On the day of the homecoming, the Voss estate teeters at the edge of mutiny.
Kairen wakes to the thunder of footsteps and the hiss of arguments half-stifled. Servants march double-time up and down the halls, polishing every visible surface to a mirror finish, banishing invisible dust with the desperation of the condemned. Even the ancestral portraits look nervous—eyes wide, brushstroke mouths twisted in unaccustomed smiles, as if they too have heard the news: the Voss heads are returning. Both of them. Today.
By breakfast, the atmosphere has gone electric. Kairen watches from his usual post at the round kitchen window as the head cook bullies three underlings into arranging plates of sugared persimmons, a delicacy Darien Voss considers "decent fuel for the mind." The cook's hands shake, dropping slices to the floor. She curses under her breath—unaware, or uncaring, that Kairen hears every word.
"She'll skin me if the glaze is wrong," the cook mutters to a helper. "The last time, she just looked at me, and I nearly burst into flames."
Kairen chews a crust of bread, watching her. He's heard the stories: his father's duels, his mother's record-setting tenure at the Tower of Arcanists, the unspeakable thing they did together in the Red City to earn the only joint S-rank ever recorded. But these tales have always existed in a separate world, somewhere above the mundane swirl of breakfast and sibling rivalry.
Now, the worlds are colliding. Kairen can feel it, a gravity well forming at the core of the estate, drawing every anxiety and whisper into its orbit.
Past the kitchen, in the eastern corridor, a line of ward-casters paces with slow, synchronized steps. Each wears gloves of gold-tipped velvet and carries a wand bristling with crystal foci. At every third archway, they pause, adjust, mutter to each other in technical code. Kairen eavesdrops from behind a suit of armor, picking out phrases: "Darien likes the resonance at 80 hertz," "Lyra will test the null field, watch your vector," "Triple-check the threshold, the last apprentice lost a finger."
He slips past them, heading for the main entrance. The house manager, a stiff man with eyebrows like willow branches, oversees a cadre of juniors sweeping and salting the steps. They pause as Kairen passes, not out of respect but calculation—what information might the heir bring, and to whom does he report?
Kairen stares back, unblinking, and keeps walking. He can play the game, if it matters.
Tali finds him on the landing above the entry hall, perched on the banister like a cat. She's ditched her morning lessons, hair windblown and full of twigs. Her eyes are bright.
"They say the perimeter alarms tripped twice already," she whispers. "Mother's fault, probably. She always comes home disguised as a merchant or a stray dog, just to test the guards."
Kairen tries to sound unimpressed. "Father's worse. He'll bribe the kitchen staff to poison his own supper. Says it 'builds character.'"
Tali grins, baring all her teeth. "Maybe you should start eating with the stable hands."
He shoves her, gentle, but she springs away, already bored with the waiting.
An hour before noon, the guests begin to arrive—local nobles in ceremonial uniforms, merchants and hedge-mages with the gleam of hope in their eyes. Kairen watches from behind a column as the hall fills with color and noise. He recognizes some of the faces from the annual gatherings; others are strangers, sizing up the estate, the family, him.
A hush falls when the main doors open. Two armored guards step through, followed by a man whose presence flattens the air. Darien Voss is tall and broad, his hair sun-bleached to gold and tied back with brutal efficiency. He wears travel-stained leathers, boots so caked in mud they seem part of him, and a ring of dragonscale at his throat that hums with silent threat. His eyes are sharp and blue as cut glass, scanning the room, weighing every soul inside it.
Behind him, Lyra Voss drifts in, her steps so silent the marble should protest. She's smaller than Darien, but her aura is a knife-edge—every gesture precise, every glance an equation being solved. Her hair is auburn, falling in a straight curtain to her hips, and her eyes—today, at least—are a stormy amber, the color shifting with the angle of the light.
Kairen watches as the two of them cross the hall, side by side but never quite in sync, like two blades sharpened to different angles.
The guests react in waves. The lesser nobles bow too deeply; the merchants avert their eyes. The local warden, a barrel-chested woman with a reputation for breaking skulls, salutes crisply but does not smile. Darien meets her gaze, nods once. It's a contract, spoken in the old language of violence and respect.
