By the time Adrian turned six, his questions had become difficult to answer.
It was not that he asked more questions than before. In fact, there were days when he could spend an entire lesson listening quietly while Marianne explained history, mathematics, or natural philosophy. The difference was what happened afterward.
He remembered what he had been taught.
Then he compared it with something else.
If two explanations disagreed, he wanted to know why.
If two different methods produced similar results, he wanted to know whether there was a connection.
And when someone told him that something simply could not be understood, he rarely accepted the statement without asking what prevented it from being understood.
Marianne had stopped trying to discourage him.
Instead, she had begun teaching him how to investigate his questions properly.
It was a lesson that started with a cup of water.
"Put it on the table."
Adrian placed the cup in front of her.
"What do you know about it?"
"It's water."
Marianne raised an eyebrow.
"That is obvious."
Adrian looked at the cup again.
"It is clear. It has no smell. It takes the shape of the cup. It can be poured."
"Good."
"It is cold."
"Compared with what?"
Adrian hesitated.
"The room."
"Better."
She pushed another cup toward him.
"This one has been sitting near the fireplace."
Adrian touched it.
It was warmer.
"Why?"
"Because the fireplace heated it."
"How?"
Marianne smiled.
"Now you are asking the right question."
Adrian stared at the two cups.
"The fire transferred heat?"
"That is one way to describe it."
"Can heat move from the water back into the room?"
"Yes."
"Then why does the water cool?"
"Because the surrounding air is cooler."
Adrian nodded slowly.
He reached for his notebook.
Marianne stopped him.
"Not yet."
He looked up.
"First, predict what will happen."
Adrian glanced at the two cups.
"The warm water will become colder."
"How quickly?"
He thought.
"I don't know."
"Then write down that you don't know."
Adrian frowned.
Marianne continued.
"An observation tells you what happened. A prediction tells you what you expect to happen. They are not the same."
Adrian wrote the distinction down.
That lesson stayed with him.
Over the following weeks, Marianne introduced him to a different way of studying the world.
Instead of simply reading about natural phenomena, Adrian began making small observations of his own.
He measured how quickly water cooled in different rooms.
He compared candles of different sizes.
He watched how shadows changed throughout the day.
He observed how quickly plants wilted when deprived of water.
He tested whether salt disappeared when dissolved in water or merely became too small to see.
The experiments were simple.
Most produced results he could already predict.
Some did not.
The unexpected results interested him more than the expected ones.
One afternoon, Adrian placed three identical candles on a table.
He lit all three.
The first remained uncovered.
The second was placed beneath a glass jar.
The third was placed beneath a larger jar.
Marianne watched from her desk.
"What are you expecting?"
"The uncovered candle will continue burning. The other two will eventually stop."
"Why?"
"Because the jars contain air, but not an unlimited amount."
Marianne nodded.
Adrian watched.
The candle beneath the smaller jar went out first.
The larger one remained lit longer.
Adrian immediately wrote down the times.
He then looked at the candles.
"The flame uses something."
"Something in the air."
"Can we see it?"
"No."
"Can we measure it?"
"Not with the instruments we have."
Adrian looked disappointed.
"But it is there."
"Yes."
He stared at the extinguished candle.
That was strange.
Something could exist without being visible.
It could affect the world without being seen directly.
Adrian wrote another line in his notebook.
Invisible does not mean unreal.
The idea stayed with him.
It also changed how he thought about divine miracles.
For years, Adrian had assumed that miracles were fundamentally different from everything else he observed.
A physician used medicine.
A craftsman used tools.
A priest prayed.
The result of prayer was a miracle.
But what if the miracle itself had conditions?
What if divine power operated through rules that nobody had yet discovered?
The possibility did not make the gods seem less divine.
If anything, it made them more interesting.
Adrian wanted to understand those rules.
He brought the question to Father Merian during one of their lessons.
"Father, when the gods perform miracles, do they have to follow rules?"
Father Merian looked at him for a long moment.
"Why do you ask?"
"Because everything else does."
The priest sat back.
"Explain."
"The candle stops burning when something in the air is gone. Water changes when it is heated. Plants grow when they receive water and sunlight. Bodies heal under certain conditions. Everything seems to have conditions."
"And you think divine miracles are the same?"
"I don't know."
Father Merian smiled.
"That is an honest answer."
Adrian waited.
The priest folded his hands.
"The Church teaches that the gods possess authority over creation. Their miracles are expressions of that authority."
"Does authority mean they can do anything?"
"No."
Adrian remembered the old theological book.
"Then there are limits."
"Perhaps."
"Who decided them?"
Father Merian's expression became thoughtful.
"That is a question theologians have debated for generations."
"Do the gods know?"
"I would assume so."
"Can people ask them?"
"People have."
"Did they answer?"
"Sometimes."
Adrian's eyes brightened.
"What did they say?"
Father Merian laughed softly.
"You are asking a priest to summarize thousands of years of theology."
"I can listen."
"I know."
The priest shook his head.
"The gods rarely answer questions in the manner scholars prefer."
"Why?"
"Because gods are not scholars."
