Being a baby was, without a doubt, the most exhausting job I had ever held.
It wasn't the work. My days were mostly sitting, sleeping, and eating mush that tasted like wet paper. No, the exhaustion came from the sheer, crushing boredom of being a grown man trapped inside a potato.
I had spent my previous life waiting, always looking for the perfect moment to start living. Now, I had all the time in the world, but I couldn't do anything with it. My mind was awake—sharper than it had been in years—but my body was a clumsy, heavy thing that refused to listen to me.
I was strapped into a high chair made of polished oak, sitting in the corner of the main room like a watchman on a tower. It was my command post. From here, I could see the kitchen, the fire, and the heavy front door that was causing so much trouble.
Across the room, Miren was humming.
My mother—it still felt strange to think of her that way, but the love I felt for her was fierce and instant—was working at her long table. To anyone else, she looked like a housewife making tea. To me, watching with eyes that saw the hidden world, she looked like a witch.
The table was covered in dried plants. There were bundles of prickly purple leaves that smelled like a storm, jars of crushed beetle shells that shone like oil, and roots that looked like dead fingers.
I knew, deep down, that half of these things were poison.
I didn't know how I knew. Maybe it was a memory from this body's blood, or maybe it was just the "Sight" kicking in, telling me what the plants were just by looking at them. The purple leaves leaked a milky sap that I knew would stop a heart if you ate it raw.
But Miren handled them with easy grace. Her hands, stained green and violet, moved in a rhythm. She took a silver knife and scraped the veins out of the leaves, separating the poison sap from the good fiber.
Scrape. Crush. Mix.
She dropped the fibers into a stone bowl, added a single drop of clear water from a blue bottle, and began to grind.
I watched, eyes wide. The air around her was alive.
Since my first day in this world, I had learned to trust my eyes. The world wasn't just wood and stone; it was laced with light. I called it the Silver Seam. Fine, shining threads of white-gold light drifted through the air like dust in a sunbeam. They passed through walls, pooled in corners, and moved when people moved.
When Miren worked, the Silver Seam danced. The threads didn't flow into her—she wasn't drinking them like I did with the Hollow—but they curled around her fingers, drawn to her focus. She was weaving magic into the medicine, not with spells, but with her hands.
Sump blood, I thought, watching a wisp of silver light sink into the bowl.
I had heard Toren whisper about it late at night. "Your blood isn't like the village blood, Miren. The Sump runs deep." I didn't know what the Sump was—some place, some history—but it apparently taught people how to turn death into life.
I reached out a chubby hand, trying to grab a passing thread of silver light. My fingers passed right through it. It felt cool, like a draft from a window.
Come here, I thought, looking at the light.
The Hollow in my chest stirred. It was quiet today, a sleeping animal rather than a raging hunger. I had learned to handle it over the last year. As long as I stayed warm and drank a little bit of the waste-magic from the fire or the heating stones, the cold didn't eat me.
The silver thread twitched, pulled by the empty space inside me.
Whack.
I slapped my hand down on the wooden tray of my chair, breaking my own focus.
Miren looked up, surprised. A lock of dark hair had fallen across her eyes. She blew it away.
"Ren? What is it, little bird? Hungry?"
I shook my head. No. Not hungry. Just... stuck.
I pointed at the table, then at the silver light drifting around her head. I wanted to ask her about the mix. I wanted to know why the blue water killed the purple poison. I wanted to know how much to use.
"Ba!" I said.
Eloquent. Truly, a genius.
Miren laughed, the sound bright and warm in the quiet house. "You want to help Mama? No, no. These are sharp. These are for grown-ups. You stay there and be my good boy."
She turned back to her work, humming that tune again—something about dust and sun and coming home.
I slumped in my chair. Being a "good boy" was awful. I wanted to build things. I wanted to take the world apart and see how the pieces fit. Instead, I was wearing a diaper and eating mush.
The front door slammed open.
I jumped, rattling the wooden spoon against my tray. Miren didn't flinch, but her hand blurred, snatching the small silver knife from the table and holding it hidden against her arm. A fighter's move disguised as a housewife's habit.
Toren stood in the doorway.
My father was a mountain. He filled the frame, his broad shoulders blocking out the sun. He wore leather armor that creaked when he moved, and a heavy iron sword hung at his hip. He looked like he had just come from a war, but I knew he had just been checking the fence for the third time today.
"Clear," he grumbled, stepping inside.
He turned to close the door. And the fight began.
The door stuck.
It jammed against the frame about three inches from being shut. The wood had swollen in the damp air, and the house had settled slightly into the soft earth. Toren shoved it. It groaned but didn't move.
He shoved it harder, his shoulder slamming into the wood with a dull thud.
"Damn it," he hissed.
"Language," Miren sang out, slipping the knife back onto the table as if she hadn't just been ready to use it.
"The frame is shifting again," Toren growled. He jiggled the handle, lifting the heavy oak door. It scraped against the floor, carving a white scratch into the wood, before finally slamming shut with a rattle that shook the whole house.
He locked it. Then he checked the lock. Then he checked the hinges.
Paranoia. It was Toren's main trait. He loved us—I felt that in the rough way he patted my head—but it was a sharp, worried kind of love. He looked at the world and saw danger.
He looked at me and saw a question mark.
He walked over to me now, taking off his heavy gloves. He smelled of pine sap and old iron. He looked down at me, his dark eyes narrowing.
