The clearing was tense enough to make the air hum.

  Herephyn stood with one hand raised, the condensed brilliance of divine light swirling like a molten white pearl at his palm, aimed straight at Hilda and Skhav. The two could barely breathe—Skhav’s muscles locked, Hilda’s eyes wide with unthinking dread.

  And yet Lucon looked strangely at ease.

  He tilted his head, tapping his chin as if deciding between wines.

  “I wonder,” he mused aloud, “what the other Fallen Celestari would think if they knew one of their own had declared brotherhood with a mortal?”

  Herephyn scowled, but the sphere of light flickered, his hesitation betraying him.

  “What would that matter?” he snapped, but the conviction was gone from his voice.

  Lucon smiled faintly. “Well, it seemed important enough when those other three divines took you away. They were appalled enough at the idea of you even having a mortal servant.”

  His tone softened into a drawl. “But what about a mortal brother? Surely that’s worse.”

  Herephyn’s jaw tightened, but his attack didn’t come. The hesitation was telling.

  Lucon, meanwhile, gazed absently down at his own hand. The Flow rippled softly at his fingertips—an invisible current only he could feel, as if the world itself were a vast sea and swirling around him. There, within the streams of energy, he saw something different. Something foreign.

  A thread that didn’t belong to this world at all.

  He prodded it gently—first with curiosity, then with intent. His will brushed against the alien pattern, stirring it awake. His holy magic flared in quiet harmony with the Flow, and light spiraled into being.

  A glyph bloomed above his palm.

  Perfectly divine. Perfectly still.

  It mirrored the way Herephyn’s presence bent the world—a timeless, unearthly stillness that didn’t shift like everything else in the mortal realm, but simply was.

  Lucon regarded it with serene fascination.

  “Look at that, brother,” he said, voice mild, even admiring. “I’ve already learned to summon it. Makes you wonder what else I could find out about it.”

  Color drained from Herephyn. His wide eyes flicked from the glyph to Lucon’s placid face. “If you even think about using that—!”

  Lucon closed his hand, and the glyph winked out. “Relax. I don’t need it.”

  He turned as if nothing remarkable had just happened, spotting something by his boot. “Oh!”

  He bent down, picked up a dented iron cup, and dipped it neatly into the open barrel. The scent of alcohol filled the air.

  Behind him, Herephyn still trembled with divine outrage. “If you don’t need it,” he growled, voice tight with barely restrained fury, “then give it back.”

  Lucon swirled his drink, the faintest smirk ghosting over his lips.

  “I will,” he said casually. “But I can’t quite trust you yet…brother.”

  “I will not leave without the Glyph,” Herephyn stated, his voice dropping to a low, resonant threat that vibrated the air.

  Lucon took another sip from the iron cup, unhurried. “I will offer you this instead: I will never use it.”

  The Celestari’s posture eased a fraction, the immediate panic receding, but his eyes remained hard. “A convenient promise. But if I start killing those around you, perhaps you will…change your mind.”

  “The moment one of my people dies for any reason,” Lucon replied, his voice losing all its lazy humor and becoming flat and absolute, “I will drop everything. I will dedicate myself to this Glyph. I will pull it apart thread by thread, learn every secret it holds, and use it in any way I can.”

  The two of them stared at one another, a silent war waged in the space between their gazes. It was no longer a confrontation of power, but of will.

  Herephyn’s starlit eyes searched Lucon’s, and he saw something that gave him pause. A chilling focus beneath the nonchalance. A terrifying potential.

  “What are you?” the Celestari breathed, genuine confusion coloring his tone. “Are you still mortal?”

  Lucon blinked, then the smirk returned. He raised his cup in a toast. “Not when I’m drinking. But you found that out in the cavern.”

  “You are not mortal. You are not divine. I have met demons, and even they do not feel as you do now,” Herephyn murmured, more to himself than to Lucon.

  Lucon took another sip. “One of a kind isn’t a bad thing to be.”

  Abruptly, the crushing pressure in the clearing vanished. Herephyn lowered his hand, the last vestiges of divine light winking out. Hilda gasped, stumbling back a step, while Skhav let out a heavy, shuddering breath of relief.

