Aurelius Von Carstein.

A Child of Shadows.

The von Carstein estate was a place of silence, where even the air seemed to hold its breath. The mansion stood on the edge of a thick, ancient forest, its towering stone walls darkened by years of neglect, vines creeping up the sides like the very hands of time itself. The clouds always seemed heavier over the estate, darker, casting long shadows that stretched across the cobblestone pathways.

It was here, on a night when the moon barely peered through the clouds, that Aurelius von Carstein was born.

His mother, pale and composed, barely made a sound during the labor. As the child was placed in her arms, her eyes glinted with something unreadable. “Aurelius,” she whispered softly, almost as if testing the name. But it wasn’t long before the name was shortened. "Aura," she decided, the name rolling off her tongue like a whisper of wind.

His father, distant and stoic, stood at the far corner of the room, his hands clasped behind his back. He said nothing, his gaze fixed on the child but his mind clearly elsewhere.

“Another boy,” his father muttered, almost as if disappointed. “Let’s hope he grows into something useful.”

---

**Years later...**

Aura’s early years were marked by a disquieting stillness. He didn’t cry like other children. He didn’t reach out for his parents or seek their approval. Instead, he observed—watched with a piercing focus that unnerved the servants. They spoke in hushed voices when they thought he wasn’t listening.

“He’s not like the others,” one of them murmured one night after he had passed by them in the hallway, his steps light, as though he barely touched the ground. “Did you see the way he looked at me?”

“I know,” another replied. “I swear, sometimes I feel like he can see straight through me.”

Aura, of course, heard it all. But he never responded. He never showed any reaction to the fear and whispers. It was simply... a part of his world.

One afternoon, when he was four, something happened. He wandered into the garden, his footsteps barely audible on the soft earth. There, he found a young maid struggling with a rose bush, her fingers pricked by the thorns. She hissed in pain, the blood seeping from the small cuts.

Aura watched. His gaze was steady, unwavering, as the red droplets glistened on the maid’s skin.

He reached out a hand, and the blood lifted. It hung there, suspended in the air like a delicate thread. The maid froze, her breath catching in her throat. She didn’t dare speak.

“Aura…” a voice called from behind him. His mother’s soft voice, tinged with a note of warning. “Aura, stop.”

He blinked, and the blood fell back to the ground, as though nothing had ever happened. The maid stared at him, wide-eyed, but Aura simply turned and walked back to the house without a word, as if the whole incident had been nothing more than a brief moment in time.

But the maid, trembling, hurried away, whispering to herself. “He... he did something. He made it move.”

---

The dinner table that evening was quieter than usual. Aura’s mother sat at the head of the table, her silver eyes trained on him. His father was, as always, distant, his expression unreadable as he glanced at his son from across the room.

“Aura,” his mother began, her voice soft but firm, “we need to talk.”

Aura’s gaze remained fixed on his plate. “About what?”

“The blood,” she said carefully, as though testing her words. “You must be careful with it. You are not like other children.”

Aura’s eyes flickered, but he didn’t respond. He wasn’t afraid of the conversation. If anything, it seemed trivial to him. His powers were a part of him, something natural, like breathing or blinking. He hadn’t even thought about it twice.

His father spoke then, his voice cold and sharp, “Do not waste this opportunity, Aura. You carry our name, our power. Don’t squander it.”

Aura turned his head slowly to look at his father. “I’m not squandering anything.” His voice was calm, almost disinterested.

His father’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing more. There was no need to say anything else. His son’s response was expected—detached, as always.

“You don’t understand,” his mother murmured, almost to herself. “There is more to you than you think.”

Aura tilted his head, regarding her with quiet curiosity. “And what is that?”

She didn’t answer right away, and the silence lingered like a weight in the air. Her lips parted, but instead of speaking, she simply sighed, looking down at her hands. “Just remember, you are not alone in this world, Aura. You never were.”

He didn’t reply. To him, the world was just a series of events to observe and catalog. He did not see the weight behind his mother’s words, nor did he feel any need to understand the layers of emotion she tried to impart.

---

Later that evening, Aura stood alone in the library, his fingers grazing the spines of ancient books. His family’s history was carefully documented here, written in fine script on pages older than any of them.

“Do you ever wonder, Aura,” a voice called softly from the doorway, “how long you’ve been here?”

Aura turned to see his mother standing in the threshold, her silhouette framed by the dim light from the hallway. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes, dark and distant, seemed to carry an unspoken weight.

Aura didn’t answer immediately. He simply walked over to a desk, taking a book at random and flipping through its pages. “No.”

She stepped closer, her voice barely a whisper. “You are so much like your father.”

Aura’s fingers stilled on the page. “That’s... not a compliment.”

She smiled, but there was sadness in it. “No, I suppose it isn’t.”

He met her gaze, his expression unreadable. “Then why say it?”

“Because,” she said, her voice barely audible, “there are things about your father you will never understand. And there are things about you that will never be known.”

Aura closed the book with a soft *thud*, his eyes not leaving hers. “Then perhaps there’s nothing to understand.”

Without another word, he turned and left the library, disappearing into the dark halls of the mansion, a shadow among shadows.

---