Kairen feels the pulse of the room settle around his parents, the way a hive calms when the queen returns.
Lyra wastes no time. She sweeps past the assembly to the center of the hall and claps her hands once, the sound sharp as a blade's edge. "You honor us," she says, voice cool and perfect. "We will begin soon. Please enjoy the hospitality of House Voss until then."
Darien lingers at the threshold, eyes scanning the rafters, the walls, the patterns of sunlight on the tile. He notices Kairen on the landing and smiles—a crooked, dangerous thing, as if daring him to hide.
Kairen forces himself to come down the stairs. Each step is harder than the last.
Darien meets him at the base, claps a heavy hand on his shoulder. "You've grown," he says, measuring Kairen's reaction. "Still light as a feather, though. You eat anything at all?"
Kairen tries to keep his voice steady. "Only when the cook isn't arming herself with kitchen knives."
Darien laughs, loud and unfiltered, and a few guests startle at the sound.
Lyra glides over, all calculation, and presses a cool hand to Kairen's cheek. "You've been practicing. I can see it in your eyes." She scans him, quicksilver eyes flickering, and Kairen wonders if she can see the mark on his palm, buried under sleeve and skin.
"I have questions," he says, before he can stop himself.
Lyra's lips quirk, almost proud. "Good. Save them for later."
The moment is short. Lyra is already moving to greet the guests; Darien is pulled into a knot of hangers-on. Kairen stands in the eddy between them, neither child nor adult, unsure where to anchor himself.
Tali finds him again, this time in the shadow of a carved pillar. She watches their parents with open hunger. "Do you think they'll ever teach us the real stuff?" she says, not looking at him.
Kairen keeps his hands in his pockets. "Maybe if we survive tonight."
Tali's laugh is a gunshot, bright and brittle.
The formal dinner is set to begin soon. The house manager is already herding the guests toward the east wing, where the long table gleams under a thousand enchanted candles. The air smells of roasting meat, honeyed wine, and the ozone bite of too much magic in too small a space.
Kairen drifts after the crowd, feeling the thrum of power in the air, the way it pulls at the bloodline in his veins.
He wonders, not for the first time, if he is meant for any of this.
He wonders, too, if the mark on his hand will change anything—or if it is just another secret waiting to explode.
He follows the others into the banquet hall, the doors closing behind him with the finality of a vault.
The Voss banquet hall could hold a hundred, but tonight it hosts just enough to fill the air with tension.
Kairen takes his seat halfway down the long, gleaming table. The seating plan is a map of ambition: the closer to the Voss heads, the more power you wield, or the more desperately you want to. Kairen's spot, adjacent to his sister and two chairs from the parental throne, marks him as a piece still in play, not yet queened.
Above, the chandelier is a monster—ten thousand cut crystals strung together and bewitched to spin slow, fracturing the candlelight into rainbow shards. It paints every face with borrowed magic, so that even the plainest guest is briefly beautiful.
Servants in charcoal livery ghost through the aisles. They float trays with minute flicks of the wrist, each movement designed to be invisible, subordinate to the flow of conversation. The food itself is a dare: roasted drake eggs, fish caught in the cloud-lakes of the far north, a breed of melon that explodes with juice when cut wrong. Kairen watches a junior noble get doused by a spray of orange pulp and nearly dissolve in shame.
The dinner starts with protocol. Toasts are raised, the House motto is recited—"Vigilance Above All"—and the first course is served before anyone attempts actual conversation. Kairen drinks water, careful not to spill, and tracks the undercurrents flowing up and down the table.
Most guests are here for spectacle, or to borrow status by proximity. They trade war stories and market rumors, hands flashing sign-language beneath the tablecloth for those with the wit to see it. The higher nobility, though, are more dangerous. They circle each other with compliments that sting like poison, voices pitched just above a whisper so the right ears can eavesdrop.
