A week had passed since Vincent's awakening.
Thrust. Stagger. Miss.
He hauled the heavy wooden sword up again, his small arms trembling with the effort. The training dummy stood untouched, a silent mockery three feet away.
This is pathetic. The sword was absurdly oversized for a five-year-old frame. He lunged, overbalanced, and stumbled past the dummy entirely, landing in a heap on the frosty ground.
"Damn it! Again!"
He wiped the sweat from his brow, his breath puffing in the cold air. The week had brought other changes, too. A new, subtle distance hung in the air. The maids still performed their duties with impeccable care, but a wariness had seeped in a careful pause before entering a room, a fleeting glance at his unusual eyes. They were scared. All except Sara, who remained as direct and unfiltered as ever "Haaa she is a strange woman indeed."
Gritting his teeth, he reclaimed the sword. With a grunt, he managed a clumsy thrust. The tip finally connected with a dull thwack—not on the dummy's center, but on its shoulder.
"Tsk. Useless." He collapsed, tossing the hated sword aside, his chest heaving but the courtyard was too quiet. He'd noted the odd ratio: a small, almost token garrison of soldiers, outnumbered by the legion of highly capable maids. A household guarded by servants. What kind of archduke runs his fortress like this?
He pushed himself up, examining his raw, bleeding palms. A small price and It's worth it. I have to get stronger.
"And what, precisely, is the Young Master doing? Contemplating the aesthetics of slacking?"
Vincent looked up. Zero was approaching, his footsteps silent on the packed snow.
"Oh. Zero."
"Slacking is a prohibited art form, Master Vincent." Zero stopped, his gaze flickering from the boy to the dummy. "Mmm. An improvement. After seven days, you have graduated from 'complete miss' to 'glancing blow...'How disappointing."
Vincent got up, brushing snow from his trousers. Over the past week, their dynamic had settled into a familiar, if frustrating, rhythm: the relentlessly cheerful drillmaster and his exasperated student.
"Zero," Vincent began, trying for reason. "This sword is meant for someone twice my size Is there not a training blade I can actually lift?"
"Now that you mention it," Zero said, tapping his chin in mock thought. "You are absolutely right."
A spark of hope ignited in Vincent's chest. Yes,Finally. He clenched his fists, a triumphant smile starting to form. "Good. Then change it. I want one my own size."
"No."
The smile died,Vincent stared and his frown deepening.
"Oh, Young Master, don't give me that look!" Zero brought a hand to his chest, his lower lip trembling in a spectacularly fake display of hurt. "Did you not swear to train under my guidance? My heart! You wound your mentor's fragile spirit!"
He's just messing with me.Vincent sighed, the fight draining out of him,arguing was pointless. "Fine. I'll go run laps."
"Wait, Young Master." Zero's voice stopped him. "You have a letter from your mother."
The Duchess, Vincent paused, According to Sara, his mother was a distant, busy figure—caring in theory, absent in practice. That she'd written at all was a surprise. "Does she wish to say something specific?"
"She does."
"I see." Vincent took the sealed parchment. He broke the wax and read. His expression, carefully neutral for Zero's benefit, didn't change. After a moment, he crumpled the letter into a tight ball and tossed it into a nearby snowdrift.
"Huh?" Zero's eyebrow arched. "You used to treasure her letters. You'd draw little doodles in the margins and make me deliver them personally. Don't you remember?"
"I'm five," Vincent said flatly, not meeting his gaze. "I'm sure I've forgotten. Besides… she's fine, isn't she?"
Zero didn't answer immediately. He watched the paper ball sink into the snow, a faint, curious smile playing on his lips, as if a piece on a board had moved unexpectedly. "Yes," he said finally. "She is perfectly fine."
Vincent turned and began his run, his small legs churning through the snow. Having a mother in this life was a strange, abstract concept; he'd never known his own in his last. But the letter's contents had been a cold splash of reality.
Just three words, in elegant, sharp script: Do not die.
He slapped his own cheeks, the sting focusing his mind. Sentiment was a luxury. Do not die wasn't a mother's worry—it was an order. A warning of trials to come.
His immediate goal snapped into sharp focus: he had to master his aura. The terrifying surge he'd felt in the bath was just the raw fuel. He needed to learn to channel it, to control it. High affinity meant nothing if he couldn't direct the flood.
And he had a deadline. In five years, at the age of ten, he would face the Selection Ceremony. That was where a warrior's soul met its ultimate partner—a Soul Weapon. It was not a mere blade to be chosen, but a manifestation of one's own spirit, a symbiotic force that could take any form. To approach that moment unprepared was to invite disaster… or to forge a bond with something weak and useless.
He would be ready after all his new life, and the secrets of his past, depended on it.