The training courtyard of the Drayvar manor was an impressive structure, an open space the size of three common houses, surrounded by stone walls and equipped with everything a warrior in training could need. Practice dummies, weapon racks, combat circles marked on the ground, even a small armory in an adjacent building.
Kael and Sareth were not allowed inside.
But there was a balcony on the second floor, accessible from the secondary library, that offered a perfect view of the courtyard. No one had bothered to tell them they couldn't be there, probably because no one had bothered to think about them at all, so it had become their silent refuge after lessons.
They arrived just as Rylan and Master Torin were beginning the afternoon session.
Torin was everything Corvin was not: tall, muscular, with scars that told stories of real battles. His Aether level was Third Layer Master, high enough to be respected, experienced enough to teach. His grey hair was cropped close, and his eyes, dark as wet stones, missed no detail.
"Stance," he barked.
Rylan immediately slid into a combat posture, practice sword in hand, feet shoulder-width apart, weight evenly distributed.
"Better," grunted Torin, walking around his student in slow circles. "But you still drop your left shoulder when you prepare to attack. A competent opponent would notice and run you through before you completed the movement."
"Yes, Master."
"Show me the First Flow."
Rylan inhaled deeply, and then it happened.
From the balcony, Kael saw how the air around his older brother began to... change. It wasn't visible to common eyes, but he felt it: a subtle pressure, a tingling on the skin that spoke of moving energy. And then, for a brief moment, he saw flashes of electric blue—the color of the storm, the color of Drayvar blood—dance along Rylan's practice sword.
It was Aether. Inherited divine power, flowing through the core in Rylan's chest, circulating through his nodes, manifesting as brute force.
Rylan moved, and his speed was completely unnatural for a fourteen-year-old boy. The sword sliced the air with a sharp hiss, striking a practice dummy with enough force to pierce the padded armor and bury itself in the wood beneath.
"Better," admitted Torin with a tone that bordered on approval. "You are learning to keep the flow constant. But you waste too much energy in the preparation. Thirty percent of your Aether dissipates before the blow lands."
"How do I fix it?"
"Practice. A thousand repetitions. Ten thousand. Until your body understands the most efficient path without your mind having to think about it."
Rylan nodded, wiping sweat from his forehead, and began again.
On the balcony, Sareth watched with a mixture of fascination and sadness so intense it almost hurt to look at him.
"I will never be able to do that," he murmured, more to himself than to Kael. "Master Corvin says that with my weak resonance, it would take me twenty years to even reach the second Apprentice layer. If I make it at all."
Kael didn't answer immediately. He was watching Rylan, but not with envy. He was... analyzing. Watching how the Aether flowed, how Torin corrected every movement, how Rylan's confidence grew with every small praise.
'Physical power,' he thought. 'That is what Rylan has. That is what everyone respects.'
But he had seen something else at breakfast. The way Elyn manipulated conversations. The way Lyssara planted doubts with just a look. The way Varen controlled the room while saying almost nothing.
'Power isn't just strength,' he understood with sudden clarity. 'It's knowing when to use it. It's knowing what people want. It's being indispensable.'
"Sareth," he said abruptly, "what does Rylan want more than anything in the world?"
His brother blinked at the change of subject.
"Uh... to be the heir? To make Mother and Father proud?"
"No," Kael shook his head. "That is what Elyn wants. What does Rylan want?"
Sareth frowned, thinking.
"I suppose... he wants to be the best. The strongest. He wants everyone to acknowledge him."
"Exactly. Validation. Recognition," Kael smiled slightly. "He is a simple guy at heart. Give him praise, make him feel superior, and he will follow you anywhere."
"Why does that matter?"
"Because," said Kael, his eyes still fixed on the courtyard where Rylan was practicing his thousandth repetition, "if we ever want to matter, we need to understand what moves people. And Rylan is the most important person in this house after Father."
"I thought you didn't like him."
"I don't," admitted Kael. "But that doesn't mean it isn't useful to understand him."
A movement in the courtyard caught his attention. Lyssara had appeared, gliding from a side entrance with her book still under her arm. She stood at the edge of the combat circle, watching without a word.
Torin noticed her first.
"Lady Lyssara. Do you need something?"
"Just observing, Master Torin," she replied with a polite voice that somehow sounded condescending. "Continue."
Torin grunted but didn't kick her out. Lyssara leaned against the wall, opened her book, and proceeded to pretend to read while her eyes constantly drifted toward Rylan's training.
'She is analyzing too,' Kael realized. 'Looking for weaknesses. Looking for patterns. Just like me.'
And then Lyssara's eyes lifted toward the balcony.
They met Kael's.
For a moment, just a moment, there was a flash of recognition. Curiosity? A silent understanding that both were playing the same game?
Lyssara smiled. It was a small smile, barely a twitch at the corner of her lips, but it was there.
Then she went back to her book.
Kael felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind.
"We should go," said Sareth uncomfortably. "If they discover us here..."
