"Wait."
Aerwyna's voice sliced cleanly through the air.
Reitz froze mid-syllable, the next line of the chant dying on his tongue. His hand, which had just started to lift as if to mimic the motion of the Flame Sabre, halted halfway.
Ezra lay there in the crib, right arm raised, Field coiled thick and hot from shoulder to wrist, waiting for direction.
Aerwyna stepped closer, eyes sharp. "You are not going to make him chant without a proper visualization first."
Reitz turned slowly, like a child caught stealing sweets. "I was getting to that."
"After you lit his arm like a torch," she shot back. "Do you remember what Maesters drilled into our heads? 'No visualization, no safe Activation.' Or were you too busy setting your own hair on fire to listen?"
"I only did that twice," Reitz muttered.
"Four times," Aerwyna said.
Ezra watched them bicker, the heat in his arm throbbing in time with his pulse. Even without seeing his own glow, he could feel it—his Field packed tight under the skin, dense and restless, like a compressed spring.
If they're this nervous, he thought, I really don't want to misfire this.
Reitz sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face, then leaned over the crib again, expression sobering.
"Right. Properly, then." He pointed at Ezra's wrist. "Hold that. Don't let it disperse."
Ezra obeyed, focusing on keeping the Field in place. The temptation to just… relax and let it ooze back into the rest of his body was strong, but he gritted his metaphorical teeth and kept it there—a knot of warmth crammed into a space too small.
"What are you even trying to do, Reitz?" Aerwyna demanded, folding her arms. "You explained Condensation, then jumped straight to chanting. Did you tell him how the aura turns into an element at all?"
"I was getting there!" Reitz protested. "You just interrupted right before the best part."
"You skipped the part where he doesn't explode," she said sweetly.
Reitz opened his mouth, then shut it again. He let out a breath, then gave Ezra a wry look.
"Lesson one," he said. "Your mother is terrifying."
Ezra's lips twitched despite himself.
"Lesson two," Reitz continued more seriously, "visualization."
He straightened, slipping into a cadence that reminded Ezra of dry professors back on Earth—except Reitz couldn't resist gesturing with his hands, making everything bigger and more vivid.
"There are two things you always visualize when you cast," he said, raising two fingers. "First: the Outcome—what you want to actually appear or happen. Second: the Path—the chant."
Aerwyna nodded once. "Good. Start there."
Reitz held his hand out as if gripping an invisible hilt.
"For the Flame Sabre," he said, "the Outcome is simple. You already saw it."
Ezra replayed the earlier demonstration: Reitz's fist turned sideways, thumb up; the way fire had erupted from the top of his hand, not a wild plume but a straight line. A sword made of flame, snapping out like those toy batons that extended with a flick.
"Picture this," Reitz said. "From your hand. A blade of fire, starting here—"
He tapped the top of Ezra's fist lightly.
"—and extending out. As long as your forearm for now. Not vague fire. A sword. Edge, spine, weight. You're not calling a campfire; you're drawing a weapon."
Ezra closed his eyes briefly and tried.
He imagined his own small hand in front of him, fingers curled just enough to suggest a grip. From the top, a bar of white-hot flame shot out—a straight, narrow blade. He gave it length, about from his shoulder to his other hand. He imagined the air warping with the heat, the faint hiss he'd heard before. He pictured it moving—not just hanging there, but cutting.
"Now add a wall," Reitz said. "Stone. Thick. Old. See it."
Ezra obliged.
A grey stone wall rose in front of him in his mind's eye, roughly hewn blocks fitted together, mortar dark in the cracks. His baby hand raised, fiery blade extending. He imagined himself slashing horizontally, from right to left.
He made the cut slow, so he could see it clearly: the blade biting through stone like hot iron through wax. Dust. A line cleaving all the way through. The top half of the wall sliding down with a grinding sound, breaking apart as it fell.
"Good," Reitz murmured, studying his face. "Hold that. Don't let it blur."
Ezra held.
The image pressed against the inside of his skull, bright and sharp. Sword. Wall. Cut. Sword. Wall. Cut.
"Now," Reitz said, "the Path."
He tapped his temple lightly.
"The chant is just words to people who don't know better," he said. "But for us, it's a pattern. A way to guide the Field into that shape."
He winked. "Most Maesters will tell you to visualize each line literally. Flames burning, beasts falling, all that nonsense. It works, but it's slow. Our ancestors found shortcuts."
Aerwyna sniffed. "You do remember something useful, then."
Reitz shot her a grin. "Of course. I'm not just a pretty face and good seed."
She raised the parchment threateningly. He cleared his throat.
"The Flame Sabre's chant has a full visualization," he said, turning back to Ezra. "But Blackfyres use the optimized version. For us, the Outcome image you already have is enough. Sword. Wall. Cut. That includes all the meaning baked into the words."
He lifted both hands, palms out, framing Ezra's raised arm like a little stage.
"So the pattern is this," he said. "Outcome—Chant—Outcome. Picture the sword cutting. Speak the words. Picture the sword cutting again, but harder. Then you let go."
Ezra locked it in.
Outcome. Chant. Outcome.
Sword. Words. Sword.
"Now," Reitz said quietly, "we try it for real."
Aerwyna moved closer to the crib, her hand resting lightly on the railing. Her jaw was tight, but she didn't interrupt again.
"Ezra," Reitz said, "hold your Field to your arm. Don't spread it. Don't push yet. Just keep it dense."
Ezra focused inward.
The Field, which had started to leak in his distraction, he pulled back together. Shoulder, elbow, forearm, wrist—it pooled, like all his warmth drawn into one limb. The sensation was uncomfortable, a kind of internal pressure, like his bones were stuffed with hot clay.
His fingers trembled.
