The days folded together like pages in a well-thumbed book—separate, yet telling one continuous story.
Marc decided to observe. After all, he could do little else. No thoughts would form. No legs would carry him. His existence had contracted to pure awareness wrapped in infant flesh.
His world expanded in fractions.
First came control—small movements, deliberate shifts of tiny limbs. Then sight, his eyes finally obeying commands to track the gas lamp above, to trace the wooden beams of the ceiling, to study the animal hides stretched across the walls. The pelts clung so perfectly to the wood they seemed like skin grafted onto the cottage itself.
He learned to filter his senses.
The enhancement that had overwhelmed him at birth now bent to his will. He could choose what to hear, what to smell, what to ignore. Most of the world, he discovered, didn't matter. The truly important things—his mother's voice, her scent, her presence—those he never filtered out.
His mother held him constantly those first weeks. Her fingers moved through his hair while she spoke in that melodic language, calling him "Zel" most days, "Zelrec" on others.
Marc died.
Zelrec was born.
The bond between them grew with every passing day, fed by her constant attention, her endless patience, her love that asked nothing in return. He didn't know what he would do without her. And somehow—through the way she looked at him, held him, protected him—he knew she felt the same intensity, if not more.
When she wasn't holding him, she laid him in the crib beside her bed. Sometimes she handed him to the other constant in his new life: a teenage girl with freckles scattered across her nose, fiery red hair falling over one shoulder, and round glasses that perpetually threatened to slide down her face.
The girl—Ella, he learned—sang to him. Brought him flowers and stuck them in his hair daily. Tried tickling him, gave up when that failed, then started making faces instead.
Zelrec gave her nothing.
Stone-faced. Serious. A baby who refused to be pleased.
But sometimes—just sometimes—she'd contort her features into something so absurd he couldn't help it. Laughter would burst from him unbidden, rewarding her efforts with the reaction she craved.
This only made her more determined.
More faces. More noises. More attempts to crack the stoic infant who watched her with ancient eyes.
---
At morning and evening, his mother took him outside.
The world revealed itself in impossible beauty.
Two suns dominated the sky. The first—bright yellow, familiar—rose over the distant coastline and set behind the mountain that loomed on the opposite horizon. The second—bright blue, alien—rose from behind that same mountain and dipped into the ocean that stretched endlessly before their home.
At noon, the twin suns performed their celestial dance.
They moved around each other in complex patterns, switching positions before continuing their separate journeys across the sky. The first time Zelrec witnessed this, his infant mind nearly broke trying to reconcile the physics. Eventually, he stopped trying.
Magic existed here. Physics could wait.
Their house sat alone on the sand—wooden, thatched, isolated. No other settlements marked the coastline. Palm trees lined the shore, heavy with coconuts. Beside the cottage, an elevated platform supported a garden: vegetables and herbs arranged in neat rows, protected by a simple roof.
His mother carried him to the shore each evening.
She would sing to the sea, her voice carrying across the water, her eyes distant with nostalgia and longing. Then she would sing for Zelrec, her attention returning to him with fierce focus. Finally—like a ritual that never varied—she would face her palm toward the ocean.
The water obeyed.
A portion of the sea lifted itself into the air, coalescing into a perfect sphere that hovered above the waves. His mother's hand moved, guiding the water ball toward the garden. It followed her palm precisely until it floated above the plants, then separated into countless droplets that fell like gentle rain.
After, she would sit with Zelrec on her lap and watch the sun set.
When the yellow sun disappeared behind the mountain, a massive silver moon rose immediately in its place—too large, too bright, too present to be natural. Only then would they return inside.
---
During midday, when the suns began their dance, all three of them went outside together.
His mother would summon a cloud—actually conjure it from nothing—positioning it overhead to block the harsh light. She'd lay Zelrec on animal hide stretched across the sand, positioning him to watch what came next.
Ella would hand her mother one of two wooden swords.
They sparred.
Not play-fighting or gentle instruction, but real combat—strikes that cracked against each other with force, footwork that carved patterns in the sand, breathing that grew ragged with exertion. Ella always tired first, collapsing onto the sand with heaving breaths while his mother barely showed signs of strain.
Then his mother would remove a silver ring from her left hand.
The ring held a blue crystal at its center. Blue wisps of energy flowed from her fingers into the stone. White crystalline shards materialized in the air above the ring—floating, spinning slowly, held by forces Zelrec couldn't yet understand.
His mother handed the shards to Ella.
The girl would arrange them on the ground beside her and sit cross-legged. She'd lift a shard, close her eyes, and golden energy that exuded an aura that made Zelrec's senses scream dangerous would flow from the crystal into her hands—absorbed directly into her body. The shard would shrink as its power transferred, diminishing until nothing remained. Then she'd take another.
