I don’t remember being a baby.

  My first clear memory is sunlight through lace curtains and my mother’s voice humming. The sound filled everything—warm, complete. She was braiding white ribbon into my hair “so the wind can find you,” and I was laughing because the ribbon kept tickling my nose.

  Father swept in from the yard, still in practice leathers, and scooped me up with a roar that was meant to sound fierce but just made me giggle harder.

  “The future of House Alaris!” he declared, spinning me once before Mother swatted his shoulder.

  “The future of House Alaris needs his breakfast, not acrobatics.”

  I was four. The world was bright and simple and safe.

  That was before the strange words started coming.

  The first one came when I was three.

  “Cah-fee,” I said, reaching for Mother’s cup at breakfast.

  She laughed. “What a silly sound! Say ‘milk,’ darling.”

  But cah-fee felt right. Important somehow. Like a word that belonged to something real, even if I couldn’t see it.

  More came after that.

  “En-jin.” “Com-poo-tor.” “Ee-leck-tricity.”

  Sounds that meant nothing to anyone else but felt like they should mean everything.

  Mother started writing them down, smiling. “What an imagination.”

  Father ruffled my hair. “My little dreamer.”

  But I wasn’t imagining.

  The words were real.

  I just didn’t know what they meant.

  By four, they came with feelings. When I said cah-fee, warmth bloomed in my chest. Mornings. Something missing. When I said en-jin, I felt movement. Speed. Wind in my face.

  They weren’t just sounds.

  They were… memories?

  But memories of what?

  Nobody else seemed to have words like these. When I asked Father about ee-leck-tricity, he frowned.

  “I don’t know that word, son.”

  But I knew it. Somehow.

  I knew it the way I knew my own name. The way I knew Mother’s voice. The way I knew home.

  It was real.

  Even if nobody else could see it.

  I was five when I learned I was different.

  I was helping Maren in the kitchen because she always gave me honeycakes when Mother wasn’t looking. The bread was cooling on the counter. Everything smelled warm and good—yeast and butter and home.

  “What would you like with breakfast, little lord?” Maren asked, wiping flour from her hands.

  “Coffee.”

  The word came out before I thought about it.

  And this time—this time I understood it.

  Not just the sound. The meaning.

  Roasted beans, ground up. Hot water poured through. Bitter but good. Made mornings easier. Everyone drank it. There were shops just for it, whole buildings where people—

  Excitement rushed through me because I knew this. Finally understood one of the strange words.

  “It’s—” I tried to explain, gesturing. “Beans that you roast and grind and pour hot water through, and it’s bitter but it wakes you up, and everyone drinks it in the morning, and there are whole shops just for—”

  I stopped.

  Because Maren’s hands had gone very still.

  “Coffee?” she repeated.

  Her voice had changed. Not angry. Just… careful. Wrong somehow.

  I looked around. The other kitchen staff had gone quiet too. Old Hobb stood in the doorway, face creased with concern.

  “That’s… quite an imagination,” Maren said slowly. “Where did you hear about such a thing?”

  “I didn’t hear it anywhere. I just know it?”

  She stared at me. Not smiling anymore.

  “I just—” My chest felt tight. “It’s real. Coffee is real.”

  “Perhaps you dreamed it?” Her voice was too gentle now. Too careful. “You have such vivid dreams, don’t you?”

  The others relaxed. Went back to their work.

  But Maren didn’t look at me the same way after.

  When I tried to help her the next day, she was busy. Too busy to talk.

  Too busy to give me honeycakes.

  That night Mother asked during dinner.

  “Maren mentioned you talked about something called coffee?”

  Father looked up from his plate. “Coffee?”

  My throat tightened. “Just a dream.”

  Because Maren had seemed less scared when I said that. When I called it a dream, the fear went away.

  “Just a dream,” I said again.

  Mother smiled, relieved. “My little dreamer.”

  Father ruffled my hair. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  But that night, alone in my room, I pressed my hands against my head and tried to understand.

  Why did saying it was real make Maren scared?

  Why did saying it was a dream make her relax?

  The coffee was real. I knew it the same way I knew the sky was blue and bread came from wheat.

  But knowing it—saying it out loud—

  That made something happen.

