The main training courtyard of the Aegis Sanctum was a vast, intimidating expanse of hard-packed earth and unforgiving cobblestone, walled in on all sides by the same towering, white-granite blocks that formed the fortress itself. These walls were so high that they seemed to scrape the sky, casting long, imposing shadows that kept the yard in a perpetual, cool twilight until high noon.
The air here was distinct. It didn't smell of incense or old parchment like the libraries. It smelled of sweat, of iron, of ambient Faith friction, and the faint, dusty scent of the pell-dummers—thick, ancient wooden posts scarred with ten thousand strikes from generations of aspiring knights.
This was not a schoolyard. It was a forge, designed with a singular, brutal purpose: to hammer the children of the Sanctum into weapons capable of holding back the Taint.
The sounds of this forge were a chaotic, rhythmic symphony. The shouts of nearly fifty orphans, ranging in age from six to twelve, echoed off the stone, mixing with the heavy thuds of wood against wood and the scuff of leather boots on grit.
Master Huno, a retired Holy Knight whose face was a ruin of scar tissue—a jagged map left by the claws of a Tainted beast decades ago—stalked the lines. His voice was like grinding stone, loud enough to cut through the din without shouting.
"Your guard is sloppy, Jonus! Do you want the Tainted to rip your arm off? Lift that elbow! Protect your vitals!"
The sound of wooden swords striking pell-dummers was the heartbeat of the yard, punctuated by the grunts of children and the occasional yelp of pain or burst of childish laughter.
A boy, top-heavy with a slightly oversized wooden chest-plate, tripped over his own feet and went down in a heap of limbs and timber, sparking a ripple of laughter from the line. Master Huno silenced it with a single, withered glare that promised extra laps. A girl with a high ponytail executed a perfect lunge, her face a mask of fierce concentration.
They were children. They were learning to fight monsters, but their minds were filled with thoughts of dinner, or rivalry, or the simple, uncomplicated joy of movement. They were the baseline of this world: young, loud, and blissfully unaware of the true weight of the darkness they were being trained to fight.
And then, there were the "twin miracles."
To the matrons, the trainers, and the priests, they were the Sanctum's prize orphans. In a world with a dangerously low birth rate, where every child was a precious resource to be hoarded and honed, finding two with such potential in the same generation was seen as divine intervention.
There was Elian, the "Model Child." He was the sole survivor of a minor noble house purged for heresy—a dark origin that he seemed to have transcended with angelic resilience. With kind green eyes and a quick, charming smile, he was the natural leader of the group. He was bright, social, and fluid.
He didn't just exist in the hierarchy of the children; he managed it. Just moments ago, Asterion had watched him mediate a dispute over a waterskin between two older boys, calming them with a diplomatic grace that belonged in a royal court, not a playground. He was the first to run for a bandage when someone fell, the first to answer a theological question with perfect scripture, the first to offer a word of encouragement to the discouraged. He was beloved.
And there was Asterion.
Also seven, with his pale skin, small, wiry frame, and unsettling, unblinking ruby eyes. To the priests, his appearance was not a curse, but a sign. In the old scriptures, Hephaestus—the God of the Forge, Will, and Passion—was often depicted with skin pale from the heat of the divine fire and eyes glowing like cooling embers. They whispered that Asterion was "God-touched," marked by the deity to endure the flames.
To the casual observer, he was a helpful, social prodigy. He smiled when greeted. He helped the older scribes organize scrolls in the morning. He tutored the younger orphans in arithmetic in the afternoon, patiently explaining the logistics of supply lines and grain quotas that the Church required its knights to understand.
But beneath the pleasantries, a 29-year-old mind was fighting a desperate war of attrition.
He was wearing a mask made of heavy lead.
Every smile was calculated. Every laugh was a manual override of his natural state, which was a screaming, silent grief. His perfect memory—the curse that preserved every second of his previous life in high-fidelity—meant that while his hands held a wooden sword, his mind was often back in the farmhouse, feeling the hot spray of his parents' blood or hearing Mishel's final, ragged breath.
He played the role of the social prodigy because silence drew attention, and attention led to questions he couldn't answer.
"Enough!" Master Huno bellowed, clapping his heavy, gauntleted hands. "Training is over for the day. Clean the equipment. Be at the refectory in one hour. Go!"
A collective, ragged sigh of relief went up from the forty-odd children. Formations broke. The noise level spiked as chatter and laughter erupted. The children, released from their discipline, became children again, shoving and running for the equipment racks, eager to shed the heavy wooden armor.
Asterion did not move.
He stood his ground as the tide of children flowed around him. He simply reset his stance. His 29-year-old mind had allocated another hour for this. He had finished the required three thousand swings of the wooden waster. That was for the body of a seven-year-old.