After depleting every shard, the real training began.
His mother would summon water balls from thin air—pulling moisture from nothing—and position them in a line at varying distances from Ella.
Ella would summon flame.
Balls of fire would materialize in her palms, then launch toward the water targets. She always hit the first three. Missed the fourth half the time. Rarely connected with the fifth. Never touched the sixth.
Except once.
One perfect, lucky shot that made her shriek with joy and his mother smile with pride.
Zelrec sat through these sessions every day, watching Ella improve with methodical consistency. Within months, she could hit all six targets reliably. The training evolved then—the water balls started moving, forcing Ella to track and lead her shots.
She adapted.
Always adapting. Always improving.
At night, Zelrec slept in the cradle beside his mother's bed. Or pretended to sleep, which became more common as time passed. To Zelrec who could see equally acute at night, there was no difference between day and night.
---
Understanding came slowly, then quickly.
The language revealed itself in fragments—words first, then phrases, then complete sentences flowing past him in comprehensible streams. His thoughts began forming properly, neural pathways strengthening as his infant brain developed at supernatural speed.
But he found he didn't need the thoughts.
The silence—the thoughtless awareness he'd experienced in the void—had been peaceful. He'd never achieved such quiet in his previous life. So he preserved it when possible, existing in pure observation without the constant noise of internal monologue.
Time lost meaning again.
Not like in the void, where time didn't exist. Here it simply ceased to matter, days blending together in comfortable routine. His body strengthened with each drink of blood—that exquisite red nectar he'd grown to crave with his vampire nature. He started sitting up in his crib when alone, developing strength and coordination in secret.
He rarely slept.
Vampires, he learned, couldn't dream. Sleep for him meant returning to that state of pure awareness—conscious but empty, existing without experiencing. Sometimes he craved that emptiness, needed escape from the constant stimulation of his enhanced senses.
So he learned to pretend.
When he closed his eyes, both women would immediately hush, lay him in the crib, and leave the room. Blessed solitude would follow—time to simply exist as nothing, aware of the hushed background world but unconcerned with its details.
The routine solidified: pretend to be a baby, drink blood, accompany his mother on shore walks, watch the training sessions, exist in peaceful emptiness when alone.
Information accumulated like sediment. His understanding of the language deepened. The world revealed itself in fragments through overheard conversations, through books he couldn't yet read—only admiring depictions of unearthly beings and creatures, through the casual magic his mother and Ella wielded daily.
Then he decided to speak.
"Ma."
The word emerged clumsy but clear, his infant tongue finally coordinating properly. His mother's face lit up with such joy that Zelrec felt something warm settle in his chest.
After that, walking came naturally.
Not the stumbling gait of a learning infant, but the deliberate, slightly unbalanced stride of someone remembering how to use their legs. His mother caught him at the doorway, hands flying to her mouth, eyes wide with shock and pride.
She stopped hovering after that, letting him roam the cottage freely.
Freedom.
Finally.
---
The study room called to him like a siren song.
He found it by following Ella, curiosity finally overcoming caution. The door had always been closed before, mysterious, off-limits by unspoken rule. But when Ella left it ajar one afternoon, Zelrec seized the opportunity.
Wooden floorboards. Hide-covered walls. Shelves stretching floor to ceiling, packed with books of every size. A single glowing lamp hung from the ceiling, casting everything in soft orange light. A round table occupied the center with one wooden chair beside it.
Books.
Hundreds of them.
Zelrec's eyes gleamed.
He moved to the nearest shelf and grabbed a tome half his size, struggling to pull it free. It hit the floor with a heavy thump. He cracked it open with reverent hands.
Foreign symbols covered every page.
Disappointment crashed over him, expected but still painful. The language remained partially opaque to him—he understood speech, not writing, and these elaborate characters bore little resemblance to anything he'd heard spoken.
It would wait.
He struggled to return the book to its place, tiny arms trembling with effort as he tried to lift the massive volume. He was still struggling when Ella's footsteps and smell approached.
She found him there—book half-wedged onto the shelf, face red with exertion—and stopped in the doorway. Amusement played across her features.
Zelrec let the book fall. Thud.
He looked at her. Help me.
Ella stared back, clearly enjoying his predicament, then moved forward and effortlessly returned the tome to its proper place. Without a word, she sat at the table, opened the book waiting there, and began reading.
Every few minutes, she pushed her glasses up in an unconscious gesture, as if they threatened to fall despite fitting perfectly.
A new routine emerged.
Every time Ella went to study, Zelrec followed. He watched silently for days, observing how her eyes tracked across the pages, how her lips moved slightly with difficult passages, how her expression shifted with comprehension.
Then he started pressuring her to teach him.
