The first bell had barely rung when the summons came.
Not a page this time. Not a servant with ink on his cuffs.
A captain of the guard stood at Elara's door, visor raised, voice clipped as if he were naming a death already written.
"The Lord Patriarch requires the boy. At once."
Elara's hand froze on the spoon she used to stir the morning broth. Her eyes flicked to Seren, then away, as if sight itself might draw knives.
Seren stood. He had been awake since the smoke test ended. His body ached, but his breathing was steady. Four in. Two held. Eight out.
He followed.
---
The Patriarch's hall was older than the castle that grew around it, bones of a fortress buried in newer stone. Pillars carved with dragons shouldered the ceiling. Shadows clung to the carvings like cobwebs.
The Patriarch sat not on a throne but on a long chair of blackwood, a wolfskin draped across its back. His hair was white, his beard thin, but his eyes… his eyes were the kind of still that water becomes when even the wind has left.
Around him, sons and daughters stood in half-circles. Cassius with his polite grin. Lyra with her lazy water ribbon. Aurelius, firstborn, hand on sword-hilt as if it were a limb. Selene in shadows, eyes gleaming like knives.
Zephyros stood a step behind the Patriarch, silent.
Seren entered the circle of sight and stopped where the sand changed color on the floor. He bowed—not too low, not careless.
The Patriarch did not blink. "This is the boy?"
Zephyros inclined his head once.
"He breathes calm," the old man said, voice dry as paper. "Calm is dangerous."
Cassius chuckled. "Until you shake it."
The Patriarch's eyes slid to him. The grin died.
"Come closer," the old man commanded.
Seren obeyed. The wolfskin's smell—old blood, old winter—pressed against him.
The Patriarch raised one finger. A servant stepped forward with a small tray. On it lay a knife. Not steel. Obsidian. Black, edges glinting like frozen water.
"Take it," the Patriarch said.
Seren reached. The knife was lighter than it looked, cold enough to numb his palm. His reflection bent across its surface, fractured.
The old man leaned forward. "Cut your hand."
Elara's warning voice whispered inside him: They will test how much of you belongs to you.
Seren did not flinch. He drew the blade across his palm. Not deep, not shallow. Enough.
Blood welