The next morning, I woke to the smell of breakfast and the sound of my mother humming. Sunlight streamed into my room, a stark contrast to the shadows that had lived in my heart for so long. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, I didn't wake up gasping. I felt a fragile, quiet hope.
After eating, I told my parents I was going to play by the stream. It was a lie, and the guilt sat bitter on my tongue. I was going back to the forest. I was going back to him.
And he was there, just as I knew he would be. The Duke moved with a deadly grace, his sword a silver blur as he sparred with his knight. I thought I was hidden, but the knight suddenly went still, his head tilting toward the bushes where I stood. He had felt me. The Duke followed his gaze and gestured for me to come out. My heart hammered against my ribs as I stepped into the clearing.
"Today, boy," the Duke said, his voice not unkind, but heavy with purpose, "we will learn what you were meant to be."
His words sent a tremor through me. What I was meant to be. It was a question that had haunted my dreams. I must have looked terrified, because his stern expression softened at the edges.
"Don't worry, kiddo," he said, and the nickname, so simple, made my throat feel tight. "Nothing bad will happen. I promise you."
He pulled a dark, glassy orb from a velvet pouch. It seemed to drink the light from the air around it. "This will tell us if the magic sleeps within you," he explained. My breath hitched. This was it. The truth I had both craved and feared. I placed my palm on its cold, smooth surface.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing. Just the silence of the forest and the pounding of my own blood in my ears. Then, a flicker. A wisp of violet light, like a dying ember.
And then it erupted.
A torrent of light exploded from the orb—a roaring, living storm of purple and gold. It was beautiful and terrifying, a power I could feel in my very bones. The Duke's eyes widened, not just in surprise, but in something like awe. But his awe quickly turned to alarm.
A sharp crack echoed through the clearing. A web of fractures spread across the orb's surface.
"Get down! Pull your hand away!" the Duke shouted, his voice cutting through my stunned reverie.
I yanked my hand back and threw myself to the ground just as the orb shattered. A shockwave of pure energy, visible as a ring of purple and gold, blasted outwards, rustling the leaves on the trees and sending a shower of dew down upon us.
Silence returned, thick and heavy.
The Duke got to his feet and walked over to me. He didn't say a word. He just placed a heavy, steady hand on my head. The gesture was so paternal, so grounding, that my eyes stung with unshed tears.
"It seems," he said, his voice a low rumble of awe, "you carry a magic far greater than my own." He looked at me, truly looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. "Shall we see if you are fit to be a knight?"
"No, thank you," I whispered, finding my voice. "I… I want to be a mage."
A slow, knowing smile touched his lips. "I already anticipated that answer." He paused, his gaze intense. "Then I will teach you. I will teach you to master this power. And your Etherion."
Hope, bright and fierce, bloomed in my chest. "Okay," I managed to say.
He told me our next meeting would be the true beginning—that he would teach me to cast without spells, a skill reserved for the most advanced students in the magic academies. As he packed his things, he paused and looked back at me.
"I know you are not a commoner," he said, his voice quiet but firm. "No child of common blood holds an ocean of magic like this." He held my gaze for a long moment, then shook his head. "Forget I said that. For now."
And with that, he was gone.
I walked home in a daze, the world looking new and full of possibility. I finally understood. The strange dreams, the voice, the golden light—it was all real. I had magic. I could control it.
The next two days passed in a blur of anticipation. When we met again, the Duke began my true education.
"Etherion is not just a world within," he told me, his voice echoing in the quiet clearing. "With the right training, it can be brought into our world." To demonstrate, he closed his eyes. The air grew cold, and for a breathtaking second, the world around us was covered in a glistening, silent landscape of ice. Then it was gone. I stood there, stunned. I had thought it was all in my mind.
"Let's start with the basics," he said. "You must learn to manifest your magic using a spell."
I couldn't help but smile. "I'm not surprised," I said. Then, I showed him. I closed my eyes, imagined the flow, and willed a simple, glowing dagger of purple and gold light into existence in my palm.
The Duke's composure broke. He stared, utterly shocked. "You… you can manifest without an incantation? Without a focus?" He took a deep breath. "So, since you have already torn down that wall, we will speak of Etherion."
He drew a perfect circle of light in the air. "Imagine your Etherion. Not as a feeling, but as a shape. Give it this form."
I tried. I reached for that vast, dark nothingness inside me and tried to force it into the circle. It didn't manifest in the real world, not like his ice had, but I felt it—I felt the barrier, the edges of my own soul, and I held onto the focus longer than I ever had before.
When I opened my eyes, exhausted but exhilarated, the Duke was watching me with a new, deep respect.
"Your Etherion," he said, "is currently about forty meters in diameter." He saw my confused look and explained, "It is the reach of your inner world. For your age, for a first true attempt… it is staggering."
I was shocked. The knight, who had been silently observing all this while, looked equally stunned, his usual stoicism replaced by open amazement....