In the estate of House Weisglut, only a few candles burned.

  The flames trembled, as though they felt fear. Not the harmless flicker candles have in a draught, but a nervous trembling, as if even fire had to consider whether it was allowed to stay.

  The air smelled of old wax, cold stone, and something metallic—like rain on iron. Every breath seemed thicker than it should be, as though the room itself decided how much oxygen you had to earn. The silence wasn't empty. It was taut, like a wire about to snap.

  On the desk, old books, parchment scrolls, and apparatus of runestone were piled high. Some of the instruments were so finely crafted they looked more like art—and at the same time so cold that one instinctively wondered what they were meant for. Among it all lay a single sheet.

  The spy's report.

  Clean paper. Sober script. As though someone had deliberately avoided placing fear between the lines.

  Gustav Bernard von Weisglut ran his fingers slowly across it.

  His gaze was cold. Calculating.

  He didn't read like a man searching for information. He read like someone inspecting property.

  "Pregnant…" he murmured.

  The pause that followed wasn't surprised. It was appraising.

  "By a peasant."

  A contemptuous snort.

  The report was clear enough to provoke him: Valeria had been holding back for weeks. Recovery after the Shrine Oak Forest. A strange incident the spy had described only in cautious terms. Then calm. Withdrawal. Wolfclaw had retreated to an estate outside a small town. And above all: they weren't constantly at full strength.

  Krent Ingrid and Diamant Flimmer—both frequently away from the house. Escorting beginners. Securing minor dungeons. Routine assignments.

  From a spy's perspective: windows. From Gustav's perspective: a pattern to exploit.

  He let his gaze slide over the final lines. Where the spy had briefly noted when the gate was opened, how often Rubin left the house—and how rarely.

  Rubin Flimmer stayed. The child stayed. And Valeria stayed.

  Gustav's aura filled the room on its own. Heavy. Suffocating. An invisible weight that thickened the air. Not even malicious in the usual sense—more like a law of nature:

  You are small. You belong to me.

  Behind him stood the butler, motionless, head bowed. No one in House Weisglut could endure Gustav's presence for long. Even when Gustav didn't deliberately release his pressure, it constricted the throat. The butler had learned to press the trembling of his fingers into the seams of his coat so that no one would see.

  "So she lives like… what?" Gustav turned the report over, as though the back might offer an excuse. "Like a person."

  The butler said nothing.

  He knew: words were dangerous. Not because Gustav would fly into a rage. But because he didn't have to.

  "And Ingrid plays the hero." Gustav spoke the name as though it were filth. "Iridium, Orichalcum… what does it matter."

  He lifted the sheet, tilted it slightly against the candlelight. The script remained sober. The content did not.

  "A peasant remains a peasant."

  Slowly, Gustav stepped to the window. The glass reflected his silhouette: tall, immaculately dressed, hair neatly swept back. A man who looked as though every room he entered belonged to him.

  But the reflection also showed what truly lived in this room.

  Runes, burned deep into the walls. Ancient symbols, some long since forbidden. Some so old that the Academy no longer even classified them as "dangerous," because they were considered nothing more than legends.

  At Weisglut, legends were tools.

  The runes weren't decoration. They breathed. They responded. When Gustav drew too close, the runestone crackled softly, and the candle flames flinched as though averting their gaze. The temperature didn't drop like weather—it dropped like hope.

  "My Valeria…" His voice was bitter, almost wistful.

  Almost.

  "So clever. So gifted. I instructed you, I shaped you. You could have led Weisglut."

  Stolen story; please report.

  A twitch crossed his face. A brief, wounded memory—not of Valeria as a child, but of the moment she had slipped from his grasp. The instant she had stopped feeling shaped and had started feeling decided.

  "Instead, you waste your potential… at the side of a man who will only dim your light."

  Gustav exhaled. The bitterness gave way to cold clarity.

  He had controlled many things in his life. People. Agreements. Secrets. But blood…

  Blood was the purest form of control.

  Blood couldn't be negotiated. Blood was tradition. Blood was a law that doesn't ask whether you want it.

  "But a grandchild…" he said quietly.

  A single sentence—and the room seemed to accept it, as though it were the only logical consequence.

  "That is something different."

  He placed his hand on the runestone beside the window.

  A soft cracking, as though the stone were breaking apart inside.

  The candle flames trembled one last time—and went out all at once.

  Darkness swallowed furniture, books, parchments. Only the runes remained. Glimmering, like scars that cannot be forgotten. In the shadow, Gustav's gaze shimmered as though his eyes held their own light.

  "Something that can be shaped."

  His voice was calm. Almost gentle.

  That was what made it worse.

  "This child will be my second chance."

  A cold grin.

  Runestone crackled, flashes leapt—short, aggressive impulses that ran across the wall like nerve signals. Somewhere behind him, metal clinked. The butler had unconsciously stepped back.

  Gustav half-turned, as though addressing an invisible audience.

  "Indeed… good news."

  Morning dawned over the Wolfclaw estate.

