The next five days were a stone coffin for Aetherion.
Zero's order was absolute: The door would remain locked. That break in the logistics chain had compressed Aetherion's world into four walls. His dosage was reduced; every time he looked in the mirror, he saw the gray veil thinning and the magma-red curse beneath glowing like a cracked volcano.
Inactivity was no different from rusting for a samurai.
He looked around to sharpen his mind, to pass the time, but there wasn't a single book, not a scrap of parchment in the room. Aetherion attributed this to the harsh and primitive nature of the North; he assumed that here, "culture" was measured only by the quality of sword steel, while paper and ink were seen as unnecessary ornaments for soldiers. He did not yet know the dark ban behind this absence; to him, this was simply the intellectual drought of the Northerners, and this crude ignorance hurt him more than hunger.
On the third day, there was a knock on the door. It was Hilda, the servant bringing food. Aetherion didn't open the door. He just called out from behind it. "Hilda," he said. His voice sounded muffled behind the closed door, but too authoritative for a child. "I want you to bring me something."
"Your command, young master," the woman's voice trembled.
"One of those old, rusty practice swords from the pantry. And a whetstone."
"But sir... in your room..."
"Bring it, Hilda. Or I will expend this energy by tearing apart the furniture in this room."
What was left on the doorstep that night was less a sword and more a piece of Grade VIII Scrap forgotten by a blacksmith. It was rusty, unbalanced, and the hilt was rotting. But when Aetherion felt the coldness of the metal in his palm, he felt the chains on his soul loosen.
Despite the confines of the room, he did not stop. For five days, only the whistling sound of the sword cutting the air and Aetherion's rhythmic, sharp breaths were heard from behind that door. Sweat poured from his porcelain-white skin, plastering his flame-orange hair to his forehead. His muscles burned, his child body rebelled, but the old general in his mind whipped him mercilessly.
Do not rust, said the voice inside. If you stop, you rot.
At the dawn of the fifth day, the sound of the lock was heard.
When the door opened, Elara stood before him. His mother's face was tired; there were dark circles under her eyes, but she held a small frosted glass bottle in her hand. The liquid inside was a dark gray, like a stormy sea.
"It's done," Elara whispered. "Not a perfect solution. But at least it will veil that fire with smoke."
When they applied the drops, Aetherion's eyes burned and watered. The pain was like needles being driven into his pupils. But when he looked in the mirror, he saw that the redness had given way to a smoky, uncanny gray.
"Come," Elara said. "There is something I need to show you."
She granted Aetherion his freedom, but took him not to the courtyard, but to the greenhouse with the glass ceiling at the very top of the castle.
This was another kingdom, completely isolated from the metal-and-rust-scented world outside, dominated by the smell of damp earth and pungent plants. Elara's kingdom.
Elara stood at the workbench. Her delicate fingers were crushing a purple-leaved, thorny plant. There was not the tenderness of a healer in the way she used the pestle, but the cold calculation of a surgeon.
"Look, Aether," she said, pointing to the dark blue extract coming from the crushed plant. "They call this Sleep Whisper. A small dose kills the pain in a soldier's leg. But if you increase the dose by two drops..."
She turned her eyes to her son. In that moment, her gaze held not just a worried mother, but a resilient woman who had survived Aquara's Dump.
"...it stops the heart. Silently. Without a trace."
Aetherion looked at the toxic beauty in his mother's hand. "Why are you teaching me this?"
Elara bottled the extract in her hand. "Because your father teaches you to kill with steel," she said, her voice soft but firm. "I am teaching you how to survive without a sword. There is no mercy in nature, Aether. Only alchemy. One day your sword might break. But your knowledge... that never rusts."
She reached out and applied the salve she had prepared to a small scratch on Aetherion's cheek left from the room training. Her touch was cool. "Your father protects you with steel," she whispered. "And I will protect you with roots."
Then she paused. She didn't pull her hand away, but gently lifted her son's chin and looked into his eyes. She saw the seriousness in those smoky gray eyes.
"Stay away from that girl, Aether," she said suddenly. The subject hadn't changed, only deepened.
Aetherion frowned. "Runa? She is harmless."
"The problem isn't her harm," Elara said sharply. "The problem is her vulnerability. That girl and her mother... they are made of glass. And you are fire. That girl is gunpowder. If you come together, you will explode."
Elara's fingers squeezed Aetherion's shoulder. "You are the Lord's son. Nothing will happen to you; at most, you will get burned. But if your bright light scatters the shadow they are hiding in... no one can save them. If you want to protect them, stay away from them."
Aetherion couldn't fully grasp the political depth of this warning at that moment. He perceived it only as a prohibition. But the fear in his mother's eyes, that sincere worry for Runa, was etched into his mind.