"No one will discover us," Kael interrupted. "Because no one is looking for us."
But he stood up anyway, because he had seen what he needed to see. Rylan was strong, but predictable. Torin was competent, but followed a set script. Lyssara was the only interesting variable.
'And she saw me,' he thought as they descended the stone stairs. 'She saw me seeing her. And it didn't bother her. That is... something.'
He didn't know what that something was yet. But he would find out.
He always did.
Family dinner was always more tense than breakfast, as if the weight of the entire day accumulated in the room and threatened to crush everyone under its pressure.
That night, Varen arrived late, his face more serious than usual. Elyn was already seated, with a glass of red wine she had been sipping slowly for the last twenty minutes. Rylan and Lyssara were conversing in low voices about something, probably Lyssara mocking her brother's combat technique so subtly he didn't realize she was insulting him.
Kael and Sareth entered last, as always, and slid into their seats soundlessly.
The servants brought the food: lamb stew, freshly baked bread, roasted vegetables. The kind of food that fed warriors in training. Kael ate mechanically, tasting little, observing everything.
Varen took a mouthful of stew, put down his spoon, and finally spoke:
"I must travel to Vaeloria in two weeks."
The silence that followed was heavy.
"The capital?" asked Elyn, her voice carefully neutral. "For how long?"
"A month, maybe two. The Emperor has summoned the Solar Council. Imperial matters."
'Imperial matters,' Kael repeated mentally. 'Which means Titus Draconis wants to remind the Great Houses who holds the real power.'
"You should take Rylan with you," said Elyn, and it wasn't a suggestion. It was a declaration disguised as advice.
Varen looked at her, considering it.
"He is still young."
"He is fourteen. The same age you were when your father took you to court for the first time," Elyn leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping to a more intimate tone. "He needs to learn politics as much as combat. And there is no better teacher than seeing the Emperor in action."
'Brilliant,' Kael thought despite himself. 'She is selling him the idea as education, but what she really wants is for Rylan to be seen. To be recognized. To start building connections in the capital.'
Varen rubbed his beard, thoughtful.
"He would have to miss his training."
"Master Torin can wait two months. Connections in Vaeloria cannot."
It was Lyssara who spoke next, her voice cutting the air like a well-sharpened knife:
"And me, Father? Should I also go to learn politics?"
Kael saw the immediate tension in Elyn's shoulders. This was not part of the plan.
"You are still young," Elyn said before Varen could answer.
"A year younger than Rylan," Lyssara pointed out with a perfectly reasonable tone. "And according to the records, Empress Cassia attended her first session of the Council at ten years old."
"Empress Cassia," said Elyn with an icy voice, "was being prepared to rule. You are being prepared for... other things."
'Marriage,' Kael translated. 'She is preparing you to be a bargaining chip in a future alliance.'
Lyssara didn't flinch. She simply smiled, took a sip of her water, and said:
"Of course, Mother. Apologies for the confusion."
But in her eyes, there was something sharp and dangerous that made Kael wonder if Elyn realized she was raising a serpent.
"Then it is decided," concluded Varen, clearly relieved to end the conversation. "Rylan will come with me to Vaeloria in two weeks. He will need appropriate clothes for court, and..."
He kept talking, detailing preparations. Rylan listened with shining eyes, clearly excited. Elyn nodded with satisfaction. Lyssara had returned to feigning indifference, but Kael had seen that flash.
'She is furious,' he understood. 'Not for being left behind. For being discarded so easily. Because Elyn didn't even have to think about the answer.'
And Sareth... Sareth had stopped eating. His fork trembled slightly in his hand as he stared at his plate, doing everything possible to become invisible. As if by being small enough, silent enough, no one would remember to ask him uncomfortable questions about his future.
No one did.
Kael looked around the table, this dysfunctional ecosystem they called family, and felt something cold and clear crystallize in his chest.
'Rylan will go to the capital. He will see Emperor Titus Draconis, the most powerful man in the world. He will walk the halls of Vaeloria, meet nobles from other Great Houses, start weaving the web that will one day support him as Head of House Drayvar.'
'Lyssara will stay here, resentful and hungry, sharpening her claws in her brother's shadow.'
'Sareth will remain invisible, taking refuge in books and fantasies of being useful.'
'And I...'
Kael cut a piece of lamb and chewed it slowly, tasting the salt and fat.
'I will also stay here. Ignored. Forgotten. Moderate.'
'For now.'
Dinner ended with the same routine as always: Varen retired first, Elyn and Rylan left together discussing trip details, Lyssara disappeared with her book like a ghost. And Kael and Sareth remained at the table, finishing the leftovers while the servants began to clear the plates.
"Do you ever think about what it would be like?" asked Sareth suddenly, his voice barely a whisper.
"What would be like what?"
"Going to Vaeloria. Seeing the capital. Meeting the Emperor."
Kael considered the question while wiping his plate with a piece of bread.
"All the time," he admitted. "But thinking changes nothing."
