He took a step toward the latch. Halted. Looked at his hands.

  Blood. The smear of iron.

  Finlay scoured the stains from his skin until the water ran clear, then slipped into the adjoining room to find clothes—and froze.

  The first thing he saw was himself.

  More accurately: his naked, still-damp reflection in a large mirror, occupying far more of the wall than was strictly necessary.

  "Wow."

  He stayed a beat too long.

  He looked good. Striking face. Sharp jawline. Black hair that fell correctly even soaking wet. But his eyes caught the light—and refused to give it back. Two bottomless pits of ink, tempting fools to barter their souls for a single glance.

  Finlay’s fingers slid over the glass. Even he was tempted.

  Absolutely.

  Not even slightly.

  After a week as a walking corpse held together by spite and starvation, seeing himself healthy felt like a luxury he'd earned the right to acknowledge.

  Still, his little sister was waiting. He filed the narcissism away for later.

  "Tribute-grade face," he murmured, gliding past the mirror. "Black hair. Cute eyes."

  The closet offered what it offered—which wasn't much, by Noble House standards. But then, he was the Esterra bastard. The single dark stain on a canvas of white. He lacked their divine blood, and in its place held something far more lethal: a soul that belonged to no one.

  His hands moved with a life of their own, plucking garments from the shadows. High-born instinct was stitched into the muscle; a refined weight governing every movement. The kind trained into a child before they're old enough to resist it.

  Dressed. No longer naked. Satisfied, he moved toward the exit.

  Cutting through the clinging frost, his calloused hand seized the worn sheath from the table. No conscious command. His nerves had simply bypassed his mind, seeking the familiar bite of the steel—the Beggar's Sword.

  He stared down at it.

  Real classy, Finlay.

  His hard knuckles locked, refusing to let go. The weight of the tattered sheath felt natural. Like home.

  "Okay. Whatever."

  He snapped the strap to his belt. The metal sat heavy against his thigh—an expectant, mute passenger.

  Before he turned, he picked up the heavy dark scarf from the chair and wound it twice around his neck, tucking his chin into the wool. A small pocket of warmth. Something to carry into the cold.

  He lifted the latch.

  The hallway’s chill rushed in like a predator, biting at his still-damp skin. He shivered, his gaze tracking the frost along the floor until it collided with her.

  A twin born of the same hour, yet from a different cradle. She barely reached his chest, but anchored the entire hallway: presence that rearranged space just by existing alone.

  Sharp jawline. White hair. Eyes the color of something frozen very deep and very long ago—glacial blue pits that didn't tempt the soul; they simply froze the one you had.

  His little sister. Attuned to Vael so perfectly it was said she could hear its breath. A that had outlived the sun in his memories and remained to mock the dark.

  Yet here she was, standing behind a door like a forgotten ghost.

  Finlay’s smile fractured the icy silence. It was a raw, aching warmth that forced the shadows to retreat for the first time in an age.

  "Welcome home to the dirt, "

  Looking at her flawless face, it was hard to believe she'd just returned from the front lines of the Wastelands—, where only monsters and those who hunted them survived.

  Her gaze lingered on the soft, kin-warmth of his face, only to snag on the worn hilt at his belt.

  Her expression didn't change, but a trace of distaste flickered in those glacial depths—sharp and cold, as if she had just noticed a cockroach crawling across his heart.

  She responded with a single nod.

  His smile didn't falter.

  Real refined, Finlay.

  "Young Lady, you shouldn't have. I could have escorted the young master myself..."

  Only then did he notice another woman, standing slightly apart from Remy.

  Guilty expression. Head slightly bowed. She was a blind spot in the world. Even looking directly at her, his mind refused to register her presence. Only the sunken, pitch-black circles beneath her eyes were solid.

  Leah. Remy's sworn . Her Keeper. And like all living blades bound to the Esterra Direct Line, she was of noble birth.

  Though Finlay doubted his sister needed a guardian at all. Few possessed the reach to her.

  Where Remy was pristine, her Shadow was a tattered thing. Her uniform was a frantic collection of tears and gnawed seams, with unclosed gashes cutting through the alabaster skin beneath. Even the white lace was tainted with gray dust—a physical reminder that in the Wastelands, even a nightmare like her was not enough.

