The first days of Kaelion's life were all the same.
Hungry. Sleep. Hungry again. Sometimes cold, sometimes too hot because the blanket was too thick. Lyra came every time he cried. Aldric would stop by sometimes, look around for a bit, then leave again because he had other things that were apparently more important than his newborn child.
Kaelion noted all of this very carefully.
Not because he was a curious baby. But because there was nothing else he could do besides note things. He couldn't walk. Couldn't sit. Couldn't talk. Couldn't even roll over by himself if he was in an uncomfortable position. The only thing he could do successfully was cry, and even that felt deeply undignified.
Millions of years, he thought one morning while staring at the wooden ceiling above him. Millions of years I have existed in this world. And now my daily activities are crying and drinking milk.
The ceiling didn't respond.
Fair enough.
The first week, Kaelion focused on trying to move his hand.
The results were bad.
His hand moved, but not in the direction he wanted. Like there was a long delay between what he thought and what his body actually did. He wanted to lift his hand to the right, it moved slowly to the left then dropped. He wanted to grab something, his fingers all spread out like a confused starfish.
This, he thought, is an insult.
But he didn't stop trying.
The old Solaryn never gave up when there was something he couldn't do. When he first tried to fly, it took time before he finally could. When he first tried to control his fire, it took long practice before it listened.
The difference was, back then he had a body the size of a house. Now his entire body fit in one adult hand.
But the principle was the same. Practice. Keep trying. Don't stop.
On day seven, he finally managed to lift his hand up and hold it there for three seconds before it dropped again.
He considered that a major victory.
Lyra was always there.
That was what Kaelion noticed most from his first days. Every time he opened his eyes, Lyra was there. Every time he cried, Lyra came. Every time he fell asleep from exhaustion after training to move his hand, he woke up with his blanket already straightened and a fresh candle burning in the corner of the room.
Lyra didn't talk much. But when she did, her voice was quiet and calm.
"Sleep well," Lyra said one night, tucking the blanket around Kaelion. "Tomorrow will still be there."
Kaelion looked at her face. Lyra looked tired, but her smile was real. Not a forced one.
He didn't know why, but there was something strange when he looked at that smile. Something warm in his chest. Not fire. His fire had been gone for a long time now. This was different. Smaller, but also closer.
He didn't have a name for that feeling.
He kept it quietly to himself.
Aldric came around less often.
Kaelion saw his father maybe two or three times a week. Aldric always came in with the same steps, stood at the door for a moment, looked toward Kaelion, then looked toward Lyra.
"How is he doing?" Aldric asked one day.
"Good," Lyra answered. "Very active actually. His hands won't stay still."
Aldric nodded. Glanced at Kaelion one more time. "Good."
Then left.
Kaelion watched the closed door for a long time.
That man was his father. He knew that. But from everything he had seen over these past few weeks, Aldric felt more like someone who occasionally stopped by a place than someone who actually lived there.
He didn't judge. He had also once been a creature more interested in the big things in the sky than the small things below.
It was just, he thought, that he was now on the side of those small things below. And it felt different looking at it from here.
In the second month, Kaelion started to control his head.
Not fully. But enough to look left and right without immediately falling over. That was big progress. Now he could see the room more clearly.
The room was small. Stone walls with one small window on the left side. The wooden bed Lyra slept in was in the corner. A small table with a candle. A shelf with a few books whose titles were too far away for him to read from here. And his own bed that was soft but smelled a bit like milk.
The milk smell, Kaelion had accepted, would probably be with him for some time.
From that small window, he could sometimes see the sky. Morning, afternoon, evening. Sometimes clouds. Sometimes clear. Once a bird landed on the windowsill, looked inside for a moment, then flew away again.
Kaelion watched the bird go.
He used to be faster than any bird. The wind he made when flying used to be enough to send small birds like that flying back to their nests in a panic.
Now he could only watch from behind a window.
He took a slow breath.
Be patient, he thought. This is only temporary.
One afternoon, Lyra brought him to a bigger room.
The main hall of the castle. Kaelion looked around carefully. The ceiling was higher. There was a fireplace on the right wall, with a fire burning quietly inside it. A few wooden chairs that were getting old. A carpet on the floor that had faded in color.
This castle is small, Kaelion concluded. And hasn't been properly taken care of in a long time.
But he didn't get to think about that any further.
Because when Lyra carried him past the fireplace, something happened.
The fire in the fireplace looked normal. Orange, small, calm. But when Kaelion looked at that fire up close, something moved inside his chest. Not the usual warm feeling. More like something that had been asleep for a long time, suddenly aware that something familiar had walked by.
The fire in the fireplace, for just a fraction of a second, moved toward him.
Very small. Almost invisible. But Kaelion saw it.
And he was sure he wasn't seeing things.
Lyra didn't notice. She was talking to a servant in the corner of the room. The fire immediately went back to its original position, calm as if nothing had happened.
Kaelion went quiet.
Inside his head, something had just lit up. Not fire. But hope.
Maybe, he thought, not everything is gone.
That night he slept better than usual.
Lyra put him in his bed, tucked the blanket around him neatly, then sat in the chair beside him reading a thin book by candlelight.
"Mama," said Kaelion.
Not a real word. Just a baby sound that hadn't taken clear shape yet. But Lyra immediately looked at him with a completely different expression.
"Huh? What did you just say?"
Kaelion couldn't say it again. His mouth wouldn't cooperate.
Lyra waited a few seconds. Then laughed quietly and shook her own head. "Ah, mama's probably just hoping too much."
She closed her book and blew out the candle.
Dark.
In that darkness, Kaelion was still thinking about the fire from earlier. The fire that moved toward him. Small, brief, but real.
He didn't know when his power would come back. He didn't know how long this was going to take. But one thing he knew for certain.
The fire was still there.
Waiting, just like him.