Five hundred and thirteen years ago.
Eiden was only five months old.
He was tiny—barely able to stand without his knees wobbling—but he was already sharper than most adults. His eyes were bright and hyper-alert, absorbing the world with an unnatural, predatory focus. Even then, he carried a quiet intensity that felt far too heavy for such a small frame.
He stood in the center of a vast training hall, draped in a miniature white robe that hung loosely over his shoulders. The room was a cavern of polished black stone, illuminated by floating orbs of white mana that cast long, dancing shadows. Along the walls, racks of wooden training tools stood opposite a gallery of real steel, the blades gleaming coldly under the artificial light.
Eiden gripped a tiny wooden sword with both hands.
He swung it at a padded dummy. Again. And again. And again.
Each strike was clumsy and uneven, but fueled by a terrifying determination. His small arms trembled under the weight of the wood, yet he refused to yield. His breathing remained soft and rhythmic, a ghost of a sound in the immense room.
The heavy doors groaned open. Sienna entered.
Her gait was elegant and predatory, each footfall a sharp command that echoed off the obsidian walls. Her white cloak trailed behind her like a lingering frost. Her grey eyes locked onto Eiden, pinning him in place.
"So," she said, her voice a cool, unreadable blade. "You should be ready."
She bypassed the training tools and walked straight to the rack of live steel. She selected a silver longsword. The metal hummed with a low, hungry mana as she lifted it, the edge catching the light like a shard of the moon.
Eiden turned, his tiny knuckles whitening around the grip of his wooden toy. "But… Mother, why are you using a real one—"
"Quiet," she snapped. She didn't raise her voice, but the word sliced through his question like a razor. "I did not give you leave to speak."
She stepped forward, stopping a mere four feet from him. "Ready yourself. If you want true training from me, you must learn to handle the weight of a real threat first."
Before Eiden could draw breath, she moved.
A flash of silver. A blur of white. A sudden, violent rush of cold air.
Sienna bolted toward him, the longsword singing as it whistled through the air, stopping just inches from his throat. Eiden stumbled, his small feet tangling beneath him. He crashed onto his back, the wind knocked from his lungs as his wooden sword clattered uselessly away.
Sienna loomed over him, the tip of the blade hovering over his chest—not touching, but close enough to radiate the chill of the steel.
"What do you do," she asked calmly, "when an enemy has a blade at your neck?" She lowered the tip slightly, testing his terror, her expression as flat as a frozen lake.
The doors thundered open again. Yami sprinted into the room, his aura flaring in a desperate, golden alarm.
"Sienna—!" He lunged forward, grabbing her wrist and wrenching the blade away from their son. "What are you doing?!" His voice shook—not with the heat of anger, but with the cold tremor of fear.
Sienna pulled her arm back with a sharp jerk, lowering the sword to her side. "He is weak," she said simply. "If he wants my tutelage, he needs to survive me first."
"That isn't how training is done!" Yami snapped, stepping protectively over Eiden's small, trembling form.
Sienna scoffed, turning her back on them both. She walked to the rack and slid the sword into its cradle with a definitive, metallic click. "Eiden," she said, not bothering to look back. "You're weak. You'd probably be better off dead."
She walked out, her boots echoing like a countdown down the hall.
Yami dropped to his knees, pulling Eiden into his arms. "Eiden, are you hurt? Are you okay?" His voice was a frantic whisper, his eyes searching for blood.
Eiden gave a tiny, jerky nod, but he was clearly shattered. His small hands wouldn't stop shaking. His breathing was shallow and panicked. His eyes were wide, staring at nothing.
Yami helped him to his feet. "Go to your room, little one. Take some time to… to recover."
Eiden stood, left the wooden sword on the floor, and ran. His tiny footsteps were quick and uneven, a frantic rhythm that didn't stop until he reached his door. It creaked open, then slammed shut with a heavy, lonely sound.
Later that night.
Eiden sat in his quarters. The room was immense—far too large for a child—filled with black furniture and shelves of ancient texts he was years away from understanding. The mana-lights were dimmed to a low simmer, casting long, distorted shadows across the ceiling.
He lay curled under his heavy blankets, the fabric pulled tight over his head. He buried his face in the pillow, trying to drown out the voices drifting through the castle—the voices that were never meant for his ears.
"He's weak. If we are to train him, he must at least possess the instinct to dodge. We could all do that at his age."
"He didn't grow up as we did, Sienna! We were born into a war that tore the world apart! We were forced into the fire, but we were tempered properly! You cannot hold a live blade to your own son's throat!"
"Don't tell me you're defending him. You're both pathetic. It would be better if Eiden died now so we could simply start again."
The voices faded. The hall fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.
Eiden stayed beneath the blanket, motionless, his tiny fingers white as they gripped the fabric. He didn't cry. He didn't make a sound. He simply lay there in the dark, listening to the silence, letting it swallow him whole.