One hundred and twelve days after the awakening
I was in the middle of the forty-third push-up of the morning (bare feet hooked under the nursery bedframe, small body shaking but stubborn) when the door opened without a knock.
Mother stood in the doorway, one hand resting lightly on the swell of her belly.
She did not smile,
She didn't even bother hiding her indifference anymore.
For a moment she simply looked at me: hair plastered to my forehead with sweat, tunic rucked up to my ribs, knuckles scraped raw from yesterday's training yard. Then her gaze slid past me to the scattered rune sheets on the floor, the cracked wooden practice sword leaning in the corner, the half-burned candle stubs I used to read late into the night.
Something in her face shifted (not anger, not quite). It was the same expression she wore when the steward reported spoiled grain stores: mild irritation at an inconvenience that could no longer be ignored.
"Lydan," she said, voice cool and perfectly level, "the tailor is waiting. You have outgrown three tunics this month alone."
I let myself drop to the rug, breathing hard. "I'll be there in—"
"Now."
She turned on her heel and left the doorway empty.
No warmth. No lingering. No "Take your time, darling."
Just the soft click of the latch and the faint scent of lavender that used to mean safety.
I sat back on my heels and felt the absence like a slap.
In the first weeks after the awakening she had hovered, anxious, over-protective. I had hated it then; because I knew It wasn't genuine.
I wiped my face on my sleeve and followed her down the corridor.
The tailor's solar had been moved to the east wing because the nursery was apparently "no longer suitable" for fittings. Mother sat in a high-backed chair while the man measured my measurements, pins flashing between his lips. She did not look up from the embroidery hoop in her lap.
"Stand straight," she said without lifting her eyes. "You slouch like a stable boy."
The tailor's assistant, a girl of maybe fifteen, gave me a quick, sympathetic grimace. I ignored it.
I stood straight.
The silence stretched. Only the snip of scissors and the rustle of silk.
Finally I tried, small voice: "Mother, after this may I—"
"No."
She did not even let me finish. "You have lessons with Master Aldric at the third bell. You are already behind the other children your age."
The words landed like stones.
Other children your age.
Not "behind where a Voss should be."
Not "behind where you could be if you applied yourself properly."
Just… other children. As if I were ordinary. As if the name stitched on my collar no longer mattered.
I swallowed. "Yes, Mother."
She gave a tiny nod and returned to her embroidery.
The fitting took less than a quarter hour. When it was done she rose, smoothed her skirts, and left without another word. The door closed behind her with the same soft finality as a ledger snapping shut.
I stood there in the new tunic (charcoal grey, severe, cut for a boy who would never fill it out the way a heir.
I was okay with that It's about time i started acting my age
I picked up the same cracked practice sword and began the forms again. Faster this time. Harder.
I was ten years old and my mother had stopped caring whether I lived or died of exhaustion.
Fifty repetitions.
One hundred.
On the hundred-and-thirty-second my foot slipped on black ice and the sword spun out of my grip, clattering across the yard like a dropped accusation.
I stood panting, hands on knees, and the thought finally crawled out of whatever dark corner it had been hiding in:
I am doing this because I am ten.
A man would have gone to sleep uncaring of the woman's opinion
Instead I, an actual child in blood and bone and impulse, had decided the correct response was to punish my body until someone noticed, I was doing subconscious.
I had turned the cracked sword over in my hands and laughed once, short and bitter.
Ten-year-old brain. Ten-year-old solutions.
Run faster. Hit harder. Bleed louder.
Maybe if I break loudly enough she will look up from her embroidery and remember I exist.
I hurled the sword at the weapon rack. It struck edge-on and splintered into three pieces.
Good.
At some point the night watch changed. New guards glanced at the small figure swinging steel under moonlight and decided it was not their problem.
Hours bled away.
"Young master."
Clara. Wrapped in three shawls, holding a lantern that shook in her hand.
"Your lady mother has retired for the night. She asked me to remind you that you have etiquette lessons at dawn and that if you appear with bruises again the etiquette master will report you to the duke."
The words were delivered without inflection.
Clara's gaze flicked over my torn knuckles, split lip, the blood frozen in delicate black lines on the stones. Something almost like pity crossed her face, but it was gone quickly.
"Please come inside ," she said, and turned away.
Thankfully I was in a Ducal household If she insulted me in any way she would be executed on the spot.
In the corridor outside the nursery I paused at Mother's door. Light still showed beneath it; she was awake, reading or sewing or simply waiting for the new baby to settle.
Then I heard her voice, low, through the wood:
"…at least this one will have a proper affinity. The gods know we need it after…"
The rest was muffled.
I turned and went to my room, The thought of crying never occurred to me, she wasn't worth my tears
Instead I sat on the edge of the bed, stared at my ruined hands, and made a promise to the silent room.
Fine.
If no one was going to care whether I lived or died, then I would care twice as hard.
I would grow up faster.
I would stop swinging swords like a tantrum and start swinging them like a plan.
Because I might have the impulses of a child, but I was still an adult who knew children who refuse to grow up get left behind.
And I was done being left behind.
I washed the blood off in the basin, bandaged what I could, and opened the primer on mana circulation again.
Page forty-seven this time.
Small steps.
Adult steps.
Even if they had to be taken on ten-year-old legs.