(Third-Person Limited — Lysera, age 5)
Morning slid softly across House Asterion, touching the river cliffs with pale gold before slipping into the manor's tall windows. The air was cool, steady—except in the places where silence pooled too thickly.
Lysera felt that silence. She always had.
At five, she could not understand politics, doctrine, or why some adults spoke to her only with half of their voice. But she knew when a room tightened, when a breath stopped, when someone's eyes avoided hers not out of dislike but out of... wariness.
Children are fluent in atmospheres. They breathe tension long before they learn its name.
I. Breakfast, and the Way the House Watched
Lysera sat between Kaen and Elphira at the small breakfast table. Asterion breakfasts were quiet affairs—gentle clinks, soft greetings, the rustle of servants moving with practiced grace.
Father wasn't there yet. Lady Maelinne poured tea with steady hands and a composed smile that almost hid the faint exhaustion beneath her eyes.
Lysera ate slowly. Not because she was distracted— but because she wanted to understand how the honey fell on her bread.
She tilted the small pot. A thin amber ribbon stretched, quivered, then dropped, landing almost perfectly at the edge of the crust. She tried again. This time the honey curved more sharply, pulled by the draft of the open window.
Lysera blinked. "...the air changed," she murmured.
Elphira leaned closer. "What did you say?" "The honey falls different when the wind moves," Lysera answered matter-of-factly.
Maelinne paused mid-sip. "Lysera, darling... you don't have to observe everything."
Lysera frowned. "But everything is doing something."
Kaen, who had been attacking his fruit pieces with a spoon, held one up proudly. "Mine is doing nothing."
Lysera shook her head softly. "It's rolling." "It's NOT." "It is. A little."
Kaen placed his face very close to it, squinting—then gasped when it shifted the smallest fraction. "It moved!"
He looked at Lysera with awe, as if she had whispered a secret spell.
Maelinne watched them both with a complicated expression. Admiration. Fear. And something maternal trying very hard to surface.
II. When Father Arrives, and the Room Remembers Its Rules
Lord Auremis entered the dining room with the gravity of a man used to being obeyed. Not harsh, not loud—simply a presence that straightened shoulders.
"Good morning," he said, kissing Maelinne's forehead and nodding to the children.
Lysera looked up from her cup. "Father, the wind is different today." "Is it?" "It made the honey bend."
Auremis lowered himself into his seat. Most fathers would laugh at that. Most would dismiss it. Auremis studied her instead, as if weighing whether the sentence meant more than a child's curiosity.
"...I see," he said gently. "You notice much." A small pause—a breath too slow—betrayed that her noticing was not always a comfort.
Lysera nodded. But Maelinne's hands tightened around her napkin.
III. A Walk Through the Gallery
After breakfast, Auremis asked Lysera to accompany him through the gallery hall—a place where portraits of ancestors lined the walls.
She followed, small footsteps softened by the thick carpets.
Father paused before a painting of Selene—the first wife, Lysera's mother. Lysera looked up at it every time. Not with sadness—she was too young for grief of that depth— but with a sense of searching, as if she recognized something she had never truly seen.
Today, she stepped closer. "She looks like Elphira," she whispered.
Auremis blinked. "...why do you say that?"
"Not in the face. In the way her shoulders are. Like she's listening to someone."
Auremis stared at her. Most adults looked at faces. Lysera looked at tension, posture, breath. It wasn't genius. It was attention— sharp and unsettling in a child so young.
He rested a hand briefly on her head. A gesture meant to be warm. But she felt the heaviness under it. As if her observation tugged at something he did not wish to remember.
IV. A Priest Arrives, and Lysera Learns About Silence
A soft knock echoed.
A junior priest entered—robes crisp, steps almost soundless. "Lord Asterion. I come to review the household's shrine logs."
House Asterion's shrine logs tracked routine offerings, ritual temperatures, and flame-responses—mundane things that mattered far too much in Thesalia.
Auremis exhaled slowly. "Very well."
The priest's eyes drifted to Lysera. Priests always looked at her with that same measured distance, as if she were a candle flame they were not sure would burn or sputter.
"What is the child learning today?" he asked. "Nothing formal," Auremis replied. "She is accompanying me."
Lysera clasped her hands behind her back. The priest crouched slightly. "Lady Lysera, do you know the Flame watches those with clear hearts?"
Lysera nodded. "The Flame watches everything."
"Not everything," the priest corrected softly. "Only what it chooses."
Lysera frowned. "Why does it choose?"
The priest paused—not because he didn't know the doctrine, but because the question was not the one expected from a five-year-old. "Some answers," he replied, "are not meant for you yet."
Lysera tilted her head. "Is that because I won't understand, or because you don't want to answer?"
Auremis inhaled sharply. Maelinne would cry if she heard that. Elphira would laugh. Kaen would try to repeat the line loudly at dinner.
The priest's smile froze. "...children should be... quiet with their questions," he said slowly.
Lysera knew this tone. It was the same one used when adults didn't want to tell the truth.
She lowered her gaze. Not out of fear. Out of understanding. If she spoke further, she would cause trouble. She was learning, even this early, how to shrink herself when necessary.
V. Afternoon With Kaen
Later, she and Kaen played in the courtyard. Kaen collected small sticks and arranged them into messy shapes. Lysera sorted hers by texture: smooth, cracked, barked, hollow.
Kaen frowned. "Why do you do that?" "I want to see them better." "But we're playing!" "I am playing." "That's not playing."
Lysera paused. "...Then what is it?"
Kaen puffed his cheeks. "It's thinking!"
She blinked. "Oh."
Kaen dropped beside her, leaning his small head against her shoulder. "Lysera thinks a lot," he said proudly.
Lysera felt warmth bloom quietly in her chest. Kaen did not fear her mind. He admired it. That mattered more than she yet understood.
VI. Maelinne, Alone at Dusk
At dusk, Lysera peeked into Maelinne's private sitting room. The woman sat with a hand over her brow, exhaustion softening her posture. A half-read prayer scroll lay forgotten beside her.
Lysera approached quietly. "Lady Maelinne?"
Maelinne looked up, startled—then softened. "Yes, sweetheart?"
"Did I make the priest upset?"
Maelinne closed her eyes for a moment too long. "No," she lied gently. "You only... surprise them."
"Is surprise bad?" "...not always."
Lysera stood in silence, absorbing the unsaid.
Maelinne reached out and fixed one of the ribbons in Lysera's hair. "You are a bright child," she whispered. "Just... stay close to me. And don't speak your thoughts too quickly. People in Thesalia misunderstand bright things."
Lysera nodded slowly. "I will try."
Maelinne smiled, but the sadness behind it lingered even after Lysera left the room.
VII. Night, and the Question Only Shadows Hear
That night, Lysera lay beside Kaen, who mumbled in his sleep and clung to her sleeve like a frightened kitten. Moonlight softened the room. Elphira hummed from the next bed over. Somewhere in the house, a door shut too quietly.
Lysera stared up at the ceiling. "Why do grown-ups not want me to see things?" she whispered.
The shadows did not answer. But they pressed closer, as if listening— as if interested— as if aware that some questions do not wait for answers—they grow into consequences.