The candlelight flickered against the spines of stacked journals. Raina sat cross-legged on her bed, a quilt wrapped around her knees, papers strewn in front of her like fallen leaves.
Diagrams. Spell structures. Case data. Notes rewritten until the ink bled through the page.
None of it was enough.
Her fingers curled slightly over the edge of a page labeled Hybrid Stability Ratios. The numbers mocked her. Every route led to failure. Every theory collapsed under the weight of her condition.
She had months. Maybe a few years. A few more than a dozen cycles of sunrise before the cracks in her soul spread too far to hold.
Her body was trying to contain two magical systems that were never meant to coexist. Her bloodlines pulled against each other like tides. She was the equation no one had solved.
And she was so, so tired.
The candle sputtered.
A knock at the door startled her.
She froze.
It was late. No one knocked on her door at night.
She slid off the bed quietly, padded to the door, and opened it halfway—
Matthias stood there.
Straight-backed. Calm.
His eyes, as always, didn't blink enough.
"May I come in?" he asked, his voice low, steady—like this was perfectly ordinary.
Raina blinked at him, unmoving.
Of all the people in the house, he was the one she trusted least. Not because he had done anything wrong.
But because he hadn't.
He was too polite. Too perfect. Too aware.
She didn't answer.
"I won't take much of your time," he said, voice as cool as a still lake.
"We're not close," she said finally, quietly. "Why are you here?"
Matthias didn't shift. "Because you want to live."
The words struck her like cold water.
Her fingers tightened on the edge of the door.
"I know what you are," he continued. "I know what you're trying to do. And I know why you're failing."
Her pulse skipped.
"Let me in, Raina," he said softly. "And I'll tell you what you've missed."
Raina hesitated.
Her instincts screamed to slam the door. But her mind—the mind that had clawed through years of silence and dying cells and hopeless calculations—held her still.
She needed answers.
Even if they came from someone she didn't understand.
Even if it cost her something.
She stepped aside.
And let him in.
Matthias entered her room like a shadow, careful not to touch anything. He stood near the desk, hands behind his back, his eyes scanning the scattered research pages as if he already knew what they said.
Raina remained by the door, arms folded across her chest. She didn't invite him to sit. She didn't speak.
"Your research is good," he said. "Thorough. Logical. But it's missing something."
"What?" she asked, voice guarded.
"History," Matthias replied, turning to face her. "The kind that doesn't exist in books."
She blinked slowly. She had combed every archive in the Ministry. There was no history. No solution. No hope.
"There were only two," he said. "In all of known time. Two hybrids who lived."
Her heart skipped.
"Their names were Godwin El Redwood and Edith Sunrise. Born in the same generation, nearly four hundred years ago, though in opposite lands. They were... opposites in everything. In blood, in temperament, in belief."
Raina moved a little closer. Not out of trust—but necessity.
Matthias's voice dropped slightly, as if reciting from memory.
"Godwin was born in the northern isles. Blood of flame and mountain, healer and warlock both. He made a pact with the Goddess of Life and Light, offering a decade of his soul's afterlife in exchange for a body that would endure."
A pause. A heartbeat.
"Edith was born in the Drowen wastes. Her mother descended from deathseers, her father from stormbinders. She bound herself to the God of Death and Darkness, trading her name for a second heart—one that beat in shadow, beyond the reach of rot."
Raina's breath caught.
"They were said to be rivals. Light and dark. Life and death. They fought, they clashed, and—according to the myth—they disappeared in the same year. Some say they destroyed each other. Others believe... they became something else entirely."
Matthias finally met her gaze.
"You've seen the spells. You've mapped the decay. You know you won't last. Not without something more."
Raina said nothing. Her mind was spinning, reaching for pieces she didn't have.
"If they survived," she said, "why is there no trace?"
"Because they didn't leave one," Matthias said. "Because no one wanted two miracles to become a roadmap."
Silence stretched between them.
"You want to live," he said again. "I can help you finish your research. But the answers are older than this world's rules. You'll have to go beyond science. Beyond what you're comfortable with."
"And why would you help me?"
"Because I've been looking for you," Matthias said, eyes steady. "For a long, long time."
She couldn't understand the meaning behind his words. She didn't try to.
The candle behind her flickered again. Shadows danced on the walls like old ghosts awakening.
The next morning, the sun spilled reluctantly through the window of her study chamber at the Ministry. It felt too warm. Too awake.
Raina sat with a half-full cup of tea growing cold beside her, her fingers absentmindedly turning pages in a book she'd already read twice.
She wasn't really reading.
