Chapter 11: The Start of the First Arc of the First Game (1)
Morning draped itself over the EverBlack estate like a silken shawl, soft and unhurried, turning the silver spires and black marble of the family mansion into a dream of glass and shadow—edges softened by the sun's first blush, where light played hide-and-seek with the lingering dark of night. Servants glided through the courtyards in their quiet ballet, footsteps muffled on dew-kissed stone, carrying trays of polished silver and folded linens with the precision of those who knew one misplaced breath could ripple the calm. Everything gleamed with the perfection of expectation: hedges clipped to geometric mercy, fountains murmuring hymns to routine, the air crisp with the promise of another day scripted in gold.
And yet, standing before the tall mirror in his chamber, Lucian Azrael Von Blackstar appeared as if pulled from another era's unforgiving forge—a figure etched in quiet discord, his reflection a stranger's mask stretched over a soul worn threadbare.
His school uniform was flawless, a second skin of imperial finery: the black wool jacket trimmed in threads of gold that caught the light like veins of captured sunlight, the crest of the Lumina Empire embroidered across his chest in threads of silver and sapphire—a soaring eagle clutching a radiant orb, symbol of dominion unchallenged. The silver chain at his collar dangled like a talisman of forgotten oaths, gleaming faintly against the crisp white shirt beneath. It fit him as it always had—regal, unyielding, the armor of youth and bloodline—tailored to whisper of power without shouting it.
He adjusted the knot of his tie with fingers steady as a watchmaker's, gaze locked on the glass, where the boy staring back seemed a portrait painted by another's hand: ashen hair falling in soft, untamed waves that framed a face of striking severity—high cheekbones sharp as winter's edge, lips curved in perpetual ambiguity, eyes black as the hush between heartbeats, swallowing the room's warmth whole. Noble, handsome even, in the way marble statues commanded awe from afar. But Lucian saw only the hollow beneath—the echo of a vessel emptied, waiting for a storm that never broke.
'The same uniform,' he thought, the words a quiet dirge in the chamber of his mind, laced with the weariness of cycles unbroken. 'The same scripted dawn. How many encores must this farce demand before the curtain falls?'
A knock echoed from the door, polite as a servant's bow—three measured raps that parted the morning's hush. "Young Master Lucian," came the butler's voice, composed as polished oak, filtering through the heavy panels like a summons wrapped in velvet. "The car is ready. Your family awaits to see you off."
Lucian's gaze flickered to the window, where sunlight etched long, golden fingers across the floor—reaching, insistent, painting the rugs in hues of amber and rose, as if the day itself hungered to pull him into its rhythm.
A mana car.
Memory unspooled it in vivid strokes: sleek and elongated as a predator at rest, its chassis a marvel of alchemical gleam—white enamel curving like frozen waves, panels infused with crystalized mana that pulsed faintly beneath, alive with the subtle thrum of inner power. No crude oil to soil its grace, but pure essence harvested from the earth's hidden veins, fueling a luxury reborn through sorcery and craft—an eco-friendly enigma, where engineering kissed the arcane, gliding silent on rails of woven light.
A flawless emblem of this realm's illusions: beautiful on the surface, efficient to a fault, and utterly, achingly contrived—like a smile stretched too thin over teeth that bite.
Lucian drew a slow breath, the faintest curl touching his lips—not mirth's spark, but the wry twist of one who knew the joke's bitter punchline all too well. Resignation, soft as ash settling after flame.
'Even the car echoes back,' he mused, the thought drifting like smoke through his veins. 'As if the world itself leans in to mock the loop.'
He crossed the room with steps unhurried, the door yielding to his touch with a whisper of hinges oiled to silence. The butler stood sentinel in the corridor, ramrod straight in his livery of midnight blue, gloved hands folded before him like a prayer unanswered. Beyond, the courtyard unfolded in morning's embrace: gravel paths raked to Zen precision, the central fountain spilling water in crystalline arcs that caught the sun like scattered jewels.
But Lucian veered not toward the waiting limousine, its engine humming a low, contented purr, doors agape like an invitation to scripted splendor. Instead, he turned toward the estate's wrought-iron gates, the road beyond winding through veils of morning mist toward the distant hum of the train station—a humble ribbon of cobblestone flanked by wild hedges that dared to bloom untamed.
Everyone in the courtyard stilled, as if the air itself had caught and held its breath.