"Then, what does change it?"
It was a simple question, almost childish in its desperation. But something in it resonated with Kael, finding an echo in that cold and determined place that had started to grow in his chest.
"Action," he said finally. "Decisions. Making people need you."
"How?"
"I don't know yet," Kael stood up, pushing his chair back. "But I will find out, Sareth. I promise."
Sareth looked at him with those grey eyes too big for his face, full of a hope so fragile it threatened to break at the slightest touch.
"You promise?"
Kael hesitated. Promises were dangerous. Promises created expectations, and expectations created disappointment. But Sareth was his brother, the only one in this house who saw him as something more than a shadow.
"I promise," he said.
And as they climbed the stairs toward their rooms, Kael wondered if one day he would have to break that promise. If the price of stopping being invisible would be leaving Sareth behind.
'I hope not,' he thought. 'But if I have to do it... I will.'
Because that was the difference between him and Sareth. Sareth still believed the world could be fair. That if you were good enough, loyal enough, kind enough, eventually you would be rewarded.
Kael already knew the truth: the world didn't reward kindness. It rewarded power.
And he would find the way to get it.
Kael's room was cold when he entered. It always was. The window without proper curtains let in drafts that made the shadows dance on the walls. Outside, the sea roared against the cliffs with renewed violence, announcing another storm.
He approached the window and looked out into the darkness. Clouds covered the moon, but occasional lightning illuminated the landscape in blinding white flashes. The raging sea. The stone cliffs. The distant towers of Stormvale, the city that shared its name with this coastal region.
'Out there,' he thought, 'is a world that doesn't know me. That doesn't know I exist. That probably will never know my name.'
'Unless I do something about it.'
He reviewed the day in his mind. The breakfast where he was invisible. The lesson where Master Corvin barely noticed him. Rylan's training that would never be his. The dinner where his existence was so irrelevant that Varen didn't even consider mentioning his name.
'Moderate,' the resonance crystal had said three years ago. 'Moderate.'
The ceremony was still fresh in his memory. The Temple of the Storm, with its tall columns and perpetual candles. The Resonance Stone, an ancient crystal the size of his head, pulsing with dim light. Varen to one side, with an impenetrable expression. Elyn to the other, with barely disguised indifference. Rylan and Lyssara watching from behind, bored. Sareth clutching Kael's tunic, whispering "it will be okay, it will be okay" like a mantra.
Kael had cut his palm with the ceremonial dagger—the pain was less than he expected—and had let three drops of blood fall onto the crystal.
The reaction had been... strange.
The crystal had glowed blue, the color of the Drayvar storm, but there was something else. Something that flickered for an instant, so fast Kael thought he had imagined it. A flash... a distinct flash.
But it disappeared before anyone else noticed. Or so he thought.
Lyssara had seen it. On the balcony today, when their eyes met, Kael had seen the recognition. She knew something had been different at his ceremony.
'But what does it mean?' he wondered. 'A mistake by the crystal? An anomaly? Or something else?'
The priest who had presided over the ceremony had declared: "Moderate resonance. Blood Aether present. With dedicated training, he may reach respectable levels."
'Moderate,' thought Kael as another thunderclap shook the windows. 'As if they knew what that means. As if a crystal could measure what I will do.'
He moved away from the window and dropped onto his narrow bed. The rough sheets scraped his skin, but it was better than nothing. Better than sleeping in the soldiers' barracks. Better than being an orphan in the city streets.
'Small victories,' he thought with a bitter smile no one could see. 'I am invisible, but I have a bed.'
He closed his eyes, but sleep didn't come. His mind kept spinning, processing information, building strategies that were still too vague to be useful.
'Rylan is strong but simple.' 'Lyssara is intelligent but resentful.' 'Sareth is loyal but broken.' 'Varen is distant but not cruel.' 'Elyn is cold but predictable.'
'And me? What am I?'
'Invisible. Observant. Patient.'
'Enough?'
Another thunderclap. Another flash of white light that illuminated his room for a second.
And in that second, Kael made a decision.
'I am not staying like this.'
It was a simple decision, almost childish in its determination. But it was real. It was his. And for the first time in his eight years of life, he felt something resembling... purpose.
He didn't know how he would do it. He didn't know how long it would take. He didn't know what he would have to sacrifice along the way.
But he knew this: the world that had ignored him would eventually learn his name.
'Kael Drayvar.'
Not the concubine's son. Not the forgotten brother. Not the moderate resonance.
'Just Kael.'
He opened his eyes and looked at the dark stone ceiling, where the shadows continued to dance to the rhythm of the storm.
"Moderate," he whispered to the void. "As if they knew what that means. As if a crystal could measure what I will do."
The thunder answered, a wild roar that shook the foundations of the manor.
And Kael smiled.
It was a small smile, barely a movement of lips in the darkness. But it was there. Cold. Determined. Hungry.
The smile of someone who had just declared war on the world.
Although the world didn't know it yet.
Not yet.