(Before the End, I Returned)
Chapter 4
Pryan was five when the days first began to blur together.
Life returned to a rhythm so ordinary that, at times, it felt unreal. Mornings filled with lessons, afternoons spent wandering the palace corridors or sitting beside his mother, evenings marked by shared meals and gentle conversation. To everyone else, he was simply a child growing as he should.
Only Pryan knew how carefully he watched every passing day.
At six, he began reading in earnest. Not just stories or history, but anything related to discipline, focus, and the fundamentals of magic. Most of it was theory, dry and repetitive, yet he read it all. He did not chase results. He chased understanding. When nothing happened, he did not grow frustrated. He had learned that impatience was a luxury he could no longer afford.
At seven, his routine changed.
It was his parents who arranged it, quietly and without ceremony. No announcements were made, no rumors allowed to spread. A sword instructor arrived at Heir Doom under the pretense of serving the household guard, a man whose name Pryan was told to keep to himself.
Training began in the early mornings, before the palace fully woke.
At first, Pryan could barely lift the practice blade without his arms trembling. His stance was wrong, his grip weak, his balance unreliable. He fell often. Bruised knees and sore muscles became familiar companions. Yet he never complained. Every correction, every sharp remark from his instructor, he accepted in silence.
Strength would come with time. Discipline had to come first.
By eight, the sword no longer felt foreign in his hands.
His movements were still slow, still deliberate, but they were no longer clumsy. He learned footwork before strikes, breathing before power. Some days ended with quiet satisfaction. Others ended with frustration when his body refused to keep up with his mind. On those days, Pryan reminded himself that this was still early. Pain now was cheaper than regret later.
Magic, however, was less cooperative.
Attempts to awaken it were cautious and controlled. Pryan followed every instruction he could find, every breathing exercise, every focus technique recorded in the books. Sometimes he felt something stir, faint and fleeting, like a whisper just beyond reach. Other times, nothing happened at all.
When servants noticed him staring at his hands for too long, he laughed it off. When Lina caught him sitting too still in the garden, eyes closed in concentration, she scolded him lightly and told him he was thinking too hard for a child.
He smiled and agreed.
At nine, moments of normalcy crept in despite himself.
He laughed more than he expected to. Played board games he pretended not to care about. Listened to stories his mother told for the third or fourth time. There were days he forgot, just for a moment, what the world would become.
Those moments never lasted.
At ten, sword training grew harsher. His instructor stopped correcting every mistake and instead let them happen. Pryan learned quickly which errors hurt the most. Which ones left him open. Which ones would have killed him.
Magic finally answered him in fragments.
He had awakened magic once before.
Not through study. Not through guidance.
In his previous life, it had emerged only in moments of desperation—when fear outweighed thought and survival mattered more than understanding. Mana had responded violently and unevenly, answering raw emotion rather than control. He had forced it into shape through instinct and loss, never truly knowing why it worked.
That was the problem.
Awakening magic had never been the challenge. Mastering it had come far too late.
This time, Pryan refused to repeat that mistake.
Not spells. Not manifestations.
Just awareness.
He learned how to feel the flow without touching it, how to hold an image in his mind without forcing it into existence. Anything more led to exhaustion, headaches, and a pressure behind his eyes that warned him to stop. He listened to those warnings.
Imagine remained distant. Untouched. Waiting.
By eleven, Pryan had grown into his body.
He was not strong compared to soldiers, nor talented compared to prodigies whispered about in newspapers. But he was steady. His strikes were clean. His focus unbroken. His control—hard-won and fragile—was something he guarded carefully.
From the outside, nothing about him seemed extraordinary.
That was fine.
Extraordinary had drawn too much attention before.
Standing by the window of Heir Doom one evening, Pryan looked out at Ardenfall below, its lights steady and warm against the dark. Six years had passed quietly. No disasters. No great victories. Just preparation layered upon preparation.
This time, he thought, I didn't waste it.
Somewhere ahead lay the academy, the tests, the paths he had once failed to walk. For now, he allowed himself a single, measured breath.
The future had not begun yet.
But he was ready for it to try.