"Lucian?" Damon's voice cut through first, laced with the frown of bewilderment, his golden head tilting from where he stood with arms crossed, the picture of fraternal scrutiny.
Lucian offered no reply, his boots striking the gravel in even cadence—click-click—hands slipping into the deep pockets of his coat, the fabric fluttering faint in the breeze like a banner surrendered to whim. He passed the fountain without pause, its waters singing oblivious to the fracture behind him, the mist rising like ghosts from the spray.
"Lucian!" Draven's command rang sharper now, a thunderclap across the sunlit stone, the duke stepping forward from the portico, his morning robes billowing like a judge's mantle. "Where in the blazes do you think you're going? The car stands prepared—your transport to the academy, as befits your station!"
Lucian halted for the span of a heartbeat, pivoting just enough to glance over his shoulder—his eyes meeting his father's in a collision of voids, cold and uncharted as starless night.
Then, with a sigh soft as the wind's retreat, he turned away. "I'll take the train."
The words landed plain, unadorned—no thunder of rebellion, no plea woven in velvet. Just fact, dropped like a stone into still water.
"What nonsense is this?!" Draven's bark echoed off the walls, his face flushing the deep crimson of wounded pride, veins standing like rivers in flood at his temple. "You are no dust-footed commoner to slink off on public rails—"
But Lucian moved onward, each step deliberate as the tick of fate's indifferent clock, the gates creaking open to swallow him whole. He didn't bolt into flight, didn't wheel back with the old venom of retorts that once flew like arrows. He simply departed, a figure dissolving into the mist-shrouded road, leaving the echo of his father's fury to chase shadows.
The duke's voice pursued, a gale of indignation—"Lucian Azrael Von Blackstar, you will return this instant!"—but it frayed against the distance, swallowed by the estate's unyielding hush.
Lucian paid it no heed, the words washing over him like rain on oiled leather. He had danced this scene in lives past—the scoldings that scorched like forge-fire, the lectures layered thick as chainmail, the grand theater of familial honor where every line was scripted for applause. It was a play he knew by rote, every cue and curtain call burned into bone.
'The first time, I roared back, flames for words,' he reflected, the path unfolding before him like a verse half-written. 'The second, I begged the quiet to claim me whole. The third... what use in feeding the gale? Let it howl alone.'
His thoughts unspooled like poetry murmured to the morning: soft, detached, woven from the threads of exhaustion.
In worlds that coil and rewind like serpents in sleep,anger sifts to dust on the indifferent wind.Pride scatters like leaves in autumn's quiet theft,and only the hush of surrender remains, eternal kin.
The road to the station meandered long and serene, flanked by clusters of white blooms that nodded in the breeze—delicate petals brushing his coat like fleeting touches from forgotten hands, their scent clean and fleeting as a child's promise. Ahead, the city's skyline swelled into view: crystal towers piercing the heavens like shards of frozen dreams, sky rails weaving luminous threads between them, mana lights pulsing faint in the dawn like the first breaths of awakening stars.
The future thrummed in the air, a subtle vibration underfoot—beautiful, boundless, a symphony of sorcery and steel.
Lucian crested the platform as the morning train eased to a halt, its massive frame shuddering with restrained power, steam uncoiling from vents in lazy spirals of ethereal blue, laced with the faint ozone tang of channeled mana. He boarded without fanfare, the doors hissing shut behind him like a sigh of reluctant farewell, and claimed a seat by the window—velvet cushion yielding soft under his weight, the glass cool against his temple.
He had ridden this iron beast before, too—every jolt of its departure, every face blurred in passing stations, every slant of light through the panes a verse from memory's dog-eared book. Déjà vu made tangible, the world replaying its reel with merciless fidelity.
The doors parted once more, admitting a rush of morning air, and a voice pierced the carriage's hush—bright, unfiltered, laced with the unscarred optimism of youth.
"Ah! Lord Lucian!"
A young girl waved from the aisle, her enthusiasm a sunbeam slicing gloom, ginger hair aflame in the sunlight that slanted through the windows, hazel eyes gleaming like polished amber warmed by inner light. She stood poised in her academy uniform, skirts swaying with the train's subtle rock, a satchel slung over one shoulder like a badge of earnest adventure.
Claire Manhattan.
