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If one were feeling unkind, they could say that Phares, aged twelve, had an obsession with death. It was only natural, after all, that one fated to die - slowly and painfully, as if the specter of it alone wasn’t scary enough - would seek it out within tomes. That was how one made sense of the world.
To discover what it was like or what would come after - death was scary, the gap of knowledge was positively frightening.
But there were never any answers to be found, not really. Death. The one frontier one can’t explore without experiencing it. Oh, sure, there were plenty of tales of ghosts who lingered, who died but lived in some kind of inbetween state. Remnants of mana, emotion strong enough to reach out and tether themselves to the world around them. Plenty of tales indeed.
None were able to help him. His studies on death were a retreat, a panicked surrender to his fate that the servants took with relief, with pity, whenever his other studies bore no fruit. It was better than watching him torture himself over the thin stack of books on wyrmscale, none revealing the cure for what was taking him.
Phares grew used to pity, came to despise it for it spoke of inevitability. It was in the siblings’, those who were old enough to know, eyes whenever they talked. Leonidas and Chelle would both try to hide it, but they didn’t bring it up, not after the first time when he stormed off with an "I am going to live." Neither one of them wished to see him in tears again.
Other children in the palace came to think of him as already dead. They'd scatter from him if he drew near, certain that they'd catch it too if they stood too close. But that wasn’t such a bad thing, really. It left more time for his studies.
And he searched and he searched and he searched until fever kept him in bed, until his muscles felt as though they would burst and skin gave way to the piercing mana of scales. He searched on until he hadn’t the strength to turn a page, let alone lift a book.
I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don't want to die. Please. Please.
It was a mantra repeating in his brain. Was he speaking it outloud? He did not know anymore. His body was fading, it was not his own - it was the dragon’s, whatever form he would become. No. He would not die here. He would not. He would not. He would not He would not he would not hewouldnothewouldnothewould…
A sob forces its way out of his chest, loud enough to alert a passing maid. Help arrived. He made it through the night. And the next. His was an ever-growing wish to live and he would accomplish that. No matter the cost. Phares would not be sentenced to the unknown. Not yet. Not so easily.
He stopped reading on death. There was only so much one could glean from theories that had no true backing. His attention shifted, broadened again. If there was naught to be found in books about the subject, then perhaps a passing phrase, a line or two elsewhere would be the key to his survival.
The pain didn’t lessen but became manageable. Or perhaps he became numb to it. Was there much a difference? He continued on, affable to the family when he must be, otherwise figuring and puzzling and discovering the world, all to unlock the riddle that would free him.
And then the Other struck and promised his siblings power beyond their imagine if they would but side with them.
Power only interested him so far as knowledge was a form of it. The purest kind, really. Might can fail. Muscles give and bones broken. Allies can turn their back; be bought and sold. But knowledge?
Knowledge freed him. Let them scrobble over the slightest scraps of power, let them be distracted by the earthly need for supremacy through bloodshed. He would be the victor in the end - and his life would be the prize that showed it.