He'd pull a book from the shelf—something smaller, more manageable—and carry it to her side. He'd tug at her clothing until she looked down, then point at the book and back to himself.
"Me. Book."
His voice emerged childish, cute, wholly at odds with the intent behind his eyes.
Ella would look at him for a long moment, then break into a grin and scoop him up. She'd squeeze him in a tight hug while he kicked and squirmed, throwing a proper tantrum.
"No. No-no."
She never taught him.
Days of this routine established a hard truth: Ella was a wall he couldn't scale. She found him adorable, amusing, entertaining—but not someone to take seriously. Not someone to educate.
Fine.
He'd ask his mother instead.
One day, he selected a book carefully—something thin, portable—and tried to sneak out while Ella was absorbed in her studies. He'd almost made it through the door, squeezing through the narrow gap, when Ella moved with supernatural speed and caught him.
"Stealing my book, little demon child?"
A mischievous grin spread across her face. Without warning, she lifted him into the air, holding him up like a prize. The book tumbled to the floor.
Zelrec gave her his flattest, most unimpressed stare and deliberately looked away as she started making faces.
'Fool. Don't you know I'm a full-grown adult?'
The thought surfaced unbidden in his developing mind—the first truly complex thought he'd managed in this new life.
Ella eventually grew bored and set him down. Zelrec picked up the book with exaggerated care, made a show of wiping away the contamination where she'd touched him, shook his head in theatrical disappointment, and left the room.
Behind him, Ella stood in shocked silence.
---
His mother understood immediately.
The next day, after their evening shore visit, she began teaching him to read. Then to write. The symbols that had seemed impossibly foreign slowly revealed their meanings—phonetic characters combining into words, words flowing into sentences, sentences building into knowledge.
In less than a year, Zelrec could speak, walk, write, and read fluently.
Just like that, days turned to months and months to years.
Time in Eldoria—the continent they resided—mirrored Earth's in broad strokes—a year spanned 365 days, divided into weeks of seven. Yet, its heartbeat was fundamentally different. Instead of hours, the people marked time through cycles. Each day and night contained seven major cycles; the fourth major cycle of the day was designated as noon, coinciding with the mesmerizing celestial dance of the twin suns. Nightfall belonged to the moon, which held its solitary vigil for seven cycles until dawn. These major periods were commonly called day-cycles and night-cycles.
The true rhythm of life, however, was found in the minor cycle—akin to a minute but longer, subdivided into 100 notes. So essential was this unit that in everyday speech, it was referred to simply as "a cycle." This entire system was synchronized to the Allegra, a perpetual piece of recorded music that chimed from the spires of Wisteria, Eldoria's greatest city. It was the timekeeping of the common folk, the unawakened. Mages, in their detachment, paid heed only to the grand passage of days, weeks, and years.
Adding to this rhythm was a grand celestial celebration: every two decades, the start of a new Grand Cycle was heralded by the Festival of the Blossoming God, five days of revelry honoring the deity of renewal. There was 5 additional days after every 20 years for the celebrations.
Information poured into him from every source: books devoured in the study room, conversations overheard between his mother and Ella, casual comments that revealed the nature of this world. He learned about magic, about the different races, about the political structures that governed civilization beyond their isolated shore, and even beyond their floating continent of Eldoria in exclusive rare mentions.
And he learned about his father.
Zelrec Bloodbane. His full name finally made sense. Bloodbane—the surname of his vampire father, spoken with complex emotion whenever his mother mentioned him. Longing. Pride. Sorrow. Love that hadn't diminished despite years of separation.
He also eavesdropped something that excited him to his bones.
The annual Blood Moon was approaching. It had appeared 3 weeks after his birth but he got no exposure tucked in the wooden cottage under his mother's warm embrace.
Every being born in the demonic category awakened their powers during the Blood Moon of their exposure year. Without fail. Like clockwork. The silver moon that hung permanently in the night sky would turn crimson, and demonic children worldwide would feel their heritage ignite.
But Zelrec was a half-breed.
Half vampire, half human—a combination that shouldn't exist, that violated the fundamental laws preventing demonic and divine bloodlines from mingling. Would he awaken like his father's kind? Or would he follow the divine path of his human mother, remaining powerless during the Blood Moon?
Or—even better—would he forge something entirely new?
The only one of his kind in existence, walking a path no one had traveled before.
Zelrec grew fast. By his first birthday, he stood as tall as a five-year-old, reaching his mother's waist. His features sharpened, losing their infant softness while retaining an otherworldly quality that marked him as something other. They did not celebrate his birthday, those sort of things did not seem to matter in this world. Ella and his mother only mentioned it in passing as they discussed the blood moon and it was never mentioned again.
The Blood Moon approached.
And Zelrec waited to discover what he truly was.