  So he’d learned to rely on his own two hands. In everything. Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, he’d just stare at his raw knuckles and realize he’d forgotten the weight of another person's help.

  Remy waved her hand.

  "Enough, Leah. You’ve carried this day far enough. Just... sleep."

  "But..."

  Leah didn’t look back at her mistress. Instead, she pinned Finlay with a stare that felt like a warning in the dark—a desperate, protective wall thrown up against a gravity she couldn't name.

  Finlay felt unfairly accused. His smile grew even warmer, a mask of innocence.

  The warmth seemed to make it worse as Leah's expression tightened. Then, the voice fell.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "Leave. Us. A"

  Remy didn’t raise her tone—if anything, it grew even . But a cold shudder tore through her Shadow like a serrated fang. Leah recoiled.

  "Young Lady, you—"

  Silence stretched between them, souring until the protest on the maid’s tongue withered into bitterness. Only then, with a slow, stiff motion, did she incline her head in defeat.

  "...Whatever you say, My Lady."

  One last look at Finlay—searching, wounded, filed away as a warning he hadn't earned yet. Then a glance at her mistress that carried the specific injury of being dismissed by the person you'd bled for.

  "Fine. I'll take a bath, Remy. Then bed. "

  She didn't wait for a reply. Leah vanished as abruptly as she had arrived, leaving only the bitter echo of her words behind.

  Remy didn't flinch. Her eyes lingered on her brother for a moment before she turned and walked.

  "Let's go. is convening a Family Dinner for the first time in years. No one is allowed to be absent."

  Finlay flinched.

  There was only one person his little sister called

  Goosebumps crawled across his skin.

  He followed her anyway.

  ****

  Outside, a wave of warmth rolled over Finlay like a tide.

  The air was thick with summer. Golden sunlight pouring from a cloudless sky, almost too bright to be real. The chirping of birds echoed from every direction, weaving a melody of life and ease.

  The Esterra Estate was basking in its full, arrogant prime. The kind of day poets would immortalize and painters would fail to capture.

  Finlay’s jaw ground.

  This place wasn't just large. It was an to logic. For a mortal man, crossing the Estate in a day wasn't a journey; it was a geographic impossibility. A feat of endurance that would have reduced a marathon runner to a heap of rusted gears and pulverized bone.

  This place spat upon efforts. But for the Esterra bloodline? Nothing more than a small backyard, crossed at will.

  , he thought.

  A lie. A beautiful, wretched lie.

  The resort was a shivering shadow on a forgotten peak—a splintered box of decaying pine that offered a "celestial view" through a gaping hole in the roof, inviting the rain to feast on his bones. His "ergonomic bed" was a pile of flea-ridden rags, and the "artisanal mud-bath" nothing more than the famished earth swallowing his floor. It was a tomb of damp rot and slow starvation, a wretched insult to the golden arrogance of the Estate.

  It was a beautiful lie, etched in marble and spite.

  The Estate spat that spite back at him. They cut through the hush of the sun-warmed stone paths, moving past buildings that loomed like tongueless, ornate judges.

  Gardens sprawled in every direction, strangled by ponds as clear as glass. Trees from distant continents stretched their skeletal branches toward the sky, while exotic birds flickered through the foliage like stolen jewels. Fish long extinct in the outside world swam in stagnant, royal perfection.

  Paradise was etched into every horizon. Of course, Finlay had a slightly different view of his surroundings.

  His gaze drifting to the bone-white limbs near the east path.

  The memory was as jagged as the bark. Upside down. For three hours. Until he vomited.

  Crystal clear, fish moving lazily beneath the surface.

  Nearly drowned twice. He could still taste the stagnant water.

  Good times.

  An unconscious smile traced his face.

  His gaze drifted toward the Beggar's Sword. Lingered on the hilt like a glutton eyeing a particularly greasy steak.

  The promise settled in his gut like a slab of raw, gristly meat—something heavy and blood-rich that he would take his time to chew.

  Servants moved through the grounds around them: gliding past with trays, shearing hedges with surgical care, offering greetings as they came. Cross-shaped hand gestures. Blessings.

  "Good day, Young Lady. Young Master."

  "May the mercy of the Sun always be with you."

