The sour-faced servant woman, whose name was Martha, was a creature of habit. Every morning, she would storm into Robin's room, slam down the bowl of grey glop, and leave.
She never looked at the boy. To her, he was just another chore, like scrubbing the floors or taking out the trash.
But over the last week, something had changed. The chore was acting… weird.
One morning, as she slammed the bowl down, the boy didn't flinch or look away like he usually did. Instead, he looked right at her. His eyes, which were usually dull and fearful, were now clear and sharp.
He wasn't just looking in her direction; he was looking at her, his gaze so steady and intelligent that it made the hair on her arms stand up.
"Thank you, Martha," he had said, his voice quiet but firm.
Martha nearly dropped the empty water pitcher she was carrying. He had never spoken to her before. Not once. And he knew her name. How did the cursed child know her name?
She noticed other things, too. The boy was actually eating all the disgusting gruel. And while he was still thin as a twig, the sickly, grey-ish color of his skin was slowly being replaced by a healthier, more normal tone.
He didn't just lie in bed all day anymore. Sometimes she would see him standing by the window, his back upright straight, staring out at the castle grounds like a general surveying a battlefield. It was unnatural. It was creepy.
Martha was a simple woman who believed in curses and omens. The boy was changing, and she was sure it was the curse getting stronger. She had to tell someone.
So, she went to the castle steward, who, after hearing her frightened rambling, decided this was strange enough to bother the Duke.
And so, a report made its way up the chain of command, from a sour-faced servant to the Lord of the North himself. The report was simple: The cursed child is acting strange.
In his grand study, Duke Stark listened to the steward's report with an impatient frown. He was a busy man. He had trade disputes to settle, border patrols to manage, and a thousand other important things to do. He did not have time to worry about his forgotten third son.
"Strange how?" the Duke asked, tapping his fingers on his large oak desk.
"He's… healthier, Your Grace," the steward said carefully. "And Martha claims he wanders the halls at night. He seems… more aware."
The Duke leaned back in his chair. Intrigue, like a small, curious mouse, nibbled at the edge of his annoyance. He remembered the boy as a weak, sniveling thing who could barely stand on his own.
He had sent him away to that forgotten wing of the castle to die quietly and be done with it. A sudden improvement in health was not part of the plan. It was abnormal. And the Duke did not like abnormalities.
"Send for him," the Duke commanded. "Bring the boy here. I wish to see this for myself."
The summons came for Robin an hour later. It was not Martha who came for him, but a proper household guard in full armor. The guard stood stiffly at the door, his face a mask of stone.
"Young Master Robin," he said, his voice flat. "The Duke, your father, has summoned you to his study."
Robin, who was in the middle of trying to do a single, wobbly squat, felt his heart give a little thump. This was it. The first test. The first real battle. It wasn't a battle of swords, but of words, which could be far more dangerous.
He nodded calmly. "I will be right there."
As he walked behind the guard, his thin legs shaking slightly from the effort, his commander's mind went into overdrive. He was about to face the man who had ordered his death.
He needed a strategy. He couldn't act like Commander Justin. That would be impossible to explain. He couldn't act like the old Robin, a timid mouse. That would get him dismissed and forgotten again.
He needed to be a third person. A new character. A boy who was intelligent, but quiet. A boy who had been changed by hardship, not by some impossible magic. He had to be an enigma, a puzzle that the Duke would want to solve instead of throwing away.
They arrived at the door to the study. It was a massive door of dark, polished wood. To Robin, it looked like the gate to a dragon's lair. The guard opened it and announced, "Young Master Robin, Your Grace."
Robin took a deep breath and walked in.
The room was just as he remembered from his previous life as Justin. The roaring fire, the shelves of books, the maps on the wall. And behind the giant desk, sitting like a king on his throne, was Duke Stark.
The Duke looked up, expecting to see a frail, terrified child shuffle into the room, his eyes glued to the floor. He was expecting a boy who would tremble and stammer if spoken to.
What he got was something else entirely.
Robin walked into the center of the room with a steady, unhurried pace. He stopped a respectful distance from the desk. His back was straight. His chin was up. And when the Duke looked at him, the boy met his gaze without flinching. His blue eyes were calm and unnervingly clear.
It was a small thing, a child looking a father in the eye, but to the Duke, it was as shocking as a thunderclap in a silent room. This was not the boy he remembered. This was not the timid creature from the servant's reports. This was… different.
A long, heavy silence stretched between them. The only sound was the crackling of the fire. The Duke was the first to break it.
"I am told you have been… active," the Duke said, his voice a low rumble. He was testing him, his words like a probing jab.
"I have been feeling stronger, Father," Robin replied. His voice was still a child's voice, but it was steady and clear, without a hint of fear.
He used the word "Father" deliberately. It was both respectful and a subtle reminder of their connection, a connection the Duke had tried to sever.
The Duke's eyes narrowed slightly. "The servants say you wander the halls at night. Is this true?"
"I find it difficult to sleep," Robin said simply. "The library is quiet at night. It helps me think."
"The library?" the Duke asked, a flicker of surprise in his cold eyes. "And what does a boy like you read in the library?" He expected to hear about fairy tales or adventure stories.
"I found the histories of the great Northern houses to be the most interesting," Robin answered calmly. "Learning about the struggles and triumphs of our ancestors is more compelling than any story of dragons."
The Duke was taken aback. The histories were dry, dense books that bored even his most educated advisors. For a ten-year-old to not only read them but find them compelling was beyond strange.
He decided to push harder, to set a trap. "Indeed. And what have you learned from these histories?"
This was the real test. Robin paused for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. Then he spoke, using the eloquent, simple language of a seasoned commander.
"I have learned that a house is like a wall, Father," he began. "It is only as strong as its weakest stone. I have also learned that many great houses did not fall to outside enemies, but to rot from within, to complacency, pride, and forgetting the lessons of the past."
The words hung in the air between them. It was an answer so mature, so insightful, and so far beyond the understanding of a ten-year-old boy that the Duke was left momentarily speechless.
It was the kind of sharp, political observation one of his own advisors might make, not his cursed, forgotten son.
He stared at the boy. He saw the small, frail body. But the eyes… the eyes held a wisdom that was ancient. The way he spoke, the way he held himself, the calm confidence… it didn't fit. It was like someone had taken the soul of an old, experienced man and placed it inside the body of a child.
The Duke's mind, which was usually a sharp, orderly fortress, suddenly had a crack in its wall. Suspicion flooded in. Something was fundamentally, deeply wrong here. This was no mere recovery from sickness. This was a transformation.
He had summoned the boy to dismiss a foolish servant's tale. Instead, he had found a mystery, a puzzle wrapped in the skin of his own son.
He didn't know what had happened to the boy, but he knew one thing for certain: the weak, pathetic child he had sent away to be forgotten was gone. And this new, unnerving person who stood in his place was someone he would have to watch very, very closely.
"You are dismissed," the Duke said, his voice flat, hiding the storm of suspicion in his mind.
Robin simply bowed his head respectfully. "Father."
He turned and walked out of the room, his steps just as steady as when he had entered. He left the most powerful man in the North sitting in complete silence, staring into the fire, a deep and unsettling feeling coiling in his gut.
The Duke was a man who controlled everything in his life. And for the first time in a very long time, he had just encountered something he did not understand at all.