I had grown used to the smell of parchment. Mother's books, worn at the edges, carried a faint, earthy musk of time. Some were bound neatly with leather straps, others barely held together with twine. Every evening, when chores ended and the sun melted behind the horizon, Christina—my mother—would sit by the small hearth, light dancing across her soft features, and read aloud.
At first, I listened because her voice carried a soothing warmth, a rhythm that lulled me into comfort. But with every word, I began to notice things that others, perhaps even she herself, could not.
There were many forms of magic, the texts explained, though most boiled down into six attributes: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Light, and Darkness. Beyond those were rarities, offshoots formed from hybrids, or things that belonged to no attribute at all. But even those were considered legends more than reality. Some texts hinted at forbidden magics, intricacies that could bend not just the physical, but the very flow of time, emotions, and memories.
Mana was the foundation of all of it. A current invisible to the eyes but present in every breath of air, every grain of soil. The texts described it as threads woven into the world itself, strings that resonated with the soul of those who could grasp them. To awaken mana was not merely to "find" it, but to harmonize with it, to listen to the echoes of the cosmos through your own heartbeat.
And therein lay the difficulty.
"Most will awaken by their sixth year," my mother read aloud one night, her finger tracing lines of script across the page, "their bodies attuned to the world's flow. But there are those who never awaken, who live and die untouched by mana's gift."
Her voice lingered on those last words. Something in her tone… bitter? Resigned? My own pulse quickened. I remembered her hands glowing faintly green, years ago, when she healed Father's broken body after Lord Philips' cruelty. That glow—gentle, undeniable—was light magic.
I closed my eyes and thought: If few commoners can use magic at all, then why can she? Why light, of all things—the rarest, most revered attribute? And why had fate given me yet another life to endure before I could even begin?
In the shadows of night, my memories clawed back to the cruel days of my past life. The laughter of classmates who spat at my every mistake. The teachers who turned a blind eye while I cowered in corners, bleeding silently from humiliation. The endless nights of isolation, a torment only compounded by my awareness of my helplessness. I could still hear the echo of their jeers, feel the sharp sting of their punches, and taste the bitter tears I was never allowed to shed. Even now, in this new life at four years old, the ghost of that suffering haunted my dreams. I would wake, heart pounding, as if the same monsters from that world were still chasing me.
The days, of course, were not always heavy with questions. I had friends now, not many, but enough to keep the loneliness of this second life at bay.
Lyra—a farmer's daughter from a nearby plot—was often the one at my side. She had a curious streak, forever pestering me with questions, her dark hair bouncing as she skipped across fields.
"Why do you always read so much?" she asked once, as we sat beneath the shade of an oak.
"Because," I said, careful with my words, "books don't run out of answers."
She wrinkled her nose. "But they don't hug you when you cry."
I didn't reply. Lila, my sister, sat beside me, braiding little strands of grass, pretending not to listen but always near.
Sometimes, when Lord Alister visited the village, his granddaughter, Sera Caeloria, would join us. She was different from Lyra—poised, elegant even at her young age, carrying herself with a dignity drilled into her by noble blood. Yet she was still a child. She laughed when Lila tugged her into games, and sometimes she even bent her knees to scoop mud with the rest of us.
The contrast between Lyra's earthy liveliness and Sera's noble grace always struck me. Two sides of the same coin, both circling into my orbit.
At night, when the house was quiet, I tried.
The books said the key was visualization. To picture mana not as an abstract concept, but as something tangible, something alive. To feel it flow beneath the skin, pulse with the heart, weave into breath. Some texts even described it as fractal, multi-dimensional, capable of splitting and intertwining across multiple planes of existence.
I tried to see it.
I imagined rivers of blue light, winding through my veins. I imagined stars strung within me, each heartbeat releasing sparks. I pictured threads, countless and fine, stitching me to the fabric of the earth, coiling around my soul, bending and splitting like a river around stones.
But when I reached for them—nothing.
Silence.
Like reaching into water only to grasp air.
"Mana is not yours to command," the book read. "It is a dance. To awaken is to learn the rhythm of the world, and to find one's place within it."
Yet no matter how I visualized, how I breathed, how I strained, the rhythm eluded me.
Was it because I was too young? Too broken from my past life? Or was I simply one of those who would never awaken?
The thought clawed at me.
I should not have been so desperate. I was four. People around me believed I could not read yet, thinking me too young. Most children my age were busy smearing mud across their faces, not unraveling the mysteries of the cosmos. But I was not truly four. My memories stretched far longer, into a world where power meant safety, and my lack of it led to nothing but humiliation and escape through death.
This world offered me another chance. Another beginning.
Yet even here, with magic burning in my mother's veins, with nobles carving the sky in radiant arcs of steel and fire, I remained powerless.
Powerless, and afraid.
One evening, I sat outside, staring into the dusk. Fireflies blinked across the field. Lyra plopped down beside me, throwing a pebble into the grass.
"You're thinking too much again," she said.
I glanced at her. "And how do you know that?"
"Because your face looks all tight. Like you swallowed a lemon."
A faint laugh escaped me. Even Lila, sitting on the porch, giggled.
Sera, seated primly nearby, tilted her head, watching me with quiet curiosity. She rarely spoke much, but her gaze was sharp, too sharp for a child.
Lyra leaned closer, whispering, "What is it you're trying to do, Xavier? You always look like you're chasing something nobody else can see."
I looked down at my small hands, clenched tight. What was I chasing?
The answer, of course, was simple: strength.
But how could I explain that to her? That every time I closed my eyes, I saw the jeers of classmates from another life. That every time I tried to sleep, I remembered the hollow silence of loneliness. That I would never—could never—accept being powerless again.
Instead, I gave her a small smile and lied, "Just wondering how the fireflies glow."
Lyra squinted at me, unconvinced. But she let it go. Sera said nothing, but her eyes lingered on me, as if silently filing away my words for later.
Christina's Smile
Later that night, Mother read again. This time a tale of the first King Garcia, who banished demons with a sword of light. Her voice wrapped around us like a blanket, each word carrying pride and sorrow in equal measure.
Her eyes shone as she spoke of him. But I watched her more than the book, my gaze drawn to her hands—the same hands that had glowed with healing magic years ago.
There was more to her story. More than she ever said.
And as her voice drifted, I whispered silently in my heart:
If mana refuses me now, then I'll break myself until it cannot ignore me. Whatever secret you hide, Mother, whatever blood flows through our veins, I'll uncover it. And I'll wield it—not just for me, but for all of us.
And so, beneath the quiet of that nameless commoner household, a vow was forged. A vow born not of childish whim, but of an old soul in a young body.
A vow to awaken.
To claim power.
To never be powerless again.