The sunlight seeping through was ethereal.
It streamed through the tall window—unglaized now, finally open—painting the opulent rug in warm gold. Leo—no, *Aurelian*—woke to it, and for one blissful second, I stopped thinking. Then reality settled in my gut like a stone.
*Right. This isn't a dream.*
One week. Seven days since the transmigration, since Leo's bitter memories had frozen into the stagnant lake of Aurelian's past. Seven days of navigating foreign instincts, of feeling phantom fear twisting his heart at certain footsteps in the hall.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
"Young Lord Aurelian," a woman's voice called through the wood, calm and weathered. "Shall I help you prepare for the day?"
"No, thank you, Janna. I can manage."
The door opened anyway. The head maid entered with practiced efficiency—a woman in her forties with grey-streaked hair and the kind of mature beauty that came from years of quiet dignity. She wore the traditional black-and-white uniform of the household staff. Her face was kind, but her eyes held a watchful intelligence that made Aurelian wonder exactly how much she knew.
*Where's the cliché young, blushing maid?* The idle thought was pure from Leo—a defense mechanism, his old habit of distraction trying to spark to life. He crushed it immediately.
After Janna left, I washed in the provided basin and dressed myself in the clothes laid out—a fine white linen shirt with subtle embroidery and dark trousers in what this world considered formal attire. Victorian-inspired, elegant, and suffocating in its own way.
I faced the full-length mirror.
The reflection was a study in contrasts. Ash-blonde hair fell in soft waves to the shoulders. Fair, unblemished skin. Pale golden eyes that held a strange, distant light—beautiful in an ethereal, almost fragile way. But the body beneath told a different story: gaunt, almost frail, with sharp collarbones and thin wrists. Aristocratic beauty stretched over a frame built from neglect and confinement.
*Did I use all my luck on my face?*
The answer came from Aurelian's memories, cold and clinical.
Third son of Earl Donovan Blackwater of the Kingdom of Elantor. A lineage ancient, proud, and rotted from within by generations of strategic marriages designed to keep the bloodline "pure." The result: unstable mana channels, a constitution as fragile as spun glass, and a mind prone to melancholy that had finally shattered under the weight of isolation.
His father had seen the weakness early and clipped his wings before he could even think to fly. No military training. No political education. When Aurelian had tried to flee at sixteen—a desperate, clumsy attempt at freedom—his father had personally led the guards to drag him screaming from his own bedchamber.
The punishment had been elegant in its cruelty.
Solitary confinement. Six months in this very room with the windows nailed shut, plunging everything into perpetual twilight. Meals delivered in silence. No visitors. Just four walls and the slow dissolution of self until his consciousness simply... guttered out like a dying candle.
That was when Leo had arrived.
After his "miraculous recovery," his father had visited exactly once. No relief. No warmth. Just a decree delivered with the finality of a tomb being sealed:
Aurelian would serve as a permanent attendant to his eldest brother, the heir. He would dedicate his life to supporting the family's future from the shadows. In the Kingdom of Elantor, only the first and second sons could inherit titles. The rest were spares—useful only as political pawns, priests, or if they could somehow muster the strength and win royal favor, Pioneer Knights claiming land on the chaotic frontiers.
The fused soul in Aurelian's chest trembled.
It wasn't just the original's instinctive terror of his father, though that was a live wire under his skin. It was Leo's crushing recognition of the pattern. *Again.* Dreams dismissed. Paths chosen for him. Passive, resentful obedience expected as natural law.
I thought escaping my old world would break the cycle. But here I was in a grander cage, facing a more powerful warden, and the same old cowardice coiled in my heart like a serpent, squeezing tight every time I thought about speaking up.
*I was a coward then and I'm still a coward now.*
The realization tasted more bitter than any poison this world could brew.
Another knock. Janna again. "Young Lord, his Lordship Earl requests your presence at breakfast."
A dry, hollow sound escaped my lips. "Heh. Such fatherly love."
Janna's professional mask flickered—just a nanosecond, a faint widening of the eyes—before her composure snapped back into place. She said nothing, only bowed slightly as he stepped past her into the hallway.
The walk to the dining room was a journey through opulence designed to intimidate.
Marble floors polished to mirrors. Sunlight glittering off suits of armor standing at attention like silent judges. Tapestries depicting glorious Blackwater victories—battles won, enemies crushed, glory claimed. Every corner was a monument to power, a museum of legacy I was meant to serve from my knees.
The grandeur was a mockery.
With every step on the plush carpet, I felt the memories of that grey ceiling descending on me again. The scenery had changed from a cramped apartment to a sprawling estate, but the prison was the same. My life was still being designed by someone else, and I was still walking a predetermined path , with my heart pounding with that familiar, sickening rhythm of dread and resignation.
I reached the double doors of the formal dining room.
A guard in full plate armor—face hidden behind an emotionless helm—pulled them open without a word.
Inside, under the glittering light of a colossal crystal chandelier, my loving family awaited.
***