[The Orphanage—Afternoon—Outside the Imperial City]
The Hope Orphanage had once been painted in cheerful colors; now, it looked as though a sandstorm had swallowed it and spat it back out.
Broken clay tiles littered the courtyard. Several wooden shutters hung from their hinges, and cracks ran across the sun-baked walls. A few old bronze lamps lay overturned near the entrance, their flames long extinguished.
The children of the orphanage had been gathered at the far edge of the courtyard. They sat close together, silent and trembling, watching the armed knights of House Veyrath search through their home.
The director and several teachers knelt before them, and at the center of it all stood Assistant Ravian.
He calmly turned the pages of the parchments recovered from the director’s office. Names. Birth records. Food expenses. Donations. Lists of children who had supposedly been transferred to other institutions.
The numbers did not match, not even close. The director, a fat man with a swollen belly that nearly brushed the dusty ground whenever he knelt, trembled violently.
"My lord," he stammered, pressing his forehead toward the earth. "As you can plainly see, the orphanage is in terrible condition. We have struggled merely to keep the children fed. We have neither wealth nor influence. How could we possibly commit such a grave offense against innocent children?"
Ravian slowly lifted his eyes from the parchment.
The director immediately lowered his head again.
Ravian said nothing; his gaze moved toward the children. Their clothes were worn thin. Some were barefoot. A few had bruises on their arms. One little boy was clutching the sleeve of an older girl as though afraid that letting go would make her disappear.
Ravian’s expression hardened, and beside him, Captain Darian Kharvek, commander of the Veyrath knights accompanying him, surveyed the courtyard.
"Sir Ravian," Darian said quietly, "this place does not appear to have been searched or cleaned in months."
The director’s face went pale. Darian continued, his eyes moving over the broken furniture and dusty floors.
"And yet their records claim they spend a considerable portion of their donations on maintenance."
Silence fell.
The director swallowed as Ravian closed the parchment.
"Search everything."
The knights immediately spread through the orphanage. Some entered the sleeping quarters. Others searched the kitchens, storage rooms, offices, and abandoned chambers. Wooden chests were opened. Clay tablets were examined. Loose floor stones were lifted.
The teachers exchanged frightened glances; the director began sweating so heavily that beads of perspiration rolled down his cheeks.
Ravian remained where he stood as he looked once more at the children, and then his voice carried across the courtyard.
"Do not overlook a single room. Search beneath the floors, behind the walls, and inside every sealed chest. If something has been hidden here, we will find it."
The knights answered together.
"Yes, Sir Ravian."
The director hurriedly raised his head.
"My lord, I assure you, there is nothing here. The Hope has served the Empire faithfully for many years."
Ravian turned toward him.
"Then you have nothing to fear."
The man’s mouth opened, but no words came. Ravian stepped closer, and his voice remained calm. "The Lady of House Veyrath spoke of this place; she said something was wrong here."
The director’s hands began to shake.
Ravian’s silver insignia caught the afternoon sunlight as he continued.
"When the Lady of House Veyrath speaks, we listen." His eyes settled upon the director. "And when she says something is wrong, it is our duty to uncover what was hidden from her eyes."
The courtyard became deathly quiet.
Ravian looked toward the knights.
"Search thoroughly and do not return to me with excuses."
The knights bowed.
"Understood."
Ravian turned back toward the orphanage. Whatever secrets The Hope had buried beneath its cracked walls, he intended to drag them into the light.
But that was not the only thought occupying his mind.
His gaze slowly moved beyond the ruined courtyard and toward the village surrounding the orphanage. Small houses of sun-baked clay stood beneath the afternoon sun, their flat roofs covered with woven mats and pottery jars. Narrow paths stretched between them, disappearing toward the distant fields.
Ravian’s eyes narrowed as he mumbled almost to himself.
"If Lady Seyra lived here...then it is possible her birth parents came from somewhere nearby."
He looked down at the parchment again.
There was no family name, no record of her birth, nothing. For a child who had supposedly appeared from nowhere, there should have been something, but there was nothing.
Ravian folded the parchment and slipped it beneath his cloak and mumbled, "I have to look into it."
***
[Meanwhile, at House VVeyrath—AzramVaerum’s Chamber—Training Ground]
The afternoon sun burned over the private training grounds of House Veyrath.
Bronze training pillars stood around the stone courtyard, their surfaces carved with ancient Veyrath symbols. Dust drifted through the warm air, disturbed by the force of each strike.
At the center stood Vaerun; he had discarded his formal robes.
Only a single dark training trouser remained upon him, leaving his upper body bare beneath the merciless afternoon sun. His broad shoulders and powerful chest were marked with the evidence of years spent mastering the sword rather than merely carrying one. Sweat traced slowly along his skin as he tightened his grip around the hilt.
His silver eyes were cold and completely focused.
A training blade rested in his hand, and across from him stood six armored knights. They were not ordinary soldiers; they were among the finest warriors of House Veyrath, and all six looked as though they would rather face an army.
Vaerum raised his sword.
"BEGIN."
The first knight charged.
Steel struck steel.
CLANG!
