Three days.
That's how long I gave myself to prepare before leaving House Thorne forever. Three days to gather what I needed without arousing suspicion, to learn what I could about surviving in the Crimson Wastes, and to practice controlling the void that coiled in my chest like a sleeping predator.
Three days before I disappeared into the night and never looked back.
The eastern wing of House Thorne operated on a different rhythm than the main estate. Here, servants rose before dawn and worked until well past dusk. The legitimate family—I could no longer call them my family—rarely ventured into these corridors. Why would they? There was nothing here but functionality, efficiency, and the people who kept their perfect lives running smoothly.
For the first time in my life, that invisibility was an advantage.
On the first morning of my exile, I reported to the head steward, an elderly man named Greaves who'd served House Thorne for forty years. He was rail-thin with wispy white hair and the perpetually disapproving expression of someone who'd seen too many noble scandals to be shocked by anything anymore.
"Caelum Thorne," he said, looking me up and down like I was a damaged piece of furniture he had to find a place for. "The Duke has assigned you to general labor. You'll assist wherever needed—kitchens, stables, grounds keeping, storage management. You're to stay out of sight when noble guests visit and never, under any circumstances, present yourself as a member of the Thorne family. Understood?"
"Perfectly, sir," I said with the appropriate amount of deference.
Greaves grunted. "You'll start in the storage cellars. We're taking inventory of the winter supplies. Report to Hendrick—he's the quartermaster. He'll tell you what needs doing."
The storage cellars. Perfect.
House Thorne maintained extensive underground storage—food preservation chambers kept cold by ice-affinity enchantments, wine cellars, armories, emergency supply caches, and general storage for everything a noble house accumulated over generations. It was a maze of corridors and rooms that extended far beneath the estate, and most of the servants avoided it when possible. Too dark, too isolated, too easy to get lost.
For my purposes, it was ideal.
I found Hendrick easily enough—a broad-shouldered man in his forties with a meticulously maintained ledger and the intense focus of someone who took inventory very, very seriously.
"New helper?" he asked without looking up from his ledger.
"Yes, sir. Greaves sent me."
"Fine. Start with the east storage wing, section three. Count every barrel, crate, and sack. Note the contents and condition. There's a clipboard and paper on that table. Don't rush, but don't waste time either. This all needs to be done by week's end."
He handed me a small crystal lantern—the cheap kind that glowed with residual Essence but would need recharging after a few hours—and waved me toward a dark corridor leading deeper into the cellars.
I took the lantern and clipboard and headed into the darkness, my heart beating faster with each step.
This was perfect. Absolutely perfect. I'd have hours alone in the cellars, away from prying eyes, with a legitimate excuse for being here. And if the cellars were as extensive as I remembered from childhood explorations, there would be sections that hadn't been accessed in years.
Places where I could practice.
The east storage wing, section three, was exactly as tedious as it sounded. Rows of wooden shelves holding barrels of salted meat, sacks of grain, preserved vegetables, dried fruits, and various other supplies meant to last through winter. I dutifully began counting and noting everything on the clipboard, working methodically through the inventory.
But my mind was elsewhere, planning.
I needed supplies for the journey to the Crimson Wastes. The trip would take at least two weeks on foot, possibly longer if I had to avoid patrols or detour around dangerous areas. That meant food, water, basic camping gear, warm clothing, and some form of self-defense.
Food was easy—I was literally surrounded by it, and Hendrick's inventory wouldn't miss a few items here and there. I could hide supplies in the deeper sections of the cellar and retrieve them the night I left.
Water was more complicated. I'd need a good waterskin or two, and those were kept in the equipment storage near the stables. I'd have to find an excuse to go there.
Clothing and camping gear would be the hardest. I couldn't exactly walk out with a traveler's pack and bedroll without raising questions. But House Thorne kept old equipment in storage—things that had been replaced or were awaiting repair. If I could find the right storage room...