A side character and a side heroine in the grand tapestry—a viscount's daughter, kind-hearted to a fault, pure as spring's first thaw. The sort of soul players snatched early in the game for her mending spells that knit wounds with threads of light, her loyalty a steadfast flame against the plot's gathering dark. In tales spun for the screen, she was the gentle counterpoint, the bloom amid thorns.
In his first passage through this world, he had mirrored her warmth—waved back with a flourish, offered his seat with a courtier's grace. She'd flushed rose-pink, stammered thanks, and they had unraveled an hour in easy converse: symphonies that soared like freed birds, tomes of forgotten lore that whispered of worlds beyond the veil.
But that was epochs ago, in a life where connections still held promise.
This time, Lucian remained rooted, a statue in the seat's embrace.
His gaze lifted to meet hers—brief as a glance over a stranger's shoulder, distant as the horizon's curve—then drifted back to the window, eyes half-veiled in shadow.
Claire's hand faltered mid-air, her smile fracturing like fine porcelain under strain. "...Lord Lucian?"
The train lurched forward with a resonant groan, wheels biting rails in a symphony of steel and spark, and her voice trailed into the carriage's hum, lost to the rhythm of departure.
Lucian's reflection ghosted in the glass—features serene, eyes vacant as chambers long emptied—staring back with the quiet accusation of one who had learned the cost of bridges built too lightly.
He harbored no desire to retrace those fragile threads, to spin conversations that bloomed only to wither in betrayal's frost. Every bond in this realm led to fracture, every kindness curdled to sorrow's cup. Friendships forged here were pyres waiting for tinder; alliances, nooses disguised as olive branches.
'No connections,' he vowed to the blur of passing landscape, the words a silent ward against the heart's old hunger. 'No ties to bind or break. Not this time. Let the story spin its web alone.'
The train carved onward, humming a steady canticle as it spanned the sky bridges—ethereal spans of woven mana that arched like rainbows frozen in flight, clouds drifting lazy below the tracks, aglow with the faint iridescence of enchanted mist. The capital unfolded in glimpses: bazaars stirring with vendors' calls, parks where lovers wandered hand in hand, spires that kissed the clouds with defiant grace.
He leaned into the glass, the cool pane a balm against his temple, watching the world streak past in a watercolor rush—beautiful in its bustle, false in its forever.
The academy's silhouette sharpened on the horizon: majestic towers of alabaster marble veined with gold, suspended on platforms of floating runes that hummed with ancient power, their pinnacles crowned by banners snapping in the wind like vows to the endless sky.
His lips curved in a ghost of mockery, faint as mist on a mirror. "Here we go again."
He knew these halls by heart—the vaulted arches echoing with laughter laced in lies, the throngs of students with faces scripted for triumph or tragedy, the subtle currents of rivalry that pulled like undertows. The same cast of players, the same inexorable plot, the same downfall draped in different silks.
But this iteration... he would not feed its flames. No arrogance to stoke the pyre, no fire to light the fray, no ambition to chase hollow crowns.
When the opening ceremony's pomp had run its course—the speeches droning like bees in a hive, the oaths sworn under banners of empire—he would slip away, a shadow threading the east wing's forgotten corridors. To the music room, tucked like a secret in the academy's labyrinthine heart: a chamber of polished wood and dust-moted air, where sunlight slanted through leaded panes to gild the keys of solitude.
The piano would await, unchanged—a grand ebony beast, its surface buffed to mirror sheen, ivory teeth bared in silent invitation.
He would settle before it once more, fingers hovering like hesitant birds, and let the notes spill forth—perhaps Moonlight Sonata, the piece that had first taught him sorrow's shape in his earth's distant days, its adagio flowing like tears held too long. Or Love Story, Golden Brown—snippets gleaned from fleeting screens, from TikTok's whirlwind reels back when music was a salve for the mundane, a bridge to feelings he still believed could be mended.
'Those notes,' he pondered, the train's lull cradling him like a reluctant mother, 'they were my first language of loss—simple, unadorned. Maybe they'll remind me what it means to feel, if only for a bar or two.'
He closed his eyes then, the carriage's rhythm weaving a cradle song against his lids, the world beyond a symphony reduced to blur.
Outside, the empire glittered on—beautiful, beguiling, bound in its eternal loop.
Inside, Lucian sat in the quiet of his unraveling, a specter retracing steps worn to grooves in the soul.