Gill woke to the distinct, unpleasant sensation of someone tugging at his cheek with predatory glee.
He opened one eye slowly, his mind still heavy with the remnants of dreams about swirling blue currents. Bright, unforgiving sunlight streamed through the large windows of the Duke's guest chamber, illuminating the delicate golden vines painted across the plaster ceiling. For a moment, he forgot where he was. Then the smell reached him.
Perfume. Lavender, rose, and far too much powdered iris. It was suffocating.
Gill sat up, or tried to. His face felt strangely heavy, as if he were wearing a mask of damp clay. His skin felt tight and sticky. As he looked up, he saw two of Lilly's personal maids standing at the foot of the bed. They were holding lace handkerchiefs over their mouths, their shoulders shaking with the effort of suppressed hysteria.
A cold, sinking feeling crawled up Gill's spine. Slowly, with the dread of a man walking toward a gallows, he turned his head toward the full-length silver mirror on the wall.
He froze.
The reflection staring back at him was not the heir to the Valencrest fortune. It was a circus attraction. Someone had applied bright, aggressive red circles of rouge to his cheeks. Thick, arched black lines had been drawn over his eyebrows, giving him an expression of permanent, indignant surprise. Sparkling silver powder was scattered across his nose, and his lips had been painted a shade of pink that could be seen from a low-flying bird's perspective.
Gill stared at the mirror for five agonizing seconds. He looked like a doll that had been dressed by a hyperactive gremlin.
Finally, he covered his face with both hands, his voice muffled and flat. "I regret every decision that led to this moment. I regret the treaty. I regret the carriage. I regret existence."
Behind him, Lilly collapsed onto the silk duvet, howling with laughter. "You promised, Gill! A deal is a deal!"
Gill did not move his hands. "I said I would play. I did not say I would be transformed into a theatrical nightmare."
"You didn't say you wouldn't let the maids help!" Lilly wheezed, clutching her stomach. "They said you had 'excellent bone structure' for a makeover. You look… you look like a very angry sunset!"
The maids finally lost the battle. Their laughter rang through the chamber, joining Lilly's. Gill slowly lowered his hands and looked back at the mirror. His expression was blank, but inside, his adult soul was screaming.
"I want to die," he whispered.
The following morning, the Valencrest family prepared to leave. The great iron-studded gates of the Duke's city groaned open as their carriage rolled forward, the morning sun glinting off the stone battlements.
Gill sat quietly by the window, his face finally scrubbed clean, though he felt like the phantom scent of lavender would haunt him for weeks. He watched the towering spires of the castle shrink into the distance. His parents were back to their usual rhythm, discussing the logistics of the return trip and the upcoming autumn trade fair.
Gill barely heard them. He leaned his head against the velvet cushion and closed his eyes.
The warmth.
He searched for it again, pushing past the "noise" of his thoughts. At first, there was only the familiar darkness of his eyelids. But then, as he settled into the rhythmic swaying of the carriage, the darkness began to change.
Tiny points of light appeared. They weren't bright like stars; they were soft, glowing embers. They were everywhere—drifting through the carriage, floating between his father and mother, dancing in the air outside the glass. They moved like dust motes carried by a slow, invisible current.
His heart began to thud. Mana. In its raw, unshaped form.
Every time he opened his eyes to check if they were "real," they vanished. The physical world was too loud, too demanding of his attention. So, he kept his eyes shut, turning his inner gaze toward the sea of embers.
He tried to reach out. He imagined his "will" as a hand, trying to grab a single dot. But as soon as he focused on one, it drifted away, repelled by the very pressure of his focus. It was like trying to catch a bubble without popping it. He tried again. And again. The frustration was immense, but he gritted his teeth and persisted.
Then, for a split second, he accidentally expanded his awareness too far.
He "saw" his father.
Art Valencrest wasn't just a man sitting across from him. In this inner vision, Art was a blazing, terrifying sphere of white-gold light. It was as if a small sun had been compressed into a human chest. Millions—perhaps billions—of those tiny warm dots were packed together into a dense, rotating core of pure energy. The sheer "weight" of it was staggering. It felt like standing next to a roaring furnace.
Gill's eyes flew open in shock. The vision snapped shut. He gasped, looking at his father. Art was just reading a scroll, looking calm and mundane. He had no idea his son had just glimpsed the powerhouse inside him.
Night fell before they could reach the next trade town. The Valencrest caravan pulled into a wide clearing within the forest to make camp. A fire crackled in the center of the site, sending sparks spiraling up toward the dark canopy of the trees. The smell of roasted venison and woodsmoke filled the cool air.
Gill sat on a fallen log, his plate of food forgotten in his lap. He was staring at a single leaf on a low-hanging branch. The leaf was shaking gently.
The wind.
His eyes widened. He had been trying to "grab" the mana. But you don't grab the wind; you let it blow you. You don't catch a current; you flow with it.
He closed his eyes. He didn't reach out this time. Instead, he imagined himself as part of the forest. He imagined the wind flowing through the trees, moving the embers of mana toward him. He visualized a gentle suction, a soft vacuum in his chest that wasn't a "grab," but an "invitation."
The dots began to drift. They moved closer, circling him in a slow, lazy spiral. Closer. Closer.
One of them, a tiny spark no larger than a grain of sand, brushed against his "skin."
Gill held his breath, his entire being focused on that single point of contact. Carefully... carefully...
He didn't pull; he inhaled.
The tiny spark slipped past his skin and entered his chest.
For a heartbeat, a pulse of genuine, physical warmth bloomed behind his ribs. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever felt—a tiny, flickering candle in the dark.
I did it, he thought.
The realization was his undoing. The excitement spiked his heart rate, breaking his concentration. The spark didn't just vanish; it seemed to short-circuit.
A wave of intense, crushing exhaustion slammed into him. It felt as if he had just run a marathon while carrying a lead weight. His head spun, his vision blurred with grey static, and the strength simply left his muscles.
Gill leaned backward, his body slipping off the log. The last thing he saw before the world went black was the orange firelight flickering against the leaves, looking remarkably like the mana he had just tasted.
Then, he collapsed into a sleep so deep it felt like disappearing.