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There's no exact time that a Graceling will reveal themselves. Often, the eyes change between the ages of two and five, but sometimes as late as twelve years old. And even when their eyes change, most Gracelings don't yet know what their Grace is.
Cross is eight when his right eye suddenly turns blood red overnight.
Suddenly, no one will talk to him, except for his siblings, and even they're hesitant. His mother is dead now, has been for years from some illness, but his stepmother refuses to even look at him, or leave Alphys with him as she often had before.
Alphys shows no fear of him, but she's only a baby. She doesn't know better. And Papyrus is quiet, even when there are no adults around.
His father has rarely paid him attention, except to order him to be perfect, and now he won't even look at Cross. There's disgust in his eyelights, and malice in the sharp frown he wears.
Eight years wasted on training a Graceling to be king. Eight years down the drain, because Nix would never accept a Graced king, especially not in the wake of King Gaster, who hated Gracelings for all things except their usefulness. He would have to start from scratch, with his second son, Prince Papyrus, because Cross would now be excluded from the line of heirs.
It's very lonely. Cross takes to sleeping in the kennels with the hunting dogs — beautiful pointers with sleek, dappled coats and sweet demeanors. He has to be very quiet, because the stableboys don't like it, but even though no one wants a Graceling around, no one wants to antagonize one, either.
It takes a month for the first attempt on his life to be made.
He doesn't think when the stableboy rushes him, aiming a knife at his sternum. He knows intrinsically what to do — drop to the ground, round quickly before the stableboy readjusts his grip, throw him into the gravel by an arm, disarming him in the process. The knife clatters against the stone of the castle as the stableboy goes down.
The yard is silent. Cross shakes with fear. The only sound he can hear is his soulbeat, and his bones rattling. Even the hounds and horses make no noise.
Three days later, he's roused from in between the dogs by a guard.
"The king has requested you," the guard retrieving him says gruffly. It's not outright unkind, but he shows the same unwillingness to interact with Cross as every other person in the castle.
He leads Cross to the throne room in silence, taking care to stay a few steps ahead of the young prince. He stops outside of the fortified doors, clearly expecting Cross to go on by himself.
Slowly, Cross opens the door. The throne room is quiet, the silence broken only by the door clicking shut. His father sits on his throne, dangerous and mean looking. There are several soldiers flanking him, and lining the walls, but no one else present.
He doesn't know what to expect, but a human soldier ambushing him from the side isn't it.
Unlike the stableboy, this man is armed with a sword and carries a shield with the insignia of King Gaster on it. Cross is unarmed, but he knows a bit of magic…
He knows it won't be enough, and he wonders if his father called him here just to kill him. Having a Graceling child mars his image, and Cross is all to aware of that. No one would fault him for killing the crown prince just to rid his line of Gracelings.
The soldier swings his sword, and Cross only just manages to duck and stumble back before he would have been decapitated. He feels the sting of the sword's point on his cheek, below his cursed eye, as he lands on the hard tile. He scrambles back up quickly, lunging for the soldiers leg.
For all he's young and inexperienced, at least he has the advantage of being small.
He topples the soldier like an ax felling a tree, and the shield and sword fall to the tiles with a clatter that rings out in the silence of the throne room. The sword slides towards the throne, before Gaster stops it with his heavy boot.
Cross bows his head, awaiting judgment. The wound beneath his eye stings, and hot blood drips down his skull.
His father says nothing, and suddenly he's being pulled backwards by his neck. His feet leave the floor, and in a wild attempt to save himself, he calls on what little magic he knows —
Cross collapses to the ground with a clatter. A heavy weight falls on top of him, and when he manages to force himself up and out from whatever is on top of him, he stumbles backwards.
The weight on his back was the attacking soldier, now dead. His head hangs at an awkward angle, knocked aside by the end of the bone construct that impaled him from the ground upward and killed him.
Cross killed that man.
"You are dismissed, Cross," his father says. Shaking, Cross scampers towards a side door, and makes his escape from the throne room.
When he makes it to a corridor he deems safe, he collapses to the ground against a wall. Skeletons don't need to breathe, but he's hyperventilating. His vision is blurring and his head hurts.
He killed that man. Worse, he thinks that his father had ordered the man to kill him instead.
He doesn't sleep with the dogs that night. He hardly sleeps at all, in fact, laying awake in the darkness of his room with his soul pounding against his ribs.
There's a note on the table in his sitting room when he wakes up. It takes him a few minutes to decipher, because he's not that good at reading yet, but he knows it's from his father. His elegant yet blocky handwriting leaves no room for any alternative.
It's asking him to report to the throne room. Again.
Cross doesn't have much in the way of possessions — the culture in Nix isn't very materialistic — but he does have a small dagger left to him by his mother. He has no idea how to use it, but it makes him feel better to have it attached to his belt.
He doesn't remember his mother much, except that she was kinder than his father, and that she loved him very much. He doesn't know if she would have changed her mind upon finding out he was Graced, but he hopes not.
His stomach is leaden as he enters the throne room again, but today it's much emptier. His father sits on the throne looking bored, flanked by two of his guards. Otherwise, the room is empty, and Cross relaxes slightly.
