Robin returned to the library the following night. And the night after that. And the night after that.
It became routine. Wait until midnight. Navigate the familiar passages. Slip into the library's depths. Read until dawn threatened.
Each night, he read more. Military histories. Economic data. Political alliances. The architecture of power in Valderra, laid bare in dusty tomes no one else bothered to read.
But tonight, Robin had a specific goal.
He climbed to the second floor and moved past the genealogies he'd already studied. Past the military records. Deeper into the stacks where even the dust seemed undisturbed.
The family archives. The real archives.
Justin had discovered these during his time as commander, purely by accident. A hidden section where House Stark kept records too sensitive for general access.
Personal journals. Private correspondence. Documents that painted a less flattering picture of the family's history.
The section was unmarked, hidden behind a false shelf. But Robin knew exactly where to look.
He found the mechanism, a particular book that wasn't actually a book but a lever. Pulled it. The shelf swung inward with a soft click.
Behind it, a narrow alcove. More shelves. Smaller volumes, most bound in plain leather without titles.
Robin stepped inside. The air smelled stale, untouched for years. His enhanced perception let him navigate the darkness, reading spines by touch and instinct.
There. A journal dated to the year of his birth.
He pulled it carefully from the shelf. The leather was cracked with age but intact. He carried it to his usual reading table, where moonlight provided just enough illumination.
The handwriting inside was familiar Maester Aldwin's precise script.
Private observations. Not for official record.
Robin's pulse quickened. This was what he'd been looking for.
He flipped to entries dated around his birth:
Third day of the Weeping Moon, 1247 AC:
Duchess Lyanna has gone into labor. The timing is unfortunate, reports from the Frostfang Mountains indicate unusual Void activity. Duke Aldric is concerned but remains at his wife's side.
Same day, later:
Catastrophe. A massive Void fissure has torn open in the Frostfang Mountains. The breach occurred at the precise moment of the child's birth.
I confirmed the timing with multiple witnesses. The coincidence is... troubling.
The child is a boy. Small, weak. His first cry was drowned out by the alarm bells signaling the breach.
Duke Aldric looked at his newborn son and I saw something in his eyes I'd never seen before: fear.
Fourth day:
The breach worsens. Hundreds dead already. Duchess Lyanna is failing, the birth was difficult, and she's developed fever. The physicians do what they can, but I fear the worst.
Duke Aldric has barely looked at the child since the birth. When servants bring the boy to him, he turns away.
Sixth day:
Duchess Lyanna passed this morning. Her final words were a plea: "Protect him. He is innocent of this. Promise me."
Duke Aldric promised. But his face was stone.
After she died, he summoned me to his study. What he asked me to do... I cannot record it in official documents. But I must write it somewhere, if only to process my own complicity.
The Duke believes the child caused the breach. Not deliberately he's a baby, incapable of conscious action. But through his mere existence. His birth somehow triggered the Void fissure.
There is precedent in old texts. Rare cases of children born with such strong latent power that their emergence into the world causes reality to... crack. To bleed.
Duke Aldric fears his third son is such a child. Fears what he might become when that power manifests.
So he said he will seal it.
Robin's hands clenched on the journal. His breathing had gone shallow.
Seal it.
The entry continued:
I argued against it. Told him we should study the boy, understand him. That sealing innate power could cripple him, even kill him.
The Duke was unmoved. "Better a weak son than a monster," he said. "Better he lives a quiet life and dies young than grows into something that could destroy us all."
I brought in a traveling mage, someone with no connection to House Stark who could be paid for silence. Together, we wove a seal around the child's mana core. Not to destroy it, but to suppress it. To keep it dormant.
The child cried through the entire ritual. It took hours.
When it was done, the mage said something that haunts me: "This will hold until he's twelve, maybe thirteen. After that, if he's still alive, the seal will begin to crack. What happens then... I cannot predict."
The Duke paid him triple the agreed amount and had him escorted to the border.
I have not seen that mage since. I suspect I never will.
Robin's vision blurred. His chest felt tight. Not from physical weakness but from rage so cold it burned.
The Duke hadn't just abandoned him. Hadn't just labeled him cursed and forgotten him.
