the empty air of my blanket-tent.

  I felt a cold shiver run down my spine that had nothing to do with the draft in the room. I was twelve, and I was pretty sure I had just found something that didn't follow the "rules" Garder taught us in class. It felt like I’d just walked into an adult’s secret meeting, or found a door I was never supposed to knock on. But the fear was nothing compared to the curiosity.

  I grabbed my quill. My hand shook so much I almost blotted the ink. If the book could talk, could it tell me how to stop hurting? Could it tell me why Father was so angry?

  I pressed the quill to the paper and wrote one word: Hello?

  [The Narrator] The air inside the blanket-tent became thick, as if the oxygen was being frozen as if someone was there with him. John’s candle started flickering faster, the flame started burning larger a mucus green color. He was a boy who understood the basic laws of magic but this was different. This was like nothing he has never felt before the parchment before him didn't feel right. It felt like an invitation.

  [POV: John] The air felt heavy. But I didn’t stop, I just watched the ink; I felt it.

  Slowly, the words began to bubble up from the depths of the page. It didn't look like writing; it looked like black rots growing out of the paper itself, pulsing with a life of their own. The letters were wet and the ink was feathering down the page, the letters bulged out in contrast to the mildly white background.

  “Hello, John,” the paper whispered in ink. “You want to stop hurting now, don't you?”

  I jumped so hard as I read this I hit my head against the bedframe. My stomach dropped into a pit. I hadn't even dipped my quill ink before it responded, “I Never said my name?”. I hadn't said a single word yet it new. my heart was now feeling like it was going to leave my chest. I could feel the sweat dripping down the sides of my black hair .

  My hands were quivering so violently I had to grab my own hand to stop. I pressed the tip to the page, the wood scratching loudly in the silence of the room.

  How did you know? I wrote, my handwriting looking like the jagged scrawl of a much younger child. I didn't write yet... who are you?

  I waited, my eyes wide and stinging from the candlelight.

  “I know everything,” the book replied. The words flowed across the page.. “I know the secrets hidden in the West Wing, and I know the desires your heart is too afraid to whisper. I know everything your heart could desire.”

  As the last word formed, the book began to emit a physical aura. It wasn't the warm, golden glow of Father’s divine power. This was a cold, suffocating pressure. Fear that felt like a thousand tiny needles pressing against my skin. It was the smell of a stagnant pond and the feeling of being stocked in a dark room.

  I was twelve years old, and my instincts were screaming at me to shove the book under the bed and run to Lyra. But my heart... my heart was tired of the dirt. It was tired of the Clang-Clang-Clang of those damned swords.

  This book doesn’t feel like a a normal magic tome. And for the first time in my life, I felt like someone—or something—was actually looking back at me.

  [The Narrator] John sat in the stifling dark of his blanket-tent, the pale-green light reflecting off his wide, sweat-streaked face. He was at a crossroads that no twelve-year-old should ever face. The book had stopped being a mere object; it was now a presence, a heavy weight that seemed to occupy the space beside him.

  The air grew colder still, a frost beginning to lace the edges of his pillow. The book was waiting. It was a predator that had just felt the first tug on its line, and it was ready to reel the boy in.

  [POV: John] The ink on the page didn't stop moving. It continued to swirl around and pulse, the "rot" spreading it looked as if the book were digesting the very air I breathed.

  “You want power, don’t you?” the words sprawled frantically across the page, the letters jagged and uneven as if the book were glaring in silence. “You want the strength to make him stop forever.”

  I swallowed hard, my throat feeling unbearably dry. I gripped the quill so tight I heard the wood crack. My fear was physically daunting , a cold lump in my stomach, but my desperation was bigger.

  Yes, I wrote, the word nearly tearing through the paper itself .

  “Well then... if power is what you desire, what do you have to offer?” I stared at the question. I felt a bizarre, skin-crawling sensation, a certainty that the book was smirking at me from behind the ink. It was a feeling I shouldn't have been able to have—books don't have faces—but I brushed it off. I was just tired. I was just hurt.

  I have nothing to offer, I wrote, my hand trailing off into a shaky line. I’m the third son. I’m not good at much of anything... other than my void magic. But how can I trade magic? Magic is part of the soul.

  The response came instantly, the ink shooting across the page.

  [The Narrator] John sat frozen, the quill hovering over the paper like a stay of execution. The dark green light casting a flickering shadow of his own trembling hands against the fabric of his blanket. He did not know at that Motherent that this one decision would change everything.

  HIs identity. In a world where his brothers had borderline strength and his father was a god of the sword, John’s magic was the only thing that made him feel different . To trade it was to walk into a storm without a coat. But the book was patient, and it knew exactly how to twist the knife.

  [POV: John] “You can trade anything, even magic,” the book’s ink continued to pulse, the words glowing with a sickly, humid light.

  I felt a cold sweat break out across my forehead. My hands at this point were alien to me, the shaking feeling uncontrollable. “Trade my magic?” I stared at the black rot spreading across the page. This magic—my Void Phantasm—was the only thing I was better at than my brothers. It was the only thing Rowan couldn't mock, because he couldn't catch me when I used it. It was my escape from all of this. It was my mother’s gift. If I gave it away, then what would I be? What would I get? Just a bruised, twelve-year-old failure in a castle that hated him? I frowned.

  I can’t, I thought, my heart hammering like a drum in the silence. If I can’t Phase, Father will kill me. I’ll have no way to hide. I wrote on the page.

