The brush moved slowly in his fingers, bristles dancing across canvas like smoke in the wind. A sword — long, elegant, impossible — took shape in charcoal and muted grey. Not quite steel. Not quite real.
Lucian Valemire leaned back, storm grey eyes narrowing at the painting. He'd gotten the hilt wrong again. Too bent. Too crooked. He wasn't drawing a weapon — he was drawing a failure. He ran a hand through his tousled dark hair and sighed. Sweat snaked down his nape to his back. A loose pendant hung from his neck.
A knock broke the silence.
He didn't look up. "If it's breakfast, just leave it in front of the door."
The handle turned anyway.
A young maid stepped in, balancing a tray, her every movement practiced and precise.
Maren.
Gently lined eyes, braided chestnut hair tucked behind one ear. She looked more tired than young, dressed in a simple black uniform with a blue ribbon pinned near the shoulder — a mark from a time when she'd served someone else. Someone no longer here.
"You would let it go cold again, wouldn't you?" she said, smiling softly.
Lucian put down the brush and stretched with a sigh. "If you call that food, then yes."
She ignored the jab and placed the tray on the corner of his cluttered desk, carefully moving a stack of paper aside. The room was dim — curtains drawn, candles melted low. Paints, books, and broken quills made it feel more like the room of a lunatic artist than the son's chamber of a nobleman.
"Good morning to you too, Lucian," she said, brushing dust off the chair beside him.
"Morning, Maren," he replied, his tone softer now.
She poured two cups of tea from the pot she'd brought, the kind that smelled faintly of honey and kept the nightmares at bay. They ate in silence, side by side — an odd ritual that had, over the years, become the closest thing Lucian had to comfort. It was the only time he smiled without faking it.
He glanced at her as she ate, carefully cutting a slice of fruit for him before tending to her own meal.
"You know they still call me that," he muttered eventually.
Maren didn't look up. "What?"
'Child of the witch, Cursed brat." He took a bite, chewed. "Nice ring to it. Wonder if they'll start adding it on the family crest."
A long pause.
"They're scared of what they don't understand," she said.
"Or just bored," Lucian said, swirling his tea. "I think they enjoy it. Makes their tiny lives feel full."
She placed a hand gently on his. "You're not her. And you're not cursed."
Lucian chuckled, bitter. "I'm sixteen. Still mana-crippled. Still locked out of family dinners like a ghost they forgot to bury. You sure I'm not cursed?"
Maren didn't flinch. "It's circumstance, My lord. And you're not broken."
He didn't answer. Just stared at the sword on the canvas.
Eventually, he stood and walked to the window. Pale light filtered through the curtains. The training grounds below shimmered with dew — empty this early in the morning.
"I'm in a generous mood," he gleamed, eyes lighting up with vigor and mischief. "Might grace the field with my glorious presence."
Maren raised an eyebrow. "You're picking up the sword again?"
Lucian grinned, pointing at the canvas,"What else am I good for? Art?"
He stepped away from the window. "Bring me one, will you? A dull one. I'd hate to ruin someone's morning."
She sighed as she stood. "One of these days, someone's going to believe your sarcasm is confidence."
Lucian grabbed his coat and tossed it over his shoulder. "Let them come, Maren. My confidence is not just for show."
As she left, he glanced once more at the painting. A sword no one had ever wielded. A blade that could cut through silence, through history.
Maybe one day, he would paint himself holding it.
But not today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The morning wind was brisk.
Lucian stood in the training yard, sleeves rolled, wooden sword in hand. A dozen guards milled at the far end, pretending not to notice him — failing, as usual. Their eyes cut sharper than their blades. Whispers drifted in the air like fog.
He ignored them. He always did.
The sword moved slowly at first. Slashes through air, then smoother transitions — basic forms, polished over years of half-interest. Each step, each pivot, was a dance. One he never loved, but never forgot. Not fully.
His body moved. His mind didn't.
It wandered.
He had been ten when the mage declared it. A prodigy. One of the youngest to awaken active mana in a decade. His father's proud silence. The applause in the hall. The way his mother had cupped his cheeks and whispered, "I knew it."
Then the sickness.
The nights of coughing, of whispered arguments behind locked doors. Of veiled glances and colder mornings. Of the way his father stopped smiling. Of the day his fathers family members branded his mother "Unfit."
Of the day she was sent away — not even allowed to pack her things.
Lucian remembered watching from the stairway. Remembered how the rain had not touched her as she walked out. Like the world itself did not dare add insult to exile.
After that, came the "treatments."
The pain.
They made his life a living hell.
And the sudden truth: he could not use magic anymore.
They called it trauma. They said the shock had crippled his mana pathways. The potions were to help him "recover." Lies he had swallowed weekly for six years. He stopped taking the potions last year, in fact.
He didn't believe them anymore.
"Oi! Look who's swinging sticks again."
Lucian blinked, pulled from his thoughts.
A round figure waddled into view — clad in an oversized tunic that had long surrendered its buttons. Grease slicked back the boy's hair, and a smugness clung to him like sweat.
Alger.
Cousin. Leech. Walking insult to nobility.
Lucian didn't stop practicing. "Shouldn't you be napping? Or choking on something?"
"Funny," Alger said. "I didn't know swordplay was for cripples now."
Lucian exhaled slowly, bringing his practice to a stop. "It's either this or the family dinner table. I'd rather practice my lame skills than listen to your mother chew."
Alger's eye twitched. "Careful. You're not special anymore, mage-boy."
Lucian shrugged, bored. "Never was. I just happened to be better than you."
A flash of red on Alger's cheeks. He stepped closer.
"Still dreaming, are you?" he hissed. "Your magic is gone. Locked away. Sealed. Like a vault. Or... maybe more like a prison."
Lucian's eyes flicked up at that. "What did you say?"
Alger smirked, realized his slip — and stepped back. "Nothing. Just saying it's funny... how you never got better. Maybe someone made sure you would not."
Lucian's grip tightened on the hilt.
"What. Did you. Say?"
Alger's eyes widened, just for a moment — then he spun and bolted down the yard, half-tripping over himself.
Lucian watched him go, the wind curling around his boots.
That word.
Sealed.
He hadn't said it by accident. Well, maybe he did but it was a slip up no less.
Lucian stood there, frozen. Somewhere, deep in his chest, something stirred. A whisper. A crack.
And for the hundredth time in six years, he wondered—
What if it was not trauma?
What if they lied?