Just as quick as he fell, he was just as quick as he rose.
Cassius gasped, air like ice in his throat. A sharp inhale that hurt. His body tensed as the blackness cleared. Eyes flicked open, no longer clouded, but glassy, rimmed in red. A knight lunged forward to catch him, but Cassius stood before he could fall.
Unnatural, stiff. Like something lifted him by strings.
He brushed the knight off with a dead-eyed glance, staggered once, and then caught himself. His hand still gripped the sword. He hadn't even realized it. His fingers had turned bone white from clenching.
Then, a voice. Familiar. Warm, yet worn thin by time and distance.
"Cassius."
He turned, and there she stood.
Mother.
Not in a gown. Not in jewels. She was dressed like she once had in the old stories he barely remembered, leather-bound, wind-cut cloak over her shoulders, a longbow strapped across her back, hair pinned up tight. And for the first time in a long time…
She looked like a warrior.
She moved toward him quickly, her steps precise but not rushed. Her hand rested gently against his cheek, callused thumb brushing across his jawline, checking his balance, not just physical, but emotional.
"You saw something again, didn't you?" she asked quietly.
Cassius didn't answer at first. His eyes searched hers like they were trying to remember who she used to be. She was still there. Just hidden behind fifteen years of war rooms and locked doors.
"I saw... what I always see," he muttered. "But this time, it spoke."
She went still for a moment. Her mouth tightened, and she exhaled slowly.
"Come," she said. "We're going out."
Later That Night, The Woods Beyond the Estate.
The crickets were loud this far out. The moon overhead was heavy and full, casting silver light over the treetops. Cassius stood in the brush beside his mother as she adjusted the longbow in his grip, aligning his stance with the elegance of a sculptor.
"Again," she said. "You're tilting too far back. Keep your spine long, shoulders loose."
He loosed the arrow.
It clipped the edge of the mark and spun off.
"Tch."
"Better," she said. "Again."
They kept shooting, neither saying much until the silence thickened into something heavy.
"I'm sorry we've been gone," she said finally, voice low. "I know it doesn't change anything. But you deserve to know the truth."
Cassius kept his eyes forward.
"There's been unrest. Political sabotage. Quiet killings. Rumors."
He frowned. "Rumors of what?"
Her lips parted, but the words weighed too much to come easy.
"There are people who believe you should never have been born," she said flatly. "That your resonance or what they think it is—is a threat to this world. They believe you're cursed. That you'll bring the end."
Cassius didn't flinch. Didn't break eye contact with the target.
"Let them come," he said.
She stepped beside him. Quiet. She put a hand on his shoulder.
"They already have."
"Cassius…"
He heard the hesitation in her voice before he saw her face.
Cassius turned, eyes dull and unreadable. "Hm?"
She paused, a flicker of pain moving across her hardened expression.
She said, "Leave."And just like that, the last thread tying him to the house that raised him snapped.No screaming. No embrace. Just exile, dressed as mercy.
He blinked. Not in shock, but as if he had been expecting this.
A wry grin tugged at the corner of his lips. He let out a small scoff, then tossed the bow down at her feet, the sound sharp in the still forest.
Cassius dropped the bow at her feet like it was a dead thing."Say it," he muttered. "Admit it, you never loved me. None of you did."
Then he vanished into the trees before grief could catch him.
Before she could answer, before a single excuse could form, he took off sprinting through the woods, breaking through branches and ducking trees like he knew the forest better than it knew itself.
She cursed under her breath and took off after him. She wasn't slow, god, she was still fast, but he was faster. Moving like wind incarnate, each step precise, untraceable.
How the hell is he so fast? she thought.
She slowed just as the manor came into view, breath catching in her chest. Then smiled, faintly.
If he's that fast without resonance… he'll survive. Let him think we never loved him if it means he'll grow strong enough for what's coming.
She walked again, quietly, and saw him ahead, a blur by the gates, sword sheathed on his back, a cloak around his shoulders, a travel bag slung low and full. The knight standing watch opened the gate without question.
Cassius didn't look back.
As he disappeared into the road beyond, she whispered, "Cassius... I'll love you always."
***
The Market, South District.
The city was massive. Stone towers spiraled into the clouds, hospitals, apothecaries, and academic towers all stitched into the skyline like iron needles. At street level, the markets bustled with thousands. Fruit sellers shouted prices, metalworkers clanged steel into shape, and children darted between feet like shadows.
Cassius arrived at the tavern known as the Crooked Mare.
He slipped through the worn doors of the tavern. A quiet, familiar haunt at the edge of the market district. The place smelled of mead and old wood. The same bartender stood behind the counter, polishing glasses with her usual sharp grin.
"The usual?" she asked, half-smirking.
Cassius didn't speak. He dropped three gold coins onto the counter with a hard clink.
The sound made the whole room go quiet.
Three gold coins are enough to feed a family for three years. Enough to start a business. Enough to disappear.
Her eyes widened. She picked up the coins slowly, her hand trembling.
"I'll… I'll get you a room," she whispered, handing him a key labeled 51F. "The best one we've got."
Cassius said nothing. He took the key and disappeared up the stairs.
He collapsed into the bed, face turned toward the ceiling. The room smelled clean. New sheets. Soft pillow. But the thoughts were old.
Maybe she did love me, he thought. Maybe they all did.
He turned his head.
No.
He slapped the thought away like a fly. Sleep came slow, and shallow.
Three Days Later.
He hadn't left the tavern. He drank, but didn't get drunk. Ate, but barely. Time passed, but felt fake.
"If I keep this up, I'll go mad", he realized.
It hadn't occurred to him until now that there was a guild downstairs. He'd seen it a hundred times and never cared.
Why hadn't he joined?
Well, there were reasons:
1.
It was looked down on. Common work, dangerous work. Beneath nobility.
2.
He was a Valerius. Was.
3.
The grind. You had to start from the bottom. Unless...
He could just take a B-rank or higher quest. Subplane missions. High risk, high reward. And maybe just maybe they'd finally give him something to fight.
He wasn't confined anymore. So the only thing to do now... was live.
He stood and walked to the bar.
"I want in," he said.
The bartender tilted her head toward the back hallway. "Through there."
The process was fast. Brutal even. Too many names. Too many deaths. No one asked questions anymore.
The receptionist, a bored-looking woman behind a small crystal-lit desk, barely glanced up.
"Name?"
He spoke calmly.
"Cassius Valerius."
"Cassius Valerius?"The guild clerk's voice cracked like cheap glass.She wasn't scared of his face.She was scared of his name.
She froze. Eyes wide. "Are… are you sure you want that name recorded?"
He stared.
"Yes."
She hesitated. The pen trembled in her hand as she wrote it on the card, a strange, obsidian card etched with magic no one understood. Not even the founders. The moment it was inscribed, it shimmered and burned faintly with a light that disappeared into his chest as resignation.
He didn't flinch.
Card in hand, Cassius walked back toward the mission board. He swiped one clean from the B-rank column and tucked it beneath his shirt before anyone noticed.
Back at the desk, he asked quietly, "Where do I go for B-rank and above?"
The receptionist looked up slowly. "Take a left outside the tavern. Big building. You can't miss it."
Cassius nodded. "Thanks."