The morning light couldn't pierce the curtains that day. The room was dark, and the silence felt heavier than usual. Xenon could still smell his mother's familiar scent on his pillow: a blend of lavender and ash that was both comforting and unsettling.
That morning, the sky had darkened, and rain poured as if the heavens were being emptied.
No birds or animals made a sound outside anymore. It was as if the world itself had held its breath for a while. A faint tapping came from behind the door. Then another. It sounded exactly like someone testing a doorknob.
By reflex, Xenon pulled his blanket up to his face. When his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw the silver mirror his mother had left in the corner of the room. Its surface was fogged, but the shadow within it… was moving.
The door opened slowly. A shaft of light slid in. And in that light his mother's voice echoed:
"Don't be afraid, Xenon… your mother is here."
Although her tone sounded calm, Xenon could sense the underlying tension, like the faint sound of a pane of glass cracking just before it breaks.
Xenon was only one-year-old, but in that infant mind he tried to control the anxieties with the gravity of an adult. Perhaps he did it to keep his mother from worrying; if so, he was succeeding.
His mother picked Xenon up and rocked him gently in her arms. But this time she didn't sing; it was as if she had no energy or will to form the lullaby on her lips.
Her breath brushed Xenon's fine hair, and with each exhale it seemed to grow a little dimmer. The woman's eyes watched not the storm outside but the hurricane tearing through her own insides. She tried to soothe Xenon in her arms, but it felt more like she was soothing herself.
From somewhere distant, footsteps sounded. It was clear that more than one person was approaching.
His mother noticed too; she turned toward the door. Not long after, someone hammered the door hard several times. Xenon, frightened, clung to his mother more tightly.
Though an adult soul had been reincarnated within Xenon's body, he had a baby's mind and brain. He possessed only faint, translucent memories from his past life. Thus, his reactions could not go beyond what a remarkably intelligent infant advanced for his age might show.
His mother laid him back in the cradle, stroked and kissed his head, then brushed her thumb over his cheek.
"Never cry, my little one. They won't hurt your mother, okay?"
She spoke those words to calm her son, but Xenon understood and shook his heavy little head emphatically.
His mother only smiled at that, then adopted a sterner tone and called to the person pounding on the door, growing impatient.
"I'm coming!"
She opened the lock and found the last woman she wanted to see standing there. A fat woman in her fifties held a whip.
Behind her stood elegant women dressed in expensive silk, and behind them the hard faces of long-piked female guards. There were a few more people farther back, their faces deliberately hidden behind the guards.
At the sight of that woman, color drained from Xenon's mother's face; in that instant, only the fear in her eyes widened.
The old woman barged in without permission and walked straight toward Xenon. His mother threw herself in front of her son and looked at the older woman with panic.
"Step aside, Saphirae, or I'll break your arms," the old woman said.
It was the first time Xenon had heard his mother's name, and he learned it at the worst possible moment. Saphirae… it sounded distinctly European, but Xenon was far too occupied to care where she might be.
The old woman shoved Saphirae roughly and went straight for Xenon. Saphirae fell, clawing at the floor with her fingertips, catching her breath with a strangled moan.
"Hold her," the woman murmured immediately. Her voice carried the compassion of a fiend and the patience of a priestess at once. The women behind easily seized Saphirae's arms and prevented her from moving.
"Don't you dare touch him!" Saphirae cried.
But now her shout was not the fierce cry of a mother, only the plea of a desperate person. The old woman's steps approached with almost ceremonial coldness. The silk hem dragged across the floor like a coiling snake.
She leaned over Xenon's cradle. Her fingers moved slowly but with practiced precision as she pulled the blanket back. Saphirae scrambled to her feet.
The older woman, pressed her fingers against Xenon's chest and roughly removed the child's nappy. The expression on the older woman's face made it clear she was displeased by what she saw.
"It's a boy!" she hissed.
The woman behind stepped forward and looked at Xenon's naked body. They seemed more astonished than even the old woman.
"But how? I was there at the birth… I saw with my own eyes that it was a girl, my lady. Even the midwife said it was a girl."
The old woman narrowed her eyes. For a moment, no one breathed. Outside, the rain beat on the old stones of the roof like a rhythmic anger.
"Do you take me for a fool?" she said through a cold rasp that seeped through her teeth.
Her voice was so sharp it seemed to slice the air in the room.
"A girl was born before my eyes. We checked her right after birth, my lady. This must be the work of nature," one of the silk-clad women said, trembling.
"Enough!" the old woman cut in, striking her cane hard on the floor.
Her eyes returned to Saphirae.
"This is… not nature," she whispered. "This is magic. I had forgotten you were the daughter of a sorcerer…"
Saphirae's blue irises filled with tears as she looked at the old woman pleadingly.