  Something bad.

  Something that changed how people looked at me.

  I curled up under my blankets and whispered the word into my pillow.

  “Coffee.”

  Real.

  But wrong to say.

  Wrong to know.

  Maybe wrong to be.

  It happened again a few months later with Master Henric.

  We were learning about fire. How it needed air and fuel to burn. How it turned wood to ash and warmth.

  I understood it so clearly. Better than he was explaining.

  “It’s oxidation,” I said, excited because this was one of the things I knew. “A chemical reaction between fuel and oxygen molecules. The combustion releases energy as heat and light—”

  Master Henric’s quill stopped.

  The scratching sound just… died.

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  “Fire? It’s when molecules break apart and—”

  “Where,” he interrupted, voice very careful, “did you learn these words? Oxidation. Molecules. Combustion.”

  “I… I don’t know. I just know them?”

  He studied me for too long. Way too long.

  “The Alaris bloodline has old blood,” he said finally. “Sometimes it gives us dreams that feel like memories. Best not to repeat dreams as if they’re lessons, young lord. People might think you’re confused.”

  His smile didn’t reach his eyes.

  That night I heard him in the hallway outside Father’s study, talking to another scholar.

  I pressed against the wall and listened.

  “…swears the words just came to him. Molecules. As if he’s read advanced alchemy at five years old.”

  Quiet laughter. “Poor child’s probably got light in the head. Alaris magic’s been dormant for generations—probably manifesting as fever-dreams instead.”

  More laughter, fading down the hall.

  I slid down the wall and sat on the cold floor.

  Light in the head.

  Fever-dreams.

  Confused.

  Something was wrong with me.

  Not just different.

  Wrong.

  Mother’s face was tight at dinner the next night.

  “Healer Voss is coming tomorrow,” she said, voice too bright. “Just to check on you. Make sure you’re healthy.”

  I nodded, throat tight.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Father squeezed my shoulder. “Nothing to worry about, son. Just to be safe.”

  But I could see the worry in their eyes.

  Healer Voss arrived the next morning with her crystals and vials.

  She checked my pulse. My breathing. Pressed her hands to my forehead, my chest. Pale light flickered around her fingers as she muttered.

  Mother stood in the corner, hands clasped so tight her knuckles were white.

  Father watched from the doorway, silent.

  The examination seemed to take forever. Every touch felt like Voss was searching for something wrong. Something broken.

  Finally, she stepped back.

  “Physically sound,” she said. “Strong heartbeat. Clear lungs. No fever, no illness.”

  Mother’s breath caught. “Then what—”

  “The Alaris bloodline carries old magic. Dormant for generations.” Voss glanced at me, then back to Mother. “Sometimes when it tries to wake, children can experience… confusion. Fragments of magical awareness showing up as strange knowledge. Dreams that feel like memories.”

  “Is it dangerous?” Father asked.

  “Not physically. But…” Voss closed her bag. “I recommend monitoring. If the episodes continue, we should consider dampening the spiritual channels until he’s older. For his own safety.”

  Episodes.

  Dampening.

  Like I was sick. Like something needed to be fixed or made to stop.

  Mother walked her out, their voices low in the hallway.

  I sat on the examination table, hands clenched in my lap.

  They’d looked everywhere. Checked everything.

  And found nothing wrong with my body.

  Which meant the problem was somewhere else.

  My mind. My thoughts. My memories.

  Broken in a way that couldn’t be seen.

  In a way even healers could only watch and hope it went away.

  Or make it stop if it didn’t.

  I lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling.

  Normal children didn’t know words they’d never learned.

  Normal children didn’t see things that weren’t there.

  Normal children didn’t make healers worried and tutors scared and servants go quiet.

  I did.

  Which meant I wasn’t normal.

  I was broken.

  Something was wrong with my head.

  Wrong with me.

  I knew things. The way fire worked. The way coffee tasted. Concepts and words and ideas that felt as real as my own name.

  But I couldn’t explain where I knew them from.

  Or why I knew them.

  Or how to make people understand without making them afraid.

  My brain had the knowledge.

  But not the words to make it okay.

  I knew things like a grown-up.

  But I felt things like a child.

