A few days after Samuel was reborn as Lucas, the peace of the Millbrook village was suddenly shattered by the sound of hooves approaching from the distance. The villagers turned their heads as a royal messenger galloped into the town square, his cloak billowing behind him and his face grave with urgency. He dismounted swiftly, unrolled a sealed scroll, and declared the news that would freeze the hearts of everyone present: the hero Samuel had died, poisoned by a sorcerer from the rival kingdom of Mysthaven.
Gasps erupted from the crowd. Hundreds of people fell into dead silence. Quickly, someone began to cry. Samuel was a name known to all, a hero who had once saved the realm from ruin.
As grief swept through the village, Lucas arrived, his face calm and unreadable. Standing at the edge of the crowd, he said nothing, simply listening in silence as the news was delivered in full. No one paid him much attention; all eyes were on the messenger and all hearts were with the fallen hero. When the announcement ended, and the messenger bowed his head in respect, Lucas quietly turned and walked away.
"hey, can you stop napping? you're always sleeping." the guy called tommy asked.
"Oh I am not taking a nap, boy."
"The hell are you doing?!"
"I am calculating..." Lucas said.
"what?"
"I'm thinking about the next 10 years."
Tommy didn't understand anything, so he ignored him.
In truth, Lucas was attempting to sense the Arcanum — a mysterious, fundamental energy that governs this world. Known in the kingdom of Mysthaven as Aether, this power transcends the five classical elements of nature: earth, water, fire, wind, and ether. It is not simply another form of magic, but the most pure and primordial force, the raw essence from which all elemental energies are born. Only those with the rare potential to become Archmages — true Magi — can perceive even the faintest trace of Arcanum. Though Lucas had once been the Grand Sorcerer Samuel in his previous life, famed across the Aerthermoor continent for his mastery of the arcane, he now inhabited a new and unfamiliar body. The instincts of power remained within him, but this vessel was young, untrained, and far less attuned to the currents of raw energy that flowed through the world. Reaching for Arcanum in this state was like trying to recall a distant dream. The memory was there, but the sensation had become elusive.
"Lucas, come help me with these sacks," Edmund bellowed from the warehouse, a structure behind their house that seemed to be perpetually overflowing with goods. Edmund Hartwell, his new father, was a man with Broad shoulders, thick arms corded with muscle, and hands that looked like they could crack walnuts without even a flinch. while Lucas inherited his mother's beauty, sharp eyes, and delicate face.
"I am coming," Lucas replied, the words feeling more natural on his tongue with each passing day. He jogged over, the motion feeling less forced than it had a few months ago. Edmund was already wrestling with bags of grain that easily weighed more than Lucas's entire body. The old Samuel would've scoffed, ordered a dozen servants to handle such menial shit. The new Lucas, however, just rolled up his sleeves, gritted his teeth, and got to work, the rough burlap scratching against his forearms.
"Careful with that one," Edmund grunted, his face reddening slightly as he hoisted a particularly heavy sack onto his shoulder. "That's the good wheat from the Bramley farm. Worth twice what the regular stuff goes for, easy."
Lucas nodded, feigning interest in wheat grades, a subject that would have once made him inwardly gag with boredom. But as he helped Edmund organize the towering stacks of inventory, something genuinely weird started to happen. He found himself actually paying attention. He watched, fascinated, as Edmund ran a hand over a pile of grain, instantly identifying its type and quality by touch alone. He saw how Edmund's mind worked, calculating profits and losses in his head faster than most people could count to ten, his brow furrowed in concentration. And then there was the way he treated each customer, no matter how small their purchase – with a careful, almost reverent respect, as if each interaction was the most important one of his day.
"Why do you give Henderson such a good deal on her flour?" Lucas asked. They were watching the elderly woman hobble away, her weekly purchase clutched tightly in her frail hands. "She can afford to pay full price, can't she?"
Edmund looked at him like he'd suddenly grown a second head, or perhaps started speaking in tongues. "Because her husband died last winter, son, and she's living on what little he left behind. A few coppers here and there won't hurt us, not truly. But it might mean the difference between her eating a hot meal or going hungry."
Lucas heard then nodded.
"Boy, there's more to life than profit margins," Edmund said, his voice firm but not unkind, as he clapped a heavy, calloused hand on Lucas's shoulder. The weight of it was grounding. "We do well enough. Better to sleep soundly knowing we've helped our neighbors than to count extra coins while they suffer."
"Besides," Edmund continued, a wide, infectious grin spreading across his face, "Mrs. Henderson makes the best apple pies in three counties. Sometimes she pays in pie instead of coin, and that's worth more than silver to me." He winked, and Lucas found himself, to his own surprise, smiling back.
As if summoned by the mere mention of food, Ava came tearing around the corner of the warehouse, her dark hair flying behind her like a wild, untamed banner. At ten years old, she was all sharp elbows and gangly knees, a whirlwind of endless energy and boundless curiosity.