"Good," Reitz murmured. "Now. Outcome."
Ezra closed his eyes and brought the sword and wall image back into the foreground.
He made it louder, brighter. The wall higher. The sword's light harsher.
He could almost feel the non-existent weight in his hand, the phantom resistance as the blade met stone.
Sword. Wall. Cut.
"Hold it," Reitz said. "Now chant with me."
He straightened, shoulders squaring. His voice, when he began, dropped into that strange measured rhythm the spells seemed to demand.
"\[A flame is sharp and ever burns]"
Ezra took a breath.
His vocal cords were useless jelly without help, his tongue too big in his tiny mouth, his jaw prone to wobbling. But he had already learned one trick over the past months: if he pushed his Field just right, he could temporarily stabilize everything—force the muscles to obey.
He let a thin stream of Field seep up from his chest into his throat, wrapping around the larynx, threading through the muscles of his jaw. It was like assembling a brace made of will and sensation.
Then he spoke.
"[A flame is sharp and ever burns.]"
The words came out clear.
High, yes—his voice still that of an infant—but articulated, each consonant crisp, vowels clean. No babyish mush, no swallowed syllables. The sound made the hair rise on the back of Aerwyna's neck.
She'd heard him speak full sentences before, heard "Mama, I don't want to eat right now" and "I want bottle," but hearing him deliver a formal incantation with chapel-level clarity in that tiny body triggered something deep and primal.
Unnatural, a part of her whispered. Wrong.
Her love crushed the whisper immediately, but the unease remained, coiled under her ribs.
Reitz's brows shot up.
"Heh," he breathed. "That's my boy."
Ezra didn't have the bandwidth to process their reactions. As soon as he finished the line, he felt the Field in his wrist respond.
The knot of warmth twisted inward, compressing further. Heat flared, running up his veins like liquid fire. It didn't burn his skin, but it felt like his bones were humming.
"All is scorched by its frowning blade]"
Reitz's tone was even, practiced.
"All is scorched by its frowning blade,]" Ezra echoed, matching the rhythm as closely as he could.
The pressure in his arm grew worse. The Field wasn't just sitting there now; it was pulsing in time with the chant, each phrase tightening the coil. His skin prickled, and a faint buzzing sensation crawled along his fingertips.
He clung desperately to the mental image.
Sword. Wall. Cut.
Don't lose it. Don't let it smear.
"[No man, no bird, or beast can stand]"
"[No man, no bird, or beast can stand.]"
His breathing hitched. Sweat gathered at his hairline, a tiny drop tracing a path down toward his ear.
The Field felt… unstable now. Like a sphere of water you'd spun in your hands one time too many, a fraction away from splattering. It wanted to move—to do something. His arm felt heavy, packed solid, and his fingers twitched uncontrollably.
"[The might, the pow'r of it bestow]"
"[The might, the pow'r of it bestow.]"
Ezra swallowed. His throat was dry. The brace of Field around his vocal cords wobbled, but he forced it steady.
The pressure in his wrist scraped the edge of pain. Every instinct screamed at him to release it now, before it tore its way out on its own.
Sword. Wall. Cut.
"[Now I shall wield its strength]"
"[Now I shall wield its strength.]"
Reitz's eyes were shining.
He could see it—both of them could. Ezra's right arm was practically incandescent to their senses. Even without consciously expanding their own Fields, they could feel the density of his magic, the way the air around his fist seemed to warp, light blurring as if seen through hot air above a forge.
This is insane, Aerwyna thought, heart pounding. No infant should be able to hold this much gathered Field.
"[And cut and hack and slash at length]"
Reitz's voice rang with pride as he finished the chant.
Ezra spoke the last line cleanly.
"[And cut and hack and slash at length.]"
The words left his mouth like a trigger.
He didn't need Reitz to tell him; he felt it. The sequence was complete. Condensation: done. Invocation: done. Accumulation: hitting its peak. The sword and wall in his mind vibrated with potential, the image so vivid it hurt.
Now, he thought.
He took everything in his arm—the swirling, compressed, nearly unbearable Field—and shoved.
It wasn't a physical push. It was intention, raw and directed. He forced the energy toward the Image, toward the flaming blade jutting from his fist, toward the motion of that decisive horizontal cut.
Match, he commanded silently. Be that.
For a heartbeat, reality seemed to tighten.
The Field surged. The knot in his wrist spasmed, and for a split instant, Ezra felt something crackle just above his skin—a ghost of heat, a whisper of otherness, as if the world was about to split along a line only he could see.
The world held its breath.
Then—
Nothing.
There was no explosion. No recoil. No gout of misfired fire blowing back into his face.
The crushing pressure in his arm simply… let go.
It didn't burst outward. It didn't slam into the wall, or into his parents, or back into his heart. It just… dissolved. The Field uncoiled in a smooth, almost anticlimactic rush, spreading back into the rest of his body like warm water poured into a wider bowl.
The heat faded. The buzzing stopped.
His arm, which had moments before felt like a loaded cannon, was suddenly just heavy and tired—an infant's limb, small and soft and ordinary.
The air in the nursery stilled.
Ezra opened his eyes.
No sword.
No seared stone. No scorch mark on the crib. Not even a faint wisp of smoke.
Just his own tiny hand, raised stiffly above his head, fingers balled into a trembling fist.
…It failed?
The thought sank like a stone, sending ripples of confusion and a sharp, unexpected sting of humiliation through his exhausted mind.
He stared at his hand as if it belonged to someone else. All that build-up, the perfect chant, the careful visualization, the pressure that had come so close to tearing him apart from the inside—
And at the final moment, the magic had simply refused to manifest.
Only the tiny chubby fist of an infant could be seen raised in the air, shaking slightly with effort.