Chapter 3 – The Faint Spark
Aurelian stared at his trembling hands, unsettled—but not afraid. The sensation lingering in his fingers felt… familiar. Not foreign, not alien.
Does this mean… I have magic? he wondered, pulse quickening. Have I awakened my power?
A slow, grim smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"If this is real," he murmured, voice low, "then I'm one step closer."
One step closer to answers. One step closer to revenge.
But more than that—this didn't feel like discovering something new. No. It felt like remembering something long buried, like a name half-forgotten suddenly spoken aloud.
He recalled an old saying his uncle once muttered under his breath, long ago: "The journey of a thousand steps begins with a single one."
"I've taken that step," Aurelian whispered. "And I won't turn back."
He glanced around, snapping out of his thoughts. Servants moved nearby, eyes occasionally drifting toward him. Had they noticed anything? His hands? His expression?
He quickly finished scrubbing the stones, forcing himself to appear calm. His heart spun like a whirlwind, but he willed it into stillness.
Later that evening, Aurelian slipped away from the servant quarters. Privacy was a luxury he rarely enjoyed, especially with Kegan and Ulric always stomping about like they owned the place. But there was one place they never thought to check—an old, unused storeroom tucked behind the cellar steps.
It was quiet there. Cold, dusty… but peaceful. His space.
He sat on a crate, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. His mind returned to the morning's encounter—the cruel words, the dream, the strange power beginning to wake inside him.
Why now? he wondered. Why not all those other times I wished for strength?
Reaching under his tunic, he pulled out a small, worn pendant: a crescent moon wrapped in thorned vines, once the proud symbol of House Thorne. The silver was dulled with age, but to Aurelian, it was priceless. His mother had pressed it into his hands the night they fled, her voice shaking with urgency.
"You are more than they'll ever let you be," she'd whispered.
He clutched it tightly now. The metal felt unusually cold.
Then—warm.
Aurelian gasped softly as the pendant began to glow faintly, a soft blue shimmer pulsing like a heartbeat. The air around him felt charged, alive.
"What…?" he whispered, fingers tightening.
As soon as he touched the center, something rippled behind his eyes—an echo. He saw fire. A woman's hand reaching for him. A flash of golden eyes. And a voice, so distant yet so familiar.
> "Your name is your birthright. Your blood is a gate. When the time comes… open it."
He stumbled back, breath ragged. The glow faded, but the sensation remained. Tingling. Awakened.
"I… I wasn't imagining it," he muttered. "It's real. All of it."
He placed the pendant against his chest, eyes wide with awe—and fear. "What was sealed? And why is it waking now?"
As he closed his eyes to focus, trying to summon the feeling again, a faint shimmer danced across his palm. A sigil, intricate and otherworldly, blazed for a second before vanishing like smoke.
The wooden crates creaked. Dust fluttered from the rafters. The flame of a nearby lamp flickered violently before settling.
He stood in stunned silence.
Then—he smiled.
"I'm not going to stay a servant," he said aloud, steady and sure.
Aurelian knelt, using his finger to draw the sigil he saw in the dust on the ground. It was imperfect, crude. But it was his. He touched the center with one hand, clutching the pendant in the other.
"Not forever."