Tales of Neglected ones

Sylas pov

Most people think growth makes noise.

That it announces itself in victories and loud triumphs.

But mine crept in quietly.

Not in swordplay. Not in glory.

In bowls of warm stew. In vials of glowing liquid. In shadows no one watched.

---

It started with the meals.

Proper ones.

After I was assigned to her service, I ate more regularly. Not as a kindness. Just as part of the job.

The kitchen staff didn't care who I was — just that I didn't faint on duty.

But the food helped.

Steamed vegetables. Warm breads. Cooked grains with herbs. Roasted root things I didn't even know the names of.

It wasn't luxurious.

But it was enough.

---

Before that, I'd spent years on stale rations and stolen crumbs. Grew up with bones that stuck out and muscles that never formed.

But now?

After three months of eating like a human being?

My cheeks weren't hollow anymore.

My arms filled sleeves that once looked draped on bone.

My heartbeat didn't sound like an echo.

It wasn't strength in the warrior's sense.

But it was still strength.

The kind that lets you stand a little longer.

Walk a little farther.

Think more clearly.

---

Then came the potions.

Not from any court alchemist.

From me.

---

It started with an old crate in the manor's eastern storage wing. Dust-covered books and broken bottles — and one small, leather-bound thing with no title and a symbol that shimmered faintly under moonlight.

I shouldn't have touched it.

But I did.

And it touched something back.

---

Inside were potion recipes — most incomplete, many strange.

Some pages only opened after I bled on them.

Others rearranged their text when I blinked.

But the moment I began brewing, something clicked.

The herbs made sense. The measurements felt instinctive.

I didn't just follow instructions — I understood them.

Like I was remembering, not learning.

And the potions worked.

Too well.

---

A basic energy tonic — stronger than it should've been.

A clarity brew — sharper than the tutors'.

A stamina draught — enough to keep me steady after a night with no sleep.

I kept them hidden.

Tucked into jars beneath floorboards, inside hollow books, behind loose bricks.

No one knew.

Not even her.

Especially not her.

---

Seraphina watched me more closely, after a while.

She didn't ask why I didn't tire as easily anymore.

Why I stopped coughing when the rains came.

Why my hands no longer shook at night.

She probably had guesses.

But I wasn't ready to confirm any of them.

---

Because something about the book — and what it unlocked — felt like mine.

Too deep. Too strange. Too dangerous.

The manor is full of people who know how to use others.

I won't give them tools.

Not again.

---

Month by month, I changed.

Not in loud ways.

But if you looked close, the difference was there.

The boy who once looked like he'd fall over in the wind?

Now walked with calm steadiness.

The face once pale from skipped meals and bruised pride?

Now had color.

The silence I used to wear like armor?

Still there.

But it didn't weigh me down anymore.

Now, I wore it like a choice.

---

Once, a guard offered to teach me basic sword stances.

I refused.

Not because I was afraid.

Because I didn't need a blade to feel powerful anymore.

I had knowledge.

I had my hands.

I had the stillness of someone who could wait, and watch, and understand.

---

And if something came for me now?

I wouldn't fight it with steel.

I'd poison its water supply.

Or slip a truth into the right ear.

Or drink something I shouldn't survive — and walk away untouched.

Because I was learning.

And learning is its own kind of weapon.

---

One night, I brewed something strange.

No name. Just a black symbol scrawled into a page with no instructions.

The ingredients reacted before I touched them — curling upward like smoke pulled by breath.

I don't know what it does.

I bottled it anyway.

It glows faintly in the dark.

I haven't drunk it.

But it whispers.

And one day, I might.

---

For now, I let people see what they want:

A quiet boy in plain clothes.

Polite. Careful. Useful.

But if anyone looks too long?

If they try to peel back the surface?

They'll find something waiting in the quiet.

Something becoming.

Not loud.

Not shining.

But real.

---

End of Chapter