By the time he turned one, "walking" was not a simple action for Aetherion, but a spiritual battle.
He didn't waddle like other children, falling and giggling. He wrestled with the stubborn pull of the earth.
His mind wanted to dash like the wind, to catch the enemy's (the floor's) opening. But this infant body... these soft bones and clumsy muscles refused to obey his will.
Walking in the corridor, that flame-orange hair on his head shone like a signal flare amidst the grey stone walls. Servants would whisper and step aside when they saw him.
Aetherion gritted his teeth. The stone floor froze the soles of his feet.
Damn it... he thought. His anger was not analytical, but searing. Why is this body like an oxcart stuck in mud when my mind wants to fly like a hawk? This lag between my will and my movements is driving me insane.
The language here was harsh. Words came from the throat, harboring sounds like cracking ice. Aetherion merely listened for months. The sentries' passwords, the servants' gossip, his mother's lullabies... He etched them all into his mind.
And when he started speaking, he didn't start by saying "mama" or "dada."
One evening, Zero was examining parchments in his study. The only light in the room came from the embers in the fireplace and the candle on Zero's desk.
Aetherion glided in through the doorway. His porcelain-white skin glowed like a ghost in the dark room. He walked up to his father, to the foot of that massive, black-armored mountain. He tugged at his father's tunic with his small hand.
...Zero looked down. He lifted his son onto the table.
Zero rubbed his blue eyes, tired and reddened by the Frostthorn Drop, and looked at his son.
His son was pointing at the map on the table.
"This..." Aetherion said.
His voice was raspy. The baby tongue struggled to carry the heavy, adult words in his mind, but his intonation was clear. He wasn't asking a question; he was demanding an answer.
"This... is where?"
Zero's quill hovered in the air.
The only sound in the room was the crackling of the wood in the fireplace. Zero stared at his son, frozen. His raven-black hair fell over his face, his scar looking deeper in the flickering light.
Normally, a father would jump for joy hearing his child's first words. But what Zero felt was less joy and more a cold shiver.
Did he speak? Zero thought. When he has just barely learned to walk? And the first thing he asks me is 'location'?
Zero slowly put his pen down on the table. Narrowing his eyes, he looked into his son's blurry grey eyes. There was no infant innocence in the child's gaze; there was the desperation and anger of a lost traveler. His finger wasn't tapping the map randomly; he was pointing to a specific point, insistently.
"You..." Zero said, his voice coming out like a whisper. "Did you just ask me a question?"
Aetherion didn't answer. He just tapped the map again with his finger. His look screamed, We are not playing games, father. Take me seriously.
Zero let out a deep breath. His shock slowly gave way to that familiar, solemn acceptance.
This child is not normal, he confirmed to himself. The fire in his veins burns his mind too. He is growing too fast. At a dangerous speed.
Aetherion placed his tiny hands on the parchment. His eyes scanned rapidly.
The first thing that caught his attention was that there wasn't a single letter on the map. No writing. No names. Only symbols, colors, and borders.
A map without writing, Aetherion thought.
The map showed landmasses suspended over a massive void, connected to each other and to centers by chains.
"Here," Zero said, placing his finger on an isolated black tower symbol at the tip of the bluish-grey painted region at the top of the map. "Iron Tooth Keep."
Following Aetherion's gaze, he continued explaining.
"We are in the North. Aquara's lands. Where water and ice rule." He slid his finger to the red region on the right. "To our east lie Ignis's lands; fire and ash." Then he pointed to the green and brown region on the left. "To our west, Terra; earth and rock."
All three regions bordered each other, and they all connected to a pure white, circular area in the middle.
Aetherion reached his finger toward that white center. There was a golden seal there, larger than the others.
"There?" he asked.
Zero gently but firmly pulled his son's hand away from that region. As if even touching it was forbidden.
"That is the Central Region," Zero said, his voice turning into a whisper. " The home of Eldara, the Goddess of Knowledge. But it belongs to her alone; it is the common property of all Gods. Libraries, archives, the entire memory of the world is kept there."
He fixed his eyes on his son's eyes. The hidden redness behind his blue eyes flickered for a moment.
"Entering there is forbidden, Aetherion. Only High Priests and the 'Silent Ones' live there. If a human steps foot there, they never return. It is holy... and deadly."
Aetherion looked at the map again.
Three countries. Three Gods. And in the middle, a forbidden temple of knowledge guarded by everyone but entered by no one.
But what truly horrified him wasn't this political structure. It was the geography itself.
There were massive gaps on the map. The pieces of land didn't float on an ocean; they hung suspended over an infinite nothingness. And there were thick, black lines holding these lands together, connecting the islands to the center.
"Chains..." Aetherion whispered, slipping into a word from his own language (his old language), then immediately correcting it. "What are these?"
Zero ruffled his son's hair. His hand was heavy and warm.
"This is the Realm of the Chain Vow, son," Zero said. "We are prisoners chained so we do not fall into the void."
Aetherion's mind reeled as he processed this information.
Not a planet, he analyzed in horror. Floating rocks. If one of those chains breaks... not just a city, but an entire country falls into nothingness. This world is a catastrophe hanging by a thread.
Zero rolled up the map and put it away. But for Aetherion, everything was just beginning.
As he lay in his cradle that night, he wasn't watching the ceiling, but that terrifying geography in his mind.
The enemy isn't just the armies at the gate, he analyzed, gripping his blanket with tiny fingers. The enemy is the world itself.
In his old world, when he lost a battle, he could flee to the mountains. Hide in the forests. But here... Here there was nowhere to run. Where the land ended, an eternal fall began.
We are geographically besieged. Access to knowledge is sealed by the Gods. Physically, we live on the edge of an abyss at the mercy of rusty metal.
In the dark, his eyes glowed with the red light coming from the fireplace.
This is not a kingdom. This is a cage.
A sword will not be enough.
That night, he slept not like a baby, but like a prisoner planning his next move.