***
Ariandel saw the light long before she heard the screams.
She had been traveling the ridgeline above the quarry on her return to the capital alone, hood drawn, staff in hand when the runes on the slave wall ignited in a burst of pale brilliance that lit the sky like distant lightning. Ancient light. Forbidden light.
Her breath had been caught.
"That is no ordinary magic..."
She urged her horse forward. Stones scattered beneath hooves as she cut down the slope, cloak snapping behind her like a dark wing. Dust plumed upward from the quarry floor where the shockwave had struck.
And then she saw him.
A small figure collapsed in the dirt, trembling so violently his fingers clawed at the ground. His breath came in thin, broken gasps, like a child drowning in air he didn't know how to breathe. Light still flickered faintly under his skin but it was weak, unsteady, and he was frightened.
He was a child.
A slave.
And he was terrified.
Ariandel's heart tightened.
She had seen cruelty in her years as a mage of the Eighteenth Circle, but this... this was different. This was wrong.
Overseers rushed toward him, whips raised, ropes ready, their shout sharp with fear.
"Bind him!"
"He's cursed!"
"Knock the magic out of him!"
"Beat him before he casts again-"
Ariandel moved before the final word even finished.
She raised her staff. The sapphire at its head flared not with harsh light, but with soft, deep blue that hummed like a lullaby.
"Enough."
Her voice echoed through the quarry like thunder wrapped in velvet,
Wind spiraled from her staff, forming a gentle but undeniable wall between the child and the overseers. The men stumbled back as if struck by an invisible force.
One overseer glared at her. "Who-who are you to interfere with!-"
Ariandel lowered her hood.
Recognition drained the color from every face.
"Magistra Ariandel," someone whispered. "Of the High Circle..."
The overseer stumbled into a bow so deep his forehead nearly scraped the dirt. "W-We had no idea you were anywhere near-"
"You were about to strike a child," Ariandel said quietly. "You had no idea I was here... yet you acted so boldly enough."
Her voice held no anger. That made it worse.
She stepped past them, toward the trembling boy.
He flinched when her shadow fell over him, curling in on himself like he expected to be hit. His breath hitched. His shoulders shook. He did not look up or more like he couldn't look up. He wouldn't.
Ariandel knelt, slowly, deliberately, soft as snowfall.
"Little one," she whispered. "You are safe."
He shook his tiny, frantic head.
"No," he rasped. "No safe."
Her chest tightened. He sounded empty, but terrified at the same time, like someone who had never felt safe enough to believe it even existed.
She extended her hand.
Not to grab him.
Not to command him.
To offer it.
The boy stared at her fingers as if they were something sacred or dangerous. His own hands trembled violently, pressed into the dirt as though he needed the earth to anchor him.
Ariandel's voice softened. "You are not cursed. You are gifted. And I will not let them harm you."
The boy finally looked up.
His wide, hollow, desperate, eyes met hers as if to see if she was lying. But her eyes showed true worry and determination.
That moment was enough for the boy.
Light flickered beneath his skin again, faint as dying embers.
Ariandel slimed. "Easy," she murmured. "I know that feeling. Power you don't understand, fear you've never had the right to feel... I know."
She slipped her cloak around him before he could protest. Gently. Tenderly. Like she was wrapping a child in warmth he had never known.
Then she lifted him, but he was far too light.
"We're leaving," she told the overseers coldly.
One dared step forward. "Magistra, he is a slave property, we must report him to the Magisters"
Ariandel's gaze sharpened.
"I am a Magister."
The overseer swallowed and stepped back without another word.
Ariandel turned away from them, holding the trembling boy close. His breath came in shallow bursts against her shoulder. She could feel how tense he was, waiting for pain, for betrayal, for the inevitable low that always followed hope.
Not this time.
Not with her.
She brought him into the forest beyond the quarry, deep enough that the overseers' shouts faded into the wind and rustling leaves. The moment they reached the quiet of the trees, his legs buckled.
Ariandel lowered him gently onto a patch of grass and sat beside him.
The boy pressed both hands to his chest, gasping, trembling uncontrollably. The warmth inside him the magic, was flickering widely without direction.
Ariandel placed her hand over his, steady but gentle.
"Little one," she whispered, "look at me."
Slowly, painfully, he did.
Her voice softened into something warm, something deeply human. "What is your name?"
He blinked. Confusion washed over his face.
Name?
"I..." his voice cracked. "I don't... have one."
Ariandel's heart broke.
Slaves were not given names that everyone knows.
But children should be.
And she would not let him be nameless another moment.
She touched his cheek, thumb brushing away the dirt smudged there. "Then I will give you one."
He stiffened not in fear, but in something else something unfamiliar. Wonder. Anticipation.
Ariandel smiled softly.
"Your name... is Shoko."
The boy or Shoko now, stared at her, breath caught in his throat.
"Shoko..." he whispered, as if tasting the word.
"Yes," Ariandel said. "A name that means born of light."
