thief of fate-Chapter 92: The Original Valerian Diaries 3

The sun casting its heat upon the training grounds behind the palace as if it too shared Raine’s constant challenge to the world. I passed by there by coincidence—or so I kept telling myself—because, in truth, I had started passing through this place a lot lately. Not out of love for noise, but for the scene that repeated itself day after day without losing any of its awe.

Raine.

He stood in the center of the sand circle, bare-chested, his sweat glistening under the light, his muscles contracting and relaxing with each movement as if sculpted from living steel. His massive double-edged sword in his hands didn’t look like a tool, but an extension of his own body. And when he moved, it wasn’t a sixteen-year-old boy moving—it was a storm.

He leapt, spun, then landed with his full weight on the ground in a sudden strike that sliced through the air itself, the sword releasing a sound as if thunder had screamed inside the void. A small dust explosion followed and rose around him... and he remained there, in the center, unmoving.

I swallowed hard.

I had never seen him like this in full form, and I... I was his brother.

We lived in the same house, under the same roof, ate from the same tables, bore the same family name, and yet... Raine today seemed like a being of a different kind. Elite talent, relentless training, and an arrogance that suited someone who knew his exact worth.

A voice came from the side, sighing with a bitter humor, cutting off my reverie:

"I swear I’m going to die young because of this damned boy."

I turned to see Thomas, Raine’s servant, carrying three buckets of water, with a towel on top, and on the towel a small box—I didn’t know whether it was full of food or poison. His face was red with exhaustion, his back bent, and he looked like he hadn’t slept well since birth.

"Three extra rounds!" Raine suddenly shouted, spinning his sword and launching again. "And don’t pause the timer, Thomas, if you do I’ll make a pillow out of your skin for my room!"

"Yes, mighty lord Raine the Great, sole source of pure air!" Thomas muttered, loud enough for me to hear. "I wish I were a donkey’s servant; at least I’d get to rest twice a day."

I couldn’t hold it in—I laughed.

Thomas turned to me quickly, his eyes gleaming with false hope: "Ah, Master Valerian! Did you come to take my place? Your servant Carlos is a kind man—let’s switch roles! You don’t demand the impossible from people, right?"

I shook my head, laughing, as I continued watching Raine, who hadn’t even noticed our presence.

"Is he always like this?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

"No, no... sometimes he’s worse." Thomas replied, setting the buckets down and breathing deeply like it was his last moment in life. "He asked me yesterday to wake him at four in the morning to start training on ice. And later that same day, he asked why I looked tired! Don’t ask me how he’s still alive."

I watched Raine performing a strange strike I’d seen once in a book, one that required nearly impossible muscle coordination.

"He’s strong..." I said it unconsciously.

Thomas looked at me, then at Raine, then back at me and said coolly, "Don’t say that in front of him. His ego’s inflated enough already—he’s convinced his strikes can split mountains. Next time he’ll ask me to build him a small mountain in the garden to train on."

I chuckled quietly, but deep inside, the joke wasn’t enough to hide the real feeling growing within me.

Raine was astounding.

Unmatched power. Confident, wild, afraid of nothing, and unlike us other Lockard siblings.

Even as I laughed at Thomas’s misery, I couldn’t ignore the small desire sprouting inside me... to one day be as strong as Raine, even for a second.

To have people look at me the way they look at him.

To be remarkable.

But I stayed where I was, watching

the sword rise and fall in Raine’s hand as if it had no weight, the moves that were supposed to take years to master executed as if he had been born with them.

Everything about him was loud.

His muscles, his steps, his voice, even his breath... all declared his existence to the world, saying: I am here, and no one is above me.

But despite everything, I never wanted him to see me as like him.

I didn’t envy Raine, nor Claire, nor Alexis.

Because long ago... I found something within myself.

It wasn’t a shining star. It wasn’t an earth-shattering power, nor a magic that painted the sky.

But it was there.

Something hidden, deep, quiet... that no one else saw.

I understood people.

Simply, I understood them.

Sometimes from a single glance, a sigh, a clench of a fist, a word thrown carelessly—I knew.

I knew what they were thinking, what worried them, what they hated, what they were planning.

And sometimes—and this is what scared me at times—I knew what they were going to do before they even did it.

It wasn’t a talent that announced itself, wasn’t rewarded on ceremony day, and no one clapped for it.

But it saved me.

It saved me from embarrassment, from falling, from saying the wrong thing, from trusting the wrong person.

While they trained to strike iron with iron, I trained myself to read the silence between the words.

People think only the strong survive. But I saw what they didn’t.

I saw their small weaknesses, their hidden cracks, their self-deceptions.

And despite my weakness, I didn’t get lost.

I moved through their world, I saw the light in their darkest places.

I remember exactly that day—the day I first saw Alexis differently than everyone else.

It wasn’t just a passing glance or an ordinary meeting. It was an exceptional moment, a moment when I discovered something deep inside him that no one else could clearly see. His tears weren’t visible, and his screams weren’t heard, but he carried a deep sorrow, one that wasn’t obvious except to someone who could read between the lines, between the glances and the spoken words.

I was watching Alexis from afar, in one of the study rooms where he sat alone, playing with a drop of transparent liquid in a test tube. His hand trembled slightly, and his eyes looked as if they were trapped between two oceans of pain and fear. He seemed immersed in his own world—a world filled with riddles, poisons, and potions.

In that moment, I felt something strange creeping into my heart.

I knew his sadness wasn’t just a fleeting loss, but a deep wound. It felt like I was reading an open book sealed with unwritten words.

I had no proof except for that look. Alexis didn’t say much, but in his silence, he said a lot.

Then I saw my father.

Despite his cold face and the silence we’d grown used to, I couldn’t help but feel something else surrounding him in that moment. He was searching.

Searching for something that had no clear form in that moment. A cure? Hope? An answer to a pain he didn’t know how to describe?

He stood strong before us all, but in his eyes, I saw an unanswered question, a shadow of pain hidden behind the mask of a leader.

And then there was Claire.

Her usual coldness was like a wall of ice—but not an unbreakable one.

In a rare moment, when she thought no one was watching, I saw a hidden look—perhaps sorrow, perhaps regret.

She didn’t like that pain, but she chose to keep it buried, far from prying eyes, far from gossip, far from our hearts.

That was when I realized for the first time that each of us carried our own private battle.

And that strength wasn’t just in swords or powers, but in the wars we fought deep within ourselves, in silence.

My ability to understand people helped me read those hidden moments.

I understood Alexis more than he understood himself at the time, maybe more than our parents or siblings ever did.

I remembered another moment—when we were all in the grand hall, and the topic of the upcoming tournament came up.

Raien laughed mockingly at Alexis, teasing his slow movements and lack of strength.

But I knew—knew that mocking smile was just a shield hiding his own frustration, that he feared something he hadn’t admitted even to himself.

And Alexis’ cold gaze in return, seemingly indifferent, carried a silent challenge.

I knew that moment wasn’t just about mockery—it was a quiet clash between two of the family’s sons, each hiding his weakness in his own way.

And another time, when Carlos was telling me how Thomas dealt with Raien’s impossible demands, and how Edric always tried to ease Alexis’ burdens, I saw in Carlos’ eyes a silent empathy for Alexis.

He knew that the little genius suffered more than he let on.

All these small, unspoken details gathered in my mind, forming the image of Alexis that no one else saw.

A small man, trapped in a great pain, trying to find his place in this world.