  Herephyn eyed the liquor entering Lucon’s mouth, following it down Lucon’s throat as if he could see through him. It was at Lucon’s center where Herephyn’s gaze settled.

  He huffed with interest. “Hmph. So, human alcohol is triggering the Ambrosia residing in your soul, but its effects are quite peculiar. What an odd occurrence.”

  Lucon dipped his cup to refill it and offered it to the Celestari.

  “Care to have a rematch?” Lucon challenged. “Perhaps divine glyphs should be a wager? I also need more holy power. The goddess has sadly blessed me with little.”

  Herephyn’s stare became lofty, his voice cool and resigned as he spoke. “I see your conviction, mortal. And I will hold you to your word.” He floated a few inches from the ground, his gaze piercing. “But know this: if you ever use that Glyph, or speak of it to any divine being, I will know. And on my honor as the highest of the Celestari, I will destroy every soul that has ever uttered your name or shown you a moment’s favor. From every member of your family to the lowliest stable boy who tends your horse. I will erase your entire world from the tapestry of existence.”

  He began to rise into the air, his form shimmering.

  Lucon simply toasted him again. “Goodbye, brother. Perhaps we will drink next time.”

  Herephyn’s parting words drifted down, cold and prophetic. “You think yourself clever, mortal. But the Ambrosia is not the boon you believe it to be. It was never meant for your kind. Perhaps it will do my work for me and guide you to an early end.” His starlit eyes glinted with a final, dark promise. “And if that happens, I will make certain your loved ones follow after, so you can explain how you failed them in the afterlife.”

  Herephyn did not simply fly away. He vanished, the air where he had been bursting with a thunderclap that shook the trees, leaving a line that cut the clouds above in half.

  Lucon watched as the clouds parted. Flying must feel so freeing…

  For a heartbeat, silence.

  Then Hilda broke into a sound halfway between laughter and a cry, her face flushed scarlet.

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  “You did it! You did it again, Master!” she cheered as she hopped from foot to foot. “You tricked yet another divine! I can’t wait until everyone finds out about this!”

  Skhav, by contrast, simply crumpled backward onto the dirt. His legs refused to hold him any longer. “Perhaps…perhaps being abandoned by the gods is not so bad if it means they stay far, far away.”

  Lucon remained watching the sky.

  He could still see it.

  Men bursting apart into red mist and viscera, Herephyn’s fury extinguishing them out of irritation.

  They had been his father’s men.

  Farmers’ sons, soldiers’ grandsons—men with wives waiting by cold hearths, with children too young to remember the shape of their faces. Reduced to blood stains. The same could’ve happened to Hilda just now.

  The emotionless Flow surrounding him became dyed in the hunger for violence and vengeance.

  “One day,” he said, voice soft, “I’ll kill him.”

  Beside him, Hilda became still. The color drained from her face, her eyes wide. “M-master…what did you say?”

  Lucon turned toward her, the fury already gone, replaced by that same easy, distant calm. The Flow resumed as a smirk turned his mouth crooked.

  “Nothing,” he murmured. He raised the cup, took a slow drink, and then called out, “Skhav.”

  The barbarian looked up, sweat beading along his temples, still pale.

  Lucon pointed a lazy finger toward the camouflaged wagon at the edge of the camp. “We’re taking that.”

  ***

  Lord Auric Edelyn stood beneath a canopy of banners, lantern-light scattering across polished marble and the crystal rims of a hundred goblets. The air was rich with laughter, string music, and the scent of late-spring blooms rising from the garden that bordered the courtyard.

  It was a grand idea to have the celebration outdoors.

  Everywhere Lord Auric Edelyn walked, he was met with warm smiles and respectful bows, his legend as the "Merchant Hero" ensuring a gracious reception.

  A councilman from Teleris currently had him under the flowered archway. “My lord, the winter will be harsh in the low districts this year. The poor and sickly are already suffering. There is not much the council can do, I’m afraid—”

  “You have my word,” Auric heard himself say, the commitment made before pragmatism could intervene. “I will see to it that a donation is made to see the most vulnerable through the winter.”

