The years between ten and fifteen had passed quietly.

  Which, for Orestis, meant constant vigilance and a low-grade sense of impending disaster—but by any reasonable standard, it counted as peaceful.

  No miracle-seekers. No priests knocking at inconvenient hours. No heroes crashing through windows.

  Orestis rolled out of bed, dressed without thinking, and mentally reviewed the state of his life.

  He had grown taller. Not by much, but enough that people stopped ruffling his hair without asking. His voice had settled into something almost respectable. That was all good.

  Unfortunately, his mana pool had also continued to grow at the steady, predictable pace nature insisted upon. He’d probably gained a few extra months—perhaps even a year—onto his eventual lifespan because of it.

  An irritating development.

  There was nothing he could do about that. Natural growth was inevitable. At least it would stop in a year or two. After that, his mana wouldn’t increase unless he trained it deliberately.

  And he had no intention of doing that.

  He had been careful. Painfully so. He treated his own potential like a dangerous tool best left locked in a drawer—which meant absolutely no meditation cycles.

  Orestis avoided physical training as well, limiting himself to basic stretching. He would have skipped even that, if not for the fact that a body that refused to move as instructed was deeply irritating.

  It was a small annoyance, easily managed.

  Much like everything else in his life, these days.

  Especially his family.

  His father’s business had recovered into something stable, if not impressive. Contracts were renewed cautiously. Routes reopened one by one. These days, Orestis helped his father when asked and stayed out of the way when not.

  His mother, on the other hand, remained impossible to regulate.

  She had taken to speaking of her son with the careful pride of someone who knew she was being watched, but could not quite bring herself to stop. Fortunately, that was no longer a problem. Over the years, Orestis had perfected the art of looking harmless.

  So, Orestis endured his mother’s pride and enthusiasm with practiced patience.

  Then there was Eirene.

  She still visited.

  Not daily—she had her own studies, her own obligations—but often enough that her presence had become routine. She arrived with books under her arm, an expression balanced between curiosity and determination, and the unspoken assumption that Orestis would help her.

  Which he did.

  Not because she asked nicely—she didn’t—and not because he felt responsible—he absolutely did not—but because she listened.

  That alone put her ahead of most people he had known.

  He was halfway down the stairs when he registered the familiar sounds: pages turning, paper being shuffled, someone settling in as though the house had always been hers to commandeer.

  Eirene sat at the long table in the reading room, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back with practical efficiency. Several books were spread before her, along with a stack of loose notes written in an increasingly cramped hand.

  Orestis noted—without comment—that she had reorganized his desk again.

  Not maliciously. Just… helpfully.

  “You’re early,” he said.

  She didn’t look up. “You’re late.”

  “It’s barely morning.”

  “That’s when you’re most coherent,” she replied. “I tested this theory over three years.”

  He took his seat across from her. “You conducted experiments on me without consent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rude.”

  “You correct my equations without permission,” she countered. “We’re even.”

  Fair.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Eirene tapped the page in front of her. “All right. You said my circulation pattern was inefficient.”

  “It is.”

  “You said that last week.”

  “It was true last week as well.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Then explain it again. Slower. And without insulting my intelligence.”

  Orestis leaned back, considering. “That will significantly limit my vocabulary.”

  She kicked his shin under the table.

  He sighed. “Fine. Look—most mages brute-force their mana flow. They push it through their channels like water through a clogged pipe. It works, but it wastes energy.”

  He reached across the table, turned her page around, and redrew the diagram with quick, precise strokes.

  “You’re treating circulation as linear. It isn’t. It’s cyclical. Think… breathing, not pumping.”

  Eirene frowned, then hesitated. “That would mean… less strain on the core?”

  “Correct.”

  “And slower accumulation?”

  “Initially.”

  She brightened. “But higher long-term capacity.”

  He paused.

  “… Yes.”

  That earned him a look.

  “You hesitated.”

  “I did not.”

  “You absolutely did.”

  Orestis folded his hands. “Eirene, if you want reassurance, I recommend religion.”

  She snorted despite herself and leaned back, eyes flicking to the diagram again.

  “This would hurt less, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And reduce burnout?”

  “Yes.”

  “And academies don’t teach it because—”

  “Because it takes patience, self-awareness, and the ability to admit that faster is not always better,” Orestis said. “Three qualities institutions tend to discourage.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then grinned.

  “I knew it,” she said. “You are better than half the academy lecturers.”

  “Low bar.”

  “Still counts.”

  They worked in companionable silence after that—Eirene practicing the revised circulation method, Orestis correcting posture, timing, and breathing with minimal commentary.

  When she finally sat back, exhaling slowly, there was a faint glow beneath her skin—steady, controlled.