I spent the morning working through the inventory, all while mentally mapping the cellar layout and noting which corridors led where. Around midday, I heard footsteps echoing from one of the connecting corridors.
I tensed, my hand unconsciously moving to my chest where the void pulsed quietly. But it was just another servant—a young man about my age carrying a crate of wine bottles.
"You the new inventory help?" he asked.
"That's me."
"Good luck with that. Hendrick's a bastard about his numbers. Last guy who miscounted got assigned to latrine duty for a month." He grinned and continued past me, whistling tunelessly.
I returned to my work, but the interaction reminded me of something important: I needed to blend in, be forgettable, just another servant doing his job. The moment I seemed suspicious or strange, someone would pay attention.
And attention was the last thing I needed.
By mid-afternoon, I'd finished section three and reported back to Hendrick.
"Done already?" He seemed surprised. "Let me see."
He reviewed my inventory notes with the intensity of a general reviewing battle plans, his finger tracing each line, his lips moving silently as he cross-referenced with his master ledger.
"Hmm. Thorough. Accurate. Good." He made a note in his ledger. "Tomorrow you'll start on section four. It's larger, so it'll take you the full day. Maybe two."
"Yes, sir. By the way, I noticed some of the water barrels in section three are looking worn. The wood's starting to crack. Should I note which ones need replacing?"
Hendrick's eyes lit up. A man who truly loved his job. "Yes, absolutely. In fact, go check the equipment storage near the east courtyard. There should be replacement barrels there. Make a list of what's available so I can plan the transfers."
I suppressed a smile. "Of course, sir. I'll do that first thing tomorrow."
"Good man. Dismissed."
I headed back toward the eastern wing, but instead of going to my room, I took a detour through the less-traveled corridors. I needed to scout the estate, figure out the guard rotations, identify the best exit points for when I left.
House Thorne employed both mundane guards and a small contingent of mage-guards—former soldiers with combat affinities who served as elite security. The mundane guards were mostly for show, stationed at the main gates and major entrances. The mage-guards were the real threat. They patrolled unpredictably, could detect magical signatures, and were trained to deal with hostile mages.
I spent an hour carefully observing from windows and shadowed alcoves, noting patterns. The mage-guards changed shifts every six hours. There were four of them total, which meant two were always on duty while two rested. They patrolled the perimeter and main buildings but rarely bothered with the servant areas or the eastern wing.
The estate wall was fifteen feet high, warded with detection enchantments that would alert the guards if someone tried to climb over. The main gate was the only official exit, manned at all hours.
But there had to be other ways out. Service entrances for deliveries, drainage systems, old passages that had been forgotten or sealed.
I'd have to explore more carefully.
That evening, I ate in the servant's dining hall—a large, plain room with long wooden tables and simple but filling food. I kept to myself, observing the social dynamics. Most servants had worked here for years and had established friend groups and hierarchies. As the new addition, I was an object of curiosity but not particularly interesting.
Perfect.
After dinner, I returned to my small room and waited until the house settled into night-time quiet. Then I changed into dark, nondescript clothing and slipped out into the corridors.
Moving through the estate at night was risky, but necessary. I needed to find those forgotten spaces, the areas where I could hide supplies and practice my abilities without being discovered.
I headed back to the storage cellars, moving silently through the darkness. The crystal lantern would give me away, so I left it behind, navigating by memory and the faint ambient light from enchanted sconces placed at intervals along the main corridors.
The cellars were vast. House Thorne had been built and rebuilt over centuries, with new sections added and old ones abandoned as needs changed. Some corridors ended in bricked-up walls, others in locked doors that probably hadn't been opened in decades.
I explored systematically, testing doors, following promising passages, mapping everything in my mind.
After an hour of searching, I found it.
A corridor in the deepest section of the cellars, far from the active storage areas. The door at the end was wooden and ancient, with a rusted lock that broke apart when I applied pressure. Beyond was a chamber about thirty feet square, empty except for some rotted wooden crates and a thick layer of dust.
