The world outside moved.
Leaves blew across the stone path outside his window. Clouds shifted lazily across a pale, empty sky. Servants came and went below, cleaning halls, lighting lamps, feeding the flame of a home that felt more like a tomb.
But inside Noah's room, time stood still.
He sat on the cold floor, back against the bed, knees pulled to his chest. The wooden floor beneath him creaked faintly with every breath he took. A faint draft leaked from the edges of the window, brushing his cheek like a ghost passing by.
He didn't move.
He barely blinked.
His thoughts were too loud.
Why?
Why this body?
Why this fate?
Why again?
He hadn't asked for a second life.
And yet… here he was.
He remembered dying.
He remembered it clearly.
Elias Corwin, a man who once stood tall among scholars, fell apart by the time he was forty. Alone. Exhausted. So hungry for knowledge he forgot what it meant to live. People had come and gone—some lovers, a few friends—but he always chose the page over the heart. In the end, when sickness came, there was no one left to hold his hand.
He died regretting everything.
When he opened his eyes again, he was an infant in a new world.
A world of magic, nobles, gates, and bloodlines.
It could have been a blessing.
It wasn't.
His mother died giving birth to him.
His father sealed his energy gate at three weeks old.
He was never held. Never loved.
He was raised like a fragile vase no one wanted on display.
They didn't call him Noah.
They called him "that child."
Or worse… "The Hollow."
He couldn't glow. Couldn't cast. Couldn't train.
All he could do was exist.
And today, like most days, he sat in the silence and asked the only question that mattered to him anymore.
"Why me?"
Was he cursed?
Was he being punished for the wasted life he lived as Elias?
Had fate simply chosen him to suffer—again?
He looked at his hands.
So small. So weak.
He was seven years old and already tired of waking up.
A soft knock went unheard. So did the door as it creaked open. Footsteps, careful and light, approached across the wood.
"Noah?" a gentle voice said.
He didn't move.
"…Young master?"
He blinked.
His eyes shifted slightly. At the edge of his vision stood a girl in a pale silver robe, simple but clean. Her long black hair was tied neatly behind her back, and her face, though young, carried the stillness of someone who had seen more than she should.
Yuni.
She had been assigned to him since he was a toddler. The only one who hadn't left. She rarely spoke unless spoken to—but she never avoided him, never flinched when she looked at him.
Most importantly, she never looked at him like he was broken.
"It's time for your bath," she said quietly. "You didn't come when the bell rang."
Noah glanced out the window.
The sky had already darkened.
How long had he been sitting here?
"I… didn't hear it," he said softly.
Yuni didn't press him. She didn't scold or sigh. She just nodded.
"It's okay," she said, almost in a whisper.
She stepped closer, then hesitated.
Then—without saying a word—she extended her hand.
Noah stared at it.
He didn't understand why, but something about that simple gesture hit harder than any cruel whisper ever had.
It was a choice.
One that said: You don't have to sit in this darkness alone.
Slowly, uncertainly, he reached out and took her hand.
It was warm.
And soft.
And steady.
That night, in the quiet of the bathing room, steam drifted around him like a slow-moving dream. Yuni sat nearby, quietly preparing clean clothes. She didn't speak much.
But Noah noticed something.
The silence didn't hurt as much when she was there.
It didn't fix the questions in his head.
It didn't unseal his gate.
It didn't change the past.
But it made breathing feel a little easier.
And for now…
That was enough.