  “You think your Phantasm is a shield?” The book sprawled, the ink bubbling up as if it were laughing. I could somehow feel it was laughing at me . “It is a hiding spot, John the Second. It is the magic of a rabbit. It allows you to survive and stay a victim, but it will never allow you to stop being one. How many more times do you want to wake up in Garder’s infirmary, memorizing the shape of stains on the ceiling ?”

  The words struck home. But Void magic is... it’s me, I wrote, the letters small and desperate. It’s the only thing I have that’s special.

  “And look where it has gotten you,” the book replied, the ink flowing into a jagged, mocking scrawl. “Lying in the dirt. Crying under a blanket. Trading it isn't losing yourself, John. It is shedding your skin. It is trading the magic of the coward for the magic of the master. Do you want to hide from the sword, or do you want to be the one who decides where the sword falls?”

  I felt the aura that the book was emitting intensify. It wasn't just pressing against my skin anymore; it was inside my lungs, making every breath feel like I was inhaling cold water. Even though I couldn’t stop sweating.The book wasn't just asking; it was demanding. It was a suffocating weight that made the room feel like it was shrinking, the walls of the castle closing in to crush me.

  My jaw throbbed. The pain was a hot, jagged needle in my face, reminding me that tomorrow morning, I would have to walk back into that yard. I would have to stand in front of Father and wait for the Clang-Clang-Clang to start again.

  The pressure was unbearable. I felt like my brain was being squeezed in a vice. The words pulsing like veins on the page, and the whispers in the ink started to sound like my own voice, begging for the pain to stop.

  "Okay," I whispered, my voice breaking. "Okay. Take it."

  A contract manifested on the parchment, woven from symbols that looked like nothing I have ever seen. I didn't recognize a single mark, but at the bottom, there was a a blank spot waiting for me. I pressed the quill down, and as I traced each letter of my name, a wave of relief washed over me. For a heartbeat, I felt light. I felt healed. I felt like the nightmare was over. I felt ok,

  Then, I was violently stripped away from my Motherent of peace.

  From the shadows beneath my blanket-tent, skeletal hands—bleached white and dripping a black rot—materialized out of the air. It reached into me. A clawed hand plunged through my sternum, and I felt a hole tear open in my chest, the hand going straight to my soul.

  My body began to seize in positions that should have snapped my spine. My fingers bent backward, snapping into angles that defied anatomy. My head twitched with a violent, rhythmic force, slamming against the pillows as I tried to scream. I reached out, my mind begging my arm to grab the skeletal limb buried in my chest, but I was a passenger in my own skin. My fingers were locked, my muscles firing with an unnatural, independent life. I couldn't even move to save myself from the thing that was eating my magic.

  The hand slowly arose from my chest holding a purple organ dripping a white viscous substance. The hand retreated into the void it came from but only for a Motherent as it reappeared now holding some sort of hearts that was black with glowing green veins and its covered in mouths my eyes locked into to it and I tried to pull my body back to no avail

  The skeletal hand didn't just "arise"; it punched upward through my ribs with a wet, splintering crack. I felt my sternum give way as those white, jagged fingers withdrew, clutching a pulsing purple organ—my Phantasm core. It was slick, dripping with a thick, white viscous substance that looked like liquefied nerves. I tried to howl, but my throat was paralyzed, filled with the copper taste of my own internal hemorrhaging.

  The hand vanished into the void beneath my blankets for a heartbeat that felt like an eternity of cold. Then it shoved its way back into the light.

  Between those needle-thin fingers sat a heart carved from the blackest rot. It wasn't just a muscle; it was a tumor of glowing green veins that throbbed with a sickening, rhythmic heat. Its surface was a nightmare of tiny, wet mouths that gnashed and sucked at the air, rimmed with needle-teeth that hungered for the space in my chest.

  My eyes were pinned to the monstrosity. I tried to lurch back, my mind screaming for my muscles to tear me away from this thing, but I was a prisoner in a shattered cage.

  Then the hand plunged.

  The skeletal fingers drove the black heart into the raw, opening in my chest.There was no potion or magic, just pain, only the sensation of hot iron being hammered into my vitals. I felt the tiny mouths on the heart latch onto my arteries, biting down and fusing themselves to my insides. The green veins spread like lightning through my torso, scorching my nerves as they forced their way through my blood vessels.

  My body arched off the bed, my spine snapping upward with such force I heard my vertebrae groan. My fingers clawed at the air, bending until the joints popped, but I couldn't even reach for the hole in my chest.

  I turned my head toward the dim shape of the bed across the room. Olric. My mind screamed his name. I tried to throw my voice across the gap, to beg him to wake up, to make any noise that would save me. I pushed with everything I had, straining my lungs until they felt ready to burst, but no sound came out. My throat was a desert, my vocal cords locked in a silent, suffocating spasm.

  I watched Olric’s steady, rhythmic breathing. He was right there. Five feet away. If he just opened his eyes, he would see the mucus-green glow pulsing through my blankets. But I was a ghost in my own bed. I watched my brother turn over in his sleep, his back now toward me, blissfully unaware that I was being eaten alive.

  [The Narrator] The silence under the blanket was deafening, broken only by the sound of wet, rhythmic squelching as the new heart began its first, heavy beat. John the Second was gone. Something else was now breathing in his bed.finally it faded to black. His body gave out and he fell asleep.