Elias lay sprawled on Lady Elara's opulent, silken bed, a small, stubborn lump beneath the embroidered coverlet. A couple of months had passed and he had recently celebrated his third birthday.
The air in the room, normally light and airy, felt thick with the unspoken consequence of his awakening. Servants bustled outside, their muffled voices and the distant clatter of the still unfinished repairs a constant reminder of the gaping hole in the manor's left wing.
Elias scoffed.
Everyone thought he was mortified by the destruction, guilt-ridden over his prodigious, albeit explosive, display of power. They assumed he was in shock,after all,he was still a kid.
But the truth was far more infuriating. He wasn't blaming himself for the house.
"Fuck that."
He was seething at Deus, that smug, insufferable god...
Immortality?
Who, in their 'infinite wisdom', bestows eternal life upon some random mortal just to prove a point?
Elias, wanted nothing more than to wipe that infuriating self-satisfied grin off that off-white bastard's face. He was immortal, yet still trapped.
The injustice was simply galling.
The door creaked open, admitting a shaft of soft light and the warm, comforting scent of rice pudding.
Lady Elara, graceful as ever, entered bearing a silver tray laden with a steaming bowl and a cup of warm milk. She moved with an innate serenity that always seemed to calm the air around her. Setting the tray gently on the bedside table, she sat on the edge of the bed, her hand gently stroking Elias's hair.
"Elias,my dear," she cooed, her voice a balm.
"Don't dwell on this, my love. It isn't your fault, not a bit. These things happen when one awakens their Flow, especially so powerfully and so young." She paused, a soft smile touching her lips.
"Now, come. Mama made your favorite. Rice pudding."
Elias, still stubbornly facing the wall, merely grunted, burrowing deeper into the pillows. He was in no mood for comfort food, not when his eternal tormentor was probably watching with glee. The food was tempting him though.
Lady Elara sighed, a soft, amused sound.
"Oh, my stubborn little sprout. Just like your papa, Alaric Auro Dukker. You know, he wasn't always the formidable Lord Alaric, master of his Flow, that you see today."
Elias's ears twitched.
He hadn't heard much about his father's awakening. Lady Elara continued, her voice laced with an unmistakable thread of admiration.
"He didn't awaken his Flow until much, much later in life, you see. Long past when most nobles of his standing would have. He was mocked, you know, by some members of his own peers, called 'Flow-less Alaric,' a rather unkind jibe but that was the first reason he earned the name 'Alaric the Still'."