His lips trembled.
He lowered his head and pressed his forehead into her shoulder not out of habit, not out of training, but because something inside him broke open.
Not pain.
Not fear.
Something gentler.
Ariandel's arms wrapped around him in a warm, protective embrace. "You are safe with me," she whispered into his hair. "I will teach you. Protect you. And you will never be alone again, Shoko."
He shuddered.
Then, slowly so slower his hands clutched the fabric of her robe, holding on as if he were drowning and she was the only solid ground he had ever known.
It was the first time in his life he had held onto someone.
And the first time someone held him back.
For a long while, neither of them moved.
Shoko stayed pressed against her, small and shaking, as if her warmth was the only thing keeping his body from falling apart. Ariandel let him. She didn't rush him, didn't pry, didn't speak unless the tremor in his shoulders eased for a moment.
Children who had never known comfort had to learn it slowly.
Finally, his breaths steadied thin, but even. His fingers loosened their grip on her robe, though he didn't pull away. His head remained tucked under her chin.
Araindel smoothed a hand over his hair. "You're safe now, little one."
That word... safe made his body twitch again.
"Safe..." he echoed, barely above a whisper. "What.. what is that?"
Ariandel closed her eyes for a moment, steadying her voice. "A place where no one hurts you. Where can you rest without looking over your shoulder? Where you're allowed to exist not as property, not as a tool... but as yourself."
He didn't respond. She hadn't expected him to.
He had never had a self before.
Ariandel shifted slightly and eased him to sit upright beside her. Shoko hugged his knees, cloak wrapped tightly around him like a shell. His eyes darted around the forest jolting at leaves, rustling, birds flapping, and branches creaking. Everything was unfamiliar. Everything made him tense.
He had grown up knowing only stone walls and chains.
"This place is loud," he whispered.
Ariandel smiled softly. "That is only because you are alive enough to hear it."
Shoko stared at her as if she had spoken a foreign language. Maybe she had. His world had never included life not in the same way she meant it.
Ariandel touched her palm to the grass. "Listen."
Wind sifted through the leaves. Crickets chirped. A distant stream murmured its way between stones.
Shoko blinked. Then blinked again. His trembling body slowed.
"It.. doesn't hurt," he whispered.
"No," Ariandel said gently. "Not everything is meant to."
He looked down at his hands. Pale skin. Dirt. Scratches. And beneath that somewhere deeper the faint glow of light, so small it barely existed.
"Why... did it come out? The light?" Shoko asked, voice thin and uncertain. "I didn't ask it to."
Ariandel tapped a finger against his chest, right above his heart. "Because it is a part of you. A piece of your soul reaching out when you needed it most."
His eyes widened. "I have a soul?"
A breath caught in Ariandel's throat.
"Yes," she whispered. "A beautiful one."
Shoko lowered his gaze, unable to hold hers. No one had ever called anything about him beautiful. He didn't know how to receive it. It made his stomach twist, his throat tighten, his heart beat too fast. He didn't know if he liked the feeling or feared it.
Ariandel rested a hand on his shoulder. "Shoko... I didn't only give you a name. I'm giving you a beginning. A chance to learn who you are. A chance to live."
"Live.." The word sounded fragile on his tongue. "I don't know what that means."
"That's all right." Ariandel brushed a strand of hair from his face. "You will. And I'll be with you as you learn."
His lips parted. "You..." A hesitation. Then in a trembling voice, "You won't leave?"
Her heart cracked.
"No," she said softly. "Never."
Shoko's eyes grew wet not with full tears, not yet. But the shine was new. Human. Vulnerable.
He didn't know what the warmth in his chest was. A tightness. A flutter. A strange, burning ache he couldn't name.
Ariandel did.
He was feeling affection, for the first time in his life.
She opened her arms.
He stared at her for a moment, confused.
Then he crawled forward and curled into her burying himself in her cloak as if hiding inside her shadow. Ariandel wrapped him gently, protectively, as if she had been waiting years to hold a child like him.
"You are not a slave anymore, Shoko," she whispered into his hair. "You belong to no one."
Shoko clutched her tightly, fingers digging into the cloth.
"Then.. then who am I?"
Ariandel pressed her cheek to his temple.
"You are mine," she whispered. "My ward. My student. My child, if you will let me be such a thing."
Shoko froze.
A child.
Hers.
He didn't understand the word but the way she said it made the light inside him tremble, warm and alive. A feeling wrapped his chest like a blanket he'd never had before.
He didn't know what to call it.
But he wanted it.
He squeezed her tighter.
"I... I want that," he whispered.
Ariandel closed her eyes, letting out a shaky breath she didn't know she'd been holding.
"Then it's decided," she whispered back. "From this day on... You walk with me."
Shoko nodded against her shoulder.
For the first time in his life, he belonged somewhere.
Not as a slave. Not as a number. Not as a lifeless thing.
But as... Shoko.
And nothing in the world would take him from her now.