# Chapter 5: The Fifth Candle
Five years was a long time to pretend to be an idiot.
Sylas Vane sat on the edge of the stone fountain in the courtyard, watching a beetle navigate the treacherous terrain of a mossy brick. The sun was high, a pale, heatless disc behind a layer of gray clouds that threatened snow but never quite delivered.
To the casual observer—specifically Martha, who was currently hanging laundry with the violent enthusiasm of a woman strangling a goose—Sylas was doing what he always did. Nothing.
He was the "Quiet One." The "Sleepy Lord." While his sister Elara was a whirlwind of bruised knees and missing teeth, currently somewhere in the woods declaring war on pinecones, Sylas was the furniture. He was soft. He was slow. He liked naps.
It was a carefully curated persona.
*Efficiency,* Sylas thought, his small hands resting on his knees. *If you lower expectations to zero, any minor achievement is hailed as a miracle. If you show competence, they hand you a shovel.*
In reality, he was running diagnostics.
His eyes tracked the wind rustling the dead ivy on the manor walls. He wasn't just watching leaves move; he was calculating wind shear. He was analyzing the structural decay of the east wing, where the mortar was turning to sand. He was listening to the rhythmic *clang-clang-clang* of his father in the barn, trying to fix a plow that should have been scrap metal three years ago.
The Vane estate was dying. It was a slow death, quiet and dignified, like a grand-aunt passing away in her sleep, but it was death nonetheless.
"Sylas!"
The shout came from the tree line.
A moment later, Elara burst into the clearing. At nine years old, she was all elbows and wild hair. She wore a tunic that belonged to a boy twice her size, belted at the waist with a piece of rope. She held a wooden stick—no, a *sword*, she would insist—gripped in a white-knuckled hand.
"They're flanking us!" she screamed, her violet eyes blazing with the madness of battle. "The Goblins are flanking us, Potato! Move!"
Sylas didn't flinch. He slowly turned his head.
"I am a strategic reserve," he said. His voice was soft, his lisp barely gone.
"You're a sitting duck!" Elara sprinted over, grabbed his wrist, and hauled him off the fountain. "To the keep!"
"The keep" was the woodshed.
Sylas allowed himself to be dragged. It was part of the contract. She protected him from the world; he indulged her delusions of grandeur.
She shoved him behind a stack of firewood. She was panting, sweat plastering her dark hair to her forehead. She looked fierce. She also looked thin. Too thin.
"Stay down," she hissed, peeking over a log. "If they get past me, aim for the knees."
Sylas looked at her. He saw the patch on her elbow where Martha had darned the fabric for the third time. He saw the scuff marks on boots that were already second-hand when she got them.
*Resource scarcity critical,* his mind noted. *Nutritional intake suboptimal for a growing combat unit.*
"Elara," he said.
"Shh! I hear them."
"It's lunch time."
Elara froze. The goblin horde instantly ceased to exist. She turned to him, the warrior mask dropping to reveal a hungry child.
"Is it?"
"I smell burning," Sylas lied smoothly. "Martha is making toast."
Elara dropped the stick. "Race you."
She took off. She didn't wait. She knew he wouldn't run. Sylas stood up, brushed the bark dust from his trousers, and began the long, slow walk back to the house.
He wasn't lazy. He was preserving calories.
***
The dining hall was a cavernous room meant for fifty guests. Tonight, it held four.
The table was a slab of ancient oak, scarred by centuries of knives and tankards. It was set at one end, creating a small island of light in the surrounding gloom. The candelabras were silver—the last silver they owned—and the candles were tallow, smelling faintly of beef fat.
"Happy Birthday, my little man," Arthur Vane boomed.
His father's voice was too loud for the empty room. It bounced off the dark paneling. Arthur sat at the head of the table, wearing his best tunic. The velvet was crushed and faded at the shoulders, and the gold thread was unraveling, but he wore it like armor.
"Five years," Lilliana said, smiling. Her smile was tight. It didn't reach her eyes. "He's getting so tall."
Sylas sat on a stack of two cushions so he could reach the table. He looked at the spread.
A roasted chicken. Not a goose, not a boar. A chicken. Likely the one that had stopped laying eggs last week. A bowl of root vegetables. A loaf of dark bread.