  She blinked. “That felt… different.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good different.”

  “Also yes.”

  She studied her hands, flexing her fingers. “Why didn’t you teach me this sooner?”

  Orestis shrugged. “You weren’t ready to listen.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again.

  “Rude,” she said, eventually.

  Accurate, though.

  The session ended not with revelation, but with gradual improvement—the best kind. When she finally packed her books, she looked thoughtful rather than frustrated, an expression he had grown quite familiar with.

  After she left, Orestis sat alone for a moment, staring at the scattered pages on the desk.

  He remembered, distantly, when learning magic had felt urgent. Desperate. Back when power had been a means to an end.

  Back when he had been immortal.

  Immortality had been an accident—something he had stumbled into at an unnamed shrine.

  At first, he had not seen it as a curse. An indestructible body, immune to pain, injury, and decay, had obvious advantages.

  It had taken far too long for him to notice what else had disappeared.

  Pleasure.

  Not sensation—he could still feel heat, pressure, texture—but enjoyment had quietly packed up and left. Eventually, he understood why.

  The body learned through contrast. Pain warned. Pleasure rewarded. But nothing could harm him, and nothing could help him either. With no danger and no need, the body simply stopped sending either signal.

  A life without pain might sound appealing. A life without pleasure was something else entirely. Over time, everything had flattened. Grown tedious. Meaningless.

  After a few hundred years, he’d decided life wasn’t worth living.

  The centuries after that had been… unproductive.

  Orestis exhaled and closed the notebook.

  That was over. He was mortal now.

  But no less cursed.

  A knock interrupted his thoughts.

  His mother didn’t wait for permission.

  Avra stepped in carrying a folded shirt—one he recognized as his, freshly mended. She paused when she saw him, her expression softening in that way that still caught him off guard.

  “You skipped breakfast,” she said.

  “I wasn’t hungry.”

  She raised an eyebrow. He sighed.

  “I forgot,” he amended.

  She set the shirt down and, without asking, brushed a hand through his hair—careful now, more habit than indulgence.

  “You work too hard,” she said.

  “I read,” he replied. “Aggressively.”

  She smiled at that, then hesitated. “Eirene was here.”

  “Yes.”

  “You help her a lot.”

  “She helps herself,” Orestis said. Then, after a pause, “I just correct her.”

  His mother laughed softly. “You’ve always been like that.”

  Always.

  The word landed strangely.

  She squeezed his shoulder once before turning to leave. “Come eat. Before I decide you need supervision again.”

  A threat. A fond one.

  Orestis stood after she left, feeling something unfamiliar settle in his chest.

  Contentment, perhaps.

  Or the dangerous illusion of it.

  In the kitchen, his mother placed a warm roll in front of him, steam curling gently upward. Butter followed. Then honey.

  He ate.

  Quietly. Appreciatively.

  She watched him in that unobtrusive way she had mastered—present without hovering, attentive without prying.

  “You’ve been steadier,” she said after a moment.

  “Have I?”

  “Yes. Less restless.”

  Orestis considered that.

  In his first years back, he had been a knot of impatience—counting days, measuring progress, obsessing over outcomes that no longer felt immediate.

  Somewhere along the way, that urgency had dulled.

  “I suppose I ran out of things to panic about,” he said.

  She laughed softly and brushed a stray crumb from his cheek without ceremony.

  He let her.

  ***

  Later that evening, his father called him into the study.

  Petros sat behind the desk, sleeves rolled up, ledger open—but his attention wasn’t on the numbers.

  “Orestis,” he said, gesturing to the chair opposite him. “Sit.”

  Orestis did.

  “I’ve been thinking,” his father continued, tapping the ledger absently. “About the future.”

  Ah. That future.

  “Business is stable,” he said. “Which is good. But stability has limits. There are opportunities abroad—Orthessa, particularly.”

  Orestis kept his expression neutral.

  “Contacts. Consortium-backed projects. Magical infrastructure contracts. Things that require… discretion.”

  His father met his gaze directly.

  “You have a good head for details,” he said. “And people take you seriously. More than they should, frankly.”

  Orestis almost smiled.

  “If I were to send you,” he continued carefully, “it would be on my authority. For business. Nothing reckless.”

  A reasonable excuse.

  A clean one.

  Orestis nodded slowly. “I could manage that.”

  “I thought you might.” His father hesitated, then added, “You don’t have to go. Not yet.”

  Orestis looked down at the ledger, at the neat columns and careful margins.

  Not yet.

  But soon.

  “I know,” he said.

  Orestis did not want to leave for now.

  Maybe later—when he began to run out of books to read.

  He’d heard good things about the library in Orthessa.