POV: Aldric Leywin

  Warm…

  That was the first thing I felt.

  But it wasn’t the comforting warmth of soft bnkets or the nurturing heat of a hearth. No. This warmth came with contact—with skin.

  And that was when I realized something was horribly wrong.

  I was being held.

  Not in cloth. Not in containment.

  Skin to skin.

  A scream tore out of my lungs—not the helpless wail of a newborn, but the sound of someone cornered, panicking, a soul desperate not to kill.

  No, no, no—STOP TOUCHING ME!

  I thrashed violently in her arms, writhing as if the mere contact seared my flesh. In truth, it was the opposite. I feared what my flesh could do to hers.

  Why isn't she screaming?

  I forced my blurry eyes open, the world too bright, too loud. I was crying, choking on my own voice, blinded by fluorescent blur and pulsing blood in my ears.

  And yet—she smiled.

  The woman holding me—my mother—wasn't withering. Her flesh didn't crack, her bones didn't decay, her blood didn’t rot. She simply looked at me with tear-filled joy, cooing softly like nothing was wrong.

  But everything was wrong.

  She should have died the moment her skin touched mine. That’s how it had always been. That was the rule.

  Thirteen years, and I never once touched someone without gloves.

  I screamed louder, hoping someone would pull me away. Hoping she’d let go, or the Abyss would wake me from this cruel illusion.

  But it wasn’t a dream.

  She nuzzled my cheek with hers and said, “Oh, he’s a loud one!”

  NO! DON’T TOUCH MY FACE—!

  Panic exploded in my chest, deep and primal. My tiny limbs kicked and punched at the air with what little strength I had. I wasn’t filing to protest birth—I was fighting to protect her from me.

  The scent of blood and sweat lingered thickly in the air, but there was no scent of decay. No rot. No death.

  Why aren’t you dying? WHY!?

  My mind raced. The Abyss had said my curse would return if I failed to form a core within two years. So it was dormant. Temporarily sealed. Not broken.

  This was a lie. A fragile, dangerous lie.

  A soft voice interrupted my panic. “Twins…?”

  “Yes, two of them.”

  “Arthur…” my mother whispered, her voice trembling with affection as she cradled the other baby.

  Another one?

  I turned my gaze—barely able to lift my heavy head—and saw him. A boy, swaddled like me, but so still. So composed.

  He didn’t cry. Didn’t fil.

  He was watching. Already.

  His eyes locked onto mine—deep, intelligent, calcuting.

  And for a brief, terrifying second, I saw through him.

  He wasn’t just a baby.

  He was something like me.

  But… different.

  The midwife broke the silence with a soft chuckle. “The quiet one’s looking at everyone like he already knows them. What will you name them?”

  My mother smiled, radiant and tearful. She kissed Arthur’s forehead. “This one is Arthur.”

  “And this little firecracker…” She turned her smile to me, still shaking from my earlier screams. Her fingers gently brushed my cheek, and I flinched again.

  “Aldric.”

  A name. A second chance.

  But not forgiveness.

  Not safety.

  Not freedom.

  ---

  POV Aldriv Leywin – Months Later

  I refused to let them touch my hands.

  The first few weeks were… torture. Every time someone unwrapped the cloth around me—changing clothes, bathing me, or simply trying to hold me—I screamed. Not in pain.

  In terror.

  I learned to curl my fingers into fists. I pressed my hands tightly to my chest or beneath my armpits. I’d kick, scream, even bite down on my own tongue if it meant they wouldn’t see my bare skin.

  They ughed at it.

  “Aww, shy little one.”

  “Such a fussy baby.”

  “Doesn’t like his hands touched!”

  I wanted to scream at them that I was trying to save their lives.

  Every night, when they id me in the crib beside Arthur, I stayed curled on my side, shaking. Sometimes I cried in silence, tears sliding down my cheeks as I remembered the faces of those I killed—forced to kill.

  The man who called me “his son,” the only person who’d ever taught me what kindness meant, even in a pce of monsters—and I had melted his face off.

  My hands had been the st thing he felt.

  Now my mother—my real mother—cradled me in those same hands. And I feared the day they would turn deadly again.

  I had two years to form a core. Two years to become something better. The Abyss had warned me: Without a core, your curse returns. And this time, there will be no gloves, no confinement, no mercy.

  So I listened. I watched. I studied.

  And I waited.

  ---

  POV: Arthur Leywin

  I had lived a life before this.

  As King Grey, I had seen the worst humanity had to offer. Death, betrayal, manipution. Even now, in the soft embrace of a mother’s arms, my mind remained ever watchful.

  But I hadn’t expected to be born with a brother.

  A twin. He looked almost exactly like me except he had grey eyes, not a normal grey but a hollow grey, our parents even once mentioned that it was interesting how he had those eyes.

  At first, I thought he was just a normal baby—albeit a difficult one. He cried constantly, flinched from touch, and seemed… afraid.

  Not of the dark, or strangers. But of himself.

  He never let anyone see his hands.

  At night, I would turn and watch him. His breathing was ragged. Sometimes I caught him silently mouthing words—words no infant should even know.

  And those eyes.

  Sometimes, when no one was watching, Aldric would stare into space like he was somewhere else. Somewhere dark.

  It felt familiar. Uncomfortably so.

  He reminded me of the soldiers I used to command—the ones broken by battle. Shell-shocked. Paranoid.

  But there was something worse.

  Sometimes, when I tried to reach for him, he’d flinch like I was going to kill him.

  He didn't trust me.

  Not even as a baby.

  Part of me—the king , the strategist—marked it down as a red fg. What kind of person panicked at the touch of their own brother?

  By now I was sure he had reincarnated too, but why I didn’t know, I didn’t know why I was here myself. I wouldn’t ask of course, as I didn’t want to reveal that myself and maybe he wasn’t reincarnated.

  But the other part of me—the one new to this world, new to family—worried.

  He was my brother.

  Why was he so scared?

  I watched him struggle to walk, not out of inability, but out of restraint. Like he didn’t want to touch the floor. Like every step was a burden.

  When I fell while practicing, he flinched. Not from surprise—but guilt.

  What was he hiding? What had he done in his past life?

  I began to keep track of patterns. When he cried. When he stiffened. When he stared off at nothing. My instincts were screaming something was wrong.

  But I didn’t act.

  Because when our parents kissed us goodnight, he always stayed just barely out of reach, staring at the ceiling as if afraid sleep would kill them all. But I didn’t act.

  Because he was my brother.

  ---

  Aldric Leywin – First Steps

  It had been nearly a year.

  Arthur had already started walking with ease. It made sense. He wasn’t like other babies—neither was I.

  But where he chased discovery, I chased control.

  I stood today, legs trembling, sweat beading on my brow—not from exertion, but fear.

  My mother cpped excitedly.

  “You can do it, Aldric! Come to me!”

  I hesitated.

  My bare feet touched the wooden floor. I could feel the mana now, a whisper beneath the surface. I had to learn to channel it. To build a core.

  But one wrong move…

  If I lose control, if the curse awakens… I’ll rot this floor. The air. My mother.

  I took a single step. Then another. Wobbling. Weak.

  She caught me in her arms.

  And for a split second, panic surged again. I shoved my face against her shoulder to hide my hands, my tears.

  Arthur watched from the pymat, head tilted, thoughtful.

  I saw it again—that stare. Suspicion. Calcution.

  But this time, something else.

  A flicker of empathy.

  Maybe he didn’t know who I was.

  But he knew what I was different.