Caladan Castle never slept. For everyone else, night brought silence. For me, it was a deafening roar.
I could hear the electric whir of the pendant lights three stories away. I could hear the scraping of guards' boots on the outer walls, the irregular heartbeat of an elderly servant in the kitchens, the settling creak of the stone foundations under the pressure of the sea.
And inside my mind, the flow of information never stopped. Blueprints of cold fusion reactors overlapped with the molecular structure of the air I breathed. It was a constant white noise, a divine static that threatened to drown out my sanity.
I needed silence. I needed to get away from the pulse of humanity so I could hear my own thoughts.
I found my father on the north terrace, the only part of the castle that faced the ancient pine forests and not the raging sea. Duke Leto was smoking a thin cigarette, letting the gray smoke mingle with the morning mist.
I approached. I walked silently, but he knew I was there. He always tensed when I came within his range.
“You should be sleeping, Valerius,” he said, without turning around. His voice sounded tired.
“Sleep is difficult here, Father,” I replied. My five-year-old voice contrasted sharply with the formality of my words. “There are too many… people. Too many signs.”
Leto turned, resting his elbows on the damp stone railing. He looked at me, and I saw that familiar mixture of love and caution.
“What do you need?” he asked. Not “What do you want?” but “What do you need?” He understood that I wasn’t asking for anything extravagant.
I gestured toward the darkness of the woods, where the trees stood like silent giants, far from the lights of the castle.
“I want permission to build a shelter. There. Deep in the woods.”
Leto frowned.
“A playhouse? We can ask the carpenters to…”
“It’s not for playing,” I interrupted gently. “And I don’t want carpenters. I’ll do it myself. I need a place where I can be alone. A place where I don’t have to… hold my breath all the time.”
The Duke threw down his cigarette and crushed it out with his boot.
“Valerius, you’re five years old. The woods are dangerous. There are wild wolves, there are landslides…”
I took a step toward him. Just one. The rain trickled down my face, but I didn’t feel cold.
“Father,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “You know what I am. You know what I can do with steel. Do you think a wolf is a threat to me?”
Leto held my gaze. For a moment, I saw the Duke calculating, assessing the situation. I knew he was right. The forest wasn't the threat to me. I was the threat to the castle. If I lost control in a nightmare, I could bring down an entire wing of the palace.
"It's for our safety as much as for my peace," I added, giving him the strategic argument he needed to emotionally accept my departure.
Leto sighed, a long, mournful sound that faded into the wind.
"I don't want you far away, son. Despite everything...you are my blood."
"I'll be close. Only a few kilometers away. You'll be able to see me from here," I lied. I didn't want him to see me. I wanted to build things that this world would consider witchcraft or heresy.
"All right," he finally conceded. "But you'll wear a transponder. If you take it off, I'll send the entire guard after you, whether you like it or not."
I nodded.
"Thank you, Father."
He turned to leave, but his voice left me.
"Valerius."
I turned.
“How are you going to build it all by yourself?” he asked, with genuine curiosity and a touch of fear. “What tools do you need?”
I smiled, a small, sad smile.
“I don’t need any tools, Father. Matter is… malleable if you know where to press.”
That same afternoon, I walked toward the forest. I didn’t take axes or saws. I only took my mind, brimming with impossible geometries, and my hands, capable of bending the world.
I found a clearing surrounded by black pines.
I started working. I didn't cut down the trees. I used my strength to tear basalt boulders from the ground, stones that weigh tons, and lifted them as if they were polystyrene foam. With the friction of my hands and controlled pressure, I heated the stone until it fused, creating smooth, perfect walls, without joints.
I didn't build a rustic cabin. I built a brutalist cube of molten black stone, airtight, isolated from sound and light. A silent monolith among the trees.
When I finished, at dusk, I sat in the center of my new, empty house. The silence was absolute. For the first time in five years, the noise of the world faded away.
I closed my eyes. And finally, I let my mind expand, filling the room with mental projections of what was to come. The future was no longer noise. It was a plan.