  The councilman’s glee was immediate. “The Merchant Hero—Lord Auric! A true friend to the people!” He shook his hand with gusto. “Niles is involved with the outreach as well. Your money is in good hands. Thank you!”

  Niles Visciro. The name put Auric at ease. He nodded and sent the man off.

  There were others like him who met with him—everyone with problems and people suffering. Auric did what he could, counting up numbers and setting aside money in his mind. His skills as a capable merchant came in handy in how he could help as many people as he could.

  The celebration became lighter because of him. The murmurs of “The Merchant Hero lives on” following wherever he went.

  He paused when he found a pair of familiar eyes on him—pale blue, mirroring his own. Claude stood at the edge of the gathering, surrounded by laughing nobles his age, but his attention was wholly fixed on his father. If Auric didn’t know any better, the boy seemed a bit exasperated.

  But when their eyes met, the expression vanished, replaced by Claude’s usual polite mask.

  Auric gestured for him to come over. “What is it, son?” he asked, pulling Claude aside. “You look troubled.”

  “It’s nothing, Father,” Claude demurred.

  Auric studied him, taking a guess. “Does this have to do with what I told you earlier? About Lucon?”

  Claude’s mouth opened to speak—but his father raised a hand. “It was a difficult decision. But I have coddled him. I have given him chance after chance to make things right. House Edelyn cannot survive on potential and empty promises any longer. It needs a worthy heir.”

  Auric’s words trailed off, and his gaze drifted, drawn away from the banners and laughter, to an older, harsher memory.

  ***

  Years ago.

  Before Lucon left for the Merciful Temple, Auric had given his son a task—one to make up for a string of past mistakes. He was to travel to Teleris and meet with a reputable escort agency, a guild responsible for guarding merchants and their caravans across dangerous routes. The partnership would have helped the effort to expand the barony’s trade into three new cities. A golden opportunity.

  Auric hadn’t told Lucon, but he’d followed. Discreetly, quietly. There had been too many failures before. Too many excuses.

  When he arrived in Teleris, what he found wasn’t a diligent young noble preparing for an important meeting. It was laughter spilling from gambling dens. Uncouth sounds and smoke drifting from brothel windows. Lucon, dressed in gold-threaded silk, surrounded by sycophants, dice in hand, a girl in his lap, and a grin like a man without a care in the world.

  Auric could still hear the shouts of one of his son’s followers, “The Prince of Revelry rules the night, the drink, and of course—the women!”

  Days passed. Lucon continued his revelry—drinking, smoking, gambling, dancing through taverns like it was his life’s quest to waste time. Not once did he send word to the agency. Not once did he even pretend to prepare.

  When the meeting finally happened, it was at a brothel.

  Auric could still recall the way the agency’s representatives shifted uncomfortably on their seats, the overpowering stench of wine and incense smoke that caused them to cough. Lucon had been late—staggering in midmorning, barely coherent, and slumped into a pile of silk pillows. When they began to speak of routes, contracts, security, he was already asleep.

  Needless to say, the representatives stood up, insulted. They made for the door, muttering about the foolishness of the Edelyn heir.

  That was when Auric had stepped out of the shadows. He’d apologized, with every ounce of his practiced diplomacy, and scheduled a new meeting.

  When he found Lucon moments later, sprawled in a bed of soft cloth. He shook him awake, grip firm.

  The boy’s eyes had fluttered open just long enough to murmur, “I did the best I could, Father…but they wouldn’t take the deal.”

  The best he could.

  Auric had stood there for a long time, looking down at his son—the heir he’d poured hope and patience into—and realized, with a heavy heart, that this truly was the best Lucon could do.

  That was the day he decided the barony could not survive in his hands.

  ***

  The sound of laughter brought Auric back to the present, the party reasserting itself around him. Claude stood patiently at his side, posture impeccable, expression unreadable.

  “Lucon can’t become Baron,” Auric said, more firmly now, as if to himself as much as to his son. “If he does, the land will crumble. His recklessness will destroy everything we’ve built.”