  And I couldn’t make the two fit together.

  They pulled in different directions, making me feel split. Like all the pieces of two people that didn’t fit inside one skin.

  Maybe that was what “broken” meant.

  Having parts that didn’t go together.

  Knowing things you shouldn’t, without knowing how to stop.

  Being too much and not enough at the same time.

  I pressed my hands harder against my head.

  If I pressed hard enough, maybe the strange words would stay inside.

  Maybe the wrongness would stop.

  Maybe I could be normal.

  But I didn’t know how.

  The dreams kept coming.

  Glass towers taller than mountains, scraping clouds. Metal carriages moving without horses, faster than wind. Lights that weren’t fire. Songs that played without musicians. Roads black as night and smooth as glass.

  Every night, I saw them.

  Every day, I understood a little more.

  By six, I could remember not just concepts but feelings. The warmth of sun through a window that opened differently than ours. The sound of voices coming from boxes. The taste of foods that didn’t exist here.

  A whole life that felt real but couldn’t be.

  And every time a piece surfaced—every time I forgot and mentioned something strange—

  People got that look.

  The worried look. The scared look. The something’s wrong with this child look.

  I was learning to catch them now. The strange words. I could feel them coming and swallow them before they left my mouth.

  But it was hard. So hard.

  Like holding my breath all day.

  Like pretending not to see things I could see.

  Like being someone I wasn’t.

  The night before my sixth nameday, I lay in bed staring at the sword Father had mounted on my wall years ago.

  Patient and perfect, waiting for me to grow tall enough to reach it.

  I thought about the dreams. The memories. Whatever they were.

  I knew things. Real things. Things that made sense to me even if nobody else understood.

  But every time I said them out loud, people got scared.

  Or worried.

  Or quiet.

  Maren stopped giving me honeycakes.

  Master Henric looked at me like I was broken.

  Mother’s face got tight and worried.

  Father’s eyes held questions he didn’t ask.

  The healer talked about monitoring. About dampening.

  And I knew—deep down I knew—

  I could keep saying what I knew was true.

  Or I could have them back.

  I couldn’t have both.

  I pressed my hands against my face.

  I couldn’t fix what was wrong with me.

  The dreams wouldn’t stop. The memories wouldn’t go away.

  Whatever was broken in my head, I couldn’t repair it.

  But I could hide it.

  I could show them the parts of me that weren’t wrong.

  And keep the broken parts locked away where nobody could see.

  Maybe that’s what normal people did.

  Maybe everyone had broken parts they hid.

  Maybe that’s just what it meant to be loved—showing only the parts that were easy to love, and hiding the rest.

  The merchant boys came a month after my seventh nameday.

  Their fathers were doing business with mine. We had an hour to play while the adults talked about grain prices and trade routes.

  I thought maybe—maybe—I could have friends.

  Real friends.

  Not just servants who were kind or parents who loved me because they had to.

  Boys my own age who chose to be around me.

  We chased each other through the rain, wooden swords clacking together, slipping in the mud. For the first time in over a year, I felt… normal.

  Like maybe hiding had worked so well I didn’t have to think about it anymore.

  Like maybe I really was just Lucien now.

  We stopped by the carriage house to catch our breath, dripping and laughing.

  And I saw the carriages.

  Wood and wheels and horses waiting in their traces, swishing their tails against the rain.

  But in my head I saw the other kind.

  The ones from the dreams.

  Metal bodies gleaming. Glass windows. Moving without horses, smooth and fast. Lights in front—two bright ones—so you could see even in the dark.

  And they went so fast—

  The memory surged up before I could stop it.

  Sharp. Clear. Real.

  “Where I’m from—”

  The words were out before I could stop them.

  Both boys turned to look at me.

  “—I mean, where I dreamed about—”

  My chest felt tight but I kept going because I was so excited. I hadn’t talked about the dreams in over a year. It felt like opening a door I’d kept locked for so long.

  I wanted to share it.

  To show them this amazing thing I could see so clearly.

  “The roads are black and smooth as glass,” I said. “And the carriages run without horses. They have engines—fire in a box that makes wheels turn—and they go so fast you can barely see the trees, and there are lights—two bright ones—so you can see at night—”

  I was gesturing wildly, words tumbling out faster and faster because it felt so good to finally say it.

