He’d never particularly been afraid of the dark.

He’d never realized darkness could be so frightening.

It was pressing down on him on all sides. And he couldn’t move at all. He wasn't just paralyzed. It was as if thousands of small needles had been pressed into every nerve of his body, keeping him in place. He couldn't even twitch.

There was a roaring fire in his chest. It didn't hurt though. It felt warm. Beautiful. It wrapped him like a blanket on a cold night.

And then… it was being ripped away from him. The blazing fire that spread from his chest and wrapped every part of his body was slowly being drained out and in its place remained only a big, gaping void.

Whimpers and heavy gasps left him as he tried to pull in the fire, to wrap it around him again. But it slipped away from him as if someone was grabbing it by all its ends and pulling it out. He wanted to scream but nothing came out of his mouth. He could feel something crawling up his limbs, reaching for that fire in his heart.

No, no, no, stop, stop, stop, stop it, stop it, please, please!

He didn’t know to whom he was pleading. But no one listened to his silent pleas. Those invisible vines crawled into his chest and settled around his heart. He could do nothing as they started to soak the fire into themselves.

Agony spread in his heart. The scream that built in his throat was caught there before it could ever get out. It felt like someone was slowly carving his heart out of his chest while he still breathed. His entire body clenched with the urge to writhe in pain but he couldn’t move. All that left him were tears and silent gasps.

He didn’t know how much time had passed. It could be a moment, it could be a millennium. Whatever it was, it was excruciatingly long. Finally, all the warmth and fire was removed from him, and in its place remained only a black abyss of nothingness. All the vines that crawled up his body wrapped themselves around his heart, snapping into place like a lock. As if trapping something inside.

The scream that was caught in his throat was finally allowed release.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAA-”

“Young Master!”

Emilio sat up straight on the bed, the scream petering out.

“Young Master, are you alright?”

Emilio turned to look at the young male beside him.

“Ronald,” his voice came out raspy, barely above a whisper.

“Did you have a nightmare again, Young Master?” His manservant’s voice was worried, matching the expression on his face.

It was then Emilio realized that he was panting heavily, his lips parted and his eyes blown wide. His clothes were stuck to his skin due to the sweat dripping off his body. He exhaled shakily as he brought his knees closer to his chest, allowing his trembling body to curl up against it a bit.

“Young Master-”

“One moment, Ronald,” he whispered. “Just a moment.”

The manservant went quiet. Ronald had been with Emilio since he was a child of six and Ronald himself a boy of 11. He knew exactly what Emilio needed. Right now, what Emilio needed was a moment of silence, a moment of weakness, before he had to go out and face the day. Just one long moment before he could convince himself that he was alright.

The moment passed too soon.

It had to.

He exhaled as he finally straightened and looked toward Ronald.

“The Baron has called for everyone to break fast with him,” Ronald spoke smoothly, as if the past few moments had not occurred at all. Emilio was unspeakably grateful for that.

“That’s unusual,” he said as he got off the bed. Usually, his father preferred to have breakfast alone in his study, his mother in her parlor, and Emilio and Jeremiah in their own rooms. Sometimes, Jeremiah sneaked into his room to eat but today was clearly not one of those days. “Did he say why?”

“No,” Ronald said as he arranged the basin and water for him to wash up. “He just told everyone to be there.”

“Alright.” Emilio took off his shirt and took the wet towel to clean all the sweat off him. “Help me change.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Ronald was fast and efficient. It didn’t take him long to help Emilio into fresh, casual clothes. Emilio looked into the mirror, seeing nothing but an ordinary boy with ordinary features in luxurious clothes that were nothing but the blessings of his birth. The only thing unique about him was the forest-green eyes that seemed to have popped out of nowhere. If he didn’t resemble his father so much, he was afraid he would have been termed an illegitimate child.

“Young Master?”

Ronald’s voice brought him out of his reverie.

He sighed. “Let’s go.”

He walked out of the room and followed the hallways to the dining room, Ronald walking behind him. There was a chorus of “Good morning, Young Master”s from the servants that were running about doing their work. It didn’t take much work to offer them a kind smile and return their wishes.

“Brother!” An excited yell sounded from the opposite side of the hallway. He saw a little ball of energy run up to him. Emilio braced himself but still grunted as the ball jumped on him, wrapping his arms around his waist. The feeling was similar to being sucker punched.

“Jeremiah,” he sighed as he rubbed his head. “How much longer do you intend to do this? You’re getting bigger by the day. Your brother won’t be able to handle it much longer.”

