The first thing Cassor noticed was his reach.

  It happened in Vaelor’s forge, where heat pressed close and the air rang with metal-on-metal echoes. Cassor stepped forward to take the hammer without thinking, fingers wrapping around the haft the way they always had.

  Only this time, he didn’t have to step as far.

  The hammer came up easily.

  Too easily.

  Cassor froze mid-motion, heart lurching as though he’d tripped without falling. His arm was extended farther than he expected it to be, elbow unlocked, shoulder relaxed. The weight of the tool sat comfortably in his grip, not dragging him forward the way it had yesterday.

  He stared at it.

  Vaelor noticed immediately.

  “Do not move,” the forge god said.

  Cassor obeyed at once, lowering the hammer with careful slowness, afraid that whatever he’d done wrong might still be unfolding. His pulse thudded loudly in his ears.

  Vaelor stepped closer. He did not scold. He did not correct Cassor’s grip.

  He looked.

  Not at the hammer.

  At Cassor.

  His gaze traveled the length of Cassor’s arm, from wrist to elbow to shoulder, then up to his posture, his spine, the set of his feet. Vaelor’s expression shifted—not alarmed, not angry. Calculating.

  “You did not strain,” Vaelor said.

  Cassor frowned. “I… wasn’t trying to.”

  “That,” Vaelor replied quietly, “is the issue.”

  Cassor swallowed. “Did I hold it wrong?”

  “No.” Vaelor’s eyes lingered a moment longer, glowing faintly in the forge-light. “You held it correctly.”

  He straightened.

  “You should not have been able to.”

  Cassor’s stomach tightened. He lowered his arm fully now, the hammer resting against the anvil with a dull, solid thunk.

  “It didn’t feel different,” Cassor said. “I just—reached.”

  Vaelor was silent for a long breath.

  Then he gestured once, precise. “Again.”

  Cassor lifted the hammer a second time.

  This time he paid attention.

  His arm extended, shoulder rolling naturally into place, wrist aligning without effort. The movement felt smooth, practiced — like something his body had done many times before.

  But Cassor knew it hadn’t.

  He frowned, eyes flicking to the space between himself and the anvil. He hadn’t stepped closer. The forge hadn’t shifted.

  He had.

  Just enough that it mattered.

  Vaelor exhaled slowly through his nose.

  “That distance,” he said, tapping the stone near Cassor’s feet with one heavy finger, “was not yours yesterday.”

  Cassor looked down.

  The mark Vaelor indicated was small. Barely noticeable. A crack in the stone floor he remembered standing farther from.

  “I didn’t mean to move,” Cassor said.

  “I know,” Vaelor replied.

  He turned away then, as if the matter were settled, but his voice followed Cassor like a weight.

  “Pay attention to where your body thinks it belongs,” the god said. “It will not always tell you.”

  Cassor nodded, though unease had already begun to coil in his chest.

  The rest of the lesson passed without incident.

  No dropped tools. No missteps. No sudden strength.

  But Cassor found himself stopping twice to reorient his stance, adjusting his feet as if the ground were not quite where he expected it to be.

  When the lesson ended, he stood still for a moment, eyes closed, arms at his sides.

  Nothing hurt.

  Nothing felt wrong.

  And yet, when he opened his eyes again, the forge felt subtly closer than it had when he entered.

  As if the world had taken a step toward him.

  Or he toward it.

  Cassor wasn’t sure which thought unsettled him more.

  Cassor clipped his shoulder on a doorway he had never hit before.

  It wasn’t hard. Barely enough to sting. Just enough to make him stop short and look back at the smooth stone frame in confusion.

  He frowned at it, then at himself.

  “I didn’t rush,” he muttered.

  The corridor hadn’t narrowed. The door hadn’t shifted. Cassor knew these halls. He could have walked them half-asleep.

  He tried again, slower this time, angling his body the way he always had.

  His shoulder brushed stone a second time.

  Cassor sucked in a sharp breath, more startled than hurt. He stepped back, turned sideways, and passed through without issue.

  That unsettled him more than the bump.

  During Marion’s lesson, it happened again.

  Cassor stood ankle-deep in moving water, eyes focused, breathing steady. The current slid around his legs in a pattern he recognized, one Marion had used before. Cassor shifted his weight to compensate—

  And overcorrected.

  His foot slipped, water splashing up as he windmilled his arms and barely caught himself. His heart jumped into his throat.

  Marion raised a brow. “Again.”

  Cassor flushed. “Sorry. I thought it was going to push harder.”

  “The water did exactly what it did yesterday,” Marion replied.

