Chương 1: Good Morning, Brother

Favius screamed as icy water hit him in the face. He fought the soaked sheets in a growing panic. The memory of riding a horseless wagon of metal down an onyx road faded quickly. His sister Urania stood in the doorway, grinning with the smug triumph only a nine-year-old who had just bested her older brother could muster. Five-year-old Marius stood between them with an uncertain grin.

"This means war," Favius hissed, shaking the last fragment of the dreams from his mind. Finally freeing his legs from the blankets, he swung them out of bed, drawing a squeal from her co-conspirator. The boy dropped the now-empty wooden bucket and bolted for the door as Favius began to rise. Favius put on his most charming smile and addressed Urania.

"Catch him, and we can tickle him together." Urania clearly considered the double cross—then turned and ran instead. Behind her, Marius screamed, "No tickling!" Favius growled theatrically and gave chase. His bare feet hit the polished wooden floor, and within a few steps he shot through his bedroom door. He pushed off the wall and rapidly gained on the squealing Marius. Urania was further along the corridor.

They shot around the next corner of the estate's mansion, and two servants carrying amphorae dodged to the side just in time to avoid the children. Only a few more steps. He reached out, but Marius' soft orange tunic slipped from his grasp.

"No!" squealed his younger brother, and Urania came to a stop at the end of the hallway. But Marius' fate had been sealed the moment he threw the bucket of water. Two more steps, and Favius had his arm.

"Stop! Mercy!" screamed Marius. But Favius only gave him an evil grin.

"I want you to know, you brought this on yourself." He pulled his little brother up by the arm and began tickling him, overcoming his feeble defense with ease. Marius squealed, and the servants chuckled in the distance. Urania took a few steps toward them, but Favius stretched out a hand towards her, making a tickling gesture. She flinched back, but her face lit up with an idea.

"Hold on, Marius! I will save you!" Not even a minute later, Urania appeared again, running towards him. What is she— Another swath of cold water hit him in the face. With it, something else speared into his consciousness. He was hurrying out of the dorm, towards the car, needing to get to university. It was already late. Damn it. He remembered driving absentmindedly, rehearsing his plan for the thesis defense in his head. Then the crossroad, the squealing of brakes, and— Nothing.

He gasped as splitting headaches hit him, and bile rose in his throat. He felt himself falling, slipping against the rough stone of the wall, going down.

"Favius!" he heard a woman's distant voice before darkness took him. Slowly. Blink by blink, he returned. He felt bed linen, dry this time, and smelled the familiar wood and sage scent of his own room. The heavy curtain, leather or some kind of thick cloth, was closed, and the only light in the room was a thin shaft coming through the door, which was only open a split. A strong, confident male voice could be heard from outside.

"Trust me, nothing wrong with him. Must have just hit his head against the wall while the kids were playing." A woman's voice responded. His mother's.

"I—you're probably right, Brutus. The kids always get scratched up. But with the Lireni outside the walls, it's—" But the other man interrupted her, a low, somehow reassuring menace in his voice.

"Lavira, there is a reason why I am called the One-Hundred-Man Slayer. Those fishfuckers outside, they have neither the numbers nor the strength to take me. We will simply break out if the scouts report incoming reinforcements." A moment of silence followed. Then the woman let out a heavy sigh.

"You're right, it just—just doesn't feel safe. I—" she sniffled. More time passed as the man calmed the woman down. Meanwhile, Favius looked around his sparse room. A bed, a desk with a collection of sticks, stones, and some writing materials, a wardrobe. Spartan, but the quality of the furniture was high—the kind of furniture those used to wealth and beyond any need to display it would select for their homes. The door opened, and Lavira, his mother, stepped into the room. He frowned slightly as he turned his head.

His mother? There was another name. Or rather, the absence of another name. He furrowed his brows. Not just that, the absence of a person, an entire different life. He took a deep breath as his heartbeat quickened. Focus. I can't panic. Those are just memories from a bad dream. This is here and now. He took a deep, slow breath and returned his attention to his mother. His real mother. Lavira was—cute. He frowned at the thought and then noticed what made him go for that particular description.

Her eyes were almost like those of a Disney character. Unusually round and of a deep amber, almost like an owl's. Favius paused. How do I know such a strange word? The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Other than that, her bone structure seemed minimalistic, slender, and elegant. Her movements were somehow predatory. He narrowed his eyes, noticing another detail.

The small window high in the corner of the room was sealed shut with the thick curtain, and the door that had let in light before was closed, so only a little bit glowed between the door and the floorboards. The room should have been dark—near pitch-black. But he could see as if it was well-lit. He narrowed his eyes and searched the ceiling for a lamp, but there was none.

"What the heck is going on?" he murmured. Then his mother arrived at his bedside. She took the wet cloth off his forehead and brought it down into what must have been a bucket of water, replacing it soon with one much colder.

"Are you fine? Urania woke you with water? I told her not to do it again. And now this?" Lavira tutted and began fussing over him. He brought up his hands, some instinctual part of himself trying to fend off motherly attention. And froze again. His fingernails—and for that matter his mother's—were thick, black, and curved like talons.

"My fingers?" he murmured and brought up a hand to his face, finding the same round eyes he had seen in his mother's face.

"What?" he murmured. Lavira gave a worried look.

"The hit on the head must have been harder than I thought. Are you already doing better?" Favius nodded, but his eyes were glued to his fingernails. Lavira touched his forehead and spoke slowly.

"Those are just our eagle-owl shifter traits. I'm still happy that that side of the bloodline took so well in all of you children." A content smile broke through the worry on her face.