Now began the real work.
He walked to the special rack, the one reserved for the older squires, and picked up a blunted steel training sword. It was heavy, a slab of dull metal meant to build the wrist strength of a teenager. In his small hand, it felt like a crowbar.
This was his therapy. The physical pain of the weight was the only thing loud enough to drown out the memories.
He began to swing. One.
He focused on the mechanics. Leverage. Gravity. The rotation of the hip. His mind, the mind of a scientist, deconstructed the violence into physics. He optimized the Flame Breathing Method, drawing in the ambient Faith of the courtyard not just to fill his lungs, but to micro-tear and rebuild his muscle fibers in real-time.
Two. Three.
Elian, Asterion noted with a flicker of detached observation, did not bolt with the others. He moved with his characteristic, unhurried grace. He neatly stacked his wooden sword and shield, gave a respectful nod to Master Huno (receiving a rare, approving nod in return), and then lingered.
He joked with a group of girls, making them giggle. He high-fived Jonus. He was the perfect politician.
Then, his gaze drifted to Asterion.
Asterion saw the shift. It was subtle, invisible to anyone without his level of perception. Elian's smile didn't drop, but the warmth behind it vanished. It became a fixed expression, a tool. He adjusted his tunic and drifted over to Asterion, as if on a casual whim. His "on" switch was at maximum brightness. The charm was radiant.
"That's amazing, Asterion," Elian said, his voice pitched with the perfect amount of childish admiration. He stopped a respectful few feet away, projecting pure, non-threatening curiosity.
Asterion paused at the top of his arc. He turned, offering a polite, practiced smile. "It's just extra credit, Elian. You know how Master Huno is."
"Master Huno says you have the focus of a true knight," Elian continued, stepping closer. "He says you have the Will of the Forge in you."
Asterion's mind dissected the words. Will of the Forge. A label. A way for them to explain a seven-year-old who trained like a man running out of time. He registered Elian's words as a social gambit: using authority to reinforce status, a test for pride.
"I was watching your form," Elian continued, tilting his head like a curious bird. "It's... perfect. You never waver. Not even a little. How do you do that?"
This was the real probe, a direct question veiled in childlike wonder.
Asterion didn't stop. He let the heavy steel blade drop into a controlled descent, snapping his hips to arrest the momentum just inches from the dirt.
"I just count, Elian," Asterion said, keeping his voice light. "Like for arithmetic. One breath in, two swings out. It helps me not get tired. You should try it."
Elian's smile didn't falter, but his eyes narrowed fractionally. It was the look of a predator realizing the prey had teeth. He changed tactics, shifting from flattery to feigned vulnerability.
"Arithmetic," Elian chuckled, shaking his head with a self-deprecating sigh. "You're so smart. I try to do that, honestly, but I get so winded. My chest always burns after just a few laps, and Master Huno scolds me for it. I guess I just don't have your stamina."
This was a specific, relatable, childish complaint.
And it was a complete, absolute fabrication.
It was the mistake Asterion had been waiting for. His 29-year-old mind, with its perfect, obsessive recall, had data. He hadn't just been hitting the post; he had been watching the room. He had studied Elian. He had counted Elian's breaths during the laps. He had timed his recovery intervals.
Asterion stopped, mid-swing.
The sudden stillness was jarring. The rhythmic whoosh of the steel blade ceased. He lowered the point to the ground, leaning on it slightly.
He turned his head, his unnatural ruby eyes locking onto Elian's bright green ones. He let his own smile drop. Not all of it—he kept the corners of his mouth turned up—but he let the warmth drain out of his eyes, revealing the cold, analytical intellect beneath.
"No, you don't," Asterion stated.
Elian's smile froze. A tiny crack in the porcelain.
Asterion's voice was a child's, thin and high, but the tone was flat, analytical, and absolute. "On the last lap, your breathing rate was one-to-four, exactly the same as mine. You held it for three minutes and twelve seconds. You didn't start 'panting' until Master Huno looked your way, after you'd already lapped Jonus twice. Your chest-plate didn't even shift. Your form is also perfect. You just make it look like an effort."
He took a small step forward, lowering his voice so only Elian could hear.
"You're hiding."
The effect was instantaneous and profound.
The charming, bright, 7-year-old "model child" vanished. The smile didn't fade; it snapped off, as if a switch had been thrown. Elian's face went utterly blank, his muscles slack. His green eyes, a moment ago warm and engaging, became cold, still, and bottomless.
The air around him seemed to change. The warmth was gone, replaced by a vacuum. It was the most violent stillness Asterion had ever witnessed.
Elian stared at him. The sounds of the distant children—their shouts and laughter from the equipment racks—seemed to rush in, suddenly loud and absurd against the silence between the two boys.
