The fire crackled gently, weaving its golden warmth through the quiet house. Nathaniel and Eleanor sat close on the old couch, and there, nestled between them, was Kenji—his head resting sleepily against Eleanor’s shoulder, small fingers curled loosely around the hem of Nathaniel’s coat.

  I stood at the edge of the room, half-hidden in the doorway, a cloth still clutched absently in my hand. I didn’t speak. I didn’t move. I just watched.

  They were safe. Whole again. Together.

  And my heart ached with something I couldn’t quite name.

  A family. My family, in every way but blood.

  A small smile tugged at my lips as I leaned my shoulder against the frame. I let myself soak in the moment. The boy I had raised. The man I had followed. The woman I had come to admire.

  How far we’d come.

  But it hadn’t always been like this.

  I remembered another house. Grand. Cold. The halls of House Valmont perched atop cliffs where the sea wailed like a grieving ghost. I was born there, the daughter of a maid, raised beneath high windows and higher expectations. I was taught not to speak unless spoken to. Not to dream. Not to leave a mark.

  My childhood was a life of muted footsteps and bowed heads. I watched my mother rise before dawn and work until long after sunset, her back aching, her hands cracked from soap and cold water. We lived in a room no rger than a storage closet. I never knew what warmth meant—not the kind that came from hearts instead of hearths.

  Yet, in that silent world of polished marble and tighter smiles, there was Nathaniel.

  The second son of House Valmont.

  He should have grown bitter, overshadowed by an older brother who wore cruelty like a crown. But Nathaniel didn’t. He noticed people others ignored. He smiled. He helped. He shone.

  Even as children, I admired him from the shadows—watching him speak to stable boys with the same ease he showed to nobles. He was everything I wasn’t allowed to be. And perhaps I loved him long before I knew what that word meant.

  He wasn’t supposed to be anything. Second sons weren’t heirs. They weren’t warriors or rulers. They were insurance—just in case.

  But Nathaniel refused to be invisible. He trained harder than anyone. Studied deeper. Fought for a pce no one wanted to give him. While his brother wasted coin and sneered from velvet chairs, Nathaniel was in the yard before sunrise, sword in hand, sweat clinging to his brow. He sparred with knights twice his size and won. He read books others ignored and asked questions others feared.

  I remember how the nobles would look at him—like a wild spark in a locked room. Dangerous. Unruly. Alive.

  Then, at seventeen, he decred the unthinkable: he would leave.

  I was there when he told his father.

  The lord sat upon his high-backed chair, the family crest gleaming in the firelight behind him. His face was carved from ice and contempt.

  "You wish to throw away your name, your blood, to chase tavern tales and gutter legends?" his father spat, voice low and venomous.

  Nathaniel stood tall. He didn’t flinch. "I want more than this. More than cold halls and colder hearts. I want to live. I want to fight. I want to see the world beyond these stone walls."

  His father rose slowly, gring down from his pce of inherited power. "You think the world will offer you more than this house? Than your birthright?"

  "I don’t want a life bought in silence," Nathaniel said, voice steady. "I want a life I can call my own. One filled with purpose, not tradition."

  His father circled him with slow, deliberate steps. "Purpose? Your purpose is to endure. To serve the house. That is the legacy of Valmont."

  "Then let that legacy die with you," Nathaniel said. "Because I will not be part of it."

  The lord’s face darkened. "You think you’ll be remembered out there? You’ll vanish like smoke in the wind. Forgotten."

  Nathaniel smiled faintly. "Then I’ll be free in my forgetting."

  His father’s voice rose, shaking the stained-gss windows. "You are no son of mine."

  "And you were never a father," Nathaniel whispered.

  And he left. With nothing but a sword, a pack, and a smile that broke the dawn.

  The house grew colder after that.

  I stayed. Because what else could I do? I worked. I endured. But my heart never quite healed.

  Then, one day, a letter arrived.

  Nathaniel was alive. Married. Living in a nameless vilge far from stone towers and stormy coasts.

  The lord scoffed and dismissed it as a passing whim. But the other nobles—always watchful, always whispering—gave him looks he couldn’t ignore. Their gres, full of disdain and mockery, stung his pride. He needed to save face. To appear generous. So he sent a gift: a small purse of coins and a maid.

  The choice was meant to be random.

  But I made sure it wasn’t.

  I volunteered. I pulled strings. I swapped duties. I bribed and begged and used every favor owed me by the other staff. I memorized the rotation schedule, changed the order of names, and whispered in the right ears. And in the end, when the name was drawn, it was mine.

  If they meant to cast me off, so be it. I had no more ties to that pce.

  Only to him.

  When I arrived, I was nervous. What if he had changed? What if there was no pce for me here?

  But the door opened, and Eleanor greeted me not as a mistress but as a sister. Nathaniel ughed and cpped my shoulder. "Misaki," he said, as if no time had passed. "You made it."

  That night, Eleanor took my hand and said, "You’re not a maid here, Misaki. You’re family."

  And for the first time in my life, I believed it.

  Seasons turned.

  I found my pce not as a servant but as a steady presence. When Eleanor's belly swelled with new life, I was the one who stayed. Who held her hand through the pain. Who caught Kenji when he came into the world, silent and still.

  He didn’t cry. His little eyes were distant, lost. He didn’t move the way other babies did. Didn’t squirm or wail. Just stared, hollow and still.

  It frightened me. Deeply.

  I feared something in him had broken before life had even begun.

  So I sang. I whispered stories. I wove dreams into his silence until, one day, he smiled.

  But the true change came the day he caught me using magic.

  He had wandered quietly into the kitchen, unnoticed. I was using a small spell to replenish our water, and when I turned, his eyes were locked on the floating waterball—not with fear, but wonder.

  And for the first time… there was light.

  Something lit inside him that day. A spark.

  After that, he began to smile more. His eyes grew brighter. That light—that fragile glow—shines more now than ever before.

  He was never mine. But he became my son just the same.

  A soft sound pulled me back. Laughter.

  The three of them sat together, wrapped in a bnket. The firelight painted them in gold and rose. Kenji’s eyes were half-closed, but his tiny hand rested on Eleanor’s arm, clinging to her even in sleep.

  My chest ached. I turned to leave, to return to the shadows I had grown so used to—

  But Nathaniel's hand found mine.

  He tugged gently, guiding me toward the couch.

  I gasped quietly, heart stumbling.

  Eleanor reached out too, her fingers finding mine.

  Nathaniel smiled. “Look at us. What a happy family we are.”

  I hesitated. The cloth fell from my hand, forgotten.

  Then I sat. Slowly. Cautiously. I leaned into their warmth.

  Eleanor squeezed my hand. “Stay, Misaki. You always pull away when you don’t have to.”

  I swallowed hard, nodding. “I just… didn’t want to intrude.”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “You never intrude. You’ve been the reason we held together.”

  Kenji shifted in his sleep, his head resting lightly against my arm now. I blinked away the tears that rose so quickly.

  And I let myself breathe. Let myself believe.

  For the first time in a lifetime of standing just outside the light… I stepped into it. And maybe, just maybe… I belonged.