Life settled into something like a pattern.
Mornings were for chores and lessons.
Alaric swept floors, hauled water, helped Elaina scrub vegetables for stew. Then he sat with the others on hard benches while Father Corwin talked about letters, numbers, basic history and geography.
Alaric skimmed over numbers, fractions and sums came easily, scraps of another life whispering this is just simple math but he listened carefully when Corwin spoke of old wars, shifting borders, and the way kings and dukes played tug‑of‑war with maps.
He traced Shersia's outline in his notebook until he could draw it from memory. Horsin's tiny shape above it. Buckland pressing over both.
Afternoons were for running and practice.
Kellan drilled him with sticks, shouting corrections about footwork and balance. Rin heckled from the fence or joined in, swinging wildly until both boys were forced to take her seriously. Mira stitched torn clothes, sketched the chaos, or quietly read a book and occasionally pointed out tactical flaws that none of them had considered.
Even when they were just children flailing at each other, Alaric treated every swing as if it mattered.
If my arm moves wrong now, it will move wrong when it counts.
Evenings were for magic.
Sometimes Elaina watched, arms folded, as he conjured ten tiny Creo Ignis flames in a row, adjusting how tightly they burned, how rapidly they consumed air, how close he could bring them to paper without starting a fire.
Other times she chased him out of the chapel and told him to "go outside before you cook the altar."
On those nights, he practiced Confirma under the trees instead, short bursts of strength or speed, aura wrapped tight around his legs for a sprint, or his arms for three quick, precise strikes with a stick.
At first, the Null blessing lasted only a handful of heartbeats. Months later, he could hold a mild reinforcement for twenty or thirty before the ache in his chest warned him he was burning too much.
When the others slept, he lay awake and felt for the level of mana inside him.
He emptied himself with practice whenever he could, then waited for that rising pressure as the soul slowly refilled. Some nights he could tell it reached "full" faster. Other nights he crashed to sleep before he could be sure.
And always, in the quiet between breaths, the memories waited.
Shuru's ash.
Barrel walls.
A city sky turning white.
Some nights the inner voice whispered: You're still just a kid. You think little tricks will change anything?
On those nights, he would clench his fists around his blanket and silently recite what he'd done that day.
I ran until my legs shook.
I cast Confirma thirty times.
I made a rock harder than it should be.
I helped Lia stop crying.
I learned one more new thing.
Little things. Tiny, pathetic next to marching armies and falling suns.
"If I stop," he mouthed into the dark, "I'll stay that boy in the barrel forever."
Slowly, the dread would ease enough for sleep.
Days blurred into weeks, into months.
Rin grew a little taller and somehow even louder. Kellan's swings became heavier, soon Alaric needed Confirma just to keep up in sparring. Mira started correcting Corwin's history dates under her breath. Lia learned to say "Thank you, big brother Alaric" without tripping over the words.
And Alaric's magic, his mana, his aura ...grew.
Not in leaps. In grains.
He didn't notice the difference day to day. But sometimes, when he reached for a flame or a burst of strength after hours of practice, he'd realize:
I still have mana left. A year ago, this would have emptied me.
The thought warmed him more than any fire spell could.
He was still small. Still just an orphan boy in an out‑of‑the‑way chapel.
But the reserve inside him was bigger than it used to be.
And he had no intention of letting it stop there.