Perfect.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. The darkness was absolute, pressing against me like a physical thing. I stood there for a moment, letting my eyes adjust, though there was nothing to see.
Then I reached for the void.
It responded immediately, eager, hungry. That cold presence in my chest unfurled like a flower blooming in reverse, expanding outward. I felt it flow down my arms, pool in my palms, and suddenly I could sense something I'd never noticed before.
Essence. All around me, in the air, in the stone, in the very fabric of reality. It was everywhere, a background radiation of magical energy that most people couldn't perceive until they awakened.
But I didn't sense it the normal way. Fire mages felt heat, water mages felt moisture, earth mages felt weight and solidity.
I felt the Essence as an absence waiting to happen. As something that could stop existing if I willed it.
Slowly, carefully, I extended my hand toward one of the rotted crates. I didn't touch it, just held my palm a few inches away and pushed with the void.
The wood began to dissolve.
Not burn or crumble—dissolve. It simply ceased to exist, starting from the point closest to my hand and spreading outward in a perfect sphere. Wood, nails, the ambient Essence that saturated everything—all of it vanished into nothing.
In seconds, the entire crate was gone. Not even sawdust remained.
I stared at the empty space, my hand trembling slightly. The power was intoxicating and terrifying in equal measure. This wasn't destruction like fire or shattering like lightning. This was erasure. Complete, total, absolute.
What happened to the matter? Did it truly cease to exist, or did it go somewhere? Into the void itself, whatever and wherever that was?
I had no answers. And that was perhaps the most frightening thing—I was wielding power I didn't understand, couldn't explain, and had no guidance for learning.
I spent the next hour practicing. Small things at first—making pebbles vanish, erasing patches of stone from the walls, creating perfectly spherical voids in the air itself. I learned that I could control the size and shape of the erasure, focus it into a point or spread it wide. I learned that it required concentration and will—the moment my focus wavered, the void snapped back into my chest.
And I learned that using it made me hungry. Not physically, though that too, but a deeper hunger. A need for... something. More. The void wanted to consume, to erase, to expand.
I had to be careful. This power felt addictive. Each erasure sent a thrill through me, a dark satisfaction at making something un-exist. I could feel the temptation to use it more, push it further, see what else I could erase.
This must be what Solarius felt when he absorbed his first victim. That rush of power, that sense of becoming more.
The thought sobered me immediately. I was not Solarius. I would not become a monster who consumed the world for power.
I pulled the void back, forced it to coil around my heart again, contained and controlled. My chest ached with the effort, like I was forcing a wild animal into a cage too small for it.
But I managed it. The void settled, still present but dormant.
I left the hidden chamber and made my way back to my room, exhausted but exhilarated. I was learning. Slowly, dangerously, but learning.
The next two days followed a similar pattern.
During the day, I played the dutiful servant. I completed Hendrick's inventory tasks, visited the equipment storage as instructed (and quietly identified a worn travel pack and bedroll that wouldn't be missed), and made myself unremarkable and forgettable.
I struck up casual conversations with other servants, gathering information. Which guards were lazy? Which were thorough? When did the patrols pass by certain areas? What were the rhythms of the household?
A maid named Elara mentioned that the laundry was always busiest on Sixthday mornings, when all the linens from the noble family's quarters were changed. The guards near the west service entrance often stepped away for a smoke break around the second hour after midnight. The head cook was nearly deaf and never noticed when someone slipped into the pantry after hours.
Piece by piece, I assembled a picture of the estate's vulnerabilities.
During the nights, I returned to my hidden chamber and practiced. I learned to erase things silently, without the faint sound of displaced air that happened when I worked too quickly. I learned to target specific materials—metal, wood, stone, fabric—and leave others untouched. I learned to create a void-sphere around my hand that would erase anything I touched without conscious effort.
