Six months passed in the Cyan household.
And with those six months, the nameless child of confusion finally became Ahaan Cyan.
The name settled naturally into the house, as if it had always been waiting for him. Servants called it with affection, his mother spoke it with warmth, and his elder brother used it far too often whenever he wanted to show off that he had a little brother now.
By now, Ahaan could move around the mansion with surprising ease. He crawled fast enough to make the maids yelp and chase after him as if he were a tiny disaster wrapped in noble blood. He wanted to stay alone sometimes, but no one ever truly left him by himself for long. So, the moment anyone looked away for even a heartbeat—
he vanished.
The household had a new rule now.
No one was allowed to blink.
In these six months, Ahaan had noticed changes in himself that did not fit the simple word rebirth. When he had died, he had been only eight years old. But after reincarnation, his thoughts no longer felt small. Sometimes, it even felt as if he had become too mature for his own body. He understood the situation around him too well. His reactions were too controlled. His silences lasted too long.
And at night, when the house finally quieted and the lanterns dimmed, he could feel it even more clearly—as if his mind had lived far longer than his bones.
He did not know what to call it.
Memory? Curse? Punishment?
Or simply the leftover weight of a life that refused to leave him alone?
And the strangest part of all… now he noticed many things he would never have noticed in his past life.
Before he could finish the thought, a maid hurried into the room.
"Young Master, are you all right?" she asked, bending down quickly, her voice soft with concern.
Ahaan looked up.
And as she leaned closer, his eyes—naturally, automatically, and with the full betrayal of male instinct—dropped for exactly one second to the thing every man noticed first.
He froze.
His thoughts froze.
…Ah.
The maid tilted her head. "Young Master?"
Ahaan snapped his gaze back up so quickly it nearly made his neck apologize. He arranged his face into the purest expression he could manage—wide eyes, innocent calm, the holy mask of a baby who absolutely, definitely, had no suspicious thoughts at all.
Inside, however, his soul was already staring into the distance in disappointment.
The maid smiled, mistaking his silence for sweetness, and scooped him up with practiced ease. He rested against her shoulder, looking very peaceful. Meanwhile, inside his head, Ahaan made a solemn decision.
From now on, I do not put myself into this kind of situation.
The maid patted his back gently. "There, there. Don't worry."
Ahaan stared at the ceiling with perfect calm while irritate and suffering by extremely unfortunate comfort.
I just want to grow up as fast as possible.
A short while later, after escaping the dangerous battlefield of his own thoughts, Ahaan made his way toward his elder brother's room.
The moment he entered, he stopped.
Books.
Books everywhere.
On the bed. On the table. On the floor. Stacked in uneven piles, half-open, leaning against one another like a city built out of paper and bad discipline.
Ahaan narrowed his eyes at the mess.
In the past six months, he had learned many things about the Cyan family and the world around him. The most important one was simple: his family had recently become nobles. Not because of his father. Not his mother either.
Because of his elder brother, Rowan Cyan.
Rowan had recently awakened his power, raising the family's status high enough to gain access to noble privileges. And among those privileges was entrance to one of the most treasured places in the kingdom—
The Grand Royal Library.
A place full of answers.
A place he could not go.
Not as a six-month-old baby. He could hardly crawl into the room without someone calling it adorable. There was no world in which he could march into the kingdom's greatest library and demand serious knowledge about the structure of this world.
So, for now, if he wanted answers, he had to depend on whatever books Rowan brought home.
Ahaan slowly moved toward the nearest pile and examined the titles.
His expression flattened.
Fantasy Romance.
Heroic Battle Fiction.
A Tragedy Involving a Moon Princess.
Ahaan stared at them in silence, disappointment heavy in his eyes.
All these books are just fantasy nonsense written by J. Rama… and here I am trying to learn about this world, not drown in one man's delusions.
He picked one up anyway, as if giving reality one final chance to redeem itself. It did not.
His disappointment deepened.
All of these books were exactly the kind people read when they wanted to feel dramatic instead of informed. He wanted to understand this world—its kingdoms, its powers, its history, its laws. Instead, Rowan had apparently brought back the literary suffering of people who believed moon princesses solved problems.
Ahaan looked down at the book in his hands with deep personal betrayal.
I need knowledge about this world.
Not this.
Not... whatever this is.
