Wind howled through the mountain passes of Thalorion, sweeping down into the forested valleys that cradled the Silver Barony. Life there was hard, but not unkind. Shaped by discipline, strength, and the ever-present weight of duty, it was a land of hunters, scouts, and warriors. A place where the border never truly slept.

  And in the stone halls of the keep perched above those valleys, a child grew.

  Celeste Silver.

  From the moment she opened her eyes, she was different. She wasn’t loud or wild like other children. She was always alert, watchful. Her golden eyes tracked movement with unnatural focus, and she rarely cried. When she did, it was sharp but brief, never from fear, but from something else, hunger. She was a glutton. She always ate everything within reach.

  Her parents, Argo and Luna, noted it in quiet exchanges.

  Argo Silver, a man of imposing stature with broad shoulders and salt-streaked dark hair, bore the rugged look of a borderland warrior. His square jaw was often set in a line of discipline, and his steel-gray eyes missed nothing. Scars from past battles traced the backs of his hands and one ran faintly down his left cheek, just barely visible beneath a close-cropped beard. He moved with the heavy silence of a man used to command, and though he rarely raised his voice, the entire keep obeyed when he did.

  Luna Silver was his opposite in form but not in strength. Slender and willowy, she had long chestnut hair she often wore in elegant braids, and eyes of deep forest green that seemed to see more than they should. Her presence calmed rooms, her words carried quiet authority, and her laughter, though rare, always softened even the most hardened soldiers. A former scholar with a noble upbringing, she balanced Argo’s harshness with insight and care.

  "She watches everyone too much; like a hawk,” Argo once murmured.

  "She listens more," Luna had replied, brushing Celeste’s hair back as the child studied her in perfect silence.

  Celeste adored them both in her quiet way. Argo, her towering father with the voice of command and the steady hands of a warrior, seemed like a mountain. Luna, elegant and perceptive, possessed a grace that Celeste mimicked even before she understood what grace was.

  She followed Onyx like a shadow when he let her, his wild energy drawing forth a rare smile from her lips. Onyx, the middle child, had a mop of raven-black hair that stuck up in all directions and bright amber eyes full of mischief. He was smaller than Luke but quicker, always darting from place to place with something to say or a prank to play. His laughter echoed through the halls like wind chimes in a storm.

  With Luke, she was more cautious. Aware of his serious nature, yet drawn to his discipline like a moth to flame. Luke was tall for his age, with sharp cheekbones, neatly trimmed dark hair, and eyes like polished obsidian. He carried himself like a soldier already, and his expression rarely strayed from a focused calm. He trained longer than anyone else in the keep and took his future responsibilities as heir very seriously.

  Luke called her "hawk-eyes." Onyx called her “little ghost."

  By age three, she walked with perfect balance. No wobbles like most toddlers. Just steady, deliberate steps.

  By four, she climbed stone walls with uncanny ease, startling the kitchen staff when she perched on high ledges just to watch the courtyard below. When asked why, she simply said, “It’s fun."

  That same year, she began general education. She took quickly to letters and numbers, but preferred maps and symbols, especially anything that resembled tactical charts. She excelled at reading but often grew restless with repetition. Her tutors noticed she retained lessons on first exposure, and she often corrected them politely, but accurately.

  Still, she was a child.

  She pouted when denied dessert. She loved chasing fireflies with Onyx at dusk and cried once when a hawk swooped down and took a squirrel she'd secretly fed. She begged for bedtime stories from Luna, especially the ones with monsters and brave, heroes who defeated them. She danced with the maids during festival nights, her movements graceful but a little wild. And when she lost at a card game she didn’t yet understand, she crossed her arms and sulked for the rest of the hour.

  She was a girl who liked the smell of baked bread, the feel of warm blankets, and the sight of the starlit sky outside her window.

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  She listened to everything, from court conversations, soldier training drills, whispered arguments behind doors. Sometimes she’d repeat a phrase word-for-word days later, not realizing the tension it would cause. Argo grew more guarded. Luna, more watchful.