“That’s okay!” The little boy with red hair and black eyes looked up at him. “I’ll grow up bigger and stronger and you can do it to me.”

A laugh spilled from his lips, his heart much lighter. “I’ll keep that in mind, Young Master.”

“Oh, oh, I have to tell you something!”

“Not now, Jeremiah. We have to go have breakfast with mother and father. Are you ready?”

Jeremiah’s smile dimmed and he slumped. “No,” he mumbled, burying his face into Emilio’s stomach.

He sighed. “It’ll be fine. I’ll be right there with you. Alright?”

He untangled the boy from around him and took his hand before walking to the dining room. They entered together. Emilio saw his father, Baron Florian, sitting at the head of the table and his mother, Baroness Florian, to his left. He walked to the table and took the seat opposite his mother, on his father’s right, while Jeremiah sat down beside him, both of them avoiding the cold, gray gaze of the Baroness.

“Good morning, father, mother,” he said as he settled down.

“Good morning, father, Baroness,” Jeremiah muttered beside him.

His father’s stern eyes warmed a bit as he nodded at them while all he heard from his mother was a scoff, which he was sure was directed at Jeremiah. Emilio sighed and wrapped a hand around Jeremiah’s under the table and squeezed it to comfort him as the servants stepped forward to serve them food.

“Father, is there a reason you have called us here today?”

“Do I need a reason to dine with my family?”

Emilio paused. “No, that’s not what I meant…”

A faint smile graced the man’s lips under his mustache. “I know what you meant,” he put down his fork and looked at his eldest son. “Emilio, your seventeenth birthday is coming up. What do you want to do? Shall we have a banquet?”

Immediately, a mocking laughter echoed in the room. They all turned to look at the source of the laughter, the Baroness. “A banquet? For what? To show the world what failure my son is?!”

“Anisa!”

“Do not yell at me, Edmund!” She snapped at her husband. “A banquet is for those who come back from the Academy to celebrate their turning of age, to start taking the responsibility of their fathers. Not for a Laik who can’t even feel magic!”

“Anisa, that is enough!” The Baroness was the only one who could get the Baron to raise his voice. “If you insist on stirring up trouble again, I shall have you removed at once!”

She did sit back, though she was fuming. Emilio was clenching his fists under the table. It was Jeremiah’s turn to take his hand and comfort him.

“Emilio?” He looked up to see his father looking at him, his expression a mixture of apology and concern.

He smiled at the man. “Father, I don’t need a banquet.” He said that but he knew his father well enough to know that wouldn’t appease him. “How about a private celebration? Just us. Family and staff. And we can make some donations to the orphanages.”

His father started to speak but Emilio interrupted him. “Father, please. This is what I want.”

The man took a good long stare at him before he sighed. “Very well. That’s what we will do.” He then turned his attention to the small boy beside Emilio. “Jeremiah, your instructor told me that you managed to move the flame around.”

Emilio’s eyes widened. Was that what Jeremiah had been wanting to tell him?

It had only been a year since Jeremiah turned 10 and deviated into fire core and started to practice magic. Preliminary magic training started at home and it involved learning to feel and regulate mana inside you and around you. It only taught you how to understand the flow of the existing mana around you and inside and learn to guide it. This opened the path to learning true mana control in the Academy. Usually, it took a person at least 2 to 3 years to learn how to guide their element. Jeremiah managed it in one year!

Something crashed into his chest. It was too heavy to be called happiness and too light to be called bitterness. He had dreamed of this day for himself, ever since he could remember. But when he turned 10 and then 11 and then 12… and still could not feel any mana, still did not deviate into any of the elements… he had given up on that dream. Now, Jeremiah was fulfilling that dream of his. Should he be happy or sad?

Happy, he decided. He had to be happy. For Jeremiah, for his father, for all the people who had been waiting desperately for a worthy heir to the Barony.

“That’s great!” Emilio smiled as big as he could to hide the crack in his voice as he turned to his little brother. “That’s really great! We should celebrate!”

“Celebrate?” His mother let out a disbelieving snort. Emilio turned to her, dread curling in his gut. “Celebrate what? You losing the title of heir to a damn bastard borne from a whore?!”

“Anisa!”

“Mother!”

But the Baroness was furious and lost her senses, as she tended to when it came to Jeremiah. “This little rat thinks he can come into my home and take what belongs to my son? Just because you flickered a flame?! Listen to me. No matter how much you try to hide it, you are a gods damned bastard and that is what you will remain!”

Her hand grabbed the nearest thing it could find - a bowl of hot soup - and flung it at Jeremiah.