"Your Grace has proved that it will be useful," his father says, wasting no time. "A fighting Grace is among the rare useful Graces, when honed to sharpness."
Cross says nothing, keeping his head bowed.
"You no longer have any claim to the throne," Gaster continues, and Cross flinches, but otherwise tries not to let his discomfort show. "If you weren't my flesh and blood, and if your Grace weren't useful, I would cast you out to the streets. Know that. Know it and use that as your motivation to sharpen your Grace."
"Yes, sir," Cross whispers.
"Papyrus will take the title of Crown Prince, and you will retain the title of Prince in public only," Gaster finally looks at him, his eyes hard. "However, you are effectively disowned. Understand this, I am allowing this because you are useful ; with a Grace such as yours, and your connection to us as our kin, it behooves me to keep you close."
"Yes, sir."
"Beginning today, you will begin training under Lady Toriel. She will also replace your tutors." His father sighs, looking annoyed. "She was the only one willing to teach you, as a Graceling. You owe her a debt, for taking you on will surely ostracize her." Another annoyed sigh. "Do you understand? You have put us all into quite a bind, Cross ." His name is sneered, like it's no better than a curse word.
"Yes, sir. I understand," Cross croaks.
"Then you are dismissed. Lady Toriel is waiting for you in the East courtyard."
"Yes, sir."
His feet take him to the courtyard without his say-so, and he nearly walks into more than one person. The only reason he doesn't is because everyone is eager to give him a wide berth.
Lady Toriel is examining a flower as he approaches. She's a tall monster, taller than his father, with goat-like features. He's never met her personally, but he's always thought she had kind eyes.
Her eyes are still kind when she turns to lay them on him. "Ah, Prince Cross," she greets. "What a pleasure."
"...Is it?"
Toriel frowns, and then says, "Perhaps we'll start with learning rather than training. Come, come."
She guides him to her rooms, a bright apartment that she shares with her husband. It's much cozier than Cross's rooms, but then again, Cross doesn't have the means to furnish his own rooms, since he's still a child. Anything he has is either standard issue or left from his mother.
"Here, take a seat. Would you like some tea?"
Quietly, he asks, "Do you… have any cocoa?"
"Of course." She lays a clawed hand on his shoulder momentarily as she passes him, and he hears the kettle whistling at her kitchenette. After a few minutes, she returns with two mugs — tea for her, and cocoa for him.
"Why are you so nice?" Cross bursts out as she hands him the cocoa.
"My husband is a Graceling," she replies easily, as though she'd been expecting his outburst. "I am all too familiar with the social exile that being a Graceling brings. To put that on such a young child, even the King's own son…" She shakes her head. "It broke my heart to hear."
"...I'm very sad," Cross agrees with a sniffle.
"I know. I'm very sorry, my child." Toriel sighs. "We cannot change the nature of your upbringing, nor your nature as a Graceling. But when I accepted this post as your tutor and mentor," she looks him in the eyes, her own blazing, "I took it to ensure that you would have a soft place to land."
Brokenly, Cross says, "Thank you." Then, "Did — did you know my mother?"
"Not well," his new mentor admits, taking a sip of her tea. It prompts him to finally drink some of his cocoa, warming the chill in his gut that had settled there when Gaster had started talking. "But I think she would have abhorred the way your father has decided to treat you. She loved you and your brother more than anything, this I know."
Cross nods silently, unwilling to say more lest he let out the sob threatening to erupt.
Toriel is quiet for a few moments more before she asks, "Have you had any training to defend yourself?"
"No." He doesn't know how he defended himself from his would-be assassins, except by sheer fear of dying.
Nodding to herself, Toriel says, "We will start very basic, then. While your Grace has given you the ability to fight back well, it is still somewhat sloppy, from what I've been told." She sighs, making eye contact with him again. "You are a Graceling in Nix. That will not make your path easy. Even if your Grace makes you a good fighter, it will not save your life. Not every time. But I will teach you to save yourself every time. No Grace can save your life, but being smarter and quicker than your enemy can."
"It saved my life twice already," Cross says, not quite a protest.
"Yes," Toriel says, gentler. With soft paws, she guides his shaking hands to the table, saving his cocoa from being spilt on her carpeting. "But…"
"It won't save me every time," he whispers. Tears fall into his lap as he looks away from her burning eyes. "It won't save me when my father decides to send men who have no problems trying to kill me."
Toriel frowns. "I was hoping… that, perhaps, you hadn't come to that conclusion."
"It wasn't hard," Cross croaks. With that, he loses all pretense of put-togetherness, sobbing into his hands. Toriel says nothing, just lets him cry.
…He misses his mother. And just as the thought hits him, his mentor takes him into her arms, and lets him cry against her. She's no substitute for his mother, but she's what he has now, and better than his father.
Overnight, through no fault of his own, Cross lost everything , and he cries for that. More than anything, though, he cries for his mother, lost to sickness before all of this, who can't comfort him through this horrible change.
He hopes that he'll wake up in his mother's arms, with the knowledge that it had all been a twisted, terrifying nightmare.
(He doesn't.)