Robin sat at a large, dusty oak table in the deepest corner of the library. A single sliver of moonlight fell through a high, arched window, acting as his personal spotlight.
It illuminated the heavy, leather-bound book in front of him. Its title, embossed in faded gold leaf, read: The Annals of the Noble House of Tregor: Births, Deaths, and Notable Events.
He ran his small, pale fingers over the cold leather cover. It felt ancient. This book held the official story of his new family. It was a book of triumphs and tragedies, of heroes and villains. And somewhere inside, tucked away in a few lines of ink, was the story of the pathetic boy named Robin.
His hands trembled slightly as he opened the book. A cloud of dust poofed into the air, making him cough. The sound was loud in the dead silence of the library.
He froze, his ears straining, listening for the sound of approaching guards. But there was nothing. The library was his kingdom for the night.
He turned the thick, brittle pages with extreme care. They were dry and felt like they might crumble into dust if he wasn't gentle. He scanned the elegant, looping handwriting of the scribes who had kept these records.
He saw the entry for the Duke's first son, John, the boy he had saved in his past life.
John Tregor, first son, born under the sign of the Risen Sun. A strong boy, destined for greatness. The Pride of the North.
He snorted. Pride of the North? More like the Panic of the North. I saw him crying like a baby at Grey-Tooth Pass.
He flipped a few more pages. There was the entry for the second son, David.
David Tregor, second son, born under the sign of the Warrior's Sword. Healthy and boisterous. A future shield for his brother.
Then, he found it. The page was near the back of the current section, and the handwriting was different. It was messier, rushed, as if the scribe had been in a hurry to finish and get away.
The entry was short, crammed at the bottom of a page almost as an afterthought.
[ Robin Tregor, third son, born under the sign of the Weeping Moon. ]
The name of the sign sent a chill down his spine. The Weeping Moon was a well-known omen, a symbol of sorrow, misfortune, and bad luck. It was like being born with a "sorrow" sign taped to your back for the rest of your life.
He read on, his eyes tracing the scratchy ink. The date of birth listed was the part that made his stomach uncomfortable. It was a date he knew well from his history lessons as Commander Justin. It was the exact day of the Great Northern Breach.
The Breach had been a disaster of epic proportions. A massive Void fissure had torn open in the Frostfang Mountains, unleashing a swarm of monsters that had plagued the North for nearly a decade.
House of Tregor had lost thousands of soldiers, countless villages had been burned to the ground, and their power and wealth had been crippled for years. It was the single worst event in the family's recent history.
And on that very day, as monsters swarmed the land and his family's fortune crumbled, Robin Tregor had been born.
The text in the book reflected the superstitious terror of the time. It wasn't written with the same pride as the entries for his brothers. The words were cold, filled with a sense of dread.
The boy was born sickly, the scribe had written, his cries weak, his body frail. The healers say his mana core is dormant, a sputtering ember unlikely to ever catch fire.
A dormant mana core was rare and considered a terrible sign. It meant the child had almost no connection to the world's energy, marking them as weak for life. Robin felt the pathetic fizzle in his own chest and knew it was true.
The entry continued, and the words became even more damning.
His birth, coinciding with the great calamity, is seen by many as a dark omen. He is a living symbol of the family's misfortune, a constant reminder of our darkest day. Whispers in the halls have already begun to call him the Cursed Child.
Robin leaned back in the chair, the book still open in front of him. He could picture it perfectly. The Duke, already stressed and furious about the disaster unfolding in his lands, receives news that his third son has been born.
But the news isn't good. The baby is weak, practically broken, and his birthday will forever be a monument to failure and loss. The Duke wouldn't have seen a son. He would have seen a curse made flesh.
He stared at the words Cursed Child. They weren't just a mean nickname from a servant. It was an official, or at least semi-official, label. It had been his identity from the moment he took his first breath. He had been publicly and privately branded as a source of bad luck.
The understanding crashed into him. He finally understood the depth of the neglect. He wasn't just forgotten because he was weak. He was actively shunned because he was seen as a walking disaster.
Every time the Duke looked at him, he wouldn't see a son; he would see the failure of his armies, the burning villages, the loss of his family's honor. No wonder they had locked him away in a dusty room and fed him slop.
They were probably hoping the curse would just… go away.
He could remember that when he was still commander trying to understand the collapse of House Tergor, He stumbled upon a line in one of the old ledgers, tucked deep in the back of a dusty archive that says;
Robin Tregor, third son, has succumbed to the frailties of his constitution. His passing is recorded on this day. May the gods show him the mercy he was not granted in this life.
He had skimmed past it then. It was just a footnote. A line of tragic trivia about a boy who had never mattered.
But now that he was that boy… the memory slammed into him with crushing force.
His death is considered by many in the household to be a quiet blessing.
A blessing. The death of a child was a blessing.
But as he sat there now, alive and breathing in the body of that forgotten child, the truth struck him like a blade of light through fog:
That record was a lie.
He hadn't died. Not really. They had written him off, sealed him away, starved him, broken him but he hadn't died.
He was erased. Forgotten. Declared dead so the stain on their legacy could vanish quietly.
This boy, whose body he now inhabited, had never stood a chance. He had been judged, condemned, and discarded from the moment of his birth.
He sat there in the dark for a long time, the heavy book in his lap. The anger he felt was no longer just for his own betrayal. It was now a cold, protective fury for the forgotten boy whose life had been a footnote in a dusty book.
"A blessing, huh?" he whispered to the empty room. "Don't worry, little Robin. Your story isn't over."
He looked down at his small, weak hands.
"I'll make sure they remember your name," he vowed. "And when they do, they won't think of it as a curse. They'll think of it as a nightmare. Their nightmare."