  Cassor frowned. He reset his stance, concentrating this time. When the current moved again, he adjusted more carefully, knees bent, center lowered.

  He stayed upright.

  But it felt… delayed. Like his body responded a half-beat after his mind told it to.

  Marion watched him closely now.

  “Your balance point has shifted,” Marion said at last.

  Cassor blinked. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No,” Marion replied. “You did something normal.”

  Cassor didn’t find that reassuring.

  The problem followed him.

  His stride felt off in the training yard, steps landing longer than he expected. He reached for a practice staff and caught it closer to the end than he meant to, fingers fumbling before tightening.

  Once, when Kairos tossed him a blunt training blade without warning, Cassor grabbed it cleanly—

  Then nearly dropped it when the hilt hit his palm sooner than anticipated.

  Kairos laughed. “Easy there, cub.”

  Cassor laughed too, but it sounded forced even to his own ears.

  Later, alone in a quiet hall, Cassor stopped and stood still.

  He planted his feet deliberately. Closed his eyes. Lifted his arms out to his sides.

  They felt… longer.

  Not heavier. Not stronger.

  Just longer.

  He lowered them again, heart beating a little faster now. He didn’t feel hurt. He didn’t feel tired. But something in him felt slightly out of sync, like a song played half a note too high.

  That evening, Seraphime noticed.

  She always did.

  Cassor was sitting on the edge of a bench, tugging at the hem of his shirt with distracted fingers, when she knelt in front of him.

  “Are you tripping more today?” she asked gently.

  Cassor blinked. “I didn’t fall.”

  “I didn’t ask if you fell,” she said.

  He hesitated. Then nodded. “A little. Things feel… closer.”

  Seraphime’s gaze softened, but sharpened at the same time. She placed her hands lightly at his shoulders, thumbs brushing bone and muscle with practiced care.

  “You’re adjusting,” she said. “Your body is learning something new.”

  Cassor swallowed. “I don’t remember teaching it.”

  Seraphime didn’t smile.

  “That,” she said quietly, “is why we pay attention.”

  She helped him to his feet and guided him forward, slower than usual, matching her steps to his without saying why.

  Cassor matched her pace instinctively.

  And for the first time that day, the ground felt like it was exactly where he expected it to be.

  The tear was small.

  Cassor didn’t feel it happen. He only noticed when the stretch ended and the room went quiet in that particular way that meant someone else had seen it first.

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  Seraphime’s hand was still raised from where she’d been guiding his posture. Her fingers had stopped mid-gesture, eyes fixed not on his stance, but on his sleeve.

  Cassor followed her gaze.

  A thin line had split the fabric at his upper arm, the seam pulling apart just enough to show skin beneath.

  “Oh,” Cassor said, stupidly.

  He tugged at the sleeve, trying to smooth it back into place. The fabric resisted, tight where it hadn’t been tight before.

  “I didn’t pull hard,” he said quickly.

  “I know,” Seraphime replied.

  Her voice was calm. Gentle. But she did not look away.

  She rose and circled him once, slow and unobtrusive, fingers hovering just shy of contact. Cassor stood still, heat creeping up his neck as she assessed him the way she might assess a cracked vase or a strained joint.

  “You grew again,” she said.

  Cassor blinked. “…Again?”

  Seraphime met his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  The word settled heavier than Cassor expected.

  “But I grew yesterday,” he said, confusion bleeding into his voice. “That’s normal, right?”

  Seraphime hesitated.

  “Not like this,” she said carefully.

  She reached out then, smoothing the fabric at his shoulder, testing the give of the cloth along his chest, his sides. The shirt pulled where it used to drape. The hem sat higher against his waist.

  Cassor shifted uncomfortably. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No,” she said at once. “You didn’t cause this.”

  That didn’t help.

  She guided him toward a low bench and knelt in front of him, tugging gently at the fabric of his trousers. The knees creased oddly. The seam along the thigh was stretched thin, threads whining softly under pressure.

  “These were fitted,” Seraphime murmured, more to herself than to Cassor.

  Cassor stared down at his legs.

  “They were loose,” he said.

  “They were,” she agreed.

  She rested her hands briefly on his knees, grounding, reassuring. Cassor noticed then that her touch lingered longer than usual, as if confirming something she already suspected.

  “This is not harmful,” she said, meeting his gaze. “But it is fast.”

  Cassor swallowed. “How fast?”

  Seraphime exhaled slowly.

  “Fast enough that we will adjust,” she said. “Not you.”

  She stood and turned away, already reaching for a folded bundle laid out nearby. Fresh fabric. Simple, soft, unadorned.