At the head, Darien Voss presides like a king in exile—half in the world, half somewhere bloodier. He listens to the noble at his left with a raptor's patience, every muscle coiled for the moment when the words turn from flattery to threat. Lyra manages three conversations at once, never missing a detail. Her eyes flick between speakers, catching every slip of etiquette, every accidental truth.
Kairen leans to Tali. "You think anyone here actually likes us?"
She doesn't even look up from her plate. "Not unless they're paid to."
Across the table, a lull in the noise signals the start of the real sport. Lord Marren, who controls the river trade to the south and has never quite forgiven the Vosses for breaking his monopoly, sets down his fork and clears his throat.
"A fine feast," he says, smiling without warmth. "And a finer table. One could almost forget how recently this estate was little more than a hunting lodge. But that's the age we live in—merit is currency, and the Guild's favor worth more than any bloodline."
Silence radiates outward. Some guests look relieved that someone else said it first; others bristle, waiting to see how Darien will answer.
Darien wipes his mouth with deliberate calm, then sets the napkin on the table. "In the wilds," he says, "the only thing a bloodline guarantees is that the next predator will find you easier to catch."
A ripple of nervous laughter. Marren does not laugh. He stares, the smile dropping, but Darien only continues, voice low and sure.
"You call us 'new money,' Lord Marren. I find it flattering. New things grow quickly, if you feed them right." His gaze sweeps the table, stopping each guest in their tracks. "Of course, so do certain poisons."
Lyra smiles, and Kairen feels the temperature in the room drop five degrees.
Marren opens his mouth, but before he can speak, Darien leans forward, voice a hair above a whisper.
"The golden serpent doesn't announce its strike," he says, "the prey simply discovers it's already been consumed."
The phrase lands like a thrown knife. Marren closes his mouth. The rest of the table begins eating again, all at once, as if a spell has been broken.
Kairen shoves a piece of melon into his mouth, chews, swallows, tries to look invisible. But he can feel his mother's eyes on him, searching for something. He curls his fingers around the stem of his glass, thumb brushing the inside of his palm.
Should he tell her? The mark is still there, hidden, but every minute it seems to burn hotter. Maybe she already knows. Maybe she put it there, a secret test to see if he would confess.
He wants to ask, but the words stick. Instead, he watches Lyra as she speaks to the guest at her right—a visiting arcanist from the capital, more tattoo than skin. She laughs at his joke, but the sound is perfectly measured, calculated to reveal nothing.
Tali nudges him. "Bet you five coppers Lord Marren leaves before dessert," she whispers.
Kairen grins. "Bet you ten he tries to poison father's drink."
The dessert course arrives, and the tension eases a hair. Marren stays, but his laughter is brittle, eyes flicking always toward Darien. The lesser nobles relax, sensing the danger has passed for now.
When the plates are cleared, Darien rises, his chair scraping back with finality. "Thank you for gracing our table," he says, and his tone makes it very clear that the grace is his alone to bestow. The guests file out, some in haste, others in slow retreat.
Lyra remains at the head for a moment, tapping her fingers in a silent rhythm. She looks at Kairen, and her gaze softens a fraction.
"We should speak soon," she says quietly, and he knows it's not a suggestion.
Kairen nods, pulse racing.
As the hall empties, he looks at his palm, at the mark, and wonders what it is that he's truly inherited.
And what it will cost to keep it hidden.
Lyra's study is forbidden ground. That's half the reason Kairen sneaks in.
The other half is the pull: the room hums with static, the air thick with memory and intent. Every surface is crowded with books, arcane implements, bundles of dried herbs, or glass spheres caging whispers of blue flame. A clock with no hands ticks in the corner, tracking a time no one else can read.
Kairen waits until the rest of the estate is asleep, then slips in through the false panel behind the library. The trick is not to touch the floor—Lyra has a sense for trespassers, and the wards here are tuned to the weight of every person who's ever entered. He hops from rug to rug, silent, making for the far desk where his mother keeps her private grimoire.
He's come to practice the sigil again, the one that summoned the scales in the library weeks ago. He can feel the pattern burning in his memory, but each attempt since has fizzled, nothing more than a tingle beneath the skin. Tonight, with the right tools at hand, maybe he'll break through.
