My name was Caleb, and my family were the Lightbane.

  I learned much in my new life.

  Maybe too quickly.

  It was hard to pretend I was just a baby when my mind was stacked with decades of memories, trauma, and library policy manuals.

  But I needed to be subtle - no one expected a newborn to contemplate the philosophical structure of the world, their own mortality, or the mechanics of story structure.

  My brother, Jakob, was four, or close to it.

  He spent his days watching a hired mage conjure floating sparks and miniature storms for his education. The mage seemed to enjoy it, and he did it because he wanted to.

  His job was far more important than entertaining a toddler.

  There was magic in this world - of course there was. At first, I wondered why Geshich had sent me into a world like this instead of one like my own, but then I thought: maybe magic was the standard, and my old world was the exception.

  Supposedly, Jakob’s first words were not “mama” or “papa.” They were the activation syllables of a basic light spell.

  Ra.

  My sister, Selene, was three when I arrived in this world. She greeted me by whacking my crib with her fist and announcing that I would one day “fight her.”

  Her swing was terrible, and she hurt herself every time, but her enthusiasm was terrifying.

  I was surrounded by overachievers.

  Meanwhile, I struggled not to drool on myself.

  Months passed.

  I observed everything: pronunciation, order, the movements of the mouth and tongue, gestures - if there were any - the way magic curled around the body of the caster.

  Even the lowest servants knew a few functional spells.

  By this time, I recognized two of them.

  A word for warmth - and, if cast strongly enough, fire: Ra.

  A word for light: Sol.

  Words mattered here more than I could ever have realized.

  How could I not be obsessed?

  But I could not cast them.

  By six months, I could crawl my way into the manor’s little library - really just a reading section with dusty tomes that my father, Alarick, collected in his spare time and kept in his study. There, I pretended to look at picture books while actually trying to decipher the written language.

  The script and grammar felt familiar, from what little I could make out.

  In my other life, I was trilingual, but only because I was obsessed with reading and watching things in different languages.

  There were games, movies, comics, and stories only available that way, and I refused to deny myself them.

  The first time I whispered a spell, it was accidental.

  A page caught my attention, speaking of holy winds and spirals, and my mind wandered to other places where I had seen wind magic before. There were many. Countless stories featured people who wielded wind as their power.

  So I muttered a clumsy word under my breath while thinking of them.

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  “Shu.”

  A breeze came. The page quivered and turned on its own.

  I froze.

  It worked.

  A tiny spell, barely more than a breath of air - but it was still my spell.

  My heart raced, and exhaustion crashed over me all at once.

  I wanted to scream in triumph - but I was a baby, and babies did not celebrate the way I would have. Still, I let out a delighted squeal.

  Then I quickly looked around to see if anyone had witnessed my work.

  Thankfully, no one had.

  Often, I was outside under supervision, or cradled in the weak arms of my mother, watching as Maren - my older sister by two or three years - fought my father with wooden swords.

  It was a daily regimen. She slew straw dummies with gusto.

  Jakob practiced spells that made fire obey him. He was still clumsy - accidents happened. Once, he set his instructor on fire. But it was played off as a joke. His instructor was an expert in setting things ablaze and putting them out.

  To him, it must have felt like being splashed with a droplet of water.

  And me?

  I read everything I could, not just about magic. I studied legends, history, footnotes, magic theory, combat - anything I could get my hands on.

  But it was not curiosity alone that drove me.

  It was fear.

  Fear of dying all over again.

  Geshich showed no sign of himself during those months.

  Honestly, was he just fucking with me?

  Maybe he was giving me time.

  What could a baby do to live an interesting life?

  Nothing, as far as I could tell.

  Unless they were born into an interesting family - and as of then, I did not really know what my family did.

  My mother seemed too weak to go out often, and I was mostly by her side.

  She had long red hair, and when she held me, it tickled my face.

  She was a lovely woman. Inside and out.

  I wondered - when I grew older, would I inherit her red hair like Jakob, or my father’s blue hair like Maren?

  Time passed strangely as a child.

  Days felt long. Weeks felt short. And I gained just a little more control - over my limbs, my voice, my senses.

  By around eight months, when I could walk without stumbling, Jakob already made flames dance like pets on his fingertips. Maren sparred with children from other families - even with wooden equipment, she was dangerous.

  I watched them from the sidelines. I would have loved to train too, but alas, I was still just a baby.

  Father watched everything.

  I thought he noticed how closely I followed the incantations of the mages, how I lingered when Selene trained.

  But he said nothing. Maybe he was just proud.

  Not long after, my world expanded beyond the nursery, my father’s study, and our backyard.

  Our manor was not large, but it sat on a hill overlooking the town of Endil. The people bowed politely when they saw us - but there was no awe in it. No reverence.

  We were a very low noble family. That kind of status bred respect out of formality, not admiration.

  Sometimes I heard servants whisper when they thought I was too young to understand:

  “The Lightbane name used to mean something.”

  “Once they were kings - or near enough.”

  “I don’t know why Rosa married someone as low-born as Alarick.”

  My family felt like a story that had lost its plot.

  The idea stuck in my mind like a thorn.

  I learned little about my mother Rosa’s family - the Hollowstars.

  Her father was, or had been, a great wizard. I was not sure if he was dead. Her side of the family seemed far higher in rank than my father’s.

  I did not learn much, because no one spoke of them.

  But that was not entirely bad, was it?

  Raising a ruined house from ash back to its former glory would make for an interesting story. And I would not have to do it alone.

  My brother and sisters were prodigies. When they grew older, they could carry much of the weight through skill alone. I would only need to be present at the right moments to claim the story as my own.

  Sadly, my mother grew weaker.

  She still walked with grace despite the pain lingering in every step. She taught me simple manners, as any mother did - how to sit properly, how to hold a spoon, how to smile when spoken to.

  She laughed easily. And every time she touched me, the warmth in her fingertips felt like sunlight.

  One morning, a few months after my first accidental spell, a hired mage - and a friend of my father - Master Galway Orrin, stopped me in the hallway as I wandered.

  Unlike my father, he had a beard. Not just some stubble or anything like that, but a thick one - carefully groomed.

  He had a unique smell to him, most likely because of the oils he put in his beard, so it was easy to tell when he was around, but I got careless that day.

  I froze, as any baby would when confronted by an adult.

  I deliberately fell onto my butt. That made me less suspicious.

  But his eyes were sharp as a hawk’s.

  “You stare too much, young Master Caleb,” he said, stroking his beard. “You listen too. Curious children become curious adults.”

  He knelt to meet my eyes. “I hope you grow into a great mage, like your grandfather. Your brother shows great promise too. Remember this - if you ever wish to learn, truly learn… come find me.”

  He left me sitting there, heart hammering wildly.

  One evening, I overheard my parents speaking softly near the hearth and watched them from a distance.

  “He’s… unusual,” Mother said.

  Father nodded. “Not a fighter like Maren. Not a natural prodigy like Jakob. But there’s something sharp in him. He watches everything.”

  “Do you think he’ll find his place?”

  He smiled faintly. “Every story needs a beginning. He’s a Lightbane. We’re strong, hardy folk.”

  “Foolhardy, maybe,” Mother laughed.

  Father embraced her.

  For now, things seemed good.