***Cadiz***
The stone corridors of Ravenshollow never felt welcoming. Their silence was a kind that carried weight, pressing down against my skin and bones like a constant reminder that I did not belong here.
Every step sounded too loudly, even when I tried to walk softly, as if the walls themselves wished to announce my presence to anyone who might listen.
I clutched the leather strap of the book tucked beneath my arm, something I had borrowed from the library without permission, and slipped into the narrow hall that branched away from the main stair.
The evening had already drawn long shadows across the floor. I should have gone back to my chamber, shut the door, and kept to myself, but rest had become a stranger.
Sleep never came easily anymore. My mind was too restless, filled with questions that no one would answer.
So I walked.
The keep was a labyrinth if one wandered far enough. Endless corridors that wound themselves in circles, staircases that led to cold galleries lined with portraits whose painted eyes followed you like silent judges.
But I was not looking for beauty tonight. I was simply trying to find a corner of quiet where I could breathe without the weight of being watched.
That was when I heard them.
Voices, low and strained, bleeding through the thick wood of a half-open door. My body reacted before my mind could reason with it. I froze, pressing myself flat against the wall.
"...the boy is unstable," a smooth voice murmured. I recognized it immediately. Lord Eamon, Raizel's uncle. The man who had watched me with calculating eyes during his visit, whose presence had made my skin crawl with unease.
Another voice answered, older and rasping, carrying the weight of years and authority. "Unstable, but valuable. Null omega blood is rare, and it may be the key we have sought for so long. We have waited too long to discard such a chance now."
The rest of the words blurred together when a sudden rush of blood filled my ears.
They were speaking of me.
My heart started beating faster, my breaths were getting heavier, and for a moment I thought I might choke on the sudden fear that rose within me.
Null omega. I had never heard such a term before, but the weight in their tone, the reverence mixed with hunger, told me it was not something to take lightly.
My hands pressed against the stone wall as I fought to keep upright. They were speaking of me. There could be no doubt. The boy, always the boy, never a name, never a person. Just a thing to be evaluated, measured and used.
Eamon's voice lowered further, forcing me to lean closer to the gap in the door. "Raizel wastes time. We must secure him completely soon."
A third voice joined them, one I did not recognize. Younger, eager. "Could it be that he's wasting time on purpose?"
I leaned closer, every muscle in my body rigid with tension. The words slipped into me like needles, each one pricking a wound I did not fully understand. Unstable. Valuable. Secure. And Raizel, what orders is he wasting time on? What do they all want to do to me?
The question swirled in my mind, fragments of a puzzle I desperately wanted to solve but feared to complete.
The strange incidents that had plagued me since arriving at Ravenshollow, the shaking lights, the way the air itself seemed to bend around me when my emotions ran high. They had noticed. Of course they had noticed.
"The timing must be precise," the elder said. "Too soon, and we risk exposure. Too late, and others may realize what we possess.
"Hmm.. What of the Eberhart family?" the younger voice asked. "Do they suspect?"
A harsh laugh from the elder. "They see only disappointment where they should see opportunity. Fools, the lot of them. They cast away their most valuable asset because it did not fit their narrow expectations."
The casual cruelty of his words hit me like a physical blow. My family had indeed cast me away, but hearing it spoken so plainly, reduced to mere political calculation, carved something raw and bleeding in my chest.
The floor betrayed me then. In my desperate attempt to hear more, I had shifted my weight, and an old board groaned faintly under my foot. The sound seemed to echo through the corridor like thunder.
Silence fell beyond the door with devastating suddenness. The voices cut off as though severed by a blade, leaving only the sound of my ragged breathing and the frantic hammering of my heart.
I staggered back, panic surging through me like wildfire. My limbs felt clumsy, uncoordinated, as terror flooded my system. They knew I was there. They had to know. The silence stretched too long, too pointed, filled with the weight of discovery.
My heart thudded against my ribs as I forced myself to retreat without running. To run would draw more attention, and would confirm their suspicions.
Every instinct screamed at me to flee, but I managed to keep my movements controlled. Step by step I moved away, the cold air biting at my skin through the thin fabric of my robe until I reached the relative safety of my chamber.
But safety was an illusion. Even behind my closed door, with the heavy oak between me and the corridor, I felt exposed and vulnerable. The words I had heard sounded in the silence of my room, each one carrying new weight, new terror.
Sleep did not return. How could it? I lay awake, mind whirling with fragments I could not piece together.
Null omega.
What did it mean? Why did they speak of me like a specimen in a laboratory, a tool to be used? And Raizel, what exactly is he wasting time on? Why don't they seem to know about the barrier I unconsciously casted?
Null Omega
The words repeated themselves again and again, wrapping around my ribs until it hurt to breathe. I had been called useless before, even cursed, but this was different. It was not an insult thrown in anger, it was truth spoken as if it were fact.
I sank down onto the edge of the bed, burying my face in my hands.
I remembered every moment of my childhood in the Eberhart household when I had been treated as if I were invisible. My father's eyes sliding past me. Cassius's silence when others mocked me. The way the servants whispered when they thought I was not listening.
But here in the North, all I get is silence and then some sudden conversation of me being a what..?
What exactly am I?