The Duke had deliberately crippled his own infant son. Had sealed away his power and sentenced him to a slow death, all because he was afraid of what that child might become.
The journal had more:
Seventh month, 1247 AC:
The seal is holding. The child, Robin, they named him, though the Duke rarely uses his name shows no signs of mana development. To any observer, he appears to have a deficient core. An F-rank at best.
Only I and the Duke know the truth.
The child is sickly, weak. The seal is draining him, siphoning off what little vitality he has to maintain itself. I fear he won't survive to adolescence.
When I voiced this concern to Duke Aldric, he said only: "Then the problem solves itself."
I have served House Stark for forty years. Never have I been so ashamed.
Second year, 1249 AC:
Robin Stark continues to decline. Servants report that he barely eats, barely moves. The household has begun calling him "the cursed one" and "the Duke's shame."
Duke Aldric has ordered the boy confined to the servant's wing. Out of sight. The official reason is "for the child's protection and the household's morale."
The real reason is that the Duke cannot bear to look at him. Cannot face what he has done.
I submitted another request to study the seal, to perhaps modify it, make it less draining. Request denied.
I fear I have helped murder a child. Slowly. Over years.
Third year, 1250 AC:
This will be my final entry regarding Robin Stark.
The Duke discovered I have been documenting these observations. He has forbidden me from recording anything further about his third son. Forbidden me from examining the child. Forbidden me from even speaking his name in the Duke's presence.
The seal will kill Robin before he reaches twelve. Of this I am certain.
May the gods forgive me. I cannot forgive myself.
The journal entries ended there. Robin sat frozen, the book trembling in his hands.
Everything made sense now. The weakness. The sickly constitution. The "mysterious illness" everyone whispered about.
It wasn't illness. It was murder. Slow, methodical murder by magical seal.
The Duke had looked at his newborn son and decided he was too dangerous to live. But outright infanticide would have been scandalous. So instead, he'd chosen something subtler. Something that looked like natural causes.
Seal the child's power. Let him waste away. Wait for him to die quietly. Problem solved.
Robin stood, his legs steady despite the trembling rage in his chest. He carefully returned the journal to its shelf. Closed the false section. Left everything exactly as he'd found it.
His mind was ice. Clear. Focused.
[QUEST COMPLETED: UNCOVER FAMILY SECRETS]
[+100 EXP]
[LEVEL UP! YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 2]
The warmth of leveling up flooded his body. His stats increased. His mana capacity expanded slightly. But Robin barely noticed.
He was too busy planning.
The Duke had sealed his power at birth. Had sentenced him to death before he could even speak. Had violated his dying wife's final wish to protect their son.
All because he was afraid.
Good, Robin thought as he made his way back through the castle's dark corridors. Fear is honest. Fear is useful.
And Father, you were right to be afraid.
Because the seal the Duke had so carefully woven was beginning to crack. The system's power was eating away at it from the inside. Every level Robin gained weakened the seal's hold.
By level ten, the system predicted it would shatter completely.
And then the Duke would discover exactly what he'd been trying to prevent. Would face the monster he'd tried to murder in the cradle.
Robin reached his room as dawn broke. Lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
The original Robin had died at twelve. The mage's prediction had been accurate, the seal would hold until then. Until it finally drained the last of the boy's life force.
But this Robin had the system. Had Justin's mind. Had the will to survive and the knowledge to grow stronger.
The seal wouldn't kill him. He'd break it first.
And when he did, when all that dormant power finally awakened...
Robin smiled in the darkness.
Thank you, Father, he thought. For sealing my power. For making me weak.
Because you taught me something valuable: that you'll do anything to protect yourself. Even murder your own son.
That kind of self-preservation is predictable. And predictable enemies are already defeated.
They just don't know it yet.
Robin closed his eyes. Sleep came easily now, despite everything he'd learned.
Because he had a path forward. A goal.
Reach level ten. Break the seal. Unleash whatever power the Duke feared so much.
And then show his father exactly why he should have been afraid.
The morning sun crept through his narrow window. Another day beginning.
Robin Stark, the cursed child, slept peacefully.
Dreaming of revenge.