  To not hide.

  To just be.

  They stopped laughing.

  One boy stared. The other whispered something I couldn’t hear.

  “That’s not a dream,” the first said.

  His voice had gone strange. Cold.

  “That’s ghost-talk. My father says people who see other worlds are ghost-born.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Ghost-born,” the other boy repeated, backing away now. “Touched by dead things.”

  Fear prickled down my spine.

  “It was just a dream,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean—”

  But they weren’t backing away anymore.

  They were charging.

  Wood cracked against my jaw.

  The world tilted. I tasted copper and rain.

  I hit the mud hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.

  Their laughter mixed with thunder overhead.

  One kicked my ribs. Sharp pain exploded in my side.

  The other grabbed my hair and ground my face into the dirt.

  “Go back where you came from, ghost!”

  Another kick. Another.

  “Freak!”

  “Dead thing!”

  I tried to curl up. Tried to protect my head. But they kept kicking.

  Kept laughing.

  I knew—knew—I could fight back if I was bigger.

  If I was stronger.

  If my body matched what my mind remembered about fighting, about defending yourself, about—

  But I was seven.

  Small.

  Weak.

  The knowledge was there somewhere, buried in the dreams.

  But my arms were too short.

  My legs too weak.

  My body too small to do anything but take it.

  Trapped.

  In a body too small for the things I knew.

  Understanding without memories.

  Feelings without words.

  Understanding that I was helpless.

  Understanding that knowing things didn’t matter if you couldn’t do anything.

  Understanding that I was wrong in every way that mattered.

  Too much mind. Too little body.

  Not enough strength.

  Not enough anything.

  Then they were gone.

  Running back toward the manor, laughing.

  Leaving me in the mud.

  Rain hammered down.

  I lay there.

  Mud in my mouth. Blood on my teeth. Rain mixing with tears I wouldn’t admit to crying.

  My whole body hurt.

  Ribs screaming. Face throbbing. Jaw aching.

  But worse—worse—

  Was knowing I’d done this to myself.

  I’d been careful for over a year.

  A whole year of hiding.

  And one moment—one excited, stupid moment of wanting to share something true—

  And this.

  Old Hobb found me.

  He lifted me carefully, face tight with something I couldn’t name, and carried me inside without asking what happened.

  His hands were gentle as he cleaned the blood from my face, the mud from my hair.

  But I saw how they shook, just slightly.

  How he glanced at the door like he was worried.

  Even his kindness felt like pity.

  Like he thought there was something wrong with me too.

  That night, alone in my room, I pressed my hands against my head and tried not to cry.

  Everything hurt.

  But the words kept echoing.

  Ghost-born.

  Dead thing.

  Freak.

  They weren’t exactly wrong.

  There was something dead inside me. Or something that didn’t belong.

  The dreams. The memories. The impossible knowledge.

  All of it was proof.

  I wasn’t just different.

  I was wrong.

  Not just in one way. In all the ways that mattered.

  I knew things I shouldn’t, and none of the words I had were big enough to hold them.

  I knew too much in ways that made no sense, and it all felt too big inside me.

  I remembered a life that was bigger, but I was trapped in a body that couldn’t carry what was inside it.

  Nothing about me fit.

  My mind too full.

  My heart too young.

  My body too weak.

  My words too few.

  Nothing matched.

  And that—that not-fitting—

  That was the wrongness everyone saw.

  That was what made them scared.

  Not what I knew.

  But that I knew it the wrong way.

  Felt it the wrong way.

  Was wrong, all the way through.

  And no amount of hiding would fix that.

  Because you can’t fix broken.

  You can only hide it better.

  So that’s what I’d do.

  Not careful hiding.

  Not half-hiding.

  Perfect hiding.

  Forever hiding.

  Until everyone—including me—forgot the broken parts existed at all.

  Because maybe if I buried them deep enough, they’d stop being real.

  Maybe if I stopped believing in them, they’d stop believing in me.

  And I could just be Lucien.

  Normal Lucien.

  Not-broken Lucien.

  The Lucien everyone needed me to be.