And the cake.
It was a small, dense thing, heavy on flour and light on sugar, sitting on a chipped porcelain plate. Five tallow candles flickered on top, their flames dancing in the draft that constantly whistled through the window frames.
"Make a wish," Elara whispered. She was vibrating in her chair, eyeing the chicken.
Sylas looked at the candles.
A wish.
A childish concept. An appeal to a non-existent authority to alter probability in one's favor.
He looked at his father. Arthur was gripping his wine goblet so hard his knuckles were white. The man had spent the morning arguing with a merchant from the capital. Sylas had heard them from the vent in the nursery. The merchant wanted the deed to the mill. Arthur had offered the harvest futures instead. The merchant had laughed.
He looked at his mother. She was cutting a potato into precise, tiny squares, pretending she wasn't hungry so there would be more for Elara.
He looked at Elara. She was watching him with absolute adoration, waiting for him to do the magic trick of blowing out fire.
*I wish,* Sylas thought, *for the tools to burn this world down and build a better one.*
He took a breath.
He leaned forward.
*Whoosh.*
The five flames died instantly.
Smoke curled up, gray and acrid.
And then the world broke.
It didn't explode. There was no thunderclap. It was a silent, violent schism in his optic nerve.
A grid slammed into existence.
It was a translucent blue mesh, razor-thin, overlaying everything. It contoured over the roasted chicken, wrapped around the wine goblet, mapped the geometry of his father's face.
Sylas blinked, recoiling. He rubbed his eyes.
The grid remained.
Text began to scroll. Not in his mind, but in his vision, floating in the air like dust motes caught in a sunbeam. The font was sans-serif, crisp, alien to this medieval reality.
**[ SYSTEM INITIALIZED ]**
**[ USER ID: KIERAN_DRAYKE // ALIAS: SYLAS_VANE ]**
**[ ARCHITECT PROTOCOLS: ONLINE ]**
**[ CALIBRATING VISUAL INTERFACE... ]**
Sylas gripped the edge of the table. The wood felt solid, but to his eyes, it was translucent. He could see the grain *inside* the timber. He could see the knots.
**[ OBJECT: DINING TABLE (OAK, CLASS III) ]**
* **Structural Integrity:** 64%
* **Fatigue Points:** 12 detected.
* **Hidden Flaws:** Rot localized in leg 4 (South-East). Collapse probability: 18% within 6 months.
He gasped.
"Did you wish for a pony?" Elara asked, leaning in. "I bet you wished for a pony. You have pony eyes."
Sylas stared at her.
The grid snapped onto his sister.
**[ SUBJECT: ELARA VANE ]**
* **Biological Status:** Healthy (Nutritional Deficit: Iron).
* **Mana Capacity:** [ ERROR: LIMIT BREAKER DETECTED ]
* **Potential:** SSS
* **Current Load:** 2%
*SSS?*
The data stream was overwhelming. It wasn't a game interface. There were no hit points. No level bars. It was a CAD file. It was a blueprint of reality.
"Sylas?" Lilliana's voice was sharp with concern. "Are you alright? You look pale."
The grid shifted to his mother.
**[ SUBJECT: LILLIANA VANE ]**
* **Biological Status:** Compromised.
* **Condition:** Chronic Mana Sickness (Stage 2).
* **Structural Weakness:** Arterial wall thinning (Heart).
* **Repair Blueprint:** [ LOCKED - REQUIRES ALCHEMY LVL 4 ]
Sylas stopped breathing.
Mana Sickness.
She wasn't just tired. She wasn't just stressed. She was dying. The magic she had suppressed to marry a declining noble was eating her from the inside out.
"I..." Sylas croaked. His voice sounded tinny in his own ears.
He closed his eyes tight. *System. Minimized.*
The command worked. The blue lines faded, retreating to the periphery of his vision, leaving only small, unobtrusive markers on the objects in the room.
He opened his eyes. The room looked normal again. Dark, cold, impoverished. But now he knew exactly where the rot was.
"I'm sleepy," Sylas said. It was the safe answer. The expected answer.
Arthur let out a relieved breath. "Too much excitement. It's a big day."
He stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the stone floor. He walked around the table and scooped Sylas up.