  Dew gleamed on the fields, the air was fresh and clear. Somewhere a bird called, and for a moment the world looked so harmless, as though it had never learned what blood smells like. The small wood at the edge of the grounds stood still, and the light fell so kindly through the leaves, as though "danger" were a word that existed only in books.

  But already, metallic clanging rang across the courtyard.

  Krent and Diamant stood facing each other. Bodies tense, gazes sharp. Every strike was routine. Every step like a dance they had known for twenty years—only today there was no fury in it. No haste. Just work.

  Krent drove the twin blades in fast, clean arcs. Blue sparks leapt across the edges, crackling like brief breaths of light. He attacked as though running through a list in his head: tempo, angle, distance, repetition.

  Diamant, on the other hand, moved as though he were never fighting steel but time. A step too early, a centimetre to the side, a wrist turned at the right moment—and Krent's slash ran into nothing, without Diamant even needing to "block."

  Krent growled between attacks: "Hey, Diamant… playing babysitter today?"

  He jerked his chin toward the bench at the edge of the courtyard.

  There sat Smaragd.

  Legs dangling, hands on her knees, eyes wide awake. She followed every movement as though counting blades. Beside her lay a wooden block that might once have been a toy—but by now looked more like a victim.

  Diamant grinned. "That's called fatherhood, Krent. But you won't understand that for a few more months."

  "Hmph." Krent struck. Diamant evaded, so narrowly the draught brushed his sleeve. "I train while you change nappies."

  Diamant let Krent's next slash slide off and tapped him on the shoulder. Not hard—just enough that Krent had to reset two steps.

  "Please." Diamant grinned broadly. "I've been raising you for twenty years. Smaragd is the lesser challenge."

  Krent froze mid-motion. "WHAT did you just say?!"

  "You heard me."

  Krent charged. The twin blades whirled, sparks flew. This time it wasn't fury but defiance—that old, familiar defiance that tasted more like I'll get you than I'm breaking.

  Diamant laughed, didn't intercept the first attack but let it pass. At the second, he only half-turned away. At the third, he was suddenly standing where Krent was in his own way.

  "You're getting slower," Diamant said.

  "I'm getting more precise," Krent snarled, pressing the attack.

  Smaragd clapped her hands with delight. Her laughter mingled with the ring of the blades. She kicked her feet in the air, as though feeling the rhythm.

  "Papa!" she called.

  Diamant threw her a glance that was instantly softer than any counter.

  Krent noticed and grinned crookedly. "You look like she just shot a dragon."

  "She's magnificent," Diamant said with complete sincerity.

  "She eats dirt," Krent returned.

  "Also magnificent."

  Smaragd giggled, as though she had understood the tone.

  Then she tilted her head. Very slowly. As though she were not merely watching but thinking. As though she were sorting the movements in her small mind and wondering whether she could do it too.

  She raised her hand and made a clumsy, small gesture—an attempt to mimic Krent's blade-spin. Her fingers twitched, as though grasping for something only she could see.

  A soft flicker.

  The air beside her stumbled for a heartbeat, like heat rising from a stone in summer. Nothing explosive. Nothing loud. More like a brief glitch in reality.

  And then there stood… a second Smaragd.

  Not truly "stood"—she was simply there. As though someone had cut the child out of the room once more and placed her beside herself. Clean. Perfect. No transition. The light fell equally on both. Both had their hands on their knees. Both watched, wide awake.

  Both giggled in unison.

  Krent and Diamant froze so abruptly that even the sparks on Krent's blades seemed to stand still for a moment.

  "Erm…" Krent rubbed his eyes. "Did you just see that too?"

  Diamant was dead serious. "No, Krent. That was merely a trick of the senses." A blink. Then the corner of his mouth twitched. "Of course I saw it!"

  The right one—or the left?

  Smaragd laughed even louder.

  Then the other one laughed just the same.

  And as if that weren't enough, both clapped at the same time. Proud as a kitten that had caught its first mouse.

  Krent pointed at one, then the other. "Okay. Okay, that's…"

  "Impressive," Diamant said.

  And it didn't just sound like amusement. It was that brief, clinical wonder he only showed when something rare lay before him. A look that was already collecting data in his mind.

  "She just… created an illusion," Krent murmured, his tone wavering between laughter and alarm. "At eighteen months…"

  Smaragd giggled.

  Both giggled.

  And this time it stayed that way: two perfect mirror images enjoying their own trick as though it were the most normal thing in the world.

  Diamant's gaze lingered on them a beat too long.

  A child who awakens this early… that's a blessing. But also a risk.

  He blinked—and the moment was gone. The grin returned, smaller this time, more controlled.

  "Good," Diamant said, raising his hand again as though he had decided the world could wait a little longer before being taken seriously. "One more round."

  Krent grinned. "This time without the insults."

  "Then try harder."

  The blades met again.

  Sparks sprayed, the courtyard came alive once more.

  And Smaragd kept laughing—twice as bright.