By the time Sharath reached five years of age, the household of Darsha had long ceased treating him like a normal child. Servants no longer cooed or played simple games with him; instead, they spoke to him with an unconscious reverence, as though addressing a visiting scholar trapped in the form of a small boy. Tutors assigned to teach him the foundations of reading, etiquette, and arithmetic often left his lessons feeling humbled, and occasionally—unsettled.
But despite the awe he inspired, Sharath chose to move through his childhood with a quiet dignity. He smiled often, laughed softly, and never flaunted his intellect. His days were spent listening more than speaking, absorbing the rhythms of court life, the cadence of rituals, and the politics that whispered between noble families.
He had mastered the Eldora tongue, not merely as a tool for spellcasting, but with the fluency of a native poet. His speech carried structure, clarity, and intention. At first, the nobles dismissed his skill as prodigious mimicry. Then came his debates—measured, precise, devastatingly logical. What began as curiosity about the boy shifted into reverence, and then into discomfort.
He was called many things behind closed doors—"Moon-Touched,""Whispersoul," and among the old servants, "Kind Flame". The name stuck, for it captured the contradiction that defined him: warmth without naivety, brilliance without arrogance.
Lady Ishvari watched him with pride and unease. She had birthed a child, but what grew before her eyes was something else—a soul reborn, wearing a smile that hid the weight of lifetimes.
At dusk, he would often sit alone in the garden courtyard beneath the blue flame trees, watching the wind swirl petals in geometric spirals. "The world talks in patterns," he once murmured to his mother, eyes distant. "You just have to be quiet enough to hear it."
And so, the child prodigy remained quiet. But every moment he watched, calculated, prepared. Childhood, to him, was not a limitation—it was cover.