  Claude exhaled slowly, eyes downcast. “Don’t worry. I understand, Father.”

  Auric stroked his thick mustache. “Then why the troubled face?”

  His son hesitated, then asked, “Is it right to give so much—to every cause and petition—while our own servants and soldiers go unpaid?”

  Auric waved a hand, dismissing the concern. “A ruler’s duty extends beyond his household. We must do what is within our power to help others, always. I’ve told you this. The barony endures because of reputation as much as commerce. Remember our motto: To House Edelyn, upright character matters more than anything—even pain of death.”

  Claude’s jaw tightened, but Auric continued, “Besides, with Niles and the Western Trade Alliance restructuring our debts, we are in good hands. Prosperity will return soon.”

  Claude’s seemed to be near to arguing, but before he could, Mabel’s cheerful voice carried over the music to them.

  “Claude! Come, dear, there are guests who wish to meet you!”

  He gave his father one last look—half concern, half resignation—and turned to obey, disappearing into a swirl of laughter and polite cheering.

  Auric watched him go with a proud gaze as people nearly tripped over themselves to shake his hand.

  His moment of paternal pride was interrupted as a figure suddenly parted the hydrangea bushes beside him. He jolted, hand flying to his chest, before exhaling in a mix of annoyance and fondness.

  “Lyris,” he chided, “you are now too old for such games.”

  The young girl—barely Claude’s age, all soft laughter and nervous energy—beamed at him as she approached. Her long gray hair shimmered under the lantern light, and her pale eyes, a faint shade of silver-white, caught the reflection like moonlit glass.

  “Sorry, Lord Auric,” she said with an impish grin. “I couldn’t help myself. For old time’s sake.”

  Auric gave her a sidelong look, a smirk pulling his mustache crooked. “Old time’s sake, is it? Or are you still shy around my boy?”

  At once, Lyris’s face was dyed crimson. Her eyes darted toward the crowd, where Claude was speaking with a few young nobles by the garden fountain. The sight alone made her stand a little straighter—then wilt with embarrassment.

  “Well,” Auric chuckled, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  But just as quickly, her expression sobered, her bright expression dimming somewhat. “My father…he wanted me to tell you that it would be best not to announce the engagement just yet.”

  Auric was baffled. “Whatever for?”

  They shared a long look, a silent conversation passing between them in the space of a breath. Understanding dawned in Auric’s eyes.

  His tone softened. “Oh…I see.”

  Before he could say more, a voice called from the crowd.

  “Lyris!”

  Claude’s voice—bright, expectant.

  Lyris became still, color flooding her cheeks again.

  “I—I have to run an errand!” she blurted, waving awkwardly.

  Claude became visibly confused. “An errand?”

  Auric raised an eyebrow, amused. “Still shy, I see.”

  “I’m not!” she protested, her voice squeaking. “I just need to…pick up my sister’s gift for Claude.”

  Auric crossed his arms, feigning sternness. “And why can’t Klara fetch it herself?”

  “She’s busy,” Lyris sighed, pointing toward the far courtyard.

  Following her gesture, Auric spotted Klara—sterner looking than Lyris, yet still beautiful, and having the familiar gray hair and pale eyes of their family—locked in a heated duel with another young noble, their blades flashing in the midday light.

  Auric sighed as well. “Of course she is.”

  He signaled to a nearby servant, a young woman with mousy brown hair and a perpetually deferential posture. “Escort Young Lady Lyris into town, please.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the servant said, dipping her head.

  Lyris offered a final thanks and curtsy before hurrying away, the servant trailing in her wake. Auric watched them go, the brief, lighthearted moment already fading. He snagged the arm of another passing servant.

  “Any word on Lucon’s whereabouts?”

  “None, my lord,” the servant replied with an apologetic bow. “No one has seen the Young Lord since this morning.”

  Auric’s smile faded.

  The servant moved on, leaving Auric alone in the crowd. The vibrant music and cheerful voices seemed to recede, replaced by the same ghost of a memory that always haunted him. He saw again his eldest boy sprawled amongst silk pillows, eyes glassy and distant, the words slurring past his lips:

  “I did the best I could, Father…”