March 1st, 1087 of the Founding Age.
Ten years old. My current age.
Twenty-seven years. That was the precise span of time between my demise and this confounding rebirth. My loyal service, my brother’s dagger in my back, the cold finality of it all—then, this.
This impossible reversal. I called it a regression in my mind, an echoing term from the cheap thrill-novels I’d once dismissed. No known magi-tech, no whispered syndicate ritual, could rewind the currents of time. Yet, here I was.
Was I a ghost haunting my own past? A dying mind’s final, elaborate delusion? The questions were a dull ache behind my eyes.
Confirmation. I needed it. A tangible anchor in this surreal tide.
My hand reached for the ornate grav-coil vase sitting on the breakfast table. Carved from polished obsidium, it usually felt lighter than air, its internal levitation field compensating for its mass.
It was heavy. Brutally so.
My small hands trembled, straining against the mundane weight. The magi-tech was inert, or rather, my child’s strength couldn't activate or even notice its subtle field. This confirmed the feeble vessel of a ten-year-old was undeniably mine.
Next, precision. I plucked a single lumina-bloom from the vase, its petals a vibrant, delicate blue. My other hand, small and unblemished, gripped the silver fruit knife I’d used moments before. I tossed the bloom into the air.
—*Snick. Snick. Snick.*—
The knife flashed, a blur of silver. Six petals drifted down, each severed with surgical accuracy, identical in their clean cuts. My concentration, the raw speed, the muscle memory honed over decades of precise kills – all of it remained. This was no ten-year-old’s clumsy attempt.
“Elara?” My voice was thin, reedy, a child’s instrument, a stark contrast to the gravelly rasp I remembered.
Elara, my personal aide, stood by the magi-stove, supervising the bubbling tea. She was a Vesper Enclave retainer, sharp-eyed, often terse. “Yes, Master Silas?”
“What are your… impressions of me? In this household?”
She paused, turning slowly. Her gaze, usually so dismissive, held a flicker of curiosity at the odd question. “My impressions, Master Silas? You’re the Guildmaster’s youngest, aren't you? And a useless brat. What else would there be?”
Her words, delivered with a detached practicality, sealed it. A useless brat. Ignored. Powerless. The same Cyan—no, *Silas*—Vesper I had been at ten years old.
I truly was back. Back to the wretched beginning, before the forging, before the ambition, before the betrayal. Before I was *Silas Vesper*.
How? It defied logic. Even the most powerful arcane masters, the shadowed syndicates rumored to bend reality, could not breach the laws of temporal mechanics. Had some forgotten entity, some ancient mechanism, decided to play a cruel jest?
“You’ve emptied your plate, Master Silas. Surprising.” Elara returned, a fresh pot of spiced tea in hand. “I’d expected you to pick at it until midday.”
“Why wouldn’t I finish a meal?” The question was rhetorical. My younger self often lost his appetite, nerves twisting his stomach into knots.
“Today’s blade-trial, of course. Guildmaster Vesper himself will be observing. Only yesterday, you were wishing the day would never arrive.” Her tone was flat, devoid of sympathy.
Blade-trial. Guildmaster Vesper. The words triggered a cascade of memories, sharp and cold, like shards of ice. Thirty years ago. The monthly blade-trials held in the Enclave’s central arena. Today, March 1st, precisely a year before my forced enrollment into the Grand Conclave Academy.
Blade-trials and the Guildmaster. Two things my younger self had loathed above all else.
—
Beneath a sky streaked with magi-aeronauts, the arena glittered. White alabaster, reinforced with shimmering Aether-steel, its stands filled with the Enclave’s soldiers, stewards, and officials. A considerable assembly, more than a hundred pairs of eyes.
They gathered for one reason: the blade-trials of the Vesper wards. A peculiar, almost bitter taste rose in my throat. This place, once the source of my deepest humiliations, now seemed… insignificant. Just a polished stone slab, indifferent to the dramas played upon it.
“You seem… less agitated than usual. Surprisingly composed, Master Silas.” Elara, beside me, observed my unusually placid face.
“No reason to be agitated,” I replied, my voice a low, even murmur.
Her expression, a mix of mild confusion and vague suspicion, was not unwarranted. In this past life, I was nothing more than a trembling, inept child. When I’d stepped onto this very arena, I’d quivered, fumbled, and disgraced myself, time and again. Nobody held expectations for me. Nobody offered a shred of genuine care.
The Enclave adhered to a brutal meritocracy. Only the strong, the capable, those who could uphold the Vesper name, received recognition. This was Guildmaster Theron Vesper’s unyielding creed, a cold doctrine hammered into his children.
“The Guildmaster is arriving!” A stentorian voice, amplified by hidden magi-resonance wards, boomed across the arena. The bustling crowd fell silent, snapping to rigid attention.
Moments later, Guildmaster Theron Vesper appeared at the arena’s entrance. Senior knights bowed low as he strode past, his presence commanding. He settled into his private viewing box, a man whose physique and sharp intellect belied his approaching fifty years.
“Begin immediately.” No pomp, no ceremony. Theron Vesper’s voice was crisp, cutting through the silence.
Following his command, a boy with sun-streaked blonde hair detached himself from the Guildmaster’s retinue, making his way to the arena’s center. Kael Vesper, Theron’s fourth son, and my half-brother, a year my senior. His mother was a high-ranking merchant family heiress, not the disgraced retainer my own mother had been.
As Kael moved, I rose from my seat.
