Rune of Immortality

Jacob returned to his room slowly, the quiet sound of his footsteps on the polished stone floors swallowed by the thick silence that seemed to blanket the hallways. He had spoken his mind, laid everything bare in front of them, exposed the jagged edges of his thoughts like shards of glass arranged in a reckless mosaic.

It was the second time in his life he had disobeyed his father, first time he had felt guilty and sad, this time, there wasn't even the dull throb of guilt lingering in his chest. He had left the table, turned his back on the family he'd never quite belonged to, and walked away from their radiant perfection without hesitation.

There was no regret. Not even a flicker of it.

Existing under the unrelenting brilliance of his family, each of them more refined, more powerful, more loved had always been a silent burden he bore without protest. But now the weight had become unbearable, the ceiling too low to breathe under.

Even Jessica, his younger sister by two years, was more formidable than him in every way that mattered. She was charismatic, strong, graceful under pressure, and probably capable of defeating him in a single effortless move. There was a lightness to her that people adored. And then there was him, shadowed, uncertain, always falling short. What meaning did his name even carry when everyone else who bore it outshone him like stars swallowing a dying candle?

Of course, he knew his outburst wouldn't free him from the Skydrid name, not truly. His father wouldn't allow that. Their legacy was iron-wrought, stitched into their veins as tightly as blood itself. No tantrum would sever those ties.

But it would make them cautious.

Because even if they wouldn't say it aloud, they would know what he knew, that he was close to breaking. Very close. They might stop pushing, if only out of fear that the next shove might send him past the point of no return.

And yet, beneath that momentary resolve, another fear stirred. The quiet dread of what would happen when Lazarus finally gave up on him, when it became clear to everyone, especially his family that he could not, and would not, ever learn real magic.

He could already see the looks they would give him: the polite nods masking disappointment, the eyes that refused to meet his, the soft sighs of unspoken pity. He imagined himself trying to explain, trying to ask for time or patience or understanding. But who among them would truly stop their work, put aside their research and ambitions just to help him find true runes? He doubted even one of them would.

As he crossed the room, his legs moved toward the desk almost on instinct, a familiar motion forged through years of seeking solace in books. But he stopped short, fingers hovering just above the wood.

"What's the point?" he muttered to himself, the words bitter in his mouth. "What do I think I'm going to learn when I can't do shit?"

Still, his hands found the leather-bound spine of a text on rune theory, and he sat down. There was no point, no clear reason to keep reading. But he read anyway. Not because it was useful. Because it was his. He read because he enjoyed it, because in a world where he lacked almost everything, knowledge was the one thing that felt truly his.

The day crept on. Time, as it always did when he read, slipped away like sand through his fingers. He barely noticed that Arthur hadn't returned yet. Jessica had come to his door earlier, tapped gently and tried to say something encouraging through the wood, but he hadn't responded. He didn't want to hear it, didn't want her words or her concern. It wasn't fair, how easily she tried to shoulder the emotional weight of someone older, someone who should have been stronger than her. It made him feel even smaller. Pathetic. That was the only word he had for it.

Eventually, the door creaked open and Arthur stepped inside, accompanied by Belemir, who gave a polite cough into his hand before speaking.

"Prince Castor's birthday banquet begins in two hours," the older man said.

Before he could say more, Jacob stood and walked past them both toward the wardrobe. He rifled through the rows of clothing until his fingers brushed over fabric he didn't recognize, a dark blue suit, sleek and expensive, clearly prepared in advance. Belemir's doing, no doubt. Without comment, he took it and disappeared into the bathroom.

At the sink, a row of small glass bottles lined the edge, Fury's Temper. He stared at them for a moment, wondering if a few sips would help. But then he shook his head and left them untouched, maybe he would try to punch Samuel in the face if he showed up tonight.

He didn't care enough to drink it. Not right now.

When he emerged, he gave Arthur a quiet nod. "It's all yours," he said, brushing past him to stand in front of the mirror. He studied his reflection and grit his teeth. The suit fit him well, better than expected, actually, but it couldn't hide the hollowness underneath.

His eyes looked tired, dull, shadowed by sleeplessness and bruised by whatever storm had passed through his head the night before. His limbs still looked too thin, too fragile. The suit deserved someone better.

"Aren't useless nobles supposed to be at least good-looking?" he muttered bitterly. "At least have one redeeming quality?"

He walked out of the room without saying another word. As he made his way through the house, he didn't look at anyone, didn't acknowledge the greetings or the sidelong glances. At the front of the estate, several carriages waited, lined up in preparation for the evening's festivities. Jacob stepped into one of the smaller ones without waiting for instruction.

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Inside, the cabin was quiet. Peaceful. Just the way he liked it.

He crossed one leg over the other, pulled out a small, dog-eared book from his inner pocket, and began to read. The words were familiar, worn into his memory from repetition, but comforting in their stability.

Then he heard the door to the carriage open, and a calm voice followed, level but unmistakably familiar.

"Don't you ever get tired of reading?"

Isaac stepped inside without waiting for permission, shut the door behind him, and sat across from Jacob like he had every right to be there, which, in his own mind, he probably did. His posture was rigid, formal in that effortless way their family had mastered, and his gaze landed on Jacob with a kind of surgical precision, steady, unblinking, not unkind, but not gentle either.

Jacob didn't look up. Didn't flinch. He simply turned another page in the book resting across his knee and pretended Isaac wasn't there at all. He might not have ignored most people like this, there was still some part of him that cared how others saw him but Isaac wasn't most people.

