The leather cover was cracked, smelling of dust and dried herbs.
Roya sat on the freezing wooden floor, wrapping a thin blanket tightly around her shoulders. She carefully opened the first page.
The handwriting was neat. Unhurried.
It was undeniably her father's.
Her thumb gently traced the faded ink before she began to read.
Year 487. Month of Rain.
I am Julian. Twenty-four years old today. The spring storms have finally passed, leaving the roads to our deserted village nothing but mud. But today was a good day. My wife and I took our three-year-old daughter, Kaya, to the village square.
Roya stopped.
Her finger hovered over the name, trembling slightly.
Kaya.
(A daughter?)
Roya's mind spun, the numbers locking into place with ruthless precision.
The current year was 508. Her father had died at thirty-eight, exactly seven years ago.
(If he died at thirty-eight in the year 501… he was born in 463.)
She stared at the page. The chill in the room suddenly felt much deeper, sinking straight into her bones.
(Twenty-four years old. This was written in 487. Twenty-one years ago. Seven years before I was even born.)
Roya glanced toward the dark kitchen, her heart hammering uncomfortably against her ribs.
(Did Mom know? Was this a different wife? Why did Dad never say a single word about her?)
She swallowed the dry lump in her throat and forced her eyes back to the book.
A wandering merchant named Vane passed through. He wore fine clothes, untouched by the mud. He was giving away wooden toys to children under five. When Kaya reached for a carved bear, Vane caught her little hand.
He froze.
For a split second, the merchant's eyes widened in absolute shock. But he masked it instantly, smiling a sweet smile as he handed her the toy.
Roya's jaw tightened. Her instincts as the 'Little Mister' flared to life.
(He felt something,) she noted coldly, recognizing the behavior of a predator who had just found a prize. (Not her pulse. Something deeper.)
The next morning, the mist was thick. I was walking to the farm when a carriage blocked the road. Merchant Vane stepped out.
"Julian, isn't it?" he asked.
"You remember my name, sir?"
"Of course," Vane smiled. "I am looking for reliable hands for my mansion in the capital. Come with your family. I will give you quarters, and pay you one gold coin a day."
Roya let out a quiet breath. One gold coin a day was a fortune. It was the kind of money that made desperate men blind.
"Furthermore," Vane added, "your daughter Kaya will attend a school in the capital. She can become something great, Julian. Don't let her rot in this dirt."
It would change our lives. We discussed it. For Kaya's sake, we agreed. We leave tomorrow.
Roya turned the page. The handwriting was messier now, jarring, as if written inside a moving carriage.
Day 30.
We are about to reach the capital. The journey was grueling. I feared something might happen to Kaya or her mother, but thanks to the medical care from the merchant, nothing happened.
Vane boasts constantly. "The capital is the heart of the world, Julian! You will see glamour that would blind a peasant!"
When we arrived, the gates were massive iron beasts. They did some checking. Vane told something to the guards, and they immediately let the wagon in. We crossed the bustling market and went straight to his mansion. His family name was written in big letters.
He showed us our quarters. "Rest today. Your daughter starts school tomorrow."
I asked how far the school was. Vane cut me off. "You don't need to worry. I will make arrangements for picking her up and dropping her off."
I said there was no need. He insisted. I backed off. I couldn't anger our benefactor.
Roya frowned, gripping the edges of the book.
(Isolation tactics. He separated the child from the parents immediately. Dad… you were so naive.)
Month 2. Day 14.
Life in the capital is going well. Weeks went by. Kaya loves the school. She tells stories of it daily with a lot of joy. But today… there was an accident.
Kaya was brought back with a broken bone in her leg. They said she fell from a height. Kaya confirmed what they said.
But a doctor came. No, he was like a miracle worker. He did something I have never heard or seen before in my life.
Roya leaned closer to the page, the blanket slipping from her shoulders as she read the next lines.
He didn't use splints. He used some sort of energy. He called it the "Aether-Edge." He joined the broken bone together within minutes. The leg was like new.
