———
Kael drifted back to consciousness not with a jolt, but like a ghost returning to a familiar haunt. The opulent ceiling of his bedroom greeted him, its familiar patterns a stark contrast to the chaotic, beautiful schematics of magical theory that had filled his mind before the darkness took him.
A soft, rhythmic sound pulled him from his stupor. He turned his head, a simple act that still felt like a monumental effort, and saw her.
Elara was slumped in a chair pulled close to his bedside, her head resting on the edge of his mattress. Dark circles were smudged under her eyes, and her usually impeccable bun was frayed, strands of hair escaping to frame her face. In her hand, she still clutched a damp cloth, now dry and forgotten. She had stayed. She had exhausted herself watching over him.
A wave of shame, cold and sharp, washed over him. This was his fault. His obsessive drive, a trait that had killed Arga, was now leaching the life from the one person in this world who showed him unconditional kindness. He looked at his own thin, pale hands resting on the silk sheets. This worthless body, he thought, a familiar frustration boiling in his gut. It can't channel mana, it can't sustain a focused mind. It's a flawed prototype, a structural failure.
But then, the engineer in him, the part that learned from collapse, rebelled against the simple frustration. A memory surfaced: the careful, mandated curing period for high-strength concrete. Pouring it was only the first step; its true strength came from resting, from allowing its internal structure to stabilize. To rush it was to invite catastrophic failure.
rest is also exercise, he realized. Forcing this body was like stressing green concrete. He needed a new approach. A systematic one.
When Elara stirred and found him awake, her relief was a palpable force. He didn't offer empty apologies. Instead, he met her weary eyes and said, "I understand now. I need to be better. For both of us."
His recovery became his first true discipline. He ate the nutritious meals she brought without complaint, forcing down every bite even when his stomach rebelled. He slept when she instructed, using the time not to fret, but to mentally review and catalog the thousands of runic principles and mana flow diagrams he had devoured.
And when he was finally, tentatively, allowed back into the library, his routine had fundamentally changed.
He didn't just read. He *trained*.
He would prop a heavy tome on the floor and do push-ups, his arms trembling violently after only a few repetitions, his eyes locked on a passage about kinetic energy conversion. He would hold a squat, his legs burning, while deciphering the geometric stability of warding circles. During meals, his hand would move the spoon to his mouth while his eyes remained glued to a scroll, his chewing mechanical. The library, once a sanctuary for the mind, had become a gymnasium for the whole being. The mocking whispers from the other scholars and lackeys continued, but they had become background noise, the static of a system he was no longer part of.
Their japes evolved, too. A simple "Sticking Charm" on his chair became a minor "Gust Glyph" meant to blow his papers away. A week later, it was a complex "Illusion of Serpents" designed to startle him.
But Kael no longer saw them as attacks. He saw them as pop quizzes, practical applications sent by his unwitting tutors.
He would approach each new spell with the detached curiosity of a scientist. The Gust Glyph was a fascinating study in atmospheric pressure differentials. He let it activate, observing the airflow pattern before neatly severing its primary intake rune, causing it to sputter and die. The Illusion of Serpents was a masterclass in neurological manipulation through light and sound waves. He traced the complex web of energy back to its source rune and plucked it, the terrifying vipers dissolving into harmless motes of light. With each "test," his speed and precision grew. What once took minutes of analysis now took seconds. The pranks were no longer annoyances; they were his whetstone.
Life fell into a new, grueling, but productive rhythm. He was building himself, mind and body, brick by brick.
Until the morning the rhythm shattered.
He was in his alcove, balancing on one hand for a plank while tracing a complex transmutation circle with the other, when a loud, sickening thud echoed through the silent hall, followed by the clatter of a dropped tray.
Kael's head snapped up. His focus, usually unbreakable, shattered completely.
Elara was sprawled on the mosaic floor, her body limp amidst the scattered remains of his breakfast. A faint, ugly purple bruise was already blooming on her temple where she had struck the ground.
For a single, heart-stopping second, the world was silent. Then, a heat Kael had never known erupted in his chest. It wasn't the fever of sickness, but a white-hot forge of pure, unadulterated fury. The air around him crackled, and the pages of the open book nearest to him fluttered as if in a sudden wind.
He was at her side in an instant, his own weakness forgotten. He gently cradled her head, his previous analytical calm replaced by a roaring inferno. He looked up, his grey eyes, usually so cool and calculating, now blazing with a terrifying, nascent power. His voice, when it came, was low, but it cut through the library's silence like a shard of ice, vibrating with a promise of ruin.
"WHO DID THIS?!!!"
The whisper was a venomous threat. He looked from Elara's unconscious form to the shadows between the bookshelves, his gaze sweeping the room.
"I ASKED, WHO DARES!!!!?"