"You..." Elian whispered. The voice that came out was not his. It was no longer a child's voice. It was hollow, sharp, and sounded decades too old. It was a voice scraped raw. "You saw that."
"I see everything," Asterion replied, the weight of his curse heavy in the words. "I remember everything."
Elian took a half-step closer. He didn't look threatened; he looked fascinated. He looked at Asterion not as a rival, but as a sudden, shocking reflection.
"What's your mask for?" Elian breathed, his dead voice a stark contrast to the lively courtyard. He stepped into Asterion's personal space, a territorial challenge that had nothing to do with childish bullying.
"All of them," Elian gestured vaguely to the laughing orphans by the water trough, "they're loud. They're happy. They are... not like us."
His gaze dropped to Asterion's rigid body, to the white-knuckled grip on the heavy steel sword. "That focus. That obsession. It's not piety. It's not discipline. It's a leash. You're holding something in."
Asterion's heart beat faster. Elian's gaze felt like a scalpel, peeling back the layers he had spent seven years constructing.
"You practice until you're so tired you can't think," Elian diagnosed, tilting his head with chilling, adult intellect. "Or is it so you can't... Remember?"
The word remember struck Asterion like a physical blow, a mace to the chest.
His curse flared. The crack in his mental barrier throbbed. The farmhouse. The blood. Mishel screaming his name.
Asterion's perfect breathing hitched. A single, jagged gasp escaped his control. His knuckles turned white on the hilt of the sword.
Elian saw it.
The analytical coldness in Elian's expression cracked. It was replaced by a sudden, raw, and terrifying empathy. He wasn't seeing a 29-year-old mind; he was seeing the howling trauma inside. He was seeing the same thing that lived inside him.
"Ah," Elian breathed, his own face going pale. He took an involuntary step back, his hand coming up to unconsciously rub his forearm, as if phantom fingers were gripping it. "So that's it."
His voice dropped to a whisper, a shared secret in a world of noise. "I'm a void. It is hard to feel emotions like happiness like them anymore. I just... act."
He looked back at Asterion, his eyes filled with a profound, aged weariness that no seven-year-old should possess.
"We're the only ones like us, aren't we?"
Asterion stared at him, the weight of his own secret pressing against his ribs. He looked at this boy, this "Model Child," and saw the utter exhaustion behind the eyes.
He nodded, slowly.
"It's heavy carrying this alone," Elian whispered.
In that moment, Asterion realized.
This was not a child.
This was a mind that had lived lifetimes of pain in a few short years, staring at a mind that had been shattered and reforged by trauma into something just as old, just as broken, and just as observant.
They were prodigies for the exact same reason. They were the only two "adults" in the entire courtyard.
Then, as suddenly and violently as it had dropped, Elian's mask snapped back into place.
The transition was instantaneous. His shoulders relaxed. The charming, perfect, 7-year-old smile returned. His eyes became bright, superficial, and warm. The vacuum was gone.
"Well, you're doing great, Asterion!" he chirped, his voice light and airy, as if the last thirty seconds of soul-baring horror had never happened. "Keep it up! Master Huno is right, you're a real gift! See you at evening prayer!"
He turned and jogged away, waving to one of the trainers, the "perfect model child" once more, his performance utterly flawless.
Asterion was left alone on the hard-packed earth. The heavy steel sword, which he'd held steady for two minutes, suddenly felt impossible to lift.
His heart—which his 29-year-old mind could will to slow, could control like a machine—was pounding against his ribs like a trapped, terrified bird, utterly beyond his command.
He wasn't alone anymore. He had found a variable he had never accounted for: a brother in the dark.
The weeks that followed blurred into months.
To the outside world, nothing had changed. They were still the "Twin Miracles," the pride of the Sanctum. But in the shadowed corners of the library, in the quiet moments after lights out, and during the brutal, sweat-soaked hours of extra training, a bond was forged.
They didn't act like seven-year-olds when they were alone. They dropped the high-pitched voices and the feigned ignorance. They spoke with the cynical, weary cadence of veterans.
Asterion quickly realized that Elian wasn't just smart; his mind felt aged. When they spoke, Asterion felt he was talking to someone in their late teens or early twenties—someone who had been forced to grow up far too fast by circumstances Asterion didn't yet know. Elian understood nuance, strategy, and the dark humor that comes from surviving a nightmare.
They started to hang out constantly. They sat together in the refectory, sharing silent looks over the heads of the oblivious children. They sparred together, pushing each other harder than the instructors ever could.
In this short period of time, the distance between them vanished. They weren't just allies; they were brothers, bound by the secret that they were the only two adults in a world of children that exists around them.