  Her interactions with others grew layered. She comforted injured animals with an instinctive calm. She read people’s moods faster than most adults. But she also had moments when her composure broke like any child’s.

  Once, she tried to follow Onyx and his friends into the woods when they went to explore an abandoned watchtower. When they told her she was too small, too slow, and not allowed, she stood frozen for a moment, then turned and ran back to the keep. She was found later that day hiding behind the stables, hugging her knees and crying into her sleeves.

  Onyx found her there and sat beside her, offering her half a plum he had stolen from the kitchen.

  "You’ll come next time," he promised. "You just have to wait a bit."

  Celeste sniffled, took the plum, and didn’t say a word. But she never missed a training session again.

  At five, she discovered the training yard. Her eldest brother Luke was sparring with the captain of the guard. Steel-clad and serious, the clang of blades echoing through the stone corridors. Celeste sat silently on the wall, golden eyes fixed on their forms. The precise movements. The adjustments. The pauses before strikes.

  Later that evening, she practiced those motions alone in the garden. She had no weapon, but her limbs moved with the rhythm of something long remembered. The guards watching her exchanged baffled looks.

  It was Onyx who found her.

  “That doesn’t seem like beginner stuff," he whispered. "Where did you learn that?"

  Celeste blinked. "I don’t know. I just watched eldest brother sparring with the captain.”

  When she asked her father the next morning if she could train, he raised a brow and gave her a wooden short sword. He expected her to fumble.

  She didn’t. She held it awkwardly, yes, but the moment he stepped forward, something changed. Her body moved on instinct, adjusting to the incoming attacks. She evaded, and blocked with precision.

  By six, she trained daily. Sometimes with a tutor, sometimes alone. She never boasted. Never demanded. But her progress unsettled her instructors. She learned techniques in a day that took other children weeks. Once, she broke a wooden staff with the flat of her palm in a moment of unconscious reflex. The tutor stared at her for a long time before deciding not to speak of it.

  Luke noticed. "She learns like a cadet that has just graduated from the academy," he murmured.

  Luna, who had been quietly observing from the garden terrace, nodded slowly. "She takes after Argo more than I expected," she said. "But she moves... differently. There's a rhythm in her. Something sharp. We’ll need to watch her closely in order to guide her properly."

  At meals, Celeste listened more than she spoke. When she did speak, her words were precise. When Argo discussed border threats, she tilted her head and asked questions about terrain, enemy routes, supply lines.

  At first, her parents dismissed it as childhood curiosity.

  But as her insights grew sharper, Luna grew quiet.

  She once beat Onyx at a tactical board game designed for older cadets.

  "Beginner’s luck," he said, laughing.

  She beat him again. And again. And again.

  Her childhood was not devoid of joy. She loved stargazing with Luna. She sometimes raced Onyx through the lower halls, barefoot and laughing. She sparred with Luke and once made him yield, to his stunned silence. She helped the cook peel vegetables and learned how to ride with the stablehands.

  She even snuck sweets from the pantry, once, a single honey-glazed date but got caught because she left half behind for Onyx.

  There were tantrums, though rare. Frustrated tears when she couldn’t master cursive calligraphy. Pouting when her brothers teased her one too many times. A single night when she curled up outside her parents’ room during a thunderstorm, too proud to knock but too afraid to return to her own bed.

  But always, something deeper lingered.

  A stillness in her spirit. A readiness in her limbs. As if waiting.

  Once, she dreamed of a city made of glass and metal, of voices speaking languages she’d never heard, of pain and steel and silence.

  When she woke up, she found herself standing barefoot outside her room, hand wrapped around the hilt of a practice blade.

  She didn’t remember leaving her bed.

  On the eve of her seventh birthday, Celeste stood alone atop the keep’s highest tower, watching the moon crawl over the pines.

  Her fingers flexed. Her mind raced. Her heart was quiet, but expectant.

  She didn’t know why.

  But she felt it in her bones.

  Something was coming.

  Tomorrow, everything would change.