The first few days were an abyss of silent despair. I was alone, curled up on the edge of the bed, crying until my eyes and throat burned.
Hilda disappeared for two days.
I noticed the changes immediately.
The meals were no longer served by her.
And any maid who crossed the threshold of my room did not even deign to look at me.
As the days passed, I began to fully understand how harsh and fragile my reality was.
A stain everyone was ashamed of.
My only refuge, in that freezing emptiness, became the few illustrated books left in the room.
At first, I flipped through them without really seeing them, just to keep my hands occupied.
With the beginning of the second week, I stopped waiting for anyone to come looking for me.
When the door closed, I no longer even raised my head.
That was when I noticed a small change in Hilda.
When she returned, there was a strange attentiveness in her gestures, but her gaze remained distant, enclosed behind an invisible wall that hurt me.
To break the silence, I kept asking for more books.
Uncle Szilard had already taught me the alphabet and the basic structure of sentences in the past, but it only took a few pages for my mind to do something strange.
I was not simply remembering.
My mind absorbed rules and vocabulary at a frightening, almost unnatural speed.
But that learning came at a price.
Every time I assimilated a mass of information that was too dense, a stabbing pain tore through my temples.
A blind, lightning-fast pain that broke my breath before I could even scream.
Then, darkness.
At first, it lasted only fifteen minutes, but the more my mind pushed itself to know, the longer those gaps became, leaving me sprawled on the cold floor with my head pounding.
However, there was a side effect impossible to ignore.
Between one blackout and another, I realized that the way I thought itself was changing.
Words began to flow from my lips with an unsettling naturalness.
Hilda brought me another book that evening.
"This one is about the basics of grammar," she said, handing it to me.
I sat on the edge of the bed and opened it.
The first pages were filled with rules, examples, and words that, only a few days earlier, would have seemed incomprehensible to me.
I ran a finger along the lines.
I read the first sentence.
Then the second.
At the third, I went back.
"Wait..." I murmured.
Hilda tilted her head slightly.
I pointed at a sentence with my finger.
"This particle changes the meaning of the sentence depending on its position."
"Yes."
I turned the page. I found another example.
"But then this rule applies here too."
Hilda approached and looked at the book.
I looked at her eyes, full of astonishment.
"Young master... how?"
I raised my eyes toward her.
"Well... I think I'm growing?"
Hilda remained motionless.
For a few seconds, she said nothing.
"How... how did you understand it so quickly?"
If I explained it to you, I don't think you'd believe me.
In those days, the questions increased.
The more I learned, the more something inside me did not add up.
Why could I understand things so quickly?
Why had I still not manifested mana?
Was there really something wrong with me?
Or maybe there was something else, perhaps something connected to the fact that I had not manifested mana.
After a while, however, I stopped asking myself questions.
It was as if my brain were forcing its own maturation so as not to succumb to that mass of knowledge.
It was precisely during that period, on the fourth day of the second week, that Hilda entered the room with a roll of sealed parchment in her hands.
She did not speak to me immediately.
Her face was a rigid mask as she unrolled the document and began to read.
My father, Vorgath, had applied the law to the letter. The same edict that had stripped me of the Stahl name stated that I could remain in my quarters for a maximum of six weeks.
I had only three and a half weeks left.
Once that period expired, I would be escorted outside the inner walls, beyond the citadel, to be placed under Zoltan's direct supervision.
There, I would have to learn how to fight, trained to be sent on high-risk missions.
The edict was clear: even if I survived, I could never regain the family name or aspire to high ranks.
I would remain a mere Eisenhart, without a branch, useful only for shedding blood at the front and avoiding direct slavery.
I was nothing more than a reject with a countdown hanging over my head.
It was this new, lucid awareness, combined with the way my brain now processed information, that pushed me further.
Three and a half weeks.
I kept repeating that number in my head as if it were a sentence.
Every day that passed was one less day.
If I was to be sent outside the walls to become cannon fodder, the children's books would be of no use to me.
I needed real knowledge.
A few nights later, taking advantage of the absolute silence that enveloped the palace, I slipped into Hilda's quarters again.
I rummaged through the highest shelves of her library, ignoring the books on history and noble politics, until I found something useful: a thick tome bound in dark leather.
It was about anatomy, vital points, and beasts from the borderlands.
I returned to my room, lit a single candle, and opened the volume.
It was different from the other times.
As soon as my eyes caught sight of the first lines, my mind latched onto the words with frightening voracity.
The illustrations of muscles, the descriptions of weak points, the survival knowledge... everything poured into my brain like a waterfall.
I turned the pages at a frantic pace, sweating cold, unable to stop.
Then, halfway through the book, the backlash came.
It was an explosion.
I felt a dull boom inside my skull, as if someone had struck me in the forehead.
The candle went out.
The pain tore a silent scream from me, completely robbing the air from my lungs.
I fell sideways, dragging the heavy tome to the ground with me.
The darkness swallowed me instantly, but this time it was not a brief plunge into unconsciousness.
It was a bottomless abyss.
When I opened my eyes again, the sun filtered weakly and gray through the cracks in the window.
I was lying in bed.
I felt emptied, my muscles atrophied and my throat dry as sandpaper.
Hilda was standing beside the door.
She had prominent dark circles under her eyes, but her posture remained rigid, impeccable.
"You have slept for six days," she said, her voice betraying only a slight crack.
"Today, the sixth week expires."
Six days? How was that possible?
I was shocked.
I looked at my clothes.
I was clean and smelled.
My time had literally burned away.
I sat up with difficulty, lowering my gaze to the sheets.
I said nothing.
The moment had arrived.
Hilda approached the bed.
In her hands, she held a small bundle of rough cloth containing a pair of spare clothes and heavy footwear, nothing else.
She placed it at my feet.
Then, with a quick and unexpected movement, she grabbed my left wrist.
I flinched in surprise, but she did not let me go. She pulled a dark metal bracelet from her sleeve, smooth and incredibly cold, and fastened it tightly around my wrist.
I heard the mechanical, definitive click of the clasp.
She met my gaze.
For a fraction of a second, her fingers tightened around my wrist.
Then she released me.
"Never take it off," she whispered, in a voice so low that I could barely hear her.
"And stay alive, young master."
She spoke my name.
"Thank you, Hilda, for these days."
She looked at me, but she did not smile.
A breeze hit me full in the chest.
Before I could answer her, before I could shake her hand or ask her why she had given me that gift, she turned and left the room at a brisk pace, closing the door behind her without looking back.
I went to the window.
I saw a carriage and an old man in the distance speaking to some guards.
Time was running out.
I saw some sandwiches on the table.
I ate quickly and got ready.
A few minutes later, the sound of heavy boots echoed through the corridor, stopping right outside my door. The lock clicked.
Two armed guards entered, stopping at the threshold without giving me the slightest sign of respect.
"Luthian Eisenhart, from now on, you are categorically forbidden from having any kind of direct contact with the main family. Therefore, you will be transferred to the lower sector of the outer walls. That is where your new life awaits you."
I got out of bed.
I grabbed the cloth bundle.
I did not turn toward the room.
I held the bundle under my arm and touched the bracelet with my other hand.
Then I crossed the threshold.
I did not know where I was going.
I only knew that I would not return.