"It's always a risk marrying one who's not of the blood. But your father was worth the risk." One part of his mind understood and agreed with her. But another flinched with the instinctive horror any child felt at the idea of their parents being affectionate. No time to dissect that. Bloodline? Eagle-owl shifter? Eagle-owls were the largest known example of the large nocturnal predators. The majesty of an eagle mixed with the dreadful nighttime hunting ability of an owl.

A predator that hunted the other predators of the night: smaller owls, foxes, badgers. Before he could further indulge in his memories, or at least the parts that felt safe and not riddled with something darker, the door creaked open. Urania's black hair—and now that he studied her more closely, also round amber eyes—appeared.

"Is he fine?" she murmured before studying the ground at Lavira's feet. Lavira visibly relaxed.

"Yes, he's awake. Come in." Urania's shoulders were slumped, and she took small steps into the room. Then she sniffed and looked straight at Favius.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want this to happen," she said, her voice small and making her sound fragile. Favius raised a hand.

"Don't feel bad about it." She didn't seem convinced, so Favius forced a smile onto his face.

"In fact, I got to sleep longer." He waited for Lavira to look away, then stuck out his tongue at Urania. She grinned brightly. Only then did he notice the smaller figure lingering near the entrance. Marius was refusing to go further than the door.

"And what do you have to say, little man?" Lavira asked Marius. Favius wanted to do something, to intercede in the motherly scolding that was likely about to descend, but he felt the headache coming on again. Those memories of a world of glass and metal. He rubbed his temple, shifting the wet cloth slightly. In an instant, Lavira turned around and began adjusting it, renewing her fussing.

"Are the headaches back?" she said, her voice rich with worry. Favius couldn't quite stifle a groan.

"It's—it's fine." Then he turned to the side, despite the pain, and let out a controlled breath.

"Marius, this is not your fault. You did nothing wrong." He paused.

"Well, apart from letting your sister convince you to throw water on me. You shouldn't trust her."

"Favius!" Lavira's voice grew a bit more stern. The other two siblings chuckled.

"Don't listen to your brother," Lavira said. Then she nodded and got up.

"I need to check on the kitchens." She sternly looked at Urania and Marius.

"Let your brother rest. He needs to recover." She left the room, leaving it again in what should by all rights have been total darkness. Favius noticed how neither of his siblings seemed to have any issue seeing either. Well, it makes sense if I have some sort of eagle-owl bloodline. Bloodlines. He frowned. The very idea felt ridiculous, unnatural, like something that belonged in a story. His two siblings approached the bed.

He was informed that the cook had made a new kind of sweet, and that their little sister Lia still hadn't managed to pronounce Urania's name correctly, while Marius proudly proclaimed that she had gotten his name exactly right—much to Urania's annoyance. Favius ignored the headaches and enjoyed the company of his siblings for a while until the door opened again. A serious-looking man with pronounced Mediterranean features, his father Severin, entered the room.

The man's face was a stern mask, but he smoothed out the frown alongside the furrows on his forehead when he focused on Favius' siblings.

"I need some time alone with your brother. And he should be resting anyway. Go see if you can help your mother with Lia."

"Yes, Father," Marius and Urania said, slightly inclining their heads in unison. Severin—though again he felt a strange absence in his mind, where there should have been another man, another person who had meant so much to him. He suppressed a shudder as Severin stepped close to the bed.

"I heard what happened. Now that all the womenfolk are out, tell me, son, how are you really doing?" Favius gave his father a smile.

"It hurts a bit, but it's just a headache. I think I'll just sleep it off." An awkward moment of silence stretched as Severin seemed to stare into the distance, seeing something beyond the walls. Then he shook his head and turned his entire attention back to Favius.

"Good, good. There's no reason to worry. You are safe, son." He paused again, not meeting Favius' eyes.

"Sleep. We'll talk tomorrow." With those words, Severin left the room, and Favius was finally alone with his thoughts. I need to figure out what's going on with my memory. Nearly half an hour of searching brought him some results. He could remember this family, this estate, the household, where each room was. He could probably walk to the privy blind. But anything beyond this house was fuzzy. He knew his father was an important man, but he didn't quite remember why he was important. There were absences.

Black holes in the memory with frayed edges, as if a serrated scalpel had cut out parts of his memories and annealed them with the other memories—the ones that had been intruding. Memories where he had been studying movement-related natural philosophy—no, physics was the term the memories used. That was another thing. There were two languages in his head, and sometimes, with a spike of memory that made him wince, they collided. From that world, he remembered so much common knowledge. Science.

Tools and technologies. Theories and ideas. He recalled sitting in a lecture hall. The furniture, view from the windows, and even what was written on the blackboard—it was all perfectly clear. But the lecturer and the other students… Favius shuddered at the impression of sitting in a sea of faceless absences. He knew he had shared his life, had lived together with someone, someone female. But there was nothing else about her. No name. No face. Only a vague sense that she had mattered a lot to him.

Between the worrisome thoughts and the headaches, he slowly drifted off to sleep. For the third time that day, he woke up. Somehow he knew he had only slept a few hours. But no light was coming around the curtain anymore, so it must be night. Severin sat beside the bed and was shaking his shoulder. The room was now noticeably darker—but still not dark.

"Son, get dressed. Your finest robes." Severin turned to leave the room after giving his orders. Favius frowned and called out to his father.

"What is going on?"

"Your uncle Marcus. I received a pigeon from a scout that he is approaching the estate with a small army. I shall receive him in the dining hall." Severin swallowed and set his jaw.

"Assuming he has come to talk."