Infancy was a prison.
Not in the way Kael had once known chains or cages. No, this was subtler. Softer. More frustrating.
It wasn't the physical weakness that bothered him — although that part was maddening. His limbs refused to obey. His head wobbled when he tried to hold it up. He had to wait months before he could even roll over on his own. A man who once cut down armies was now celebrated for managing to grab his own foot.
No, what truly wore him down was the silence.
He couldn't speak.
Not really. Not yet. His tongue fumbled sounds his mind knew by heart. His mouth was no longer trained for speech but for crying, drooling, and vague cooing sounds that made grown adults squeal in joy.
It would've been funny, once. Now, it was just exhausting.
But Kael was patient.
Time was his ally. It always had been.
So he watched. He listened. And slowly, he began to understand the world he'd been reborn into.
---
His parents lived in a modest cottage on the edge of a forested valley. The house was made of stone and timber, the floors creaked when it rained, and the windows were often fogged by the morning chill. It wasn't much — but it was warm. Safe. The kind of place Kael had never known before.
Lira, his mother, was gentle but firm. She worked with herbs, often drying plants on hooks above the hearth. People came to her for salves, teas, and quiet advice.
Dren, his father, was broader than most men Kael remembered from his past life. He had a soldier's build, but no sword on the wall. Just hands that worked wood and fixed roofs for neighbors who paid with bread and thanks.
They never shouted. Never fought. They laughed often. Tired laughter, real and unforced.
It was... strange.
Kael had grown up in war, even before he'd joined it. He'd never known a home without tension in the air — without someone scheming or dying or breaking something. But here, in this little home in a village too small to appear on most maps, peace wasn't just a dream.
It was the default.
He didn't trust it. Not yet. But he wanted to.
---
By the time Kael was crawling, he'd mapped the house in his mind. By the time he stood, unsteady but determined, he had already memorized the layout of the village beyond.
And by the time he spoke his first real word — "fire", which worried Lira greatly — he'd started testing mana.
Quietly. Secretly.
It wasn't much. A tingling beneath the skin. The warmth behind his breath. But it was there — raw, waiting, like dry wood before a spark.
This world had magic. Not the same as before, but similar. Less refined. Wild.
He would learn it. He would master it.
He had time.
---
On his third birthday, Kael looked up at the stars.
He stood barefoot in the grass behind the cottage, staring at the sky that never stopped pulling at something inside him. The constellations were unfamiliar, but some patterns felt... familiar in a way he couldn't explain. The quiet hum of the night, the breeze in the trees — it made everything feel too perfect. Too untouched.
That's what bothered him.
In his last life, peace was always the part before the war.
And somewhere out there — in the multiverse, or perhaps deeper — the gods were still watching.
Kael clenched his tiny fist.
"Next time," he whispered to the dark, "I'll be ready first."