The halls of the Dawson estate were silent—unnaturally so. It was the kind of silence that demanded respect, the kind that belonged to power and bloodlines older than memory. Tonight, though, that silence was broken by screams.
They echoed through stone corridors, raw and primal, the sound of a woman fighting for life while bringing another into the world. Servants hurried past with lowered eyes, carrying linens and boiling water, their movements sharp with fear. No one dared speak. No one dared question.
In the grand chamber at the heart of the estate, Noah Dawson stood with his arms crossed, his jaw tight. He was a man carved from ambition and pride—tall, broad-shouldered, with sharp features that spoke of generations of careful breeding. His robes were immaculate, embroidered with the clan's crest: a silver hawk clutching lightning. Everything about him radiated control, authority, and expectation.
Behind him, several figures waited in tense anticipation. Elders of the household, advisors with wrinkled faces and calculating eyes, and most prominently, his eldest son—Noah's pride, his heir, his legacy.
The boy was twelve, but already he carried himself like a young lord. His name was Caelan, and he stood with his hands folded neatly behind his back, chin lifted, eyes cold and watchful. His mother had been a woman of high standing, a match carefully arranged to solidify alliances and strengthen bloodlines. She had died in childbirth, but not before giving Noah what he needed: a son with talent, with potential, with worth.
Caelan's lips were pressed into a thin line as another scream tore through the air. He didn't flinch. He'd been raised not to.
"Father," Caelan said quietly, his voice steady. "Will this one be worthy?"
Noah didn't turn. His eyes remained fixed on the heavy wooden door separating them from the birthing chamber. "We shall see."
Inside that room, a woman writhed in agony. Her name was Elara, and she was beautiful—soft where the world was hard, gentle where it was cruel. She had been a merchant's daughter, a commoner who had caught Noah's eye at a festival years ago. Against tradition, against whispers and scorn, he had taken her as his second wife.
But beauty and a lucky marriage were not enough to secure a permanent place in a house like this. Elara understood that very well.
Sweat soaked her hair, plastering dark strands to her forehead. Her fingers dug into the sheets, knuckles white, every contraction sending fire through her body. The pain was immense, but greater than pain was fear.
If this child is not enough… I lose everything.
The midwife—a stern, gray-haired woman named Marta—worked with practiced efficiency, her hands steady despite the chaos.
"Push, my lady," Marta urged, her tone firm but not unkind. "He's almost here."
Elara gasped, breath ragged. She wasn't thinking of the child's face, or tiny fingers, or first words. Her thoughts clung instead to the faces of the elders, to the cold weight of their judgment, to the quiet contempt of Caelan's relatives, to Noah's silence when others questioned his choice of a commoner wife.
She had one chance to prove she was not a mistake.
One last, desperate push—and then—
A cry. Sharp, fragile, and full of life.
Marta caught the infant, wrapping him quickly in clean linen. The baby's cries filled the room, a sound both insistent and vulnerable. Elara sagged back against the pillows, chest heaving, eyes glassy.
"A boy," Marta announced, her voice careful, measured. "Healthy. Strong lungs."
Elara's first instinct was not joy. It was calculation.
If he is strong… if he has talent… they will have to accept me.
Her lips twitched into something that only vaguely resembled a smile. "Call Noah," she said hoarsely. "He'll want to see."
Marta did not immediately hand the baby to her. The midwife's old habit was to give the mother a moment—a breath to see the child, to bond. But there was no warmth in Elara's eyes, no reaching arms. Only a flicker of tension and impatience.
"Elara," Marta said carefully. "Do you want to—"
"Just wrap him properly," Elara cut in, her voice brittle. "If he is to stand before Noah and the elders, he should not look like a bloodied animal."
Marta's mouth tightened, but she obeyed. She cleaned the child thoroughly, wiping away the birth's traces, bundling him tightly in soft cloth. The baby's crying quieted into small, uncertain sounds.
He had soft black hair and dark eyes that blinked against the light. On any other night, in any other house, he might have been called beautiful.
Here, he was a test.
A knock sounded at the door. Heavy. Commanding.
"Enter," Marta said.
The door opened, and Noah Dawson stepped inside. The room seemed to shrink under the chill of his presence. His gaze swept over the scene—the exhausted woman, the midwife, the tightly wrapped infant—and for a heartbeat, something like anticipation flickered across his face.
Elara forced a smile, masking her terror. "Noah… our son. The midwife says he is healthy."
Noah approached without a word. Marta stepped forward and presented the child to him. He took the baby in his arms, holding him not with a father's tenderness, but with the cool appraisal of a man examining an heirloom for flaws.