Vaerun’s blade moved once. The knight’s sword flew from his hand, and before the man could recover, Vaerun’s blade stopped against his throat.
"Is this how you have been trained here?"
The knight swallowed.
Vaerun stepped away, the second attacked from the left and the third from behind. Vaerum did not even turn fully; his sword swept backward.
CLANG!
The third knight stumbled.
Vaerun pivoted, caught the second knight’s blade, twisted his wrist, and sent the man crashing onto the stone; the remaining knights exchanged glances.
Vaerun’s expression did not change.
"Are you waiting for permission?"
They charged together, and the air changed. A violent gust exploded across the courtyard, and Vaerun’s silver eyes sharpened.
Veyra (Air).
The great white leopard of air appeared behind him for a heartbeat, its enormous form rippling through the wind.
Vaerun moved, and his sword became a blur. One knight fell, then another, and a third was forced to his knees. Vaerun stepped over the fallen training blade and drove his own sword into the ground beside the man’s head.
BOOM.
The stone cracked and silence consumed the courtyard. Vaerun looked down at the knight and said calmly and dangerously.
"If this were the battlefield, you would already be dead."
The knight lowered his head.
"Yes, Azram."
A servant approached carefully and held out a fresh cloth. Vaerun took it and wiped the sweat from his brow, his breathing already steady again. The training ground had fallen quiet, but his mind was far from it.
His thoughts returned to Seyra, who had somehow managed to disturb every certainty he had ever possessed.
Her words, her strange confidence, and the way she spoke despite being only four years old. And, most of all, the way the elemental spirits responded to her.
She had touched them without a contract, she had spoken to them as though they were ordinary creatures, and the crystal had found nothing within her.
No Aether Core.
Vaerun’s silver eyes narrowed, and then he remembered her eyes. Those violet eyes she had possessed when he first saw her seemed unusual even then.
But they changed, only slightly. A flicker of another color whenever her emotions shifted. It was subtle enough that anyone else might have dismissed it as a trick of the light.
Vaerun had not; he remembered the first time she had stood before him without fear. A starving, bruised child should have been terrified of the Azram of House Veyrath.
Yet Seyra had simply looked up at him and declared that she had decided to adopt him as her father.
His thought deepened: ’At first...I could have dismissed her, but those eyes are not ordinary.’
His expression grew darker.
’And those words...’
A four-year-old should not speak with such strange certainty, she should not possess such sharp instincts, she should not have stood before a man feared throughout the Empire without trembling, and a child who had been abused should not have looked at the world with such fearless eyes.
Vaerun’s brow furrowed.
’Or...’
A strange conclusion slowly formed in his mind, and his expression became utterly serious.
’...my child is simply a scholar.’
. . .
. . .
Silence.
Then Vaerun nodded once; the conclusion appeared to satisfy him completely. ’Yes, that is likely it.’
Several knights nearby exchanged confused glances; one of them quietly leaned toward another. "Who... is our Azram planning to kill this time?"
The other knight immediately looked horrified. "Shut your mouth...let us leave before he regains enough energy for another round."
The two began retreating, and within moments, the knights scattered across the training ground like frightened rats.
Vaerun did not even notice; he remained lost in thought.
’Maybe my child truly does not possess an Aether Core because... she is a scholar.’
He considered it carefully; a child with no Aether Core would normally be powerless, but Seyra was not powerless; she could see spirits, touch them, and speak to them, and they responded to her.
Vaerun’s expression remained completely solemn as another thought followed.
’If she is a scholar...’
His lips curved almost imperceptibly.
’Then she may kill anyone she wishes.’
He nodded once.
Satisfied, a perfectly reasonable conclusion. The tyrant of House Veyrath had apparently decided that his four-year-old daughter was a scholarly genius capable of murdering anyone who annoyed her, and somehow, he found that comforting.
"Azram."
The voice interrupted his thoughts. Vaerun turned as he saw butler Renn stood at the entrance of the training ground. He bowed respectfully before approaching. He carried a sealed letter, the wax seal was unmistakable.
The Imperial Palace. Renn extended it carefully.
"The Malik has sent you a letter."
Vaerun took it, and he broke the seal and unfolded the parchment. His eyes moved across the words, and the faint amusement that had remained on his face disappeared. His jaw tightened and the atmosphere around him changed.
The wind that had been drifting through the courtyard suddenly became still.
Renn noticed immediately; he had served Vaerun long enough to recognize that expression. It was the expression that usually appeared moments before someone regretted being born.
Renn swallowed.
"What is it, Azram?"
Vaerun said nothing; he folded the letter, and his fingers tightened around the parchment. Then he ran one hand through his dark, sweat-damp hair, his silver eyes becoming colder than before.
"Prepare the carriage." his expression remained tyrannical. "We are going to the Imperial Palace."
Renn hesitated. "The Imperial Palace?"
Vaerun’s voice dropped.
"My daughter is coming with me."
Renn’s eyes widened slightly. Something told him the journey would not be peaceful. Vaerun turned away, already walking toward the manor.
"Prepare everything."
Renn bowed.
"Yes, Azram."
The wind stirred behind him; the Silent Tempest was going to the Imperial Palace, and he was taking his daughter with him.