Of all his siblings, he was the one Jacob had the least patience for, the one person whose opinion carried the sharpest edge because it came wrapped in judgment and never softened with grace. He knew full well that Isaac blamed him for Lucas, blamed him in a way that hadn't lessened with time, only shifted beneath layers of silence and cold distance.

It made a cruel kind of sense. Isaac had been closest to Lucas after Jacob himself. That kind of proximity didn't fade cleanly when someone died. It calcified.

"You'd probably be better off working out," Isaac said after a moment, his voice casual but clipped, as if every word had been pre-weighed. "Or, I don't know… actually practicing magic. Seeing as you're a mage and all."

The jab wasn't sharp, but it carried just enough weight to let Jacob know the old resentment still lingered just below the surface. He closed his book halfway and sighed.

"No," he said, without looking up. "I'd prefer to read in silence. Thank you."

But curiosity, or maybe masochism got the better of him, and for the first time since Isaac had walked in, Jacob glanced up.

He regretted it immediately.

Isaac, like the rest of their family, looked as though he'd stepped out of some tailored vision of aristocratic perfection. His black suit fit so cleanly it might as well have been stitched onto him, hugging a frame that had once been frail but now radiated disciplined strength. His pale skin, unchanged since childhood should have made him look sickly, but instead it lent him an otherworldly sharpness, an almost spectral charm that somehow enhanced his presence rather than diminished it.

He looked like a ghost in fine clothes, beautiful and unknowable.

It made Jacob feel small. Fragile. Like someone still wearing a child's clothes and pretending they fit.

"Hey," Isaac said suddenly, his voice losing that calm edge. "All that bullshit you said at the table, you know that was bullshit, right?"

Jacob didn't answer. He turned back to the book. Maybe if he was quiet enough, still enough, Isaac would grow bored and leave. But that had never been Isaac's style.

"Hey," he snapped again, louder this time. "I asked you something. You think you can just ignore the rest of us? Pretend like you're not one of us? What, because you feel like you can't keep up, you're just gonna tap out? That's your answer? Let every dark thought in your head eat you alive, compare yourself to us and then crawl away in shame?"

Jacob opened his mouth to respond, but he didn't even get the chance to finish a breath before Isaac reached across the space between them and yanked the book out of his hands. Without ceremony, he tossed it out the open carriage window and turned back like he hadn't just discarded something important.

"What the hell is wrong with you—" Jacob started, only for the words to die in his throat as Isaac jabbed him, hard, in the chest with one finger. It wasn't the kind of poke meant to hurt. It was the kind meant to silence.

"Seriously," Isaac said, leaning forward, his voice low and seething. "I can't believe a Skydrid would say the kind of shit you said in front of the whole family. I can't believe someone with our name would give up like that. Are you out of your mind? Or do you just enjoy thinking of yourself as a failure?"

Jacob wanted to argue. He wanted to scream back that yes, he was a failure. Yes, he was a coward. And yes, he'd already made peace with that. But Isaac poked him again, and again the words just… vanished.

"I never liked you, you know," Isaac said, his voice cooling into something almost analytical. "Even when we were kids, I could tell you weren't really being yourself. You were always imitating other people, mimicking their voices, their habits, just trying to blend in. I hated that. Hated how fake it felt."

He sat back finally, letting the space between them breathe for a moment.

"Then Lucas died," he said, quieter now. "And for a while, I hated you for that too. I blamed you. Thought if anyone should've been dead, it should've been you."

The words hit like a stone, not because they were unexpected, but because they confirmed what Jacob had always known deep down and never wanted to hear spoken aloud.

"But," Isaac continued, exhaling slowly, "then I watched the way you punished yourself for it. Day after day, year after year, never letting yourself forget. And the hate… turned into pity. Not because I thought you deserved it, but because it was pathetic to watch. You were breaking yourself into pieces over something you already carried the guilt for. And now?"

His voice rose, sharper this time, rawer.

"Now I'm just angry. Angry because you're still doing it. You're still dragging yourself down, still convincing yourself that you're less than us. And you're not. You're a fucking Grade 1 sorcerer, Jacob. Do you even realize how rare that is? You think you don't look the part? Then train. You think you're weak? Then fight. We didn't get this way because of blood, we got this way because we worked until our fingers bled and our bones hurt."

He stood, opened the door, and let the cool evening air spill into the carriage.

"I'm not your biggest fan," he said. "I might not even like you all that much. But I am your brother. And you are a Skydrid. Whether you like it or not, you belong with us. You don't need to be like me, or Jessica, Henry, Isa, Alex, or Father. Your strength is different. None of us understand runes the way you do. None of us can manipulate mana the way you've learned to. None of us have Lazarus teaching us. You're not inferior. You're just not looking in the right place."

He stepped out and slammed the door behind him.

Jacob sat there in the silence that followed, completely still. He didn't even think about the book Isaac had thrown away. All he could hear was the echo of those words, sharp, honest, and unfiltered as they replayed in his mind.

And without realizing it, tears welled up in his eyes and slipped down his cheeks again, but they weren't the same kind as before. These weren't cold or bitter or shameful. These were warm. Quiet. Like something had cracked open inside him and light, however faint, had begun to pour through.

He stared out the window, eyes fixed on Isaac's retreating figure. Then, in a whisper barely loud enough for even himself to hear, he said, "Thank you, Isaac."

But somehow, Isaac heard.

Without turning around, he raised a single hand, and extended his middle finger high into the air.

"Yeah, yeah," he called out. "Go fuck yourself, loser."

Jacob laughed, and this time, the sound didn't feel forced.

It felt good.