"Please, my lady… don't harm my son… he is my everything…"
When the old woman's gaze landed on Xenon's tiny body, the air thickened; everything in the room, even the sound of the rain, seemed to retreat. Only the tip of her cane creaked against the floor like dry wood.
"So you still don't understand, Saphirae. Your 'everything' might be the empire's curse."
Saphirae sank to her knees; whatever pride she had once had was gone. Only helplessness remained on her face.
"It's not a curse," she said in a trembling voice. "He… he's just a baby. I hid him from everyone for a year; I can hide him for a few more years. When he's older, I'll send him away from the palace."
Her voice quavered; in the hush that the rain had withdrawn into, every word hung like a scream.
While she pleaded, there was also stubbornness in her eyes. "Do whatever you want to me, but please… don't touch Xenon."
The old woman ignored Saphirae and turned to the guards, as if she were settling a trivial matter and not deciding the fate of a mother and child.
"Take the witch's whore," she said. "We will hand her over to His Majesty's mercy. It is likely that she will be executed."
The guards put cold metal cuffs on Saphirae's wrists and lifted her. Xenon stirred on his pillow; his tiny hands groped at the air, his cheeks flushing, fear pooling in his eyes with a faint tremor.
Yet he did not cry.
Because his mother had told him not to.
One guard stepped forward; rain glistened at the seams of his armor, and his voice rang in the room like the strike of a hammer. "What about the child?" he asked.
Saphirae's eyes were brimming with tears. She tried to speak, but the words seemed lodged in her throat. Xenon felt the weight of those unsaid words in the warmth of his mother's arms; as a baby he could not parse them, but his chest tightened under their burden.
The old woman turned calmly to Xenon. There was no mercy on her face as she tapped the cradle with the end of her cane. "Kill it without a sound," she ordered.
Saphirae looked as if she might scream, then forced herself to remain composed. She shook her head as if something stubborn still resisted within her.
"Please… please don't! Do you think the gods will sleep easy if you kill a tiny, defenseless infant?"
The guards exchanged glances; unlike the old woman, their faces showed fear at those words. Killing a defenceless baby was considered one of the worst sins.
"My lady," one whispered, "the witch might be right. Killing a child could bring a curse that lasts forever."
The old woman scanned every corner of the room with her eyes; she had no intention of relinquishing her dominance. Saphirae remained on the floor, hands clenched so tight they might break, searching with her gaze across the room as if for some deliverance.
The old woman's vein bulged on her brow as she fixed her stare on Saphirae.
"Do you know how many baby boys have been killed in this palace?" she said. "If the gods wanted to curse the killing of babies, they would have done it a hundred times over already."
These words held some truth, and it seems the guards agreed, because they bowed and pulled Saphirae up roughly by her arms. One of the guards stepped toward Xenon while the old woman and the other silk-clad ladies drew back so as not to hinder the guards.
Xenon was still a baby. In this world, in his second life, he was about to die at one-year-old before he could really become conscious. His tiny mind understood clearly that his mother and he were in danger, but it did not know what to do.
His mother had told him not to cry, so he did not. But his mother had also said they would not hurt her. Xenon understood: his mother had lied to make him feel safe. They would hurt his mother.
There was no reason to be good anymore… But what could a baby do? As the guards dragged Saphirae out, memories of moments with his mother flashed before Xenon's eyes.
Her always-soft touch, the lullaby she sang when he had trouble sleeping, the silly faces she made to get his attention and, above all, that pure love. He was about to lose all of that in an instant.
He turned his seething, hateful eyes towards the old woman, the one responsible for everything.
He looked at her with such vengeful eyes that...
He hated her so much that...
He wanted to kill her so badly that...
Had the devil seen this baby and realised how resentful it was, he would have adopted it.
But then something happened. The old woman froze; her eyes widened. Blood rose at the corners of her mouth and to her fingertips. No one did not notice.
He was imagining the most excruciating death for the old woman... Yes, he was imagining it.
The woman's pupils dilated, but she did not see.
Her nose curled upward, but she could not breathe.
Her ears were turned outwards, but she couldn't hear.
Her mouth was wide open, but she couldn't scream..
Those nearby noticed something strange was happening to the old woman and cried out in astonishment.
"My lady… is something wrong? Why are you frozen like that?" they asked, but no sound came from her.
At that moment Saphirae, still watching her son, realized with stunned, open-mouthed shock that Xenon was hovering a few fingers above the ground.
"Look! The baby! The baby! He's doing something!" one of the silk-clad women shouted.
Everyone turned to Xenon, but Xenon didn't notice. His focus was entirely on the old woman, and he imagined the most agonising death he could conceive.
Within just a few seconds, blood spurted from the old woman's navel, and as her intestines slowly slid down from there, her neck twisted 180 degrees and the watery parts of her brain began to spill out of her mouth.
The scene grew increasingly horrific, and eventually the old woman's body swelled up and...
'BOOM'
The old woman's body exploded like a balloon.