When I asked the doctor, he sneered at me. "It is Aether. Something we all have within our body. We can use it as a tool to heal any disease. But only a few can ever manifest it through their mind. Only a few in the entire kingdom."
Roya stopped breathing.
Aether.
Manifested through the mind.
A tool to heal any disease.
(Not herbs. Not potions. Internal energy.)
Her hands began to shake, not from the cold, but from the sheer weight of what she had just discovered. She furiously turned the page.
Month 2. Day 20.
One morning, before school, Kaya started crying. She asked not to be sent. We forced her to go anyway. I thought it was just a children's fit.
I was wrong.
She kept refusing to go. Before the accident, she used to come home happily telling us about her classes. But recently, something changed. When we asked her why she was crying, she started shaking.
She says her mind goes completely blank the moment school ends. She doesn't remember the carriage ride. She doesn't remember anything until she wakes up back here at the mansion. But she gets dreams... terrible dreams. Just fragments of agonizing pain. She is terrified.
Month 2. Day 22.
I grew worried. I visited Sir Vane and asked him about the missing time after school. He straight up refused to answer. He said everything is fine and started saying he did so much for us, and we are still doubting him. I couldn't say much. I returned.
There is something wrong. We have been in the capital for two months, but we haven't even gone outside the mansion. The gates are always closed. If we ask, they refuse. Sir Vane says we shouldn't go outside, it's full of sketchy people.
Today, I will sneak out.
Roya turned the page.
Blank.
She turned another. Blank.
Multiple blank pages.
Then, ink was violently, frantically scribbled across the paper. The nib of the pen had nearly torn through the parchment.
There was no date.
I WAS WRONG.
IT WAS A MISTAKE.
I SHOULDN'T HAVE ACCEPTED.
WE SHOULDN'T HAVE COME.
Roya's eyes darted across the frantic letters. She flipped to the final entry. It was dated two months later.
The ink on this page was smeared. Dried watermarks wrinkled the paper, bleeding the edges of the words together.
"He was crying when he wrote this," Roya whispered into the empty room. Her chest suddenly felt incredibly tight.
The handwriting was defeated. Hollow.
I am hiding this diary here. Lord Vane caught me trying to escape. They are going to erase our memories tomorrow and send us back to the village. Without her.
What's the point of even writing this stupid diary anymore? I won't even remember I wrote it. I won't remember Kaya.
I don't even know why I am hiding it. Maybe… in the future… I could set Kaya free.
The diary ended.
Roya sat in the freezing room, the silence deafening.
Suddenly, a memory clicked into place. Five years ago. Her father on his deathbed, gripped by a fever, staring blindly at the ceiling.
"Kaya…" he had mumbled, tears leaking from his eyes. "The doctors in the capital… so great… but I can't remember… why is my heart so heavy?"
Back then, a seven-year-old Roya had held his hand, thinking he was trying to say her name but was simply too weak to pronounce it right.
Now she understood.
He had died reaching for a daughter he couldn't remember.
The capital hadn't just taken his first child—they had broken his mind, leaving a gaping hole in his soul that bled out until the day he died.
Roya slowly closed the diary. The old leather creaked under the sudden, white-knuckled grip of her hands.
She didn't shed a tear for a twenty-four-year-old sister she had never met. But a cold, vicious knot of anger tightened in her stomach for the gentle, ink-stained man who had raised her.
Lord Vane.
The Capital.
The erased memories.
It was a horrific injustice.
But Roya was a realist.
(I can't avenge Dad tonight,) Roya reasoned coldly, forcing the anger down into a dark, quiet place where she could use it later.
She looked over at the bed. Her mother's breath was a faint, icy mist in the air.
(Mom only has three months left. I need a weapon.)
Roya slowly stood up in the freezing darkness, her eyes sharp and completely devoid of childish fear. Her mind shifted away from the ghosts of the capital, locking onto a single, impossible word.
AETHER.