"He's staring again," Toren said. It sounded like he was accusing me of something.
"He's watching," Miren corrected, not looking up from her grinding. "He loves his Dada."
Toren grunted. He reached out and poked my cheek with a rough finger. I grabbed it. His skin was hard, scarred from years of holding a sword.
"Babies don't stare like that," Toren muttered. "He looks like he's... counting."
I am counting, I thought. I'm counting the cracks in the door frame. You're going to break it if you keep slamming it like that.
I gave him a big, drooling smile and shook his finger. "Da!"
Toren's face softened, just a little. The worry faded, replaced by a flicker of awkward pride. "Yeah. Da. That's me."
He pulled his hand away and looked back at the door. "I'm going to fix that hinge. It's unsafe. If we need to lock it fast, it won't seal."
"Don't break it, Toren," Miren warned gently. "You know how you get with the hammer."
"I'm not going to break it. I'm fixing it."
He went to the corner and got his tool box. It was a sad pile of rusted iron and worn wood. Toren was a great warrior. He moved like water when he fought. But put a hammer in his hand, and he was a bear trying to sew.
He knelt by the door and started to work.
I watched. This was better than staring at the wall, even if it hurt to watch.
He pulled the pin out of the bottom hinge. The door sagged instantly, groaning under its own weight. The gap at the bottom disappeared, the wood grinding into the floor.
Mistake one, I noted. You didn't prop the door up. Now all the weight is on the top hinge.
Toren frowned. He tried to tap the pin back in. It wouldn't go. The holes didn't line up because the door had dropped.
He frowned deeper. He picked up a hammer.
Oh no.
He gave the pin a tap. Clink. It didn't move.
He hit it harder. Clack.
The pin went in a tiny bit, but crooked. It was biting into the metal of the hinge, cutting a groove.
"Just... go... in," Toren grunted, sweat beading on his forehead.
He hit it again. Harder.
Stop, I thought, gripping the tray. You're forcing it. It's the way things work, Dad. You can't beat the metal with a hammer.
I rattled my spoon on the tray. "Bah!"
Toren ignored me. He was angry now. The vein in his neck was pulsing. He shifted, trying to use his shoulder to lift the heavy door while hitting the pin. It was an awkward, bad angle.
Thwack.
He missed the pin and hit the door frame. A chip of wood flew off.
"Toren," Miren said warningly.
"I've got it!" he snapped. "It's just stiff."
It wasn't stiff. It was crooked. The top hinge was screaming now—I could actually hear the metal groaning, a high-pitched whine. The Silver Seam around the door was fraying, the strength of the wood glowing a warning red in my eyes.
If he kept hitting the bottom, the weight was going to snap the top hinge clean off. Then the door would fall. Then the house would be open.
Unsafe, my gut screamed. Bad.
Toren raised the hammer for a big swing. He was going to try to drive the pin home with brute force. He drew his arm back.
"Ba!" I shouted, banging my hands on the tray.
He didn't stop. The hammer started to come down.
The frustration boiled over. It was the builder in me, the part of Takeshi that couldn't stand to see something break because someone was using it wrong. I couldn't watch him ruin it.
I dropped the spoon. I gripped the sides of the high chair with my tiny hands, pulling myself up. I took a breath, filling my small lungs.
I pointed a shaking finger at the hinge.
"Dah!" I shouted. "Dah!"
Toren paused. He looked back at me.
I froze.
Then, slowly, Toren looked down at the pin in his hand. He held it up to the light coming through the window.
It was bent.
The metal shaft was curved just a little bit, enough to stop it from fitting in the hole. That was why it wouldn't go in. That was why he was fighting it. It wasn't the force; it was the part.
Toren stared at the bent pin. Then he stared at the hinge. Then he turned, very slowly, to look at me.
I hid my face in Miren's neck.
"Miren," Toren said. His voice wasn't angry anymore. It was quiet. Scared. "The pin is bent."
"Of course it is," Miren said, kissing the top of my head. "You've been hitting it for twenty minutes."
"No," Toren said. "Ren... he tried to tell me."
"He's a baby, Toren."
"He's not just a baby," Toren whispered.
He stood up, leaving the door broken for now. He walked over to us, his steps heavy. He looked at me, huddled against my mother.
He didn't look suspicious this time. He looked... respectful. Like he was looking at a puzzle box he couldn't open. He saw the mind behind the eyes now, and instead of pushing it away, he was measuring it.
"We have to be careful with him," Toren said. "If the village sees... if they think he's 'touched'..."
"They won't," Miren said fiercely. "He is ours. We keep him safe."
Toren nodded slowly. He looked at the broken door, then back at me. "We keep him safe," he agreed. "But Miren... I think he's going to be trouble."
I squeezed his finger.
I'm going to be a legend, Dad, I thought. But for now, I'll just be trouble.
That night, Toren fixed the door. He straightened the pin on the anvil by the fire and oiled the hinge. It closed silently.
I watched him from my crib, the silver threads of magic dancing in the air above my head. I was safe. I was warm. And I had learned my first lesson in this new world.
Being smart was dangerous. It made people look at you differently. It made the shadows move.
If I was going to survive, if I was going to finish the work I started in my last life, I needed to be careful. I needed to learn in the dark.
I closed my eyes, pulled the warm magic from the room into the Hollow to keep the cold away, and let myself sleep.
One word. One point. And the world had changed.
Next time, I'd make sure I was ready.