The next morning passed in a blur.
Not because it was uneventful. Quite the opposite.
Because every moment—every glance, every word, every sound—felt like it might crack open the lie I'd been trying so hard to keep stitched together.
Nareva didn't say anything when I saw her again.
Not during breakfast when she cleared the plates.
Not when she helped my mother with her shawl before morning prayers.
Not even when she caught my eye across the hallway and gave me the smallest, unreadable smile before vanishing into the servant quarters.
But she knew.
She knew.
The last thing I remembered from the night before was the sound of her voice whispering my name in that haunted, disbelieving tone—and the way the rising sun painted guilt across the broken glass around us.
She didn't scream. Didn't tell anyone.
But she saw.
I spent most of the day bracing for disaster. Bracing for the sound of my father's boots approaching. For Calden's voice demanding explanations. For the look on my mother's face as she realized her son wasn't the miracle she thought—just another problem to contain.
But nothing happened.
And that was worse somehow.
The silence stretched like a blade against my throat.
Then, in the afternoon, while I was pretending to read in my room and failing miserably, the door creaked open.
Nareva.
Of course it was her.
She stepped in without ceremony, balancing a folded bedsheet on one arm and a feather duster in the other.
"Just cleaning," she said.
Her voice was even. Normal. Almost bored. She didn't meet my eyes.
I stiffened in my chair, heart stammering in my ribs.
This was it. This was the moment it fell apart.
"Your curtains were crooked," she added, walking across the room. "You know how Lady Thalira is about symmetry."
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
The words wouldn't come.
I couldn't tell if I was more terrified she'd report me—or that she wouldn't.
She dusted the desk, the shelves, the corners of the room. Moved with the same quiet grace I'd watched for years.
But something was different.
She lingered.
When she finally turned to face me, her violet eyes caught mine like fishhooks.
"I need you to meet me tonight," she said softly. "After dark. In the old greenhouse."
My throat tightened.
"Why?"
That was all I could manage.
She tilted her head slightly, and for a second, I thought I saw something break through the mask she always wore. Not anger. Not confusion.
Worry.
"I think we both need answers," she said.
Then she left.
No threat. No accusation. Just the soft click of the door shutting behind her.
I didn't move for a long time.
Didn't breathe properly until my candle had burned halfway down.
The moon was out again by the time I slipped out of bed.
It always was, lately.
The hallway was quiet. Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that never really felt safe anymore.
I crept past the long windows of the eastern corridor, out through the servants' exit, and across the frost-glazed stones of the orchard path.
My fingers were numb by the time I reached the greenhouse.
The door was already ajar.
Light spilled from inside—faint and warm. A single lantern rested on the edge of the broken stone bench.
Nareva stood in the center of the space, arms crossed, back to me.
I stepped inside, slowly. My boots crunched against dirt and loose glass.
She didn't turn around.
Not at first.
"You used Veilstep," she said.
It wasn't a question.
I flinched.
"Yeah," I said hoarsely. "Last night."
Silence.
Then she turned.
Her eyes didn't burn with anger. They weren't cold with judgment.
But they were tired. Sad. And sharper than I'd ever seen them.
"You could have killed yourself."
"I didn't," I said quietly.
"Do you even know how that spell works?"
I hesitated.
"Enough to cast it."
Her lips pressed into a thin line.
"I watched your shadow vanish, Kaelen. I watched you reappear five paces from where you started, like the space between didn't matter. That's not something a Ghostborn should be able to do."
I looked away.
The words hit too close.
She took a breath, then walked toward the bench and sat down slowly.
"I've seen mages collapse from unstable phasing. I've seen people lose limbs when their anchor point shifted mid-cast. You were lucky."
I didn't feel lucky.
I felt like a freak. Like a glitch. Like something stitched together wrong and pretending to be real.
"I didn't mean to scare you," I said. "I was just—"
"Trying to understand what you are?"
I froze.
She didn't say it cruelly. Just honestly.
I nodded.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then she reached into the folds of her cloak and pulled out a small, leather-bound notebook.
She set it on the bench beside her. The pages were worn, the cover cracked in the corners.
"My father taught me magic," she said. "Before he died. He kept records. Notes. Lessons."
I blinked.
"What are you—"
"I'm not going to tell your parents."
The words dropped into the air like stones into still water.
I stared at her.
"You're not?"
She shook her head.
"I don't know what you are, Kaelen. But I know what you aren't."
She looked at me again. There was no doubt in her voice now.
"You're not dangerous. Not because you have magic. Only if you use it without understanding it."
I felt something tighten in my chest.
I didn't know if it was hope or shame or something between.
And then she reached into her coat. Pulled something out. A notebook. Slim. Leather-bound. Edges worn from age.