The baby gazed up at him, tiny features scrunched, hands flexing against the cloth. Noah's expression didn't soften.
He peeled back the layers of fabric, checking the limbs, the chest, the alignment of bone and muscle. Then he closed his eyes briefly, extending his own inner sense, searching for the telltale hum of power, the glow of a nascent mana core, the resonance of bloodline strength.
Nothing.
His jaw tightened.
Elara watched his face closely, every tiny shift, every tightening of his brows. Her heart pounded in her throat.
"Well?" she asked, the word slipping out sharper than she intended.
Noah opened his eyes. The small, fragile hope that had lived there vanished.
"He has no talent," Noah said.
The words struck Elara like ice water.
"No talent?" Her voice trembled. "That… that can't be. Maybe it's too early, maybe—"
"In the Dawson line, cores flicker at birth," Noah said coldly. "Even the weakest of us have a spark. This one has nothing. No mana sense. No bloodline response. He is empty."
Marta's fingers tightened on the cloth she held. The baby whimpered softly, as if sensing the chill in the room.
Elara's eyes darted from Noah to the child and back again. "But… what will the elders say? The main wife's family—Noah, they'll use this against us. Against me."
Noah's gaze slid toward her. "They already call you a mistake. This child confirms their judgment."
Elara flinched. Not at the word "mistake" placed over her son, but at the implications it held for herself.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly, desperately. "I believed—hoped—he would at least not shame us."
Noah looked back down at the baby in his arms, and whatever thin patience he still possessed seemed to fade.
"He is worthless," he said quietly.
And then, with sudden brutal finality, he loosened his grip.
The baby dropped.
Elara screamed—not from maternal instinct, but raw shock. Her arms shot out, catching the infant just before he struck the cold stone floor. His startled cry split the air, shrill and terrified.
Her breath came in ragged gasps as she stared up at Noah, horror mingled with naked fear.
"Noah! What are you—"
"I tested him," Noah said calmly, as if explaining a routine decision. "There is nothing inside him. No core. No spark. I will not present a talentless child to this house."
From the doorway, a soft intake of breath sounded. Caelan had stepped in quietly, drawn by the commotion. He watched, eyes gleaming with a chilling satisfaction as his father dismissed the newborn.
"Father," Caelan said, voice smooth, almost amused. "Perhaps fate is merely reminding you of your… flawed choices."
Noah didn't reprimand him.
Elara's grip on the infant tightened, though not out of love—only because she didn't know what else to cling to in that moment. The baby's cries drilled into her skull, each note a reminder of her failure.
"What will you do?" she whispered. "What will happen to us if the clan finds out?"
Noah's eyes hardened. "There is no 'us' in this matter, Elara. There is only the Dawson name. And I will not let a defect stain it."
He turned toward Marta. "Take the child," he ordered. "Dispose of him. You may kill him or leave him where the wild dogs roam. I don't care how it's done. The household will be told there were complications during the birth. The child did not survive."
Marta stared at him, the color draining from her face. "My lord," she began, voice low. "He is healthy. There is no defect, no sickness—"
"No talent," Noah said. "That is defect enough. Do as you are told."
Elara swallowed hard. The baby writhed against her, tiny fingers curling weakly onto her sleeve. She looked down at him, her expression carved from stone.
There was no love in her eyes. Only calculation. Only fear.
"If this gets out," she said slowly, "they will call me cursed. They will say my blood pollutes yours. The elders will push to have me sent away… or worse."
Noah's gaze slid to her, then to the child, then back again. "Then be glad I am giving you another chance. We'll try again. But not with this one."
He stepped closer to the bed and extended his hands. Elara did not hug the baby tighter. She did not cry, beg, or curse. She simply shifted her grip and passed the infant toward Marta.
"Take him," she said, her voice hollow. "If his existence will destroy what I've built here… then I cannot keep him."
Marta took the baby gently. His crying had faded to small, broken sounds. He stared up at the dimly lit ceiling, uncomprehending of the sentence being passed over his life.
Caelan's smile widened by a fraction.
Noah leaned down and pressed a brief kiss to Elara's damp forehead. It was mechanical, practiced—more habit than affection.
"It's not your fault," he said quietly, though his tone carried no warmth. "We'll strengthen your body with elixirs next time. Increase the chance of a proper heir."
Elara nodded quickly, like a scolded servant eager to please. "Yes. I'll do better. I promise."
Noah straightened, gesturing to Caelan. "Come. We've seen enough."
Father and firstborn son left the room together, the picture of cold unity. The door shut behind them with a solid, echoing thud.
Silence settled, thick and suffocating.
Marta stood there, the infant in her arms, the weight of the order pressing down on her chest. Elara leaned back against the pillows, staring blankly at the ceiling, eyes already distant—planning her next attempt, her next gamble for status.
