Each day began in silence.
Long before Ajax understood the stories his parents spoke—before he could walk or even hold a cup—he understood silence. Not the quiet of peace, but the weight of waiting. It filled the corners of the cottage and settled in the beams of the roof like dust that never moved.
And beneath that silence, something deeper stirred.
Every morning, as soon as his senses caught the faint golden hue of sunlight slipping through the wood-slat shutters, Ajax focused inward. Not like an infant should. Not with simple curiosity or warmth.
With intention.
With the precision of a man who had wielded nations' worth of power—and lost them.
He reached for mana.
Every day, without fail.
Not the way people of this world did—through emotion or will or screaming declarations—but the way he once had: with structure. With balance. He searched the air, the ground, the pulse of his own breath for that shimmer of energy.
And every time, he felt the world resist him. Like trying to breathe underwater. Like trying to dance with a partner who moved to a different rhythm.
This world's magic—Cairn's magic—was wild. Untamed. It didn't follow equations or scripts. It responded to conviction, to the roar of the heart. It flowed when you let go, not when you held tight.
But Ajax had never been one to let go.
He tried anyway.
Every day. Every heartbeat. He reached.
And every time, he failed.
The mana would not come.
Not yet.
⸻
It was near midnight when everything changed.
The hearth had gone dark. Jasmine's gentle lullaby, once a hum drifting from the other room, had faded into sleep. The house was still. The world, it seemed, was holding its breath.
And so was he.
Ajax blinked up at the rafters, eyes sharp despite his tiny form. The blanket itched. His limbs were weak. But inside—deep beneath skin and bone—something shifted.
Not a thought.
Not a feeling.
A presence.
Like a door opening inside his soul.
Then the world vanished.
⸻
He stood on a hill. Barefoot. Older.
Golden grass brushed against his legs as the wind carried it sideways in slow, sweeping waves. The sky above was streaked with warm twilight, as if the sun had frozen mid-fall and time had chosen to wait.
And at the edge of the hill stood a girl.
He knew her before she turned. The line of her shoulders. The way her hair danced even in still air. The soundless gravity of her presence.
He moved toward her, breath catching.
She turned.
Her eyes were the same.
Soft, knowing, and terribly sad.
"Ajax," she said, as if she'd been waiting for years. "You made it.
His chest tightened. "You…"
She smiled faintly. "You always come back. Eventually."
He tried to run to her, but his legs felt slow. Too slow. His soul moved faster than his body could keep up with. "I thought I lost you," he said. "After the war, after Nortis—"
"You did," she said softly. "And I lost you too."
The world flickered at the edges—just once. A tremor in the sky. A breath that didn't belong.
Ajax reached out and took her hand. It felt warm. Real. He almost cried.
"I tried to hold onto you," he whispered. "Even after I died. Even after I came here."
She looked at him, truly looked, and her eyes glistened.
"You did more than hold on," she said. "You carried me all this way."
He closed the distance between them. She touched his face. He leaned into the contact like a starving man to warmth.
"I'm afraid," he admitted.
"I know."
"I don't want to forget you."
"You won't," she promised.
But the hill began to shudder.
Cracks split the ground in long, silent lines. The sky bent inward like glass melting around fire. The light behind her form began to warp.
"No," he breathed. "Not yet—"
"You're not just dreaming," she said. "You're changing."
"What does that mean?"
She smiled one last time. "You'll see."
And then she leaned in, pressed her forehead to his.
"I forgive you," she whispered.
And the world exploded.
⸻
Blackness.
Infinite. Cold. Hollow.
But not empty.
Two figures materialized before him, each one shaped from opposing truths.
One was a storm.
Flames and wind. Wild, primal energy. A being of motion, of feeling, of raw power unshaped by discipline. Its form shifted like lightning caught in water. This was Cairn's magic. Chaos with purpose.
The other was a lattice of gold.
Geometry incarnate. A humanoid figure with lines of light spiraling through and around it—runes and glyphs orbiting in perfect harmony. It moved like judgment given shape. The Runic System of his old world. Law forged in radiance.
They stared at each other.
And then they attacked.
Ajax floated in the center of the void, paralyzed but aware, as the two forces collided.
The storm surged with emotion. It lashed with fire, roared with thunder, and moved like fury itself.
The lattice responded with structure—walls of arcane lines, symbols that bent the storm's strikes into empty voids. Every motion countered. Every glyph placed with impossible precision.
Magic clashed. Over and over.
Fire spiraled. Sigils glowed.
They struck not for conquest—but for dominance.
Each blow burned through Ajax. Not his skin—his soul.
They were fighting over him.
Each trying to become his core.
One path: passion, instinct, and wild expression.
The other: clarity, logic, and perfect form.
Each strike brought him closer to collapse. He wanted to scream but couldn't. The pain was weightless. Pure. Eternal.
They would destroy him before one could win.
Until something inside him broke free.
A word.
Not spoken from lips.
Spoken from his spirit.
"ENOUGH."
The two beings froze.
Light fractured around them.
A spiral began to form—twisting, pulling, compressing.
The storm wrapped itself around the glyphs.
The glyphs bent, but didn't break.
Together, they spun.
And in the heart of that spiral, something new was born.
⸻
Ajax awoke gasping, back in the cradle.
Sweat drenched the blankets. The fire was long dead. The room was cold.
But inside him… something turned.
A spiral.
He felt it.
His body had begun drawing in ambient mana—like Cairn mages—but once absorbed, it passed through invisible glyphs structured by instinct. His soul had fused the systems. Not one over the other. Not compromise.
Synthesis.
His Spiral Core hummed like a living engine—not with noise, but with certainty. It did not pulse with heartbeat. It spun.
He could cast with emotion.
He could regulate with design.
He could build spells no one had seen before.
He was no longer a mage of Nortis.
And he was not one of Cairn.
He was something else.
Something born at the fracture between systems.
Something impossible.
Ajax closed his eyes.
Let the breath settle.
Let the power root.
And for the first time in his new life, he didn't feel small.
He felt awake.