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Adam woke to the same translucent screen hovering before his eyes. The message glowed with cold clarity:
> `[SYSTEM OFFLINE UNTIL CRIMSON MARK ACTIVATION]`
*Crimson Mark?* Before he could process it, new text flickered:
> `[SHUTTING DOWN...]`
The screen dissolved like smoke.
Blinking, Adam turned his head—and froze.
A stranger stood by his crib.
Her obsidian hair was braided into a severe ponytail, framing eyes sharp as flint. She wore a bulky chestplate emblazoned with a stone golem sigil, its edges trimmed in dark, mossy green. Adam's gaze swept over her: the calloused hands, the scar above her brow, the way she stood like a rooted oak. *Soldier*, his mind supplied.
**"ELOWEN!"** The woman's shout cracked like a whip. **"The baby's awake!"**
Footsteps rushed in. Elowen—*Mother*—appeared, wiping flour-dusted hands on a sunflower-yellow apron. A wooden spoon jutted from her pocket. She swept Adam into her arms, and he breathed in her scent: honey and rosemary. Moon-pale skin, gold-spun hair, a smile that could mend shattered spirits… Yet when he tried to speak, to demand answers, only a gurgle escaped his throat. *Trapped*, he seethed. *Trapped in this useless flesh.*
Elowen carried him to the sunlit kitchen. Adam's eyes widened.
Vegetables he'd never seen spilled across the counter: bulbous violet tubers, feathered carrot-tops, peppers that shimmered like captured oil. Elowen's knife flashed, reducing them to precise, jewel-toned dice.
The back door banged open.
Cassian—*Father*—strode in, heaving a carcass onto the butcher's block.
The creature defied reason: six stilt-like legs, antlers like gnarled obsidian branches, and a body halfway between stag and nightmare. Elowen gestured with her knife. **"Cassian. The haunch, love. Stew meat."**
**"Aye, Captain."** Cassian winked at Adam. **"Look what Daddy dragged home, little man! A thornstag!"**
His dagger slid through sinew with practiced ease. Adam watched, mesmerized, until Cassian pried something from the beast's chest—a **crystal**, no larger than a walnut, pulsing with viridian light. Energy hummed from it, thick as summer humidity, *pulling* at Adam's soul. He reached blindly, fingers grasping air.
Cassian chuckled, rinsed the crystal clean, and pressed it into Adam's palm.
***Raw power***.
It flooded Adam's veins—a river of liquid emerald. He shook it; the light inside swirled like captured starlight. Elowen's laugh chimed behind him. Adam flushed hot… then froze.
*Damp. Heavy. Cold.*
He'd soiled himself. Mortification burned his cheeks. *A warrior… reduced to this.*
Elowen noticed instantly. **"Oh, sweetheart! Bath time!"**
Minutes later, scrubbed pink and swaddled in fresh linens, Adam lay stewing in his crib. Cassian loomed over him, grinning.
**"Right then! Entertainment for His Grumpiness!"**
Cassian sang—a bawdy tavern tune horribly off-key—while jigging like a spooked chicken. Adam stared, stone-faced.
Undeterred, Cassian pulled a tuft of lamb's wool from his pocket. He raised his thumb—
***Fwoosh.***
A tiny flame ignited at its tip. Adam's eyes snapped wide.
Cassian touched the flame to the wool. Fire bloomed… then *shaped* itself. A miniature man of flickering orange, no taller than Adam's finger, pirouetted above Cassian's palm. It cartwheeled, bowed—then tripped over an invisible pebble, tumbling into a heap of sparks.
A giggle burst from Adam's lips—sharp, surprised, utterly beyond his control.
Cassian beamed. **"Gotcha!"**
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