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There was no sense in whining about it now, he told himself. What was done was done, and allowing resentment to build up in his heart would do nothing to improve the situation--not for his people and not for himself.

His father had taught him that.

The Lord Salim Najir had been a man of few words. Asad's mother had typically been the one to raise her voice or decide punishment--and between him and his brother Haqq, there'd been plenty of that to go around.

In fact, there was only a single instance in Asad's memory of his father ever sounding angry. Perhaps the rarity of it was precisely why he remembered it so vividly.

It had happened not long after he'd become a servant at the age of fourteen and manifested his "divine" materialization ability. At first, he'd been ecstatic with the discovery. He had the most esteemed power among the Sandlords at his fingertips. What was there to dislike?

He soon found out, when all of his peers began treating him differently. It was like they suddenly thought he was above them--or that he thought he was, perhaps. At that tender age, he couldn't recognize the quiet resentment in their eyes. He couldn't understand why all of his friends suddenly seemed so different.

They weren't mean, of course. That was the confusing part. They were perfectly cordial. They were just... detached. They would still invite him to play with them, to hang out, but they couldn't laugh like they did before. They couldn't relax. It was like everyone was walking on eggshells around him.

If he'd been more emotionally mature, perhaps he would've been able to navigate those relationships better. Instead, he'd started picking fights. For no real reason, either--or at least, none that he could have articulated at the time.