"This was mine," she said. "Years ago. Before I came here. I kept notes. Experiments. Observations. On mana. Aura. Magic theory. The stuff I couldn't learn in temples or noble houses."
She placed it gently on the bench between us.
"If you're going to do this," she said quietly, "you shouldn't do it blind."
I stared at it. Didn't reach for it. Didn't trust that it was real.
"Why?" I asked again. "Why are you helping me?"
Her eyes met mine. Silver, deep, unblinking.
"Because I've seen what happens to children who aren't allowed to understand what they are."
That hit me like a slap.
"You…?"
She didn't answer. Just stood.
And stepped back.
But she didn't leave. She lingered. Watched. Waited.
I stared at the notebook. Then picked it up. Hands trembling. And when I looked back up— I broke.
Not loud. Not like before. But fully.
A sob tore out of me like a wound splitting open. My knees hit the dirt. The greenhouse swam with moonlight and shadows and I couldn't hold it in anymore.
She didn't say anything.
She knelt beside me. And stayed there. Silent. Still. Present.
The greenhouse around us held its breath.
I don't know how long I stayed like that. But when I finally looked up again, my hands were still clutching the notebook like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to the world.
And Nareva? She was still there. Eyes calm. Voice soft.
"You're not alone, Kaelen."
And for the first time since I arrived in this world—
I believed her.
It had been three days since that night in the greenhouse.
Three days since Nareva left me that notebook—her handwriting like water spilled over the page. Three days since anyone said anything about it at all.
And in those three days, something strange started happening.
Nothing.
No one looked at me differently. No extra guards outside my door. No Father's cold voice calling me into his study. No whispers in the halls. The world hadn't ended. I wasn't dragged off to some church-run lab or locked in a dark room to be studied like a freak.
The silence was almost worse.
Because it meant waiting.
But then—something shifted.
It started with the morning sun cutting through my curtains, warmer than usual. I blinked into the light and realized it was early, but not training early. No thudding boots in the hall. No Calden barking for drills.
Just quiet.
And then the knock.
A soft one.
"Master Kaelen?" Nareva's voice, gentle as ever.
I sat up slowly. "...Yeah?"
She opened the door just a crack. "You don't have sword practice this morning."
I blinked. "Wait, really?"
"No. Today's... special."
She said it like it wasn't just a reminder—but a gift.
And only then did it hit me.
Right. Today I turned five.
I was used to birthdays being quiet. Back in my old life, I stopped telling people after my tenth. My mother forgot most of the time. And Tobashi? Well, he remembered. Always had something special planned—a shove into a locker, maybe. A trip down the stairs.
Happy birthday, freak.
But this world… it was different.
The servants dressed me in silver-gray robes. Not formal, not stiff—just soft, embroidered with faint patterns of stars and moons. My hair was combed. My hands were washed. Nareva even tucked a small sprig of something sweet-smelling into the folds of my collar.
She didn't say anything about the greenhouse. About the spellbook. About me.
Just smiled, soft and unreadable.
"Come," she said. "Your mother is waiting."
The dining room wasn't decked out like a feast hall. There weren't guests or banners or music. But there was warmth.
Thalira stood at the table with a smile that felt real. Dravon sat at the head, as composed as ever—but there was something faintly proud in the way he nodded at me.
"Five years," Thalira said softly as I stepped in. "How fast they've gone."
I didn't know what to say to that. So I just nodded and murmured, "Thank you."
There was cake. Actual cake. Honey-sweet and fluffy and covered in sugared flower petals. The kind of thing that felt too soft to be real. They even let me eat two pieces.
I didn't ask for anything.
I didn't want to jinx it.
But the gift came anyway.
Not gold. Not toys.
A book.
Wrapped in a dark cloth with silver trim.
From my father.
When I unwrapped it, I nearly dropped it.
It wasn't magical. It wasn't even about swordsmanship.
It was poetry.
Old, weathered, handwritten poetry—some noble's collection about stars and dreams and battles long forgotten.
"You said once you liked the sky," Dravon said simply.
I stared at him.
Nodded slowly.
"Thank you," I said, and meant it.
Later, after they'd gone, I sat on the bench outside the orchard. The sun was warm on my face. Bees drifted lazily through the flowers. The wind didn't whisper secrets today—it just rustled the trees like a lullaby.
I opened the book. Read the first line.
"We are stardust trapped in flesh, remembering the light we were born from."
I don't know why, but my throat tightened.
Maybe it was the sweetness.
Maybe it was the quiet.
Or maybe it was that for the first time since waking up in this world, I didn't feel like I was being watched. Judged. Measured.
I just felt… here.
Alive.
Still broken. Still hiding.
But alive.