My mother isn’t cruel enough to say it outright, but I know that the day I came into the world was a disappointment to her.

A powerful apothecary like her wouldn’t want a weak Spring daughter like me.

In this world every person is born with the ability to harness magic of the season they were born into, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Unfortunately not all seasons are equal. Only those of Summer and Winter alignments have the privilege to dream about becoming academics, mages, or anything else with any prestige.

Those aligned to Spring and Autumn must settle for less. 

I was my parent’s first child, so maybe that’s why I can still feel the weight of what could have been.

They even consulted with an astrologer to predict the ideal week of Summer for me to be born in. They kept that part a secret, but I found the records by chance while we were cleaning our little library six years ago. 

“Don’t fret, Len.” My younger brother Ash had once said. “They would have had one made for you too if they could have afforded it then. It’s lucky they had the money for mine!”

I had always known I was premature, but finding those papers confirmed a dreadful feeling I couldn’t quite put my finger on. 

Despite their best efforts and the predictions of a mage, I stubbornly arrived two weeks early. On the last day of Spring.

Just one more day and things would have been different. I've spent so many nights wishing I had waited one more day.

Spring is a frustratingly weak magic to be aligned to, and any hopes that I might inherit the family apothecary were stolen from me by that single day of difference. 

That didn’t disparage my mother long though. Ash was born in the height of the following Summer.

The perfect heir.