The palace was silent, yet beneath the quiet, every corridor trembled with chaos.
The King, Valerian, stood frozen in the birthing chamber, pale and rigid. One hand gripped the edge of the bed; the other hung uselessly at his side. His seventh wife had gone from life to death within the hour, her body still warm, her face peaceful in its finality.
The midwives whispered, their voices trembling. Doctors moved quickly, but their urgency did not reach the King. He stared at the lifeless figure, each heartbeat a hammer in his chest.
"She… she is gone," one nurse murmured.
The King's jaw tightened. Rage, grief, and a hollow emptiness pressed down on him. His lips did not move, but the air around him seemed to shiver. This was not a man who had lost a wife lightly. He had lost a part of the kingdom itself, a thread in the delicate tapestry of power and legacy.
And then—a cry.
The faintest, almost imperceptible wail, a sound barely rising above the hush of the room. A tiny boy had survived. Frail, pale, trembling in the cradle of life and death. The King's eyes, rimmed with bloodshot grief, darted toward the sound.
He moved as if in a dream, kneeling beside the cradle. His gaze softened, but only for a moment, because the air was heavy with more than sorrow. The boy's eyes remained closed. Lids pressed tight as if shielding the world from what it might reveal.
A nurse leaned close. "His eyes… they tried to open, Your Majesty. But the strain—it almost killed him."
The King's lips pressed into a thin line. He looked at the fragile body, every small movement measured, every breath counted. He could not name the fear curling around his chest—a fear for this last son, for the boy who had almost left the world before truly arriving.
Outside, the palace murmured. Courtiers whispered of the seventh wife's death. Some spoke of bad omens; others worried for the boy who had survived against impossible odds. None yet knew the danger that rested in those closed eyes.
The boy tried to open his eyes. Just a flicker.
A strange heat rushed through his head, a piercing pressure that made the tiny body convulse. The world around him warped, slowed, and for a terrifying instant, it felt as if the air itself had frozen. He gasped, and the sensation vanished, leaving only the raw, trembling pulse of life.
Impossible… his mind whispered, though he did not yet know why.
Something is wrong. I cannot move freely… I must not.
Inside, the child's mind raced. Every beat, every breath, every movement of those around him was analyzed. Danger. Risk. Opportunity. He could not yet see the mechanics of the strange power that had surged through him, but he understood one truth clearly , opening his eyes was dangerous. Something from the experiments of his previous life — the scientists, their tools, the impossible enhancements — had left a residue, a hidden trap.
He pressed his eyes shut instinctively, small hands curling against the blankets. Survival, he realized, required patience. Observation. Control.
For now, he slept. Frail, quiet, but already aware. Already calculating. Already alive in a way the world could not yet understand.
The last son of Valerian had entered the world amidst death and grief, and though tiny and fragile, he had survived once—and he would survive again.