Chapter 5: The Child of Two Worlds
The morning sun filtered gently through sheer curtains, casting a soft golden hue over the room. Outside, birds sang, the wind whispered through the Farah estate's gardens, and a new day began—peaceful, untouched, almost fragile.
Inside, the young boy named Lyrian Farah opened his eyes in silence.
To everyone in the Empire, he was the miracle child—the long-awaited heir of the Grand Duke and Duchess of Kremond. Born under an auspicious star, healthy and bright-eyed, they believed he would one day carry on his father's legacy.
But only he knew the truth.
I am not born of this world. I returned to it.
The duchess, Xylia, entered the room moments later, carrying a tray with warm bread and fresh milk.
"My little sun," she whispered with a smile, brushing her fingers gently through his soft hair. "You didn't call for your nanny. Hungry?"
Lyrian nodded slightly, his small hands reaching out to accept the tray. She watched him eat with the kind of joy only a mother could know—her eyes shining with love, and something deeper… relief. After years of prayers, she had been granted this child. A boy with red eyes like his father and a soul too calm for his age.
To her, he was perfect.
To him… she was kind.
They are good people. This family… they've done nothing wrong.
But trust? No. I learned the cost of trust a long time ago.
Outside, in the training grounds, Grand Duke Caspain Von Ross Farah, his father, stood observing as soldiers sparred under the spring sun. A man feared across the continent, he was the Empire's only Grand Swordmaster—a title no one else had touched in generations. Beside him stood Sir Galien, one of the five Swordmasters who followed him with fierce loyalty.
But when Caspain looked at Lyrian playing in the garden from afar, there was no fierceness in his eyes—only pride. He saw his legacy in the boy.
Lyrian, meanwhile, played along. He learned to smile at the right times, to hold his wooden sword with grace when asked. To laugh when his mother kissed his cheeks and said, "He's just like you, Caspain. Look at those eyes. He'll be a hero."
A hero.
They all believed that.
I won't shatter their dream. But they will never know who I really am.
That night, the boy stood alone at his bedroom window, staring up at the sky.
His reflection glimmered faintly in the glass. His eyes, once burning crimson in battle, now mirrored the stars—quiet, but unyielding.
Abylay…
He didn't speak her name aloud.
But he felt her.
In every breeze that brushed his skin.
In every whisper of moonlight across the floor.
His fingers curled slightly against the windowsill.
How much longer must I wait?
How much longer must we be apart?
But still, he stayed silent. Still, he waited.
In the garden below, his mother watched from the shadows, unseen.
She thought he looked lonely.
But she didn't know that he wasn't waiting for the world to come to him.
He was waiting for the right moment to take it back.