Neither woman reached for the child.
Marta adjusted her grip, cradling the baby closer, more out of habit than intent. His skin was warm. His breathing quick and shallow. He was very much alive.
A baby whose own parents want him gone, she thought grimly. I've served this house too long.
"Will you do it quickly?" Elara's voice drifted across the room, flat and emotionless.
Marta looked at her, startled. "My lady?"
Elara's gaze did not shift from the ceiling. "If you're to leave him somewhere… make it fast. If he cries too much, someone might see. Might talk. And then all of this will have been pointless."
Marta held her stare for a moment, then nodded once. "As you wish."
She turned and left the room.
The corridor outside was dim, lit by only a few torches sputtering on the walls. Servants averted their eyes as she passed, assuming the bundle in her arms was a stillborn child, a sad but unremarkable misfortune.
At a side door, a guard stepped aside with barely a glance when she muttered, "Complications. I'm to see the body disposed of quietly."
The night air hit her like a slap—cold, wet, and heavy with the scent of approaching rain. She pulled the cloth tighter around the baby, shielding his face from the wind. He whimpered softly, then stilled.
The path before her forked—one route leading toward the old burial grounds, where unmarked graves dotted the earth like forgotten scars, the other sloping down toward the workers' quarters and, beyond that, the city.
They expected her to go left.
Marta turned right.
Her boots splashed through shallow puddles as she slipped into a narrow side lane, half-hidden by overgrown bushes. The stones were slick, the shadows deeper here, but she moved with the practiced ease of someone who had spent decades working behind the scenes of noble life.
She had almost reached the first bend when she heard it—the faint crunch of gravel behind her, the low murmur of male voices.
"Did you see which way she went?"
"She headed toward the lower paths. Orders were to watch, not interfere. But if she—"
Caelan's men.
Of course he wouldn't simply trust a servant to carry out something this… delicate.
Marta's heart began to hammer faster. She ducked into the narrow passage between two storage sheds, pressing her back against the rough wood, clutching the baby to her chest. The infant shifted, tiny fingers curling into her collar.
"Quiet," she whispered. "Please. Just for a moment."
Footsteps drew closer, then paused at the fork.
"Tracks go both ways," one soldier muttered.
"She's a midwife, not a scout," another scoffed. "She'll go where she was told. Check the graves first."
The voices moved away, the crunch of their boots fading down the other path.
Marta waited. Ten slow breaths. Twenty. Only when the night settled again did she move, slipping out of the gap and heading deeper into the servant alleys, away from the Dawson estate's all-seeing gaze.
Every step took her farther from the life she had known.
If I obey, he dies, she thought. If I disobey… I might too.
She glanced down.
The baby was watching her.
For such a small, new thing, his gaze was uncannily steady. He did not flail wildly like most newborns. His eyes, dark and deep, seemed to quietly take in the world that had already rejected him.
"Don't look at me like that," she muttered, unnerved. "I'm not your mother."
But the words rang hollow.
She and this child had something in common now: both were tools this house no longer valued. One to be destroyed. One to be discarded.
They reached the lower road—less patrolled, more worn. Lanterns flickered in the distance where the city began, a scatter of golden lights under a dark sky. Thunder grumbled far off, and the first drops of rain began to fall.
Marta pulled her cloak tighter around the child and herself.
If she stayed in this city, if she handed this child over, Noah and Caelan's will would be done. The boy would vanish into a ditch or a wild dog's den, and she would return to the estate, to clean sheets and warm kitchens and the knowledge that she had helped kill a life for the sake of "talent."
Her stomach churned.
She could pretend she had no choice. That orders from above excused the blood on her hands.
But tonight, for the first time in many years, that excuse felt unbearably thin.
At the edge of the district, she stopped in the shadow of a leaning wall, breath misting in the damp air. Distantly, she could still hear shouts near the estate, soldiers moving, torches being raised.
"They won't forget this," she whispered to the baby. "Not him. Not them. If they ever find out you're alive…"
His tiny hand tightened on her cloak.
She realized then just how much she was asking of herself—not just to bend a rule, but to tear herself completely out of the life she'd built over decades. Her savings were small. Her body was old and worn. The world beyond this city was vast, cruel, and indifferent.
But Noah and Caelan's world was worse.
There were places beyond the main continent—small continents, mere footnotes on noble maps. Trade stopovers. Fishing grounds. Colonies too unimportant for great houses to cling to with iron fists.
She had heard of one such place in passing talk from merchants—a small continent reachable by river and sea routes. Poor, rough, but simple. A place where the Dawson name meant nothing.
