Morning came with grey light and the smell of porridge.
Alaric ate without tasting much. His body wanted the food; his mind was somewhere else.
After breakfast, Elaina shooed the older kids outside for chores. She stopped Alaric with a hand on his shoulder.
"You, little ash cat, are on light duty," she said. "No hauling water yet. You're going to help me with… very dangerous things."
He blinked. "Like what?"
She nodded solemnly toward a corner room. "Folding laundry."
He almost smiled.
They spent the next while sorting and folding clothes from a big basket, shirts, trousers, socks with holes. It was boring work, but there was something calming about it. The room was warm, the window let in a slice of pale sun.
On one wall stood a narrow shelf with a few worn books. Most were thin prayer books or old story collections. One, however, was thicker, its spine cracked but the title still clear in faded gold letters.
Alaric's eyes kept drifting to it.
Elaina noticed.
"See something you like?" she asked, not looking up from a particularly rebellious sock.
"That book," he said. "What is it?"
She followed his gaze.
"Ah. That one." Her tone turned almost fond. "That's an old primer some traveling priest left behind. Most of the kids think it's boring. Too many words, not enough pictures."
"What's it called?" Alaric asked.
"Elaina," Father Corwin's voice called from down the hall before she could answer. "Do you have a moment?"
She sighed. "Apparently not. Watch these for me, would you? If the socks start fighting each other, break them up."
"I'll try," Alaric said.
She ruffled his hair and slipped out, leaving him alone with the laundry and the shelves.
He folded one more shirt.
Then he stood.
The room felt different as he approached the shelf. Quieter, somehow.
He reached out, fingertips brushing the cracked spine of the thick book.
The title, in slightly faded letters, read:
"Primer of the Sixfold Arts: An Introduction to Common Magic and Mana Control"
Sixfold Arts.
Fire. Water. Wind. Earth. Light. Dark. And Null, maybe, if they counted that separately.
An introduction.
He pulled the book free carefully. Dust puffed out. It was heavier than it looked.
He opened it.
The first page was covered in dense writing. His reading wasn't great yet, letters still sometimes flipped but he could pick out some words.
Mana.
Circuits.
Basic ignition.
Flow.
Diagrams dotted the pages. Circles with lines and symbols. Rough drawings of hands, of people standing in different stances.
His heart beat faster.
This is it.
Not old man Harn's half‑remembered tricks. Not tavern stories. A book. Rules. Explanations.
If I can read this… if I can understand this…
His thoughts slipped back, unbidden.
To Tomas's rough hand on his head as they walked home under the stars. To Marla's stew and sharp tongue and warm hugs. To Lena splashing him at the creek. To Joren's exaggerated stories. To Berthold's gruff laugh. To Harn's onion‑smelling magic spark.
To the way Shuru had looked, just before the dust cloud on the north road.
And then to how it had looked after.
Blackened frames. Smoke. The sound of spears going in where words failed.
He saw Valen's army in his mind. The spears. The banners. The way the captain had given orders like people were numbers on a page.
He saw that other city under a white sky, and the way no one could stop what fell.
Somewhere far ahead, so far it was just a blur, he saw himself standing between things like that and the people behind him.
To do that, he'd need more than a little finger‑flame.
He'd need to break magic open and see how it really worked. How mana flowed. How to twist it. How to push it past what anyone else thought possible.
His fingers tightened on the cover until his knuckles whitened.
I'm Alaric. I was someone else once, in another world that destroyed itself. I don't know my old name. I don't know why I'm here.
But I know this:
I'm not going to be helpless again.
He looked down at the title one more time, letting the letters burn into his memory.
Primer of the Sixfold Arts.
"Sorry," he whispered to whoever might be listening gods, ghosts, or heroes in old murals. "I'm going to use this for revenge first. Then… maybe for something better."
He hugged the book and his bag to his chest at the same time.
Behind him, in the hallway, Elaina's voice floated closer, scolding someone for tracking mud inside.
Alaric turned back to the laundry, book balanced carefully on the table beside the neatly folded stacks.
The first arc of his life had ended in fire.
This time, he intended to write the next one himself.