“Your blade, Master Silas.” Elara extended my rapier. A thin, elegant weapon, adorned with sapphire-like magi-gems. Guildmaster Vesper gifted such blades to all his wards upon their seventh birthday. A symbol of their duty to cultivate strength, to protect themselves and the Enclave. Ironically, my younger self had never once properly wielded it.
“Wouldn’t surrender be a more sensible option?” Elara’s dry, cynical query was exactly as I remembered it.
“Surrender? Perhaps I’ll win instead.” My lips curved into a faint, subdued smile. The thought seemed to genuinely surprise her.
“Just… try not to get hurt,” she mumbled, a rare flicker of something akin to concern in her eyes.
With a slow, deliberate pace, I walked to the arena’s center, facing Kael.
We stood three paces apart. The duel officials instructed us to bow. As our heads dipped, a grating whisper pierced the air.
“So, you’ve finally mustered the nerve to show your face?” Kael’s voice was a sneer, crafted to belittle, to underscore his superiority. His smile was a malicious twist, the smile of a predator toying with weak prey.
My eyes met his. Legitimate heir’s son versus retainer’s brat. The comparison was moot from the start. Kael, showered with every advantage, every tutelage, his every need met by his powerful maternal kin. My younger self, forgotten, barely tolerated. I hadn’t envied it then, hadn't understood it. Only now did I realize the depth of my past foolishness.
Even as ten-year-old boys clashing blades, this duel held profound significance for the Vesper Enclave. A year from now, we would enter the Grand Conclave Academy. This blade-trial was the Guildmaster’s final test, a crucible before we left the Enclave’s protection.
Failure here meant complete estrangement from Theron Vesper’s attention, a fate no Vesper ward dared to contemplate. In my past life, I had lost this duel. Miserably. It had barely qualified as a contest. No one was surprised. It was, after all, expected. The useless brat, Cyan Vesper, had no ability, no effort, no hope against a prodigy like Kael.
After that ignominious defeat, my father had called me to his study. His words had been a death knell to any remaining hope: “Don’t do anything. Stay out of sight.” A dismissal. A public abandonment. In the Vesper Enclave, parental kindness was a hollow ceremony. Only the strong, those who embodied the Guildmaster’s ideology, were worthy.
I subtly lifted my gaze, scanning the array of faces in the stands. Over a hundred spectators, their attention fixed on Kael and me. Not a single one expected me to win.
My eyes, moving past the indifferent faces, momentarily locked with Theron Vesper’s. Though I quickly averted my gaze, that fleeting connection was enough. Expectation. Despite the certainty of my defeat, the Guildmaster still held a flicker of it. He expected *something*.
In my previous life, I had thoroughly crushed that faint hope. But today?
A small, inexplicable smile touched my lips.
—*Boom*—
The deep thrum of the ceremonial drum echoed, signaling the start. Kael, without hesitation, drew his own sword, a heavier broadsword, and lunged, aiming for my chest.
My rapier slid from its sheath with a soft scrape. Sunlight caught the blade, casting a pale blue gleam. It felt weightless in my hand, no longer a burden, but an extension of my will.
—*Clang!*—
Kael wasted no time. He charged, confident, his wide grin a mask of arrogant superiority. No need for caution against me, his body language screamed. He prepared to deflect my blade with the sheer force of his.
His sword’s trajectory, the heavy, predictable arc—it was vividly clear in my mind. Utilizing his momentum, he intended to send my rapier flying, then follow up with a finishing blow.
*Does a snail move?* I thought, my mind a calm, calculating void.
No need to parry, no need to block. I simply stepped back, a single, fluid motion. Kael’s blade whistled past where I’d been a heartbeat before, slicing empty air.
“...!?” Confusion bloomed on Kael’s face. His momentum carried him forward, off-balance. He stumbled, losing his footing, his eyes wide as he met mine.
I didn’t miss the opening. My rapier flashed, a streak of silver, striking Kael’s broadsword with precise force.
—*Crack!*—
Kael’s heavy blade clattered to the alabaster ground. His eyes, staring at the fallen weapon, seemed hollowed, as if his very soul had departed.
—*Slam!*—
“Ah!”
My right foot snapped out, connecting with a sharp, brutal impact against his groin. Kael buckled, collapsing to his knees, clutching himself, his face contorted in agony. He made no move to retrieve his fallen blade.
The duel, by all technical accounts, was over. Had I aimed my rapier’s tip at his neck, it would have been my victory.
Yet… I hesitated. A hollow, incomplete feeling stirred within me. This simple victory felt inadequate. I wanted more. I wanted to assert my presence, to grind this insolent boy’s face into the dirt until he understood the depth of his error.
Desire solidified into action.
—*Slam!*—
My foot, driven by decades of honed precision, connected with Kael’s head. Not a wild kick, but a targeted strike. My toe, small as it was, landed squarely on his jugular, precise and devastating. The shock was too much for his young body. Kael went limp, collapsing face-first onto the arena floor.
—*Thud!*—
The unconscious boy spasmed, expelling a thin stream of bile and spittle from his mouth. Kael Vesper, the Enclave’s golden child, lay defeated, utterly broken. And standing over him, unwavering, was the Guildmaster’s incompetent, forgotten son. Silas Vesper.
I lowered my rapier, resting its tip against Kael’s neck, a silent, final declaration.
Silence descended. Absolute. Had every head in the arena frozen, unable to process the unthinkable?
Then, a frantic drumbeat erupted, harsh and uneven. The dueling official, his voice strained but booming, finally found his words.
“Duel over! Winner… Silas Vesper!”