  Cassor stared at it.

  “You planned for this,” he said quietly.

  Seraphime paused.

  “I prepared,” she corrected. “Planning assumes certainty.”

  She handed him the new shirt. It was longer in the sleeves. Looser at the shoulders. The trousers that followed were cut with more room through the leg.

  Cassor changed quickly, fingers clumsy, mind louder than it had been all day.

  When he stood again, the clothes fit.

  Perfectly.

  That frightened him more than the tear had.

  Seraphime smoothed the collar, adjusting it with practiced care. Her expression was warm, but thoughtful, eyes searching his face for signs of strain.

  “Does anything hurt?” she asked.

  Cassor shook his head. “No.”

  “Anything feel… wrong?”

  He hesitated.

  “I feel fine,” he said. Then, quieter, “Just not the same.”

  Seraphime nodded, as though that was the most honest answer he could give.

  “We will watch it,” she said. “Closely.”

  Cassor glanced down at his hands, flexing his fingers inside sleeves that hadn’t existed this morning.

  “How many times can this happen?” he asked.

  Seraphime did not answer immediately.

  She brushed a curl of hair back from his forehead, thumb warm against his temple.

  “As many times as it does,” she said at last. “And no more than that.”

  Cassor wasn’t sure whether that was comforting.

  As he followed her out of the hall, he caught his reflection briefly in a polished strip of stone along the wall.

  The boy looking back at him was familiar.

  But his clothes fit differently.

  And Cassor had the unsettling sense that they always would from now on.

  Cassor noticed his boots before anyone else did.

  They had always been a little big. Seraphime preferred it that way—room to grow, room to move, room for long days on stone. He’d never minded them. They were scuffed and soft now, shaped to his feet by use.

  That morning, they felt tight.

  Not unbearably so. Just… present. His toes brushed the leather when he walked, a gentle pressure that hadn’t been there before. Cassor wiggled them inside the boots as he crossed the corridor, frowning.

  Maybe they shrank, he thought.

  The idea made no sense, but neither did much else lately.

  By midday, the pressure had become impossible to ignore.

  During drills with Kairos, Cassor shifted his weight and winced as the edge of the boot pressed hard against his big toe. He adjusted his stance instinctively, favoring his heel.

  Kairos noticed immediately.

  “You’re dancing,” the war god said, circling him. “That’s new.”

  Cassor hesitated. “My boots feel… wrong.”

  Kairos snorted. “They’re boots. They’re always wrong.”

  He stepped in fast, forcing Cassor to move.

  Cassor dodged cleanly—but landed awkwardly, a sharp sting flaring along the side of his foot. He sucked in a breath and stumbled back a step, heart pounding.

  “That,” Kairos said, holding up a hand, “wasn’t the boots.”

  Cassor didn’t argue. He just nodded, jaw tight.

  Seraphime ended the lesson early.

  Cassor didn’t protest.

  When she knelt to unlace his boots, the reason became obvious immediately.

  The leather bowed outward where it hadn’t before. The seams along the toe were stretched smooth, the scuffs pulled thin. When Seraphime eased the first boot free, Cassor hissed softly as his foot slid out.

  A red line marked the edge of his toe. Another crossed the side of his foot where the leather had rubbed.

  Seraphime’s expression did not change.

  She lifted his foot carefully, turning it in her hands, thumbs pressing gently along bone and tendon. Cassor watched her face more than his own skin.

  “You didn’t tell me,” she said quietly.

  “I thought it was nothing,” Cassor replied. “They just felt tight.”

  “They are,” she said. “Because they no longer fit.”

  She set his foot down and removed the other boot. The second foot showed the same marks. No blisters yet. No breaks.

  But close.

  Seraphime sat back on her heels, studying him.

  “You’ve grown through the sole,” she said. Not accusing. Observational.

  Cassor stared at his feet, suddenly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “I know,” she said again.

  She rose and disappeared briefly into a side chamber. When she returned, she carried a new pair of boots—plain, well-made, clearly unworn.

  Cassor’s chest tightened.

  “You just have those?” he asked.

  Seraphime knelt again, fitting them onto his feet with practiced ease. The leather was supple, the size exact. When she laced them, her fingers paused once, as if committing the moment to memory.

  “Stand,” she said.

  Cassor did.

  The relief was immediate. His weight settled evenly. The floor felt right again.

  That frightened him more than the pain had.

  He shifted his feet experimentally. No pinch. No pressure. No sting.

  “They fit,” he said.

  “They should,” Seraphime replied.

  Cassor looked down at them, then back up at her. “How long before these don’t?”