"Come on, little architect," Arthur said gently.
Sylas froze in his arms. *Little architect.*
"Arthur," Lilliana chided gently. "Don't call him that. You know the Church frowns on that word."
"It's just a nickname, Lily. He's always stacking blocks."
Arthur carried him out of the hall. Sylas rested his head on his father's shoulder.
As they passed the threshold, Sylas looked back. The blue grid flickered over the doorframe.
**[ STRUCTURE: DOORFRAME ]**
**[ STATUS: WARPED ]**
**[ SOLUTION: PLANING REQUIRED. APPLY PRESSURE AT COORDINATE X-14. ]**
He didn't just see the problem. He saw the fix. A ghostly, dotted line appeared, showing exactly where the wood needed to be shaved down to stop the door from sticking.
He buried his face in his father's tunic to hide his grin.
He wasn't helpless anymore.
***
The bedroom was cold.
Arthur tucked him in, pulling the heavy wool blanket up to his chin. The rough fabric scratched his neck.
"Sleep well, Sylas," Arthur whispered. He lingered for a moment, his hand resting on Sylas's head. His palm was calloused, rough as bark.
The System tagged the hand: **[ EPIDERMIS: SCAR TISSUE. INDICATES REPETITIVE BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA (SWORD DRILLS). ]**
"Papa?" Sylas asked.
"Yes?"
"Is Mama sick?"
Arthur stiffened. The reaction was subtle, a tightening of the jaw, but the System highlighted it with a red warning reticle: **[ MICRO-EXPRESSION: DECEPTION/GRIEF. ]**
"Mama is just tired," Arthur said, his voice straining for lightness. "Winter is hard on everyone. Go to sleep."
He blew out the candle and left, closing the door until only a sliver of hallway light remained.
Sylas waited. He counted to sixty. Then sixty again.
He threw the covers off and sat up.
"System," he whispered. "Full diagnostic."
The room lit up. It was beautiful.
The floorboards were a mesh of vectors. The draft from the window was visualized as a stream of blue particles entering the room. He could see the thermal gradient, the heat leaking out of the walls like blood from a wound.
He swung his legs out of bed. His feet hit the cold floor.
He walked to the window. He looked out at the estate.
Even in the dark, the System extrapolated data. It drew wireframe outlines of the barn, the stables, the collapsing perimeter wall.
**[ VANE ESTATE ]**
* **Overall Integrity:** 32%
* **Resource Output:** CRITICAL LOW.
* **Defensibility:** 12% (Negligible).
* **Recommendation:** Total restructuring.
"Total restructuring," Sylas muttered.
He looked at his small hands. They glowed faintly with the grid overlay.
He wasn't a warrior. He wasn't a mage. He was an Architect.
He didn't need to swing a sword to kill a monster. He just needed to find the structural flaw in the monster's neck and apply the correct amount of pressure.
The door creaked.
Sylas scrambled back into bed, pulling the covers up.
A small head poked in. Elara.
She tiptoed into the room, holding something wrapped in a rag. She moved silently. The System tracked her foot placement: **[ STEALTH: NOVICE. WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION OPTIMAL. ]**
"Potato?" she whispered.
"I'm awake," Sylas whispered back.
She crept to the side of the bed. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark.
"I saved you a drumstick," she said, unwrapping the rag. inside was a greasy, lukewarm chicken leg. "You didn't eat."
Sylas looked at the chicken leg. He looked at his sister.
**[ POTENTIAL: SSS ]**
The tag hovered over her head like a halo.
She was starving herself to feed him. She was fighting imaginary goblins to protect him. And she had enough raw power coiled inside her skinny frame to level the manor, if she only knew how to unlock it.
Sylas took the chicken leg. "Thank you."
"Did you really wish for a pony?" Elara asked, sitting on the rug.
Sylas took a bite. The meat was dry, but it tasted like loyalty.
"No," he said.
"What then?"
"I wished I could help fix the door."
Elara rolled her eyes. "You're so boring. I wished for a dragon. A black one. I'm going to ride it and eat the tax collector."
Sylas chewed.
*Dragon,* he thought. *Biological construct. Large scale. High maintenance.*
"Maybe one day," Sylas said.
