———
The air in the headmaster's study crackled with imminent violence. Duke Valerius's hands were wreathed in a vortex of swirling, violent energy, a spell of pure annihilation that made the very stones of the room tremble. Archmage Ignatius had a shimmering shield half-raised, his face etched with alarm.
"Valerius, stand down! This is madness!" Ignatius commanded, but the Duke's eyes were locked on his son.
Kael stood his ground, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Yet, his voice emerged steady, fueled by a lifetime of suppressed defiance and the ghost of a mother he never truly knew.
"Do it," Kael challenged, his grey eyes blazing. "You've spent my entire life hiding me away, calling me a defect! Show me this danger you're so afraid of! Show me why my mother chose this world over me!"
The words, "my mother," acted like a key turning in a rusty lock. The raging energy around the Duke's hands faltered. His furious gaze, fixed on Kael's face, shifted. The boy's defiance, the unyielding steel in his eyes—it was a reflection that pierced through twenty years of carefully constructed walls.
For a long moment, Duke Valerius did not move. He stood frozen, his hands still curled into claws from the aborted spell, his chest heaving not from exertion, but from the seismic shift happening within him. The terrifying mask of the wrathful lord crumbled, revealing a man staring into the ghost of his own past. The violent energy was gone, but a different, more profound storm raged in his eyes—a tempest of grief, recognition, and two decades of suppressed love and terror.
He was no longer seeing a defiant son challenging his authority. He was seeing the same stubborn set of the jaw. The same unyielding resolve in the grey eyes that refused to look away, even in the face of certain destruction. It was a reflection that struck the still-raw wound at his core.
The tension in his shoulders slackened. The commanding posture of the Duke seemed to deflate, leaving behind just a man—a tired, heartbroken man haunted by a promise he couldn't keep. The fight drained out of him, replaced by a wave of overwhelming, helpless love and the terrifying understanding that history was repeating itself, and he was powerless to stop it.
Then, and only then, did he move.
In two long strides, the Duke crossed the room. But instead of striking Kael, his hands, which moments before had held destructive power, shot out—not to harm, but to connect. They gripped Kael's shoulders, the touch initially firm, almost desperate, as if to convince himself that his son was real and solid before him. Then, in a movement so raw it stunned the room, he pulled Kael into a crushing, almost frantic embrace.
Kael froze, his body rigid with shock. He could feel the frantic, heavy beat of his father's heart against his own.
"You foolish, brave boy," the Duke murmured into his ear, his voice thick with an emotion Kael had never heard from him before: a devastating mix of grief, love, and fear. "You have her eyes. You have her damned, stubborn soul." He held Kael at arm's length, his own eyes glistening. "You think I kept you away out of shame? You think I enjoyed watching them call you a cripple?"
His gaze shifted over Kael's shoulder to Torian, who watched the scene with a complex expression of sorrow and understanding.
"Alaric," the Duke said, using the name of the friend he had just been berating. "Old friend. By the gods, keep him safe. Watch over him as we... as we failed to watch over her."
The use of that name, that tone, shattered the last of the formal hostility. Torian simply nodded, a silent vow passing between them.
The Duke's attention returned to Kael, his hands still on his son's shoulders. "You want to know why? Then understand this. Your 'defect' is not a flaw. It is your inheritance. A burden our bloodline carries."
As he spoke, staring into Kael's eyes, a memory, long suppressed and painfully vivid, surged to the forefront of his mind...
Twenty years ago, the three of them were unstoppable. Valerius, the young lord and strategic leader; Alaric Torian, the brilliant "Reality Reshaper" whose genius made every challenge seem like a game; and Lyra, whose laughter was as bright as the strange, shimmering silver of her eyes. They were a trio, bound by friendship and adventure.
But the last mission was different. Reports came of a horde of monsters emerging from the Blighted Lands, but these were no ordinary beasts. They were... wrong. Twisted, malformed, pulsing with a chaotic, unstable energy. Their very presence corrupted the land around them. Even Torian's most ingenious spells were only partially effective; the creatures adapted, mutated.
They were holding a desperate line at a mountain pass when the summons came for Torian. The Aethelgard Circle. His life's dream. They insisted he leave immediately.
"Go," Lyra had told him, her smile sad but resolute. "This is your destiny."
After he left, the tide turned. The mutations grew more extreme, the monsters stronger. They were being overrun. In the final, desperate moments, as Valerius lay wounded, Lyra stood before the monstrous tide. Her silver eyes glowed with an otherworldly light.
"This is the duty of my bloodline," she said, her voice echoing with a power that was not entirely her own. "A duty that will pass to our child. Each generation bears a different gift, a different price. Mine was to see the threads of fate... and to mend them."
She didn't attack. Instead, she began to unravel the space around the rift the monsters were pouring from, weaving a temporal lock with a power that belonged to legend. The strain was immense. "Tell our child," she gasped, meeting Valerius's horrified eyes one last time, "that this power is not a gift. It is a responsibility. And it will be theirs one day."
She sacrificed herself, sealing the rift and saving countless lives, leaving Valerius with a newborn son and a heart shattered by a truth too heavy to bear.
The Duke blinked, the ghost of his wife's face fading, replaced by the living image of her son. The memory was a fresh wound.
"Your mother could manipulate the fabric of space and time," the Duke said, his voice raw. "Her father, your grandfather, possessed a body that could shatter mountains. And you..." He looked at Kael as if seeing him for the first time. "You can see the architecture of magic itself and dismantle it. These are not curses, Kael. They are legacies. And each comes with a terrible cost. I didn't hide you away because you were weak. I hid you because I was terrified of the day you would have to be as strong as your mother."
The revelation settled over Kael, recontextualizing his entire life. The shame, the isolation—it had all been a father's clumsy, desperate attempt at protection. The weight was immense, but it was not the weight of inadequacy. It was the weight of a purpose.
Weeks later, life at the academy had found a new rhythm. Kael attended general magic theory classes, enduring the whispers and curious stares, but his real education happened in Torian's chaotic lab on weekends. The resentment towards his father had cooled into a complex, aching understanding.
One afternoon, as Kael left a particularly dull lecture on elemental convergence, a voice called out from the shaded corridor, crisp and clear.
"Valerius."
Kael turned. Leaning against a pillar, arms crossed and looking impeccably bored, was Finnian Ellorian. His blue eyes, however, held none of their previous disdain. Instead, they gleamed with sharp, analytical interest.
"A word," Finnian said, not as a request, but as a statement of inevitability. "About that simulation you didn't just break, but apparently erased from existence. I have... questions."