Her thoughts were stuck on last night.
On Matthias.
"Because I've been looking for you."
Why?
What did that mean? Why her?
Even if the legend he told her was true—if Godwin El Redwood and Edith Sunrise were real—how did he know about them? How did he know things that weren't written in any archive, weren't taught in any school?
There were no records. No references. Just whispered stories.
But Matthias hadn't spoken like someone repeating myth.
He'd spoken like someone who remembered.
And if he knew about those hybrids, maybe he knew something else, too—something that could make the difference between her living and fading out like every other failed hybrid before her.
Raina rubbed her temple. Her headache was already forming.
And then—
"Aaaaah—oh no no no—watch out!"
A tower of paper crashed just inside the door, followed by a loud thump.
Raina blinked slowly.
A small figure popped up from the floor, arms still tangled in scrolls and parchment.
Lola, her research assistant—half fox, half chaos, all nerves—looked up with wide, golden eyes and a very crooked pair of glasses.
"I'm so sorry, Miss Raina! I—I had it perfectly balanced! I just tripped—on, uh—on my foot—again. But I swear it was fine before I—"
"It's fine," Raina said softly, already kneeling to pick up the nearest papers.
Lola scrambled to help. "Are these the glyph reports from the Outer Circle? Or were they from the Blood Theory lot? Oh no, please tell me I didn't mix them again—"
"You did," Raina murmured, stacking them into separate piles.
Lola let out a small, guilty whimper.
Raina paused. Then reached out and gently placed the papers into Lola's arms. "Re-sort them. By author. And breathe."
"Y-yes. Yes. Thank you, Miss Raina. You're very patient and terrifying and thank you."
Raina gave her a small nod of dismissal.
Once the door closed again, she sighed and leaned back in her chair.
The Gathering.
Not just a family thing—this was the Gathering of the entire kingdom.
The ancient annual summit. Where all magical species, leaders, guilds, dignitaries, and citizens came together.A festival, yes—but also a convergence of power, politics, peace offerings, and plans for the year ahead.
It was equal parts celebration and strategy.
Raina hated it.
And Caleb, her eldest brother, was returning for it.
Caleb—the diplomat. The golden one. The charismatic, composed, always-perfect one. He hadn't been home in nearly a year.
Just the thought of all the people, all the conversations, the noise, the colors, the expectation—it made her chest tight.
She could already feel her thoughts fogging with tension.
By the time she returned home that evening, the sun had barely dipped below the hills—gold light streaking the sky like spilled honey.
The front gates were wide open. The estate looked peaceful.
Until the growling started.
Raina stopped dead on the stone path.
In the middle of the courtyard, two wolves were tangled in a snarling blur of red and black fur, rolling across the gravel, biting and barking like blood enemies.
One snapped at the other's flank. The other slammed him into a garden post. They yelped. Snarled. Clawed.
Raina blinked.
Not real wolves.
Lucas and Leon.
Of course.
Lucas—bright red, wiry, quick-footed.
Leon—sleek black, powerful, calculated in every strike.
They weren't trying to kill each other. Not really.
But they weren't exactly playing, either.
She crossed her arms and watched them for a moment, stone-faced.
Then Leon shifted first—fur vanishing, bones reshaping, until he stood upright again, breathing hard and brushing dust from his sleeve.
"I won," he said between breaths. "Clearly."
"You did not," came Lucas's voice, muffled by fur as he shifted mid-sentence and staggered upright. "You bit my tail, not my shoulder! That's cheating!"
"You scratched my face!"
"You started it! Over nothing! It's a friendly wager!"
Raina lifted a brow. "Wager?"
Leon turned to her, brushing his hair back. "Just a minor disagreement."
"Over who gets to ask the most beautiful girl at the Gathering for a dance," Lucas added cheerfully, flexing his bruised wrist. "Whichever one of us dances with the most wins."
"Wins what?"
"Your prototype," Leon said simply.
"The dual-mode magic artifact," Lucas explained. "The one with the reactive shielding and the pulse core. It's shiny. And explody. We like it."
Raina blinked slowly.
"You're betting my invention," she said.
"It's just a prototype," Leon said with a shrug.
"You don't even use it," Lucas added.
Raina stared at them both. "Fine."
"Really?" Lucas lit up.
"Yes. But if you break it," she said, turning toward the door, "I get to rewire your bed with delayed shock runes."
"Noted!" Lucas called after her. "Thank you, dearest sibling inventor! You're the best!"
"And deadliest!" Leon added under his breath.
She didn't look back.
She was already thinking again.
About legends.About pacts.About Matthias.