Day 365.
A marker in the silent, secret history of my new existence. A year. A full orbit in this strange, gilded life. So much has been done. The progress was a quiet, monumental edifice I had built entirely within the walls of my own mind and body. The infant who could barely lift an arm was gone.
I could now fully understand the language. The melodic tongue of Aethelgard was now my own. I could parse the subtle honorifics, the archaic formal tenses used in prayer, the crude slang muttered by guards in the hall. It was a cloak I wore invisibly, allowing me to listen to the world with perfect comprehension. Until now, it was going very smoothly. Suspiciously so. The promised 'Extreme Nightmare' felt like a forgotten label on a box of luxury goods.
To mark the anniversary, I decided on a test. A physical audit. To celebrate this achievement I decided to check my maximum punch and kicks.
In the quiet hour before dawn, with the maid dozing lightly by the door, I moved through my routine. My form was crisp, my breathing controlled. The punches were no longer light taps but sharp, snapping motions that cut the air with a soft whuff. The kicks were balanced, chambered, and returned with precision. Push-ups were a steady, metronomic burn.
The final count left me sweating but far from exhausted: I could do 100 punches, 100 kicks, and 50 push-ups. The numbers were absurd for a one-year-old by any earthly standard. Here, they were likely still extraordinary, but perhaps not impossible for a noble child of this world. The growth was unprecedented. The growth curve was like a parabola. My mind, with its new mathematical clarity, could visualize it—a steep, accelerating line rocketing upward. It was the product of inhuman genetics and a human will forged in two lifetimes of frustration.
Ah, remember those times I got stuck understanding them. A wry, internal smile. Calculus felt like a lifetime ago. A simpler puzzle.
The door to my chamber opened, not with the usual soft click, but with a firm, purposeful swing.
I froze mid-stretch, dropping back into a seated, innocent pose. It wasn't the regular maid. The woman who entered was taller, broader in the shoulder, her simple grey dress tailored to allow for movement. Her eyes, a plain brown, held none of the submissive deference of the other servants. They scanned the room, then locked onto me with an efficiency that was purely professional. She moved with a predator's quiet grace.
Huh?... Woah. woah… wait wait … is she gonna kill me??.
My heart slammed against my ribs. This was it. The turn. The nightmare begins. My muscles coiled, a year of training screaming at me to fight, to flee—but to where? I was a one-year-old in a locked room.
She crossed the space in three long strides. Her hands, strong and calloused, closed around my torso. She lifted me from the crib without ceremony. She grabbed me and took me outside.
The movement was so swift, so devoid of malice or care, that my panic stuttered. This wasn't an assassination. It was a retrieval. Oh… she is not… I let out a shaky mental breath. A breathe a sigh of relief.
But where is she taking me?
The question was answered as she carried me out of my chamber and into the world. It was my first time moving outside. The corridor was a marvel of architecture—vaulted ceilings soaring overhead, sunlight filtering through impossibly high, narrow windows of stained glass that cast kaleidoscopic patterns on the polished marble floor. We passed tapestries depicting legendary battles with creatures of shadow and light. The air was cooler, smelling of stone, incense, and something faintly metallic. It was beautiful, immense, and intimidating. I was a speck in the grandeur of my own home.
She carried me without speaking, her footsteps echoing, down a sweeping staircase, through an arched gallery, and into a long, spectacular hall. A banquet table of dark, gleaming wood ran its length, set with crystal and silver. And seated around it were the golden-haired people. All of them.
My family.
At the head of the table, in a throne-like chair, sat the Head. My father. Lord Theodore. His golden hair seemed to draw the very light from the room. He was speaking quietly to the man on his right, his citrine eyes occasionally flicking toward the entrance. When they landed on me, carried in the arms of the stern maid, his performed smile returned—the one that chilled my blood.
I still don't know what his name is. I knew his title, his house. But his given name was never spoken in my hearing. He was always 'my lord,' 'the Head'.
The maid walked to the center of the long table, not to a seat, but to a clear space among the place settings. Without a word, she placed me there, on the smooth, cold tabletop itself, between a crystal goblet and a silver platter of roasted fowl.
Then she stepped back and melted into the shadows by the wall.
I sat there, cross-legged on the polished wood, utterly exposed. Seven pairs of pale gold eyes turned to look at me with varying degrees of interest, boredom, or assessment.
Huh? What the actual fuck is this?? My mind, fluent in their language, could only scream in the vernacular of my past life. What am I supposed to do?? Eat? Cry? Perform a monologue? Shit!
My swearing streak went off… The sheer, surreal absurdity of the situation was overwhelming. I was a centerpiece. A conversational prop.
