As the carriage wheeled towards the Moonfrost keep, Vencian’s thoughts drifted to Kair’s words from the yard. Training as Lucian had been a choice.
The disguise had begun as a tool. If he was to stand in Vencian’s place, he needed to fight as if the name were his own. But it was never only about impersonation.
Without a way back to his world, survival came first, and Lucian’s mask gave him the freedom to prepare for it.
He had once dismissed the thought of learning to fight. Conspiracies, assassins, and plots belonged to other men’s lives. Then a single strike had taken Talor, Larik, and the deaths of Caesor and Moses followed. The world reminded him how quickly it could tilt.
He still told himself he had inherited memories, not emotions. Yet when the news of Caesor and Moses had reached him, his chest had tightened. Whether it was anger at his peace being shattered or something else, he preferred not to think about it.
Lucian’s mask made it simpler. It let him train without eyes judging his progress and gave him a second layer of safety. When the time came for Vencian Vicorra to hold a sword, he would not be found lacking.
That was why he had asked Kair as Lord Vicorra to take Lucian as a pupil. Kair was Larik’s father and the man who had once trained the real Vencian. In truth, he slipped into those lessons under a false face, learning quietly while others believed otherwise.
Kair had not argued. He might still think Vencian bore some blame for Larik’s death, but he never voiced it. He spoke of his son as a man who had died in duty, with pride. When asked to teach Lucian, he accepted without complaint.
All of this had only been possible because Vencian’s control over illusions had grown. They lasted longer now, pulled less from him, and let him hold a second life with steady hands.
And as for when that change began, the answer lay a few days earlier.
"A pact?" Vencian asked.
"Yes," Quenya said. "When you summoned that weapon, you accepted it."
He frowned. "That simple? A pact should mean more than that."
Vencian had never read about pacts in the memories he carried. The word itself felt foreign.
In his mind, anything tied to power had to come with hidden costs. The fact that she spoke of it as if it were ordinary only made his stomach tighten.
Her smile thinned. "You wanted answers. That is one."
"But it happened so suddenly. Why?"
"The voice again," she said after a pause. "I think it showed me something that night, when I helped you hold those illusions."
"What exactly did it show?"
Her eyes drifted. "Not much. A world broken apart. Lightning across a cracked sky. And... people like me dying."
Her tone was calm, almost too calm, as if she were reciting rather than remembering. Vencian wondered if she was leaving parts out, or if she feared telling him everything.
He leaned forward. "Others like you?" Those words unsettled him more than the image of a shattered sky. Official source is novel·fire·net
"It ended before I understood it."
He rubbed his temple. "Then how does that lead to this so-called pact?"
"After the vision, the voice returned," she said, firmer now. "It gave me a choice. Return to what I was before you awakened me... or form a pact with you."
He stared at her. "That doesn’t answer what the pact is. Or how you were able to form it."
"You’ve already felt it," she said, meeting his eyes. "The pull between us. The connection."
He hesitated, but she pressed on. "As for how... I willed it. And you accepted without realizing. When you summoned the weapon, you chose survival. That was your consent."
Vencian’s brows drew together. "That’s not consent," he shot back. "I never agreed to bind myself."
"You did. Instinct, fear, desperation—call it what you will. You clung to the chance to live. That was enough."
How am I supposed to argue with things I can’t even hear?
He wanted to argue, but then the memory of that night surfaced again. He had reached for anything to keep breathing. To call that consent felt like a trick, yet he knew she wasn’t wrong.
"What does this pact do?" he asked at last.
"That," she said softly, "is for us to discover."
He let out a breath, unsettled. "That’s a lot to process."
He wondered if he was asking for explanations or for reassurance. Either way, she hadn’t given him what he wanted. Her calm certainty left him with more unease than clarity.
The carriage wheels slowed as they entered the yard of Moonfrost Keep.
Vencian leaned back against the seat, his eyes moving over the walls coming into view. The colors of the world had returned to him, steady and clear again.
It had taken him time to understand the change after that night. Before the pact, using the illusions had burned through him until his body screamed with pain.
The longer he forced them, the heavier the strain became. Now it was different.
He had learned to notice it first in the edges of things—the dimming of cloth, the dulling of stone. The longer he held the power, the more the world thinned itself of color, as if retreating from him.
Once he stopped, they returned on their own, slow, and steady, until his vision was whole again.
It wasn’t pain. But was that enough to trust it?
He did not see it as a weakness. If anything it gave him a way to measure himself.
A quiet reminder of how far he could go before the cost truly arrived. He had come to think of it as a built-in gauge after the pact.
When the last trace of color vanished, he knew the strain would begin—blurred vision, the pounding in his skull, the same signs as before. But until then, he could keep going.
Vencian considered it a kind of warning, a system built into him after the pact. He had no reason to risk using the ability until that final moment of color loss, but knowing the limits made him steadier.
He could plan around it, rather than be caught helpless in the middle of a fight.
The carriage came to a halt. He drew a slow breath, keeping the thought in mind as the driver called for the gates to be opened.
Author’s note: Hey everyone, thanks for making it this far! I’m really glad you did. It’s been a while since I last received feedback on how the story is going, so I’d love to hear your thoughts—whether it’s about the pacing, the plot, or if certain parts feel less engaging. Your feedback helps me improve, and every interaction motivates me to keep writing. Thanks so much for your support!
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