  The usual treatment of Finlay—blank-space, furniture, architectural feature—didn't survive Remy's presence. Her proximity forced propriety. Even he got a smile.

  , he thought.

  A universal truth, etched in every language he’d ever known: the small only survived in the shadow of the great.

  He stole a glance at as she traced the path ahead.

  By blood, they had entered the world on the same sun-bleached day. From different cradles. 'Little sister' was a fiction—a desperate habit of the tongue he used to bridge the chasm between them.

  For Remy was a sacred vessel. In her veins ran the distilled starlight of Vael, a lineage so pure the air seemed to bow in her presence. She was the zenith of Esterra, a blinding spark of the celestial.

  Finlay, however, was the dregs.

  He was the hollow space where the miracle had failed to catch. Not a single drop of that primordial legacy had survived in him; he was a stain of common clay in a house of marble. Where she was an ice sculpture, he was the rough-hewn stone beneath her feet.

  A lie. A beautiful, accursed lie. Because without the air-choking cold that radiated from her divinity, she would have been the shining image of a lively sister—a girl of simple warmth and ringing laughter. A little thing who tugged at sleeves and made unreasonable demands and pretended not to care when you noticed.

  Instead, she was a gilded masterpiece, exquisite and utterly untouchable.

  

  The warning came without form—a silent wave through the space that his body registered before his mind did.

  The world stuttered.

  The vibrant colors of the Estate collapsed into gray ash. Nausea slammed into him with the force of something physical, bile lurched hot and bitter.

  Gone. As abruptly as it had arrived.

  In its wake: pressure. Leaden. Absolute. Originating somewhere behind his eyes and radiating outward until his skull felt like a fault line about to snap. He halted, clamping his head, his nails digging into the skin—not enough—he needed to reach the screaming pressure beneath the bone. Heat was hunting something specific; something primordial tucked away in his marrow.

  The Sun.

  His thoughts were dissolving into a viscous, white-hot slurry where the very sense of began to slag and run. He was the stutter in reality. The fracture in the light. The amber wool. Nothing left but Incandescence, and INCANDESCENCE was a furnace screaming his name—

  Then, a touch.

  A cool palm pressed against his drenched forehead, cutting through the inferno. It was a hand. Slender. Brittle. Yet defying the fire.

  The world dragged itself back into focus, bleeding color into the gray. The pain subsided.

  "Brother. Are you well?"

  Her fingers traced the line of his brow, wiped the salty beads. The moisture didn't just dry; it seemed to crystallize instantly under her freezing touch, turning into a fine, white rime.

  She looked down at the bitter sheen left on her skin, rubbing her thumb across her fingertips until the grit was gone.

  "I'm... fine." He found his voice somewhere. "Thank you, Little Star."

  She nodded once.

  [ the touch—]

  He didn't look away from Remy. Didn't blink.

  To the Celestial—whatever he was, whatever he thought he was looking at—she could be anything. To Finlay, she was just Remy. Had always been just Remy. Would be just Remy until the world ran out of days.

  She turned to lead the way. He stopped her.

  "Remy." He unwound the scarf from his own neck and wrapped it around hers, tucking it until only two blue eyes looked back at him from the thick wool. "Stay warm."

  "...It's the middle of summer."

  "Does this change anything?"

  She looked at him from inside the wool. Said nothing.

  A long, quiet exhale moved through his Soul: not resentful, not theatrical. Just tired in the way that things are tired when they've been carrying something without being asked.

  [Just , little spark.]

  The Sun said no more.

  Finlay pressed his fingers to his temples and tried to stitch the scorched edges of his focus as they walked. One seam at a time.

  When he looked around, the Estate had returned to its perfection. It was all too seamless—a flawless loop. Servants glided through their routines with puppet-like grace. Gardeners sheared the hedges with surgical precision; maids hurried past, their trays as steady as if they were part of their own limbs.

  Almost as before.

  "…Huh."

  He blinked. Blinked again.

  Something flickered above the head of a passing gardener—a distortion. A fracture in the golden afternoon.

  Finlay's feet halted.

  He focused through the throb behind his eyes until the blur resolved into something solid.

  A translucent, carved Pawn hovered inches above the man's head, bobbing in time with each step.