  Seraphime’s hands stilled.

  “We’ll know,” she said after a moment. “Before you do.”

  Cassor wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

  As they walked on together, Cassor became acutely aware of each step he took. The way his foot landed. The way his weight carried forward. The way the ground met him.

  It all worked.

  Too well.

  By the end of the day, his feet ached—not from strain, but from adjustment. From learning a shape that hadn’t been his yesterday.

  That night, as Cassor lay in bed, he flexed his toes under the blanket and felt the unfamiliar length of them press against the fabric.

  He pulled the blanket higher, as if that might make him smaller again.

  It didn’t.

  Cassor didn’t mean to look.

  It happened by accident, the way most important things did.

  He was washing his hands in a shallow basin after lessons, sleeves rolled back to keep them dry. The water was warm, the stone smooth beneath his fingers. He leaned forward to rinse the soap away—

  And saw himself.

  Not clearly at first. The surface of the water rippled, breaking the image into pieces. A blur of hair, skin, motion.

  Then the ripples settled.

  Cassor froze.

  The boy in the reflection was him. He knew that instantly. Same messy hair. Same eyes. Same small scar near his brow that never quite faded.

  But the shape of him was… wrong.

  His arms looked too long for his body, forearms stretching farther down his thighs than he remembered. His shoulders were still narrow, still a child’s, but his frame had lengthened around them, pulling everything slightly out of proportion.

  His neck looked longer. His jaw a little more defined—not sharp, not adult, just no longer rounded the way it had been.

  He straightened slowly.

  The reflection followed.

  Cassor lifted one arm.

  So did the boy in the water.

  The movement was smooth. Familiar. But the reach carried farther than his mind expected, fingers hovering lower against his leg than they should have.

  “I didn’t look like this,” Cassor whispered.

  The water did not argue.

  He turned his head slightly, studying the angle of his face. His cheeks were still soft. His eyes still wide. There was no mistaking that he was a child.

  But not the same child.

  He stepped back from the basin, heart beating faster now, and caught his reflection again in a strip of polished stone set into the wall. The image there was clearer. Less forgiving.

  He looked… stretched.

  Like someone had taken the boy from Therikon and pulled him gently upward and outward, not enough to tear anything, just enough to change where everything sat.

  Cassor pressed his hands flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat under his palms.

  It felt normal.

  That was the worst part.

  He remembered being smaller. Remembered the way his clothes had hung, the way the world had felt just a little bigger around him.

  That memory no longer matched what he saw.

  He swallowed, throat tight.

  “I’m still me,” he said, quietly, as if the reflection might disagree.

  The boy in the stone stared back without answering.

  Cassor turned away then, breaking the image, and leaned his forehead briefly against the cool wall. He closed his eyes and breathed until the tightness in his chest eased.

  When he opened them again, nothing had changed.

  He was still longer. Still taller. Still not quite who he remembered being yesterday.

  Later that evening, as Seraphime adjusted the hem of his new trousers with small, careful stitches, Cassor watched her hands move.

  “Do I look strange?” he asked suddenly.

  She paused, needle halfway through the fabric.

  She didn’t lie.

  “You look like you are growing,” she said. “Faster than most.”

  Cassor picked at a loose thread. “I don’t feel older.”

  Seraphime met his eyes.

  “Growth and age are not the same thing,” she said gently.

  Cassor nodded, though he wasn’t sure he understood.

  When she finished, he stood and tested the fit. The clothes sat properly on him now, shaped to a body he was still getting used to occupying.

  As he turned to leave, he glanced once more at a polished surface near the doorway.

  He recognized himself this time.

  But only because he knew who he was supposed to be.

  Cassor stopped counting how many times Seraphime adjusted his clothes.

  At first, he’d noticed every change. Each new shirt laid out. Each hem taken in or let out. Each pair of boots replaced before they pinched too badly.

  Then it became routine.

  He woke. He trained. He changed. The day moved on.

  When Vaelor handed him a heavier hammer, Cassor accepted it without comment. When Marion deepened the current, Cassor widened his stance automatically. When Kairos struck faster, Cassor moved sooner.

  No announcement. No realization.

  Just adjustment.

  Seraphime watched for protest. For confusion. For fear.

  It never came.

  Cassor still tired. Still sweated. Still collapsed into bed at the end of the day with muscles aching and lungs burning. But the recovery came faster now, slipping into him overnight instead of lingering through the morning.

  By the third day, he no longer mentioned it.

  By the fifth, he no longer hesitated.

  By the seventh, Seraphime brought new clothing without explanation, and Cassor thanked her without asking why.