No one offered me food. No one reached for me. They simply resumed their meal, as if a baby on the dinner table was a perfectly normal occurrence.
Soon the people started talking. The clink of cutlery was the percussion to their melody.
A young man, with a sharper, more arrogant cut to his jaw, spoke first. He pointed his knife casually in my direction. "What should we name this child?" His tone was that of someone selecting a new hound.
A woman shrugged. "Ah, Valerius?" she suggested, as if passing the salt.
The young man scoffed. "What?? That's too boring." He tore a piece of bread. "We already have a Valerius. And a Valerius the Younger. Must we recycle the same three names?"
Huh, is this some kind of naming ceremony? A bizarre,
bureaucratic one, conducted over roast meat and wine.
The debate started. It was desultory, peppered with personal jabs and historical references I strained to follow. It seems like it was done for every child. A ritual of the Theodore household. The child was presented, and the siblings bickered until a name stuck. My fate, my identity for this life, was being decided as a side activity to lunch.
I just sat there watching and hearing every conversation. It was boring as hell. The terror had subsided into a numb, observant patience. This was a data-gathering opportunity.
But I learned a few things. I matched faces to whispered titles I'd overheard. My family's name was Theodore. Everyone calls the family head by surname, not the first name. A title, not a person.
And I understood my place in the hierarchy. I was the eighth child of this family… The youngest. The last. An afterthought. Seeing seven people with golden hair I was able to deduce this. Six were here at the table. The seventh, the second child—my sister—was absent.
A chill ran through me as a particular phrase was mentioned. "The next day will be us visiting alone…" One of the younger brothers said it with a sly grin to another. It was customary, it seemed, for each sibling to have a private audience with the new child after the naming. A… welcome? An inspection? I hope nothing serious will happen. But the grin suggested otherwise.
After an hour of increasingly petty argument, a voice cut through from the entrance to the hall. It was a clear, cold, female voice, like frost on glass.
"Zyphron."
All conversation ceased. Everyone looked toward the door. A woman stood there, leaning against the frame. She was tall, willowy, her golden hair cascading over one shoulder in a single, severe plait. Her eyes were the pale gold of the others, but where my father's were calculating and the others' were variously arrogant or disinterested, hers were simply… empty. Like polished stones. This was the absent seventh. My elder sister.
She didn't enter. She just looked at me on the table. "His name is Zyphron."
No one objected. Not even my father. He simply gave a slight, approving nod, as if she'd solved a minor logistical issue. This was the name chosen by the elder sister. She was probably the second child.
Zyphron. The word felt strange, sharp on the tongue. It was mine now.
With the business concluded, the interest in me vanished. The maid reappeared, scooped me up from the table, and carried me back through the grand, silent halls to my nursery. After the debate I was then put back into the crib.
Today was so boring. The exhaustion was mental, a drain from the overwhelming input and the constant, high-alert vigilance. The nightmare, it seemed, could also be a tedious administrative hell.
I woke with the dawn. And he was already there.
To find the 1st child waiting for me to wake up. He stood just inside the door, having entered without a sound. He was in his 30's. Alistair Theodore. The heir. His golden hair was cut short, military-precise. He wore dark, tailored clothes that spoke of authority, not opulence.
He didn't approach the crib immediately. He entered, looked here and there. His gaze swept the room—the window, the shadows, the empty space where the mysterious book had once lain—with a scrutiny that was both casual and utterly thorough. This was a man who assessed environments for threats and advantages as naturally as breathing.
Then he looked at me. I kept my eyes half-lidded, feigning sleepy wakefulness.
"Zyphron, huh…" he murmured, his voice a low baritone. "What a nice name." The words were correct. The tone was flat. It was an observation of fact, not a compliment. He examines me for some time, his eyes, the same as my father, moving over my form. I felt like a specimen under a lens. He was looking for something. I made sure to appear soft, weak, unremarkable. After a full minute of silent appraisal, he turned and left without another word. His name was Alistair Theodore. As expected of the first.
The tension left my shoulders. One inspection down. Six to go.
Some minutes later, the door opened again.
It was her. The sister who named me. She moved differently from Alistair. Where he was controlled force, she was a drifting vapor. She closed the door behind her and stood in the center of the room, looking at me. Her expression was blank.
Then, without warning, her hand flicked.
Something small and dark shot from her fingers, not at me, but at the ceiling directly above my crib. It moved faster than my eyes could track.
What?? The hell!
Pure, trained instinct took over. I didn't think. I threw myself sideways in the crib, rolling to the far edge, my heart exploding into a frantic drumbeat. I backed up. Was it a projectile? A delayed poison? Why is she attacking there? I am gonna die here?