System shut down

Adam woke to the same translucent screen hovering before his eyes. The message glowed with cold clarity:  [SYSTEM OFFLINE UNTIL CRIMSON MARK ACTIVATION]  Crimson Mark? Before he could process it, new text flickered:  [SHUTTING DOWN...]  The screen dissolved like smoke.  
Blinking, Adam turned his head and froze.  A stranger stood by his crib.  Her obsidian hair was braided into a severe ponytail, framing eyes sharp as flint. She wore a bulky chestplate emblazoned with a stone golem sigil, its edges trimmed in dark, mossy green. Adam’s gaze swept over her: the calloused hands, the scar above her brow, the way she stood like a rooted oak. Soldier, his mind supplied.  
"ELOWEN!" The woman’s shout cracked like a whip. "The baby’s awake!"  
Footsteps rushed in. Elowen Mother appeared, wiping flour-dusted hands on a sunflower-yellow apron. A wooden spoon jutted from her pocket. She swept Adam into her arms, and he breathed in her scent: honey and rosemary. Moon-pale skin, gold-spun hair, a smile that could mend shattered spirits… Yet when he tried to speak, to demand answers, only a gurgle escaped his throat. Trapped, he seethed. Trapped in this useless flesh.  
Elowen carried him to the sunlit kitchen. Adam’s eyes widened.  Vegetables he’d never seen spilled across the counter: bulbous violet tubers, feathered carrot-tops, peppers that shimmered like captured oil. Elowen’s knife flashed, reducing them to precise, jewel-toned dice.  
The back door banged open.  Cassian Father strode in, heaving a carcass onto the butcher’s block.  The creature defied reason: six stilt-like legs, antlers like gnarled obsidian branches, and a body halfway between stag and nightmare. Elowen gestured with her knife. "Cassian. The haunch, love. Stew meat."  
"Aye, Captain." Cassian winked at Adam. "Look what Daddy dragged home, little man! A thornstag!"  His dagger slid through sinew with practiced ease. Adam watched, mesmerized, until Cassian pried something from the beast’s chest a crystal, no larger than a walnut, pulsing with viridian light. Energy hummed from it, thick as summer humidity, pulling at Adam’s soul. He reached blindly, fingers grasping air.  
Cassian chuckled, rinsed the crystal clean, and pressed it into Adam’s palm.  Raw power.  It flooded Adam’s veins a river of liquid emerald. He shook it; the light inside swirled like captured starlight. Elowen’s laugh chimed behind him. Adam flushed hot… then froze.  Damp. Heavy. Cold.  He’d soiled himself. Mortification burned his cheeks. A warrior… reduced to this.  
Elowen noticed instantly. "Oh, sweetheart! Bath time!"  Minutes later, scrubbed pink and swaddled in fresh linens, Adam lay stewing in his crib. Cassian loomed over him, grinning.  "Right then! Entertainment for His Grumpiness!"  Cassian sang a bawdy tavern tune horribly off-key while jigging like a spooked chicken. Adam stared, stone-faced.  
Undeterred, Cassian pulled a tuft of lamb’s wool from his pocket. He raised his thumb  Fwoosh.  A tiny flame ignited at its tip. Adam’s eyes snapped wide.  Cassian touched the flame to the wool. Fire bloomed… then shaped itself. A miniature man of flickering orange, no taller than Adam’s finger, pirouetted above Cassian’s palm. It cartwheeled, bowed then tripped over an invisible pebble, tumbling into a heap of sparks.  A giggle burst from Adam’s lips sharp, surprised, utterly beyond his control.  
Cassian beamed. "Gotcha!"