Seven years.
That was the age of an ordinary boy, one who should be learning to herd goats, gather firewood, and splash about in the stream. But I was not ordinary. Within me pulsed a force far greater than this pitiful life.
And yet… I had to pretend.
Each morning I went out with the other children, running through the mud, laughing when they laughed. It was laughter without soul, empty, rehearsed. They never knew that behind my eyes, abysses were awakening.
And sometimes… those abysses opened.
---
Once in spring, when the stream swelled, a small boy slipped into the current. The water carried him, and the adults rushed, shouting, but they were too far.
Then I felt the darkness rise within me. I lifted my hand – and for an instant, the water froze, as if bound by an unseen force. The boy caught a root and scrambled ashore.
No one saw my hand, no one heard my whisper. They thought it chance. But I knew it was my command, and the world obeyed.
Later the boy thanked me, though he never knew why.
And I… I felt something strange. It was not pride, not hunger for power. It was a spark, when I saw his eyes filled with life.
---
But not everything stayed hidden.
The villagers began to whisper.
That I was different. That my gaze was too heavy for a child, that animals shied from me, that flames in the hearth flickered when I grew angry.
Once the old herbalist caught me drawing symbols in the dust behind the hut.
She frowned, her eyes narrowing: "Boy, those marks aren't from prayers. Where did you learn them?"
The urge rose within me – a single word and I could silence her forever. But then my father's voice broke through: "He's just a child. He doesn't know what he's doing." He led me home, no scolding, no suspicion.
That blind faith, that protection… it suffocated me more than chains.
---
I began to learn control. Not only of magic, but of myself.
When to stay silent, when to pretend, when to hide the fire burning in me.
Each evening I played the obedient son, listening to my mother, sitting by the hearth and eating her thin soup. And each night, when they slept, I carved runes into the dirt that could bring kingdoms to ash.
---
One night, I dreamed.
I stood again in an obsidian hall, a crown of bone upon my head, a sword of black flame in my hand. Before me stood those who had betrayed me. Their faces shifted into the villagers, into my father's worn features, into my mother's gentle smile.
I raised the sword, ready to strike them down.
And then I faltered. The blade slipped from my hand, and I woke – heart pounding as though I had lost the greatest battle.
---
I was beginning to understand that two voices warred within me.
One screamed for blood, for vengeance, for the kingdom I had lost.
The other – weak, irritating – whispered of home, of family, of ordinary things I had never known.
And I knew that one day, I would have to choose which voice would rule.