Adrian considered this.
That answer made sense.
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to understanding the gods was not that they were unknowable.
Perhaps it was that humans were asking them the wrong questions.
The following summer, Count Edric took Adrian to the estate's southern fields.
The land belonged to House Arvane and supplied grain to several villages outside the city.
Adrian had seen the fields before, but only from a carriage.
This time his father allowed him to walk among them.
The crops were tall.
Workers moved between the rows, checking for disease and removing weeds.
Adrian crouched beside one of the plants.
"Why are these leaves different?"
The overseer looked down.
"Those ones?"
He nodded.
"They're damaged."
"By what?"
"Insects, most likely."
"How do you know?"
The overseer smiled.
"Experience."
Adrian examined the leaves.
Some had small holes.
Others had pale markings.
He looked at the healthy plants beside them.
"Why don't the insects eat all of them?"
"Because they don't."
"Why?"
The overseer laughed.
"Young master, if you discover the answer, tell the farmers. They'd be grateful."
Adrian smiled.
He liked the man's answer.
Not because it solved anything, but because it admitted ignorance without embarrassment.
He spent the next hour examining the plants.
When they returned to the estate, Adrian asked his father whether he could obtain books about agriculture.
Edric agreed.
Within a month, Adrian had three new volumes on his shelves.
His studies were expanding.
Mathematics led to measurements.
Measurements led to experiments.
Experiments led to natural philosophy.
Natural philosophy led to medicine, agriculture, astronomy, and engineering.
And all of them eventually led back to the same question.
Why did things happen the way they did?
His growing curiosity also brought him into contact with another side of noble life.
At six, Adrian was old enough to attend small gatherings with his parents.
They were not grand celebrations.
They were dinners with neighboring nobles, visits from officials, meetings between merchants and landowners, and occasional religious ceremonies.
Adrian mostly sat beside his mother and listened.
Adults often forgot that children were listening.
That allowed him to hear things they might not have said if they believed he understood them.
One evening, several nobles were discussing a poor harvest in the northern districts.
"The Church says the drought is punishment," one lord said.
Another disagreed.
"The priests say many things after the fact."
Elira glanced toward Adrian.
The conversation quickly changed.
Adrian remained quiet.
Later, he asked his mother, "Was the drought caused by the gods?"
Elira considered her answer carefully.
"I don't know."
"Could it have been natural?"
"Yes."
"Could it have been divine?"
"Yes."
"How do we know?"
"We may not."
Adrian frowned.
"But people say they know."
"People often speak with confidence about things they do not understand."
His mother brushed his hair back.
"Learning to recognize that is part of growing up."
Adrian remembered Marianne's lessons.
Observation.
Prediction.
Evidence.
Uncertainty.
The ideas were beginning to connect.
A few months later, Adrian witnessed something that disturbed him.
A young girl was brought into the public square near the western temple.
She was sick.
Adrian did not know the details, but her mother was crying, and a priest from the Temple of Life knelt beside the child.
The priest prayed.
The air became warm.
A pale green light gathered around his hands.
The girl's breathing steadied.
Within minutes, her fever began to fall.
The crowd erupted in relief.
Adrian watched from beside his father.
He had seen divine healing before.
This time, however, he noticed something different.
The priest looked exhausted.
His hands trembled after the ritual.
Adrian turned toward Edric.
"Why is he tired?"
"I don't know."
"Can we ask?"
"We could."
They approached the priest after the crowd dispersed.
Adrian asked politely.
"Father, why are you tired?"
The priest smiled.
"Because serving the goddess requires devotion."
"Does the miracle make you tired?"
The priest hesitated.
"Sometimes."
"Does every priest become tired?"
"No."
"Why?"
The priest looked at Edric.
Edric gave a small shrug.
The priest returned his attention to Adrian.
"Different people receive different blessings."
"Why?"
"Because the goddess chooses."
Adrian nodded.
He did not argue.
But he remembered the observation.
Not every priest responded the same way.
Not every miracle was identical.
And even divine miracles appeared to have conditions.
That evening, Adrian returned to his room and opened his notebook.
He turned to a clean page.
He wrote slowly.
A miracle occurred.
Then beneath it:
The priest prayed before it occurred.
Another line.
The priest became tired afterward.
Another.
The girl's condition improved.
He stopped.
His pen hovered over the page.
Finally, he added:
There may be a connection between the ritual, the priest, the goddess, and the result.
Adrian stared at the sentence.
It was not an answer.
It was not even a theory.
It was simply a possibility.
He closed the notebook.
Outside his window, the bells of the Grand Cathedral began to ring for evening prayer.
Adrian listened.
For the first time, the sound did not make him think only of faith.
It made him think of cause and effect.
A prayer.
A response.
A change.
A mechanism hidden somewhere between them.
He did not know whether humans could ever understand it.
He did not know whether the gods would allow them to.
But he had learned something important during his sixth year.
The world contained many things that could not yet be explained.
That did not mean they were beyond explanation.
It only meant that someone had not found the answer yet.
And Adrian had begun to suspect that finding answers would become the most important pursuit of his life.