[A year before Aether mentored Macus]

  The rain hammered against the shutters of the small attic room, sounding like impatient knuckles rapping on wood.

  Macus, small for his six years, sat on the floorboards. He wasn't playing with blocks; he had a book open on his lap—a cheap, hand drawn pamphlet titled The Deeds of the First Squad.

  He watched his mother, Hellen, brace the door. She wasn't just closing it. She was sliding a heavy iron deadbolt home, her knuckles white with strain.

  "Mother?"

  "Quiet, Macus."

  She checked the lock once. Twice. Then she pressed her ear against the wood, listening to the howling wind outside.

  "Is it the monsters?" Macus asked, his voice trembling slightly.

  "Tricks," Hellen corrected, turning back to him. Her face was pale, her eyes possessing a scary kind of clarity. "The war left behind... bad things. Things that try to look like us. The neighbors call them Mimics."

  Macus hugged his knees. "The things that hiss in the dark?"

  "Yes. They wear the faces of good men to get inside," she whispered. "So we lock the door. We never open it after dark. Not for anyone. Not even if they sound like someone we love."

  Macus looked down at his pamphlet. The illustration showed the First Champion standing tall, surrounded by his squad. Heroic. Untouchable.

  "My father..." Macus hesitated. "I read the stories. Was Father... was he one of them? Did he fight as a hero?"

  Hellen froze. The memory didn't ask for permission. It just took her. She didn't see the attic anymore. She saw the smoke. The square collapsing. The promise ringing in her ears: "I’ll come back, no matter what."

  And she remembered what came back. The figure trembling in the mist. The smell of ozone and rotting meat. The hand of scorched iron reaching out to her in a desperate, silent plea.

  She had told it to stay away, her voice acting as the bolt that finally locked the door. And the monster—the thing that wore her husband’s face—had listened.

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  "He..." She began, her voice rough, sinking onto a stool. "He made a promise. To me. To us. But he made another promise first. To the city. To the Watch."

  Macus watched her, sensing the shift in the air. This was the same look Master Aether would later have—the look of men who survived something they shouldn't have.

  "That was his mistake, Macus. Heroes... they feel too much. They hear a cry in the dark and they open the door. They put strangers before themselves because their hearts are too loud to ignore.

  "Did the Champion save him?"

  "The Champion?" She let out a short, bitter laugh. "The Champion is why he is gone. Your father stood on that line. He gave everything so the Champion could have his glory. So the ‘Sun’ could shine, and he was left in the ash."

  She gripped Macus's shoulders, her fingers digging in hard enough to hurt.

  "That is what empathy does. It burns you up from the inside until there's nothing left but a husk. Or worse... something that comes back wrong. He feels too much, and then he returns emotionless."

  She shook him gently, her eyes wide with desperate intensity.

  "You can serve, Macus. You can work. You can be smart. But never... never let yourself care enough to be a Hero. Heroes don't come home. Only the survivors do. Lock your emotions here. Or the Queen will take it."

  She pressed her hand against his chest, over his heart.

  "Lock it," she commanded, her voice a harsh whisper. "Lock your heart like we lock this door. If you feel pity, you stifle it. If you feel fear, you calculate. If you feel love... you hide it where the world cannot find it. Promise me."

  Hellen lost her husband's body; she lost her son's soul to keep him breathing. She tried to save him from becoming a monster by suppressing his own humanity.

  Macus looked at the heavy iron deadbolt on the door. He imagined his chest was made of the same cold iron. He felt the tears threatening to spill, the fear, the grief for a father he barely knew.

  He took a breath. The tears stopped. His face went slack, his eyes losing their shine, turning into flat, analytical mirrors.

  He looked at the locked door, then at the book of heroes in his lap. He closed the book.

  He understood now. The sword didn't save you. The shield didn't save you. Only the lock saved you.

  "I won't, Mama," he whispered. "I'll just be the support."

  Years later, in the Academy archives, Macus would search for the truth. He would scour every Bestiary, every field report, every dissection log. He would look for the "Mimics"—the creatures that hissed in the dark and wore the faces of loved ones.

  He found nothing.

  There were no Mimics. There were only Ghouls, Golems and Drudges, but nothing that stole a face to trick a child. It was a lie. An old wife's tale born of grief and hysteria, used to keep children in bed.

  Macus knew this. He was a man of science. He knew monsters didn't knock.

  But the fear had rewired his senses. He learned to inhale before he opened a door. He learned to check the air for the sharp tang of ozone or the sweet, cloying stench of rot.

  He knew there were no mimics. But every time he smelled ozone... he still checked the lock.