A place where a baby thrown away by nobility might live long enough to choose his own fate.
Marta exhaled, the decision crystallizing in her chest.
"I won't give you back to them," she said quietly. "Not to that house. Not to that boy who smiled when your death was ordered."
Her voice shook, but her hands did not.
"From now on," she murmured, "you're not their problem. You're… mine."
The word tasted strange. Frightening. But right.
"My son," she added, barely above a whisper.
Somewhere behind her, a distant horn sounded—an estate signal. Perhaps a routine call. Perhaps something else.
Either way, she turned her back to it and began walking toward the river.
The city thinned into docks and warehouses, the smell of fish, wet rope, and tar thick in the air. Lanterns bobbed along the piers, casting quivering trails of light on the black water. Men shouted, hauling crates and securing lines as ships prepared for early departure.
Marta moved among them like any other tired worker, her cloak pulled low, the bundle in her arms unremarkable in the chaos.
At the far end of the dock, she spotted a small cargo vessel—its hull scarred, its paint faded, but afloat and active. A bearded captain in a patched coat barked orders at a pair of sailors rolling barrels aboard.
Marta approached him, heart thudding.
"You running to the outer routes?" she asked, voice steady despite the storm inside her.
The captain eyed her with a practiced, suspicious squint. "Depends who's asking."
"Just a midwife," she answered. "Looking for passage."
He snorted. "Passage costs coin you don't look like you have."
Marta shifted the baby to one arm and reached into her apron with the other. She pulled out a small pouch and offered it to him. He took it, weighed it in his hand, and grunted.
"Barely enough for one," he said.
"I don't need a cabin," Marta replied. "Just space below deck and no questions."
His gaze slid to the bundle she held. "That 'no questions' condition often costs extra."
"He's no one's heir," she said. "No claim. No crest. Just a child who needs to be far away from here."
The captain studied her for a moment longer, then sighed. "We leave before dawn. You complain about the conditions, you can swim back. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Name?"
She hesitated.
For years, she had been Marta of the Dawson estate. Marta the midwife. A background figure defined by the house she served.
"Just Marta," she said.
He shrugged. "Fine, Just Marta. Be on board within the hour. We don't wait."
He turned away, shouting at his crew again.
Marta looked down at the baby.
"You hear that?" she whispered. "We're leaving. Crossing the water to some small, forgotten corner of the world where their reach can't easily follow."
The baby made a small sound, somewhere between a sigh and a hum.
"You don't even have a name," she realized aloud. "They didn't bother to give you one before deciding you were unworthy."
Names were promises. Claims. To name a child was to say, You are ours. You belong.
They had given him nothing.
"Then I'll name you," she said softly. "Not as their failure. As my choice."
Memories surfaced—half-forgotten stories from younger days. Of figures who fell and rose, who defied the heights and paid the price. Of one who flew too close to the sun.
In most tellings, it was a warning.
Tonight, it felt like a challenge.
"Your first life was stolen the moment you were born," she murmured. "So let this be your second."
She brushed a knuckle gently along his cheek.
"I'll call you… Ikarus."
The name settled over him like a quiet shield.
"May you rise higher than any of them imagine," she whispered.
Far up on the hill, the Dawson estate loomed, its torches small and distant in the growing dark. Somewhere inside, Noah and Caelan were likely already moving on—discussing elixirs, bloodlines, the next attempt.
They believed this child was gone.
Marta turned away from the lights and walked up the gangplank of the creaking ship, carrying Ikarus into a future that none of them had planned.
Below deck, the air was damp and cramped, full of the smell of old grain, rope, and river water. A single lantern cast a weak, swaying glow.
Marta settled on a crate, exhaustion crashing over her now that the urgency of flight had ebbed. She unwrapped Ikarus just enough to see his face again—small, tired, but peaceful.
"Sleep, little one," she murmured. "Your first night as a Dawson is over. Tomorrow, you wake as mine."
She pressed a rough, careful kiss to his forehead.
Above them, sailors shouted, ropes creaked, and the ship groaned as it eased away from the dock. The river's current caught the hull, turning it toward open water and, beyond that, the forgotten small continent where nobility's gaze rarely fell.
Marta closed her eyes, listening to the changing rhythm of the world around her—the splash of waves, the hum of the hull, the soft, steady breathing of the child in her arms.
She had lost her position, her security, and any illusion that service to a great house meant honor.
But in that cramped, dim hold, with a forsaken newborn pressed safely to her chest, she had chosen something larger than fear.
Far from the Dawson estate, on a poor and overlooked continent, the legend of Ikarus would one day begin.
For now, he slept—unwanted by his blood, but claimed at last by a single stubborn heart.