The morning Wade turned eleven, the house smelled like cinnamon and browned butter.
He woke to the sound of Mira's soft humming downstairs, the rhythmic knock of her rolling pin tapping dough, and the hiss of firewood catching beneath the stove. The warmth of the hearth reached all the way to the loft, wrapping around him before his feet even touched the ladder.
By the time he stepped into the kitchen, Mira had already filled the room with light.
"Good morning, birthday boy," she said, not even turning as she stirred a pot on the stove.
"Morning," Wade mumbled.
Lira sat cross legged on the table bench, hair half braided and still yawning. She raised a slice of pear to her mouth and pointed the rest toward him. "He's doing the thing."
Mira chuckled. "Already?"
Wade blinked. "What thing?"
"That thing you do when you're pretending not to care, but actually you're vibrating with secret hope."
"I'm not," Wade said.
"You are," Lira and Mira said at once.
He sat. Folded his arms. Glared at his teacup like it owed him money.
The kitchen was full of the small chaos of family.
Riven stumbled in fifteen minutes later, hair damp, shirt misbuttoned, one sock on. His lip was swollen. Again.
"I won the match," he announced.
"Against a tree?" Lira asked dryly.
"Against Talan," Riven said proudly. "The tree came later. It won."
Theren arrived from the woods before noon, carrying firewood in one hand and something wrapped in cloth in the other. He kissed Mira on the cheek, ruffled Wade's hair, and whispered something to Lira that made her roll her eyes and snort.
It was loud. Messy. Alive.
And entirely theirs.
They gathered at the kitchen table as Mira set down a small cake still steaming from the oven. Not a fancy one. Just soft, spiced pear and honey over a biscuit base with a small sprig of mint in the center. There were five forks. No ceremony.
Riven handed Wade a lumpy, cloth wrapped object with a toothy grin. "Don't cry when you open it."
Inside were a pair of his old sparring gloves, stitched leather worn through at the palms and seared at the knuckles.
"They've got history," Riven said. "I sweat the flame of victory into them. Maybe you'll catch it."
"They smell like socks," Wade replied.
"Victory socks."
Lira's gift was a small, tightly bound leather journal. She'd drawn tiny rune diagrams in silver ink across the first page.
"To write down everything the world gets wrong," she said.
Wade blinked at her, then smiled. "So it'll be full by next week."
Theren handed him a scroll tube. Inside was a book so thick it could double as a weapon, Elemental Feedback: Resonance & Delay in Tier I Spell Circles.
Wade opened the cover and gently turned the first page.
"You've earned this," Theren said. "Even if the stone didn't light for you, your mind burns hotter than any flame."
Mira placed a gentle kiss on Wade's head and slid the cake toward him.
"No magic?" she said. "No problem."
They ate together, hands sticky with honey, crumbs scattered across the table, Riven stealing forkfuls from everyone else's plates and pretending not to. It was warm and Uncomplicated. A celebration in the quietest, best sense.
But even as Wade laughed and smiled and listened to his sister mock Riven's appetite, he felt it creeping in,
that hollow thing behind his ribs.
That quiet pull of absence.
Because it wasn't just about the cake or the gloves or the book.
It was the way no one outside their house had mentioned his birthday.
The way villagers who had come to cheer Riven's first flame or gift Lira a wind crystal on her eighth had looked right past Wade at the market that morning. The way the baker had smiled at Mira but never acknowledged him.
The way no one expected him to ever matter.
After dinner, he slipped out the back door.
The sky was bruised purple and pink, the sun retreating behind the forest. The field behind their house stretched quiet, swaying gently in the wind. He walked to the far edge, where the hill dropped slightly into a shallow hollow and the wild grass grew tall and tangled.
He sat in it.
Alone.
With the gloves on his lap, and the book cradled in his arms.
He didn't feel angry. Not really.
His family loved him, they gave him everything. And he knew that.
But love and power weren't the same.
And somewhere inside, a truth curled itself into shape,
The world would never call him.
No prophecy would point.
No stone would glow.
And if that was true—
Then he'd have to force the world to notice him anyway.
He lay back in the grass and stared at the sky.
Above him, stars bloomed one by one.
He didn't know their names.
But maybe, someday, one day. They'd know his.
He lay in the grass long after the sun had gone, long after the windows of the house had dimmed to soft glows and even Riven's endless energy had faded into silence.
Above him, Velgrath's sky had opened fully—no clouds, no haze, just the clean, sharp shine of unfamiliar constellations. The Archer. The Cracked Crown. The Spiral Forge. He traced their shapes with his finger, not on paper this time, but in the air.
The stars were different from Earth's.
But maybe he didn't miss the old ones.
He pulled the journal Lira had given him from inside his coat. It was still blank, the cover warm from his body heat, the corners crisp.
He opened it to the first page and stared.
Not a sound around him, just wind. Just the rustle of grass.
And then, carefully, he wrote,
"Magic is not the only language worth learning."
He paused, then underlined it twice.
That was the first rule. His rule.
He wrote another.
"If the world won't choose me, I'll force it to."
Then one more,
"I don't need to be called a hero to do what heroes do."
The words weren't a spell. They didn't glow.
But they settled something inside him.
Something real.
He sat there until the chill reached through his sleeves and the ink dried on the page.
Then he tucked the journal back into his coat, stood up, and looked toward the house where soft candlelight still flickered in the windows.
They believed in him. That was enough, for now.
But one day?
He'd make the rest of the world believe too.
One truth at a time.
One rule at a time.
And if he had to fight the sky itself to do it?
Then so be it.