  That’s who I’d be.

  Forever.

  The days after the beating, I didn’t leave my room unless I had to.

  Mother came to check on me. Saw the bruises yellowing along my jaw, the scrape on my temple.

  “What happened, sweetheart?”

  “I fell,” I said. “Playing.”

  She didn’t believe me. I could see it in her eyes—the way they searched my face, looking for the truth.

  But she didn’t push.

  Just kissed my forehead and whispered, “You can always tell me anything.”

  But I couldn’t.

  Because the truth was the thing that had gotten me hurt.

  So I just nodded and waited for her to leave.

  Father came too. Sat on the edge of my bed, big and solid and safe.

  “Boys can be rough,” he said quietly. “It’s part of growing up. Learning where you fit.”

  I nodded because I didn’t trust my voice.

  He squeezed my shoulder, his hand warm and heavy. “You’re stronger than you know, Lucien.”

  But I wasn’t.

  I was just getting better at hiding.

  And I’d finally learned how to hide it well enough that even he couldn’t see.

  The dreams came every night still.

  Glass towers scraping clouds. Metal carriages racing on black roads. Songs playing from nowhere. Lights that weren’t fire. A whole world that felt real but couldn’t be.

  But I didn’t think of them as memories anymore.

  They were just… the broken parts.

  The wrong parts.

  The parts that proved something was seriously wrong with me.

  So I pushed them down.

  Every morning I woke up and practiced being normal.

  Practiced being Lucien.

  Gave everything to being the son they wanted.

  And every day it got a little easier.

  The strange words came to my mouth less often now.

  The weird knowledge felt more distant, like something I’d once known but was forgetting.

  The dreams felt more like fever than memory.

  Maybe if I kept going, they’d disappear completely.

  Maybe I could fix myself by not being myself.

  Maybe if I pretended to be normal long enough, I’d become normal.

  Maybe the wrongness would just… fade.

  It worked.

  And slowly—slowly—the warmth came back.

  The thing about being different is you don't know you are—not until someone else tells you. You think you're just being yourself. Then someone calls you "ghost-born." Someone else goes quiet when you speak. A third backs away like you're carrying fever. And suddenly you realize: it's you. You're the problem. You didn't know until they showed you.

  But here's what I learned: you could stop being the problem. If you were careful. If you learned which parts of yourself people could love and which parts made them afraid.

  So I chose the parts they could love. And I buried the rest where no one would find them.

  It started small. Maren smiled at me again when I asked about the weather instead of about coffee. Master Henric praised my reading when I stopped mentioning molecules and just talked about fire being hot. Father laughed at dinner when I made a joke about sword practice instead of muttering about engines.

  Maren brought me a honeycake on a quiet afternoon three weeks later.

  Set it down with a conspiratorial smile. "Don't tell your mother."

  I grinned. "Never."

  She ruffled my hair—really ruffled it, the way she used to—and warmth bloomed in my chest.

  This. This was worth it.

  Old Hobb caught me climbing the orchard trees a few days after that and instead of scolding, he laughed. "Alaris blood runs wild in you, young lord. That's good. That's how it should be."

  Father taught me a new blade form with my training sword. I executed it perfectly. His pride was so bright I could feel it from across the practice yard.

  Mother braided ribbons in my hair and sang, and I leaned into her hands and felt safe.

  Nobody knew about the wrongness anymore.

  Nobody saw the pieces that didn’t belong.

  I was getting good at this.

  At being the Lucien they needed.

  At hiding the me that was wrong.

  And maybe—maybe if I hid it long enough—

  The wrong parts would just… stop existing.

  And I’d finally be real.

  The sword gleamed above my bed.

  Patient. Perfect.

  Waiting for me to grow tall enough.

  Strong enough.

  Normal enough.

  Good enough.

  Because I’d learned the truth, face down in the mud with blood in my mouth:

  There was no version of the real me they could love.

  Only the version I pretended to be.

  So I’d pretend forever.

  And the broken parts would stay buried where they belonged.

  Where nobody could see them.

  Where they couldn’t hurt anyone.

  Not even me.

  I could do this.

  I would be normal.

  I would be Lucien.

  Only Lucien.

  Forever.