Belemir had been right, of course. The moment Jacob returned to the estate, he slipped inside without ceremony, his footsteps carrying him swiftly up the grand staircase and down the hall to his room.

  The door shut behind him with a muted thud, and he crossed to his desk with a single-mindedness that left no room for distraction. He pulled the heavy book from his satchel and set it down, fingers already flipping through the opening pages, his mind alive with the possibilities the tome promised.

  The air in the room seemed thick, the afternoon light pressing in through the windows, casting a warm, lazy glow across the shelves and furniture. Jacob hardly noticed when hours had passed. His thoughts churned with everything he had just learned. Theories far beyond his current reach, concepts tangled in layers of meaning he had only begun to unravel. It would have intimidated him, once. Now, it only stirred his hunger to know more.

  Immortality. That had been the thread running through all of Lazarus’ studies. The immortality rune, the ultimate ambition of every serious scholar of the arcane was as dangerous as it was alluring. Countless masters before him had tried to create it and failed, often at the cost of their lives, and yet the dream endured.

  Jacob understood it too well.

  Two years ago, driven by youthful arrogance and reckless ambition, he and his brother had attempted to create the rune themselves. The memory of that failure was a wound that had never truly healed. He had nearly brought ruin upon his house, and the cost had been paid in blood and reputation.

  Still, as his hands turned page after page, his mind wandered from immortality to other run. The Death Rune, the Invincible Rune, the Eternity Rune, each one a monumental challenge in its own right. The Death Rune, theorized to kill upon contact, was a chilling yet strangely fascinating idea. No one had successfully completed it yet, though many had died trying. The Invincible Rune, long sought after by kings and warriors alike, remained an impossible dream. But it was the Eternity Rune that truly captured Jacob's imagination.

  The Eternity Rune promised something immortality could not: not the mere survival of the body, but the preservation of things against the grinding wheel of time. Where resurrection brought the dead back flawed and incomplete, eternity promised purity, the idea of something unchanging, untouchable, forever.

  Jacob paused at a heavily annotated page, tracing the ink-smeared handwriting of Lazarus, one of the great scholars of this age. Lazarus wrote of immortality not as a selfish pursuit, but as a way to safeguard knowledge itself, to protect understanding from the decay of ages. Jacob found himself staring at the words longer than he intended, wondering just how far one should go in the name of such power.

  The sound of soft footsteps outside his door pulled him from his thoughts. Belemir's voice followed, steady and polite. "Young master, the lord requests your presence."

  Jacob stiffened, closing the book with a muted thud. His excitement drained away, replaced by a heavy knot of apprehension. Without a word, he rose from his chair, brushing invisible dust from his sleeves, and followed Belemir down the long, winding corridors that led to the upper floors.

  They ascended the stairs in silence, the only sound the low creak of ancient wood beneath their steps. At the final landing, Belemir stepped aside, inclining his head toward a heavy oak door.

  Jacob pushed it open and entered.

  The lord’s chamber was vast and severe, its stone walls broken only by high, narrow windows and the rich, dark furniture that spoke more of pragmatism than opulence. Near one of the windows stood Alex, his eldest brother, clad in gleaming plate armour that seemed to drink in the light rather than reflect it.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Beside the central table sat Lady Hera, his mother, poised and composed, her cool blue eyes lifting to meet Jacob’s with an expression that balanced affection and expectation.

  She was a woman who carried herself with quiet authority, tall, athletic, her golden hair falling neatly around a face that had once been the subject of poems but now bore the subtle signs of long-held burdens. There was no theatrical grace to her movements; rather, she possessed a sturdiness, a resilience that seemed unshakable.

  Across from her sat Lord Jeremiah, and the contrast between them could not have been starker.

  Jeremiah was built like a veteran of countless wars, his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his robe, his black hair falling in loose, unkempt waves to his back. His features, though weathered by time and conflict, remained sharp, a hawk’s stare set in a soldier’s face. Where Hera’s strength was in stillness, Jeremiah’s was in motion, barely contained beneath the surface. His presence filled the room without effort.

  Jacob stepped forward, bowing formally. "Lady Hera. Lord Jeremiah. Sir Alex."

  For a heartbeat, no one spoke. Then Jeremiah's voice cut through the silence, low and unyielding. "Jacob. I hear your nightmares persist."

  Jacob’s jaw tensed involuntarily, but he forced a calm expression, answering quickly, "It’s nothing serious, my lord. A passing disturbance."

  Lady Hera’s brow furrowed faintly, a flicker of worry she did not voice. She knew better than to interfere when her husband took this tone.

  Jeremiah leaned forward slightly, his gaze heavy. "You wish to study sorcery," he said. "But knowledge alone is not enough. Mind and body must be forged together. Starting tomorrow, you will train under your brother until his departure."

  Jacob stiffened. His instinct was to protest, to argue that his studies would suffer, that his strength lay in his mind, not his sword arm. But Jeremiah’s next words left no room for argument.

  "This is not a request," he said. "The Skydrid name carries expectations. You will not disgrace it by being weak, no matter how brilliant you become. Strength is the foundation upon which all else stands. You will begin at dawn."

  The words were delivered without anger, but they struck harder than any shouted command could have. Jacob bowed lower, his voice clipped. "I understand, my lord. Is there anything else?"

  Jeremiah only nodded.

  Dismissed, Jacob turned and left the chamber, the doors closing behind him with a muted groan. He descended the staircase slowly this time, the weight of his future pressing down with every step.

  By the time he returned to his room, he was too drained to even sit at his desk. He dropped onto his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, listening to the muted ticking of the clock on the wall.

  ‘Training with Alex’. He clenched his jaw. His brother was a knight to the core, bred for discipline, action, and unyielding strength. Whatever sympathy Alex might have had for Jacob’s scholarly pursuits would not survive the training ground.

  Jacob let out a slow breath, feeling the exhaustion seep into his bones. Memories surfaced, memories of his failed experiment, of the explosion that had rocked the western wing, of the screams and he shut his eyes tightly, willing them away.

  But sleep, when it came, was no refuge. Within minutes, he was thrashing, lost in half-formed nightmares of blood, broken runes, and the accusing stares of people he had failed.

  "My fault... too ambitious... Father warned me... Brother..."

  The words slipped from his lips unconsciously, a whisper against the silence.

  He woke with a violent start, heart pounding, the afternoon sun still slanting through the windows. Sweat clung to his skin, and for a moment he sat there, breathing hard, trying to reorient himself.

  Thirty minutes. That was all he had managed to steal from the world before his mind dragged him back into the pit.

  Groaning softly, he forced himself upright. If nothing else, reading might still offer some escape, however brief. He moved to his desk once more, opening the book with fingers that trembled just slightly.

  "Immortality rune," he muttered under his breath, almost scoffing. "I wonder how many more will die chasing you."

  He leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, burying himself once more in the pursuit of knowledge, the only place left where he still felt in control, the only refuge from the relentless pressure that came from living under the weight of expectation, ambition, and guilt.