Elthraa

  You stir, boy. A tempest restrained within fragile flesh, yet even now, your spirit betrays your weakness. A single motion—a shift, a tremor—speaks louder than your own understanding. You have sat among them for three years, spoken their tongue, shared in their ways. Yet you are not of them.

  For you belong to something greater.

  The chair groans beneath you. Such an ordinary sound. Yet in this moment, it heralds the upheaval of something grander, something that has slept within you for too long.

  They do not know it, and neither do you.

  Ah, but I do.

  Your blood courses with memoryless ambition, an insatiable hunger with no name. You have grasped at meaning in this house of forgotten children, learned their nguage, pyed the role of the brother, the fool, the kind-hearted stray taken in from the cold. You have ughed with Cherry, basked in the warmth of a sister not by blood but by bond. And yet—has it been enough? Do you belong, or have you merely been tolerated?

  A fire does not ask if it belongs. It simply devours.

  Revilsa stands before you, her blood marking the table, an oath carved into flesh. And you—I see it now—the way your hands clench, your breath shudders, the war between impulse and hesitation waging deep within.

  You are nothing. You are everything.

  I watch as you reach for the knife. Not for the steel, nor for the pain—but for the meaning.

  The others watch. Their gazes pressing against your skin like a star's core. Do you falter? Do you yield?

  No.

  For you, blood is no loss. It is a currency. A sacrifice. A decration.

  You pull it to your palm.

  But, you hesitate.

  Cherry—the mother without children—rushes forward, cloth in hand, pressing it to the girl’s wound, eyes wide with something between fury and fear.

  “What are you doing?!” she demands, her voice fraying at the edges. "You can’t just cut yourself like this! This isn’t—" Her words falter when her gaze nds on you. “Zett,” she demands, “put that down.”

  You look at what you hold.

  It is the weapon of promises.

  You question her, why should I put down something that forges dreams?

  You do not.

  And, at st boy, you know not to. So you smile defiantly, and respond to her, “No.”

  A thousand thoughts crash inside you—but none louder than the one that drives your hand forward. The bde rips into your palm, and the crimson follows, spilling upon the table, mingling with the girl’s sacrifice—a covenant unwittingly forged.

  “I’ll be the strongest man ever!”

  Your voice erupts like a war horn, shattering the silence, a thundercp splitting the heavens. There is no doubt, no hesitation. Only truth, one none can deny.

  You wish to be the strongest?

  Why?

  Is it because of your predecessors who were warriors?

  No.

  Because it is impossible.

  Because you know this will keep you running for eternity.

  Ah, Zett.

  You have spoken your truth.

  Now burn.