He stared at the book for a moment, then kicked it with his tiny foot, as though blaming it for everything.
These were truly useless.
Sometime later, Rowan entered the room while humming to himself.
Then he looked down—and stopped.
Ahaan was sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by fallen books, holding one open in both hands with a level of focus usually seen only in scholars, priests, and tax collectors.
Rowan blinked.
Then blinked again.
His six-month-old brother was reading.
Not chewing the book. Not throwing it. Not sleeping on it.
Reading it.
Rowan slowly looked around the room as if to check whether anyone else was present to confirm this madness. Finding no witness, he crouched down in front of Ahaan and cautiously waved a hand.
"Ahaan?"
Ahaan did not look up. His eyes remained on the page.
Rowan's mouth slowly opened. "No way…"
He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice like he was afraid speaking too loudly might break whatever miracle was happening in front of him.
"Are you… actually reading?"
Ahaan calmly turned a page.
Rowan sat back on the floor in stunned silence.
"Ahaan," he muttered at last, "you are such a mysterious brother."
Only then did Ahaan spare him a brief glance, wearing the composed expression of someone far too dignified to respond to something so painfully obvious.
The next morning, Rowan went straight to their mother.
She was seated near the open window while a maid arranged fresh flowers nearby. Sunlight spilled softly through the room, warming the floor, the curtains, and the peaceful scene gathered inside it. In Saanvi's arms rested Ahaan, who was currently pretending—with considerable commitment—to be a completely normal baby.
"Mother," Rowan began, trying to sound casual and failing immediately, "can I take Ahaan with me today?"
Saanvi looked up. "Take him where?"
"To the Grand Royal Library."
The answer came so quickly it was almost admirable.
"No."
Rowan frowned. "Why not?"
"Because he is just six months old."
"That," Rowan said with conviction, "is a temporary condition."
Saanvi gave him a look.
Rowan pointed at Ahaan at once, as if presenting evidence before a royal court. "He likes books."
"He likes putting everything in his mouth too."
"He reads them!"
The maid arranging the flowers nearly dropped one.
Saanvi stared at Rowan for a long moment. Then her gaze shifted to Ahaan, who had wisely chosen that exact moment to wear the most harmless face imaginable. Peaceful. Innocent. Gentle. The face of a child who had certainly never done anything suspicious in his short and honourable life.
Rowan stepped closer. "Mother, I'm serious. He was sitting with a book yesterday like some little scholar. He barely even looked at me."
Ahaan lowered his eyes modestly, as if embarrassed by such praise, though inwardly he was listening with great interest.
This, he decided, was a very useful brother.
Saanvi looked down at him again.
For that one moment, Ahaan treated it like an opportunity.
He widened his eyes just slightly, then looked toward the window, then toward Rowan, and then back at her. It was, in his opinion, an extremely refined performance. Baby-level manipulation.
The maid at the side quickly covered her mouth, already trying not to smile.
Saanvi sighed, though the corners of her lips softened. "You are both impossible."
Rowan straightened at once. "So that means, yes?"
"It means," she said, adjusting Ahaan in her arms, "that you will keep him with you at all times."
"Yes!"
"You will not place books on him, beside him, under him, or accidentally lose him between shelves."
Rowan looked genuinely offended. "…What are you talking about, Mother? I will take care of Ahaan more carefully than myself."
That, unfortunately, did not sound as reassuring as he seemed to think.
Saanvi turned her head toward the maid. "Tara, please go with them."
The maid bowed. "Of course, Madam."
Then Saanvi looked back at Ahaan and gently touched his cheek. "And you, little one… if you cause trouble too, I shall personally forbid your library adventures forever."
Ahaan gave her his most innocent stare.
Inside, however, his mind had already become very happy. At last, the chance had come. This was finally his opportunity to learn about the world he had been reborn into.
Not long after, Rowan carried Ahaan as they left the house, with Tara following close behind. They climbed into a carriage, and soon it began to roll forward, carrying them toward a place where history was preserved, where bloodlines were recorded, where ancient techniques and laws had been written down, and where truths slept patiently between pages.
For Rowan, it was a privilege.
For the maid, it was an honour.
For Ahaan—
it was the first real doorway to understanding the world he had been reborn into.
And somewhere inside those endless shelves, he felt it.
An answer was waiting—
something that made the chains around Ahaan's inner soul tremble.
To be continue…