But I also learned my limits. After about an hour of continuous use, the void became harder to control, more insistent. My vision would start to blur at the edges, and everything would look slightly... hollow. Like I could see through the surface of reality to the nothingness beneath.
That's when I knew to stop, pull the power back, rest.
On the third night, Sera found me.
I was returning from the cellars, walking through the eastern wing corridors as quietly as possible, when I rounded a corner and nearly walked straight into her.
"Late night walk?" she asked, her arms crossed, one eyebrow raised.
My heart hammered. "Couldn't sleep. Sometimes walking helps."
"In the direction of the storage cellars? At two hours past midnight?"
Damn. She was too observant.
"I was checking on something for Hendrick," I lied. "One of the inventory issues—"
"Stop." She held up a hand. "I told you I was watching you, Caelum. And I've seen enough to know you're planning something. You've been gathering information, observing the guards, spending hours alone in the cellars." She stepped closer, lowering her voice. "You're planning to leave."
There was no point denying it. "And if I am?"
"Then you're smarter than I thought. This house will destroy you if you stay—slowly, through humiliation and degradation, until you're a broken shell of whatever you could have been." Her expression softened slightly. "But leaving is dangerous. Especially if you're planning to go alone, with no money, no connections, no—"
"I'll manage."
"Will you?" She studied me intently. "Where will you go? The Crimson Wastes? That's suicide. The Verdant Deep? You'd be dead in a week. The cities? They'll ask for papers, registration, proof of citizenship. You're a noble bastard with nothing to your name. You'll end up in a gutter or a prison."
"I appreciate your concern—"
"I'm not concerned," she interrupted. "I'm curious. Because despite everything, despite being cast out and humiliated, you're not broken. You're not even scared. You're... confident. Like you know something no one else does."
She was too perceptive by half. This woman was dangerous.
"I don't know what you mean," I said carefully.
Sera laughed quietly. "Fine. Keep your secrets. But let me give you something useful." She reached into her apron and pulled out a small leather pouch, pressing it into my hand. "Fifty silver marks. It's everything I've saved over the last two years. It's not much, but it's enough to get you somewhere and buy basic supplies."
I stared at the pouch, stunned. "I can't take this—"
"Yes, you can. Consider it an investment." She smiled slightly. "I have a sense about people, Caelum. And my sense tells me you're going to be someone important someday. Someone who changes things. When that day comes, remember the maid who helped you when no one else did."
I didn't know what to say. This was more kindness than anyone had shown me in months.
"Why?" I finally asked.
"Because I hate this place," she said simply. "I hate the nobles with their casual cruelty, hate the way they treat people like objects, hate watching potential be crushed by circumstance. If helping you escape is a small rebellion against all of that, then it's worth fifty silver marks."
She turned to leave, then paused. "There's a drainage tunnel. East side of the estate, hidden behind the old gardener's shed. It was built decades ago as an emergency exit and hasn't been used in years. The grate is loose—give it a good pull and it'll come free. It opens into the forest about half a mile from the main road."
"Thank you," I said quietly. "Truly."
"Don't thank me. Just survive. And when you're powerful enough to matter, remember where you came from." She disappeared into the shadows, leaving me standing there with a pouch of silver and more questions than answers.
I returned to my room and examined the pouch. Fifty silver marks. It was more money than I'd ever held. Enough for basic equipment, food for weeks, maybe even passage on a caravan heading toward the border regions.
I added the pouch to my growing cache of supplies hidden under my bed: dried food stolen from the cellars, a waterskin I'd "borrowed" from the equipment storage, the worn travel pack and bedroll, a simple knife from the kitchens, warm clothing, and a map of Valdrian I'd carefully copied from one in the estate library.
Everything I needed to survive the journey to the Crimson Wastes.
Tomorrow night. I'd leave tomorrow night, when the guards were rotating shifts and the household was distracted by whatever social event Father was hosting for visiting nobles from the Verdant Council.