He sets the book on the blotter, traces the sigil with his finger, just like before. Breath slow. Mind blank. He draws the first circle, the second, the third—
The air jumps, and a lance of cold lightning snaps up his arm. Scales bloom, silver and blue, racing to his elbow before winking out. The sensation nearly drops him to the floor.
"Not bad," says a voice behind him.
Kairen whirls, heart in his throat.
Lyra stands at the threshold, her robe loose and hair unbraided, but her eyes are sharp as ever. She leans against the door, arms crossed.
Kairen stammers, "I—I wanted to try—"
She holds up a hand. "You wanted to see if it was repeatable. You did. Congratulations."
She crosses to the desk, scanning the open page. "You have the wrong book. That one's theoretical. You need the red-bound journal in the second drawer."
Kairen opens it, finds notes in his mother's precise hand. Diagrams, alternate sigils, corrections in blue and gold. He flips to the marked page, and Lyra taps a passage with her nail.
"You're pushing too much at the end. Ease off at the turn, then anchor with a word. Say it, aloud."
Kairen tries again. Draws the circles. At the turn, he murmurs the word she's written: "Miraen."
This time, the scales snap into view, not just on his arm but skittering up his cheek, a mask of shimmer. The effect holds for three breaths before dissolving.
He looks at Lyra, searching her face for anger or disappointment. She just studies him, eyes shifting from gold to green to gray.
"Better," she says. "But still raw."
She turns away, plucks a glass sphere from the shelf. "You know why I set wards on this room?"
Kairen shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak.
"It's not to keep you out. Or even your father, though he's not as clever as he thinks." She smiles at the memory. "It's to keep the old memories from leaking into the rest of the house. Some knowledge wants to be found, and some would rather consume the finder."
She cups the sphere in her hands. A mist swirls inside, then coalesces into a miniature night sky—constellations mapped in pinpoints of white. She whispers a phrase, and the stars drift, slow and deliberate, reshaping into new patterns. "The world is full of these," she says, "fixed points we can use to find our way, if we learn to see them."
She holds the sphere out to Kairen.
He takes it, and as his fingers brush the glass, the mark on his palm flares, cold and bright. The stars in the sphere seem to pulse in time with the pain.
Lyra is watching, but her expression is unreadable. "Do you know what you're looking for?" she asks.
Kairen wants to say yes, but the word sticks. He holds the sphere tighter, studying the stars inside, trying to memorize their arrangement.
A wave of vertigo nearly buckles his knees. For a split second, the world inverts: he's looking up at the ceiling, but it's no longer a ceiling—it's the night sky, huge and alive, stars swirling in a pattern that matches the mark on his hand.
A window opens in his mind. Words appear, sharp as crystal, floating in the darkness.
[Celestial Bond System]
Bond Potential: Maternal
Status: Locked by Age Restriction
The vision snaps shut. Kairen gasps, clutching the glass so hard it threatens to shatter.
Lyra is at his side, steadying him. "Easy," she says. "Magic like this can take more than it gives, if you let it."
He nods, dizzy, but the sensation is already fading.
She takes the sphere, sets it back on the shelf, then kneels to meet his eyes. "You're not your father," she says softly. "You're not me, either. Whatever is waking in you, it's yours to control."
Kairen opens his mouth, but she presses a finger to his lips. "No more tonight. Go sleep. If the dreams come, let them come."
He nods, turns to leave. As he reaches the door, Lyra calls after him.
"Kairen."
He pauses.
"If you ever want to talk about it, you know where to find me."
He nods again, faster, and escapes down the hall before the tears can start.
In his room, he lies awake, staring at the marks on his hand, watching as they fade, then pulse again with his heartbeat.
He has answers now, but also more questions. What is the Celestial Bond? Why is it locked? And what will happen when the world discovers what he is?
He closes his fist, hiding the mark, and pulls the covers over his head.
He will keep this secret, for now.
But in the quiet dark, he can feel the bond growing stronger, a new constellation etched into the story of him.