Morning came the same way it always did, quiet and unhurried, the light from the window spreading slowly across the room while the rest of the mansion was still deciding whether to be awake yet.
Fainyx was already inside Aetherium.
He ran his usual route through the space, past the trees and around the river and up the small slope near the far edge, his breathing growing heavier with each lap the way it always did because his body was his body and it had opinions about being pushed regardless of how consistently he pushed it. The Kalmia cluster near the cottage caught his eye as he passed, pale ivory petals glowing faintly in the artificial morning light, more of them than there had been last week, the space quietly encouraging their growth the way it encouraged most things he brought inside it.
He would need to bring one tonight.
He kept running.
His thoughts moved on their own while his body worked through the familiar motions, drifting back to everything Ruth had said the night before with the particular persistence of information that hadn't finished settling yet.
'Hollow Constitution Syndrome...'
He had known something was wrong for long enough that the confirmation wasn't exactly a surprise but knowing the name of it and knowing what it would do to him when he reached adulthood was a different weight entirely. He had noticed the lethargy for a while now, the way some mornings his body felt heavier than training alone could account for, the way the fatigue sat differently than it should have, deeper and more settled, like something draining slowly from a source he couldn't quite locate.
He hadn't connected it to anything specific until now.
He finished his sixth lap and slowed to a walk, letting his breathing even out, his mana circulating steadily through his body the way it did after training. He wasn't going to stop. That much he had decided somewhere around the third lap without really needing to think about it. Ruth had given him a solution and he intended to use it and in the meantime the only thing that made any sense was to keep going at whatever pace his body allowed because stopping would help nothing and help nobody least of all him.
The side effect sat in the back of his mind with quiet persistence.
Coughing up blood... When he overexerts and it also happens randomly...
Ruth had said it wouldn't hurt and he believed that because Ruth said things directly and without softening and had no reason to lie about the painful parts. But it was still going to be noticed by someone eventually and that was a problem he hadn't finished working out yet.
He exhaled slowly and stepped back through the portal.
His room settled around him, quiet and still, the morning light considerably warmer now than when he had gone in. He checked the time, confirmed he had enough margin, and went straight to the bath before Estrella could arrive and make the whole process considerably more supervised than he preferred. He had been managing his own morning routine independently for long enough that the alternative felt genuinely unreasonable but Estrella's definition of helping and his definition of helping had never quite aligned on this particular topic and probably never would.
He finished, changed into clean casual clothes, and was sitting on the edge of his bed with his notebook open before the familiar footsteps reached the corridor outside his room.
His mind drifted while he waited.
The adventurers arriving today at the guild. His mother's old party. He had thought about it briefly after Yong mentioned it last night and the thought had stayed with him in the way certain things stayed, quietly occupying a corner of his attention without demanding anything from it yet.
He could go.
Not today, not in daylight, but at night when the mansion was quiet and his concealment spell was reliable and the guards followed patterns he had memorized well enough to move around without any real difficulty. He had done it before. He could do it again.
But.
He turned the idea over carefully.
Going out at night to an adventure guild to look at a group of people he couldn't identify on sight, in a city he had only visited once, with no clear information about where they were staying or what their schedule looked like, was not a well constructed plan. It was barely a plan at all. It was more the outline of an intention that hadn't been thought through properly yet and acting on it tonight would be reckless in a way he generally tried to avoid.
Not today then.
He would think about it more carefully. Figure out what he actually needed to know before going anywhere. Decide whether it was worth the risk at all.
He closed the thought and set it aside just as his sensing magic registered the familiar footsteps in the corridor outside.
Estrella.
Her knock came a moment later.
"Good morning, young master!"
She came in with her usual brightness, took one look at him and immediately produced the expression that meant she had noticed the paleness again and was deciding how much to say about it. He picked up his fork from the breakfast tray she set down before she could start and she seemed to accept this as sufficient evidence that he was functioning adequately.
She let him eat in relative peace, which for Estrella meant she only refilled his tea twice without being asked and only commented on his color once. When he set his spoon down she folded her hands neatly and straightened in the way she did when she had something to say.
"There is something I need to inform you about," she said. "His Grace has been making arrangements for your education. You will be receiving an instructor soon to begin your formal studies."
Fainyx looked at her.
"You are the youngest son so the expectations on you are different from your brothers," she continued, "and you won't be required to take over as head of the family. But that doesn't mean your studies can be set aside entirely." She paused.
"You're at the age where your education should begin properly and His Grace has decided it's time."
Fainyx absorbed this with his expression perfectly composed and his internal reaction considerably less so.
An instructor, scheduled lessons on top of everything else he was already managing, the morning training in Aetherium, the night sessions with Yong, the Hollow Constitution Syndrome and the medicine that needed to be prepared and the Kalmia he needed to bring tonight and the adventurers he was going to need to think about at some point when he had the time to think about them properly.
He had wanted a lazy life.
He wrote.
[ When does it start? ]
"Soon," Estrella said. "His Grace will inform you of the details himself."
He nodded once and closed his notebook.
Estrella seemed to take this as acceptance and stood, smoothing her uniform with practiced efficiency. "Right then, breakfast first. Your Grace and the young masters are already at the Office."
Fainyx stood and followed her out.
The walk to the office of his father was short and familiar, the morning sounds of the mansion settling around them as they moved through the corridor they finally reach the office door and estrella knock on the door and his father said to come in. His father at the chair with the particular quality of stillness he always carried in the mornings, Adam to his left with a book open beside as he was seated on a couch, and Liam who had clearly arrived approximately thirty seconds ago based on the slightly hurried way he was settling into the couch beside his brother and at the table was some desserts.
He turned toward Fainyx the moment he appeared in the doorway.
"Morning Fainyx!"
Adam glanced up briefly. "Good morning."
The Duke looked at him with the calm measured attention he directed at most things in the morning and said nothing yet.
Fainyx took his seat across his brother, the sofa is so soft as he is comfortable with it. Then Liam started talking about something he had read the night before. Adam responded with a correction. Liam argued with the correction in the cheerful way he argued with most of Adam's corrections. The Duke listened to both of them without visibly endorsing any of it.
Fainyx listened quietly and let the morning move around him and thought about instructors and medicine and adventurers and the fact that his life had become considerably more complicated than the peaceful lazy existence he had originally planned for and wondered if it was too late to renegotiate the terms of his reincarnation.
It probably was.