  That frightened her more than the growth ever had.

  “You’re quiet today,” she said once as they walked the corridor together.

  Cassor shrugged. “I don’t feel bad.”

  “I didn’t ask if you felt bad,” she replied gently.

  He glanced up at her, puzzled. “Should I?”

  Seraphime stopped walking.

  Cassor stopped too, instinctively matching her pace without realizing it.

  She studied him closely. His posture. His balance. The way he stood without shifting his weight, as though the ground had finally agreed with him.

  “No,” she said after a moment. “Not yet.”

  They resumed walking.

  The castle adapted as well.

  Training spaces widened subtly. Doorframes felt more forgiving. Schedules bent around Cassor’s pace without being rewritten outright. Where he lingered, lessons stretched. Where he moved quickly, they tightened.

  Normalization.

  That was the word Athelya used later, voice sharp with dislike.

  “He is no longer an exception,” she said. “He is being accounted for.”

  Vaelor did not argue. Marion said nothing. Kairos only smiled, proud in a way that did not reach his eyes.

  Cassor noticed none of it.

  He noticed that his stance felt right now. That his limbs moved where he expected them to. That the world had stopped surprising him with its distance.

  He stopped thinking about his height.

  Stopped comparing reflections.

  Stopped wondering how long this would last.

  The questions did not vanish.

  They simply stopped reaching the surface.

  One evening, Cassor lay in bed with his hands folded over his chest, staring at the ceiling. He felt tired. Not exhausted. Just… used. In the way tools felt after a good day’s work.

  That thought made him smile.

  He fell asleep easily.

  Below the castle, stone settled deeper into itself.

  Above it, the wind adjusted its path.

  That night, Cassor dreamed again.

  Not of halls or lessons or stone.

  He dreamed of standing somewhere small.

  The space felt contained, like the inside of cupped hands. The ground beneath him was firm but warm, not earth exactly, not stone either. He could feel it holding him without pressing back.

  “You are settling,” the familiar voice said.

  Cassor didn’t turn.

  “I don’t feel the same size,” he said instead, staring at his hands. They looked normal here. Smaller. Like they were supposed to.

  “I keep… missing where I think I am.”

  “That is because memory lags behind the body,” the voice replied. “It always does.”

  Cassor frowned. “Is that bad?”

  “No,” the voice said at once.

  Then another voice joined it.

  Softer. Lower. Worn smooth by patience rather than power.

  “You would know if it were,” she said.

  Cassor startled slightly and turned.

  There was still no one to see.

  But the warmth deepened, balanced now, like weight spread evenly across something that would not break.

  “I don’t mean to change,” Cassor said quietly. “It just keeps happening.”

  “Yes,” the first voice agreed.

  “And it needs to,” the second added gently.

  Cassor swallowed. “Why?”

  The ground beneath him shifted—not moving him, just supporting him more completely. His feet felt planted in a way they hadn’t before.

  “You were breaking,” the first voice said. “Slowly. Quietly. In ways no one noticed soon enough.”

  Cassor’s chest tightened. “I was fine.”

  “You were surviving,” the woman corrected. “There is a difference.”

  Cassor didn’t answer.

  “I didn’t feel broken,” he said after a moment.

  “No,” she agreed. “You felt small.”

  That landed harder than anything else.

  The warmth pressed closer, not around him, but through him, like hands guiding without gripping.

  “Your body could not keep pace with what was being asked of it,” the first voice said. “So we helped it.”

  Cassor’s heart began to race. “Helped… how?”

  A pause.

  Careful. Deliberate.

  “We adjusted the timing,” she said.

  “We bent what could be bent,” he added. “And left the rest untouched.”

  Cassor looked down at himself again. At arms that felt steady. Legs that felt strong. A spine that no longer seemed to ache just for existing.

  “Am I… different?” he asked.

  “No,” she said immediately. “You are still you.”

  “And you are not being rushed into something else,” the first voice said. “Only allowed to keep up.”

  Cassor hesitated. “Then what happens to me?”

  There was no answer right away.

  Not because they didn’t know.

  Because the question wasn’t ready yet.

  “You are being given time,” she said at last. “That is all.”

  The warmth eased slightly, like hands pulling back once a knot had been loosened.

  “You will forget this,” the first voice said.

  Cassor frowned. “Why?”

  “Because knowing would make you afraid,” she said gently. “And you don’t need to be.”

  He opened his mouth to argue—

  —and the ground softened beneath him.

  “Sleep,” she said.

  “Grow,” he added.

  Cassor inhaled.

  And the dream slipped away.