One more day of playing the obedient servant.
One more night of practice in the hidden chamber.
And then I'd be free.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling the void pulse quietly in my chest like a second heartbeat. Tomorrow, everything would change. I'd leave behind the only home I'd ever known, step into a world that wanted me dead, armed with nothing but a power I barely understood and a desperate need to become something more.
It should have terrified me.
Instead, I smiled in the darkness.
Let the world try to kill me. Let Solarius's forces hunt me. Let the monsters of the Wastes test my strength.
I had something none of them expected.
I had the void.
And the void was hungry.
The next day passed in a blur of final preparations. I completed my inventory work for Hendrick, returned to the hidden chamber one last time to practice (managing to erase a section of stone wall the size of my fist in under three seconds—progress), and mentally rehearsed my escape route a dozen times.
The evening brought the social event Father had planned: a dinner for representatives from the Verdant Council, discussing some political alliance or trade agreement I didn't care about. The entire main house was in a flurry of activity—servants rushing around with preparations, guards stationed at every entrance, the noble family dressed in their finest.
I stayed far away from all of it, keeping to the eastern wing and my assigned duties.
As the sun set and the event began in the grand dining hall, I made my move.
I retrieved my hidden supplies from under my bed, carefully packing everything into the travel pack. The dried food, waterskin, extra clothing, the knife, the map, Sera's silver marks—all of it went into the pack. I changed into my warmest clothes—dark wool pants, a sturdy shirt, a thick cloak that would blend into shadows.
I looked around my tiny room one last time. I'd spent barely a week here, but it represented the end of my old life. After tonight, there would be no coming back. I'd be a runaway, a nobody, a failed noble's bastard wandering the most dangerous lands in Valdrian.
Good.
I shouldered my pack and slipped out into the corridor.
The eastern wing was mostly empty—everyone was either serving at the dinner or had been given the evening off. I moved quickly and quietly, heading for the east side of the estate where Sera had told me about the drainage tunnel.
I passed through the servant's courtyard, keeping to the shadows. Ahead, I could see the old gardener's shed, exactly where Sera had described. It was a decrepit structure that hadn't been used in years, tools rusting inside, wood rotting.
Behind it, hidden by overgrown vines and years of neglect, was a circular metal grate set into the ground.
I knelt and examined it. The metal was old but solid, the grate about three feet in diameter. I gripped the bars and pulled.
It resisted for a moment, then came free with a screech of protesting metal that sounded deafeningly loud in the quiet evening.
I froze, listening.
Nothing. The sounds of the dinner party continued unabated in the distance. The guards were focused on the main house and entrances, not an abandoned corner of the grounds.
I looked down into the tunnel. It was dark, sloping downward into the earth, barely wide enough for a person to crawl through. The smell of damp earth and stagnant water wafted up.
This was it. The point of no return.
I took a deep breath, lowered myself into the tunnel, and began crawling into the darkness.
The tunnel was exactly as unpleasant as I'd expected—narrow, damp, with roots hanging from the ceiling and puddles of questionable water on the floor. I crawled for what felt like forever, my pack scraping against the tunnel walls, my hands and knees soaked through.
But gradually, I felt the tunnel begin to slope upward. Fresh air replaced the stale dampness. I could see moonlight ahead.
I emerged in a small clearing in the forest, about half a mile from the estate just as Sera had said. I pulled myself out of the tunnel, stood up, and looked back toward House Thorne.
I could see it in the distance, lights blazing in every window, a monument to power and legacy and everything I was walking away from.
"Goodbye, Father," I whispered. "Goodbye, Marcus. Lyanna. All of you."
Then I turned my back on my former home and walked into the forest, heading east toward the Crimson Wastes.
Toward danger.
Toward power.
Toward my future.
The void pulsed in my chest, eager and hungry.
And for the first time in my life, I felt truly free.