96th of Suncrest, Year 920,478 A.E.
The training chamber's walls glowed faintly with etched runes, pulsing in rhythm with the gravity array. The air itself pressed down like a mountain.
Valrion strained beneath it.
Weights banded his ankles, wrists, and torso each forged from skysteel, dense and humming with essence. Five tons at each limb, fifteen strapped across his chest and back. His body screamed with every motion, sweat dripping into his eyes, but he kept moving. Push-ups. Squats. Strikes into the air. Every breath was a battle against the crushing pull of twofold gravity.
The boy who had once stumbled through Serathis's lessons was gone. At seven years old, Valrion's frame had hardened, his movements sharper, steadier. Bruises still clung to his body, but he bore them with the stubborn fire of someone who refused to yield.
The door creaked open.
Kaelus lifted his head from the corner where he had been watching. Lady Nymerra stepped into the chamber, her dark hair falling like a veil of shadow, her obsidian eyes reflecting the faint glow of the runes. She paused, arms folded, watching her son push against the weight of the world. Her expression softened pride, love, and something sharper beneath.
"You'll break yourself if you keep this pace," she said at last, her voice calm, but laced with a faint chuckle.
Valrion forced out one more push-up, then rolled to his knees, breath ragged, eyes bright. "If I don't push… I'll always be weak."
Nymerra tilted her head. "It's not weakness to rest, Valrion. Rest is part of strength."
Kaelus's deep voice carried across the chamber. "But never show weakness. If you do, others will walk over you. Balance is what you must learn."
Valrion clenched his fists, the weighted chains clinking. "Then I'll find that balance. I won't let either of you down."
Nymerra stepped closer, crouching until her gaze met his. The weight of her presence pressed as heavily as the gravity field. "You carry both our lines. That burden will make you stronger or it will crush you. This house has stood for tens of thousands of years… and it has also fallen. Never forget that."
Sweat stung his eyes, but his voice was steady. "I won't falter."
For a heartbeat, silence hung between them. Then Nymerra's lips curved in a sharp-edged smile. She brushed a lock of damp hair from his forehead, then straightened. "Good. Enough training for today. Go change. You're coming with me. It's time you learned from more than weights and swords. Today, we visit the people."
When she left, Valrion collapsed onto the floor, chest heaving. Twofold gravity. Thirty-five tons. Still it wasn't enough. His gaze drifted upward as if piercing the ceiling, past the estate, toward the fractured moon above.
One day, he promised himself. I will rise to the top.
Minutes later, he stood before the mirror as a maid tightened the straps of his three-piece suit, trimmed in royal blue, black, and gold. The boy staring back at him still carried the softness of youth, but hints of the man he would become glimmered in the mirror.
His hair was a cascade of black streaked with silver-blue, catching the light like storm clouds over the sea. His eyes were stranger still: heterochromia one obsidian dark, the other burning with the eerie glow of Cerulean blue. His cheeks still held the roundness of childhood, but time would carve those features into something sharp, noble, dangerous.
"You look very fine, young master," the maid said softly.
Before Valrion could reply, Nymerra entered, her presence filling the chamber. "You're dismissed," she told the maid, who bowed and departed quickly. Nymerra's gaze fell on her son, appraising. "Come. The carriage is waiting."
Together they walked through the long halls of the estate, then out across the wide steps to where an armored vehicle waited. As the engine hummed to life and the gates opened, Valrion's eyes stayed fixed on the world beyond.
Fields of gold swayed in the wind. Workers toiled in rows, some human, some beastkin, some horned or winged dozens of races bound beneath the banners of humanity. Villages stretched along the riverbanks, smoke rising from hearths. Children ran barefoot through the fields, chasing each other between carts and beasts of burden.
Nymerra's voice was quiet, but firm. "Remember this, Valrion. The people are not just subjects. They are the bones and blood of this estate. Without them, no banner, no family, no emperor stands."
Valrion pressed a hand to the glass, watching as the carriage rolled toward the market. The closer they came, the more life surged: colors, voices, a thousand scents spices, smoke, steel, and fruit mingling in the air.
By the time they arrived, the farmer's market was alive with every race under the human banner, their voices rising in a chorus of trade and barter.
And for the first time, Valrion stepped into the world not as a son training in shadows, but as the heir of a fallen name walking among the people who would one day help him.