"Definitely one day." Elara yawned. She patted his leg. "Eat up. You need to get big. If the Goblins come back tomorrow, I need you to carry the ammo."
She stood up, stretched, and padded out of the room.
Sylas finished the chicken. He wiped his hands on the blanket.
He wasn't going back to sleep.
He slid out of bed again. He moved to the small wooden desk in the corner. It was bare, save for a few smooth stones he had collected.
He needed a test subject.
He picked up a stone. It was grey, river-smooth, roughly the size of an egg.
**[ OBJECT: RIVER STONE (SEDIMENTARY) ]**
* **Density:** 2.6 g/cm3
* **Flaws:** Micro-fracture along the equatorial plane.
Sylas focused.
*Show me the blueprint.*
The wireframe of the stone expanded. It pulled apart in his vision, showing the layers of sediment, the compressed grains of sand. He saw the fracture line clearly. It glowed red.
*Apply force.*
He didn't squeeze with his hand. He pushed with his mind, hooking his will into the System's interface. He targeted the fracture.
**[ STRESS TEST INITIATED ]**
He poured a tiny amount of mana into the flaw. Not a blast. A wedge.
*Crack.*
The stone in his hand split perfectly in two. Clean. precise. As if cut by a laser.
Sylas stared at the two halves.
He hadn't crushed it. He had convinced it to break.
He set the stones down. His heart was hammering.
He looked towards the hallway. He could hear the faint, rhythmic sound of his father's snoring from the master bedroom.
He walked out.
The hallway was a tunnel of shadows. Sylas navigated it easily, the System highlighting the squeaky floorboards in red so he could step over them.
He reached the landing of the main staircase. Below, in the great hall, the embers of the hearth still glowed.
He walked down.
He stopped in front of the mantle.
Hanging there, mounted on two iron hooks, was the Vane ancestral sword. *Widowmaker*.
It was a bastard sword, the leather of the grip worn smooth by five generations of hands. The steel was dark, etched with runes that had long since stopped glowing. To the naked eye, it was a relic of glory. A weapon of kings.
Sylas looked at it with the Architect's eyes.
The overlay appeared.
**[ OBJECT: SWORD (STEEL/MITHRIL ALLOY) ]**
* **Age:** 240 Years.
* **Status:** CRITICAL.
* **Structural Integrity:** 41%
* **Analysis:** Micro-fractures throughout the tang. Metal fatigue at the strike point. Rust accumulation in the rune channels.
It wasn't a weapon. It was a bomb waiting to go off. If Arthur struck anything harder than a melon with this sword, the blade would shatter. It would leave him defenseless.
Sylas reached up. He was too short to touch it.
He stared at the glowing red lines spider-webbing through the steel.
**[ BLUEPRINT AVAILABLE: REFORGING ]**
* **Requirements:**
* Heat Source: 1400°C
* Material: High-Carbon Steel Ingot (x2)
* Mana Cost: 450 Units
* **Skill:** Blacksmithing (Lv. 1)
He didn't have the heat. He didn't have the steel. He certainly didn't have the mana.
But he had the map.
For the first time since he had opened his eyes in this freezing, dirt-smelling world, Sylas felt a profound sense of calm.
The poverty, the looming debt, the sickness in his mother's veins, the unchecked power in his sister's blood—they weren't tragedies.
They were just engineering problems.
And he was the only one with the manual.
Sylas turned away from the sword. He walked to the window and looked out at the dark forest that surrounded their home. Somewhere out there were the beasts Arthur hunted. Somewhere further were the cities that looked down on them.
"System," he whispered.
**[ AWAITING COMMAND ]**
"Create a new project folder."
**[ NAME? ]**
Sylas smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was sharp, and it didn't belong on a five-year-old's face.
"Project: Kingdom in the Shadows."
**[ FOLDER CREATED. ]**
**[ CURRENT ASSETS: 1 BROKEN HOUSE, 1 SICK MOTHER, 1 TIRED FATHER, 1 OVERPOWERED SISTER, 1 CHICKEN LEG. ]**
**[ PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: 0.0004% ]**
Sylas looked at the floating number.
"Optimize it," he said.
He turned and walked back up the stairs. The floorboards didn't make a sound.