"Father! Mother says supper's ready, and she'll tan your hide if you let it get cold again!" she shrieked, her voice a high-pitched bell.
Edmund roared with laughter, a deep, rumbling sound that seemed to originate somewhere in his boots and shake the very ground beneath them. "Well, we can't have that, can we, son? Come on, let's go see what your mother's made for us."
The Hartwell family dinners were different. In the palace, meals had been formal, multi-course affairs, each dish a work of art, served with elaborate etiquette and a suffocating silence punctuated by conversation that felt more like verbal warfare conducted with smiles and carefully chosen words. Here, everyone just piled around a simple, sturdy wooden table, carved and worn smooth by generations of use, and talked over each other while passing dishes back and forth with enthusiastic abandon. It was chaotic, noisy, and surprisingly, comforting.
"Mrs. Bramley stopped by today," Margaret, his new mother, said, her hands moving deftly as she ladled thick, fragrant stew into wooden bowls. "Her youngest has the croup something fierce. I sent her home with some of my honey and herb mixture."
"Good woman," Edmund nodded approvingly, his mouth full of bread. "The Bramleys have always been fair dealers. Honest folk."
"Tommy Blacksmith asked if you could teach him to read properly," Ava piped up, her voice slightly muffled through a mouthful of bread and stew. "He can manage his letters, but he wants to read real books. Like the ones you have."
Lucas looked up from his stew, a spoonful halfway to his mouth. "Why doesn't he go to the village teacher?"
"Master Aldrich only teaches children, dear," Margaret explained, her voice soft and patient. "And Tommy's family couldn't afford proper schooling when he was young. Now he's trying to better himself, but it's hard when you're working at the forge all day. His hands are too big for the small letters, he says."
"Maybe I could help," Lucas said. "I mean, if he really wants to learn. I could probably spare an hour or so a few times a week."
The entire family suddenly fell silent, and all eyes at the table turned to stare at him. Lucas felt his cheeks burn, a flush creeping up his neck. Shit. That wasn't very Lucas-like behavior. The real Lucas, the one he was still pretending to be, had been studious, yes, but not particularly charitable with his knowledge or his time, especially not with commoners. He'd seen learning as a tool for personal advancement, not a gift to be freely given.
"That's very kind of you, dear," Margaret said softly, a warm smile spreading across her face. "I'm sure Tommy would appreciate it more than you know. He's a good boy."
Edmund beamed with unadulterated pride, his chest puffing out slightly. "My boy's got a good heart. Always has. Just took him a little while to show it, eh?"
After dinner, the sounds of comfortable domesticity filled the small house. Lucas found himself sitting by the roaring fire, the warmth a comforting presence against the evening chill. Ava was beside him, engrossed in some embroidery – badly, from what he could tell, her stitches crooked and uneven. He, meanwhile, was pretending to read a thick, somewhat dry book about grain cultivation, a subject he now found himself surprisingly knowledgeable about, courtesy of Edmund's impromptu lessons.
"Lucas?" Ava said suddenly, her voice barely a whisper, not looking up from her wonky stitches.
"Yeah?"
"Are you happy?"
The question, so direct and unexpected, caught him completely off guard. He fumbled the book slightly. "What do you mean, happy?"
"I mean, before the fever, you always talked about leaving Millbrook someday. Seeing the world, doing important things. Being… a hero, I guess," she elaborated, still focused on her needlework. "But lately, you seem… I don't know. Content, I guess. Like you belong here."
Lucas slowly set down his book, the rough cover cool against his fingertips. He really looked at his sister then, truly looked at her. When had she gotten so perceptive? So insightful? She was just a kid, but her words sliced through his carefully constructed defenses. "I am content, I think," he admitted, the words feeling foreign yet true. "This place, it's good. Better than good, actually."
Lucas then quiet for a long moment, watching the flames dance and crackle in the fireplace, mesmerized by their shifting patterns. Did he? The old Samuel had been consumed by ambition, by the relentless, gnawing need to prove himself worthy of respect, of power, of a place among the elite. His entire life had been a desperate scramble for more, always more. But sitting here, in this warm, simple room, with his sister's quiet, steady breathing beside him and his parents' soft, murmured conversation drifting in from the kitchen.
That night, lying in his narrow bed, the familiar, comforting sounds of the village settling down for sleep drifting in through the open window – the distant hoot of an owl, the gentle rustle of leaves in the breeze, the faint murmur of his parents' voices – Lucas realized something that scared the living shit out of him. He was forgetting. Not completely, no – he still remembered his past life, still felt the occasional surge of anger when he thought about Isabella's betrayal and Marcus's treachery. But the sharp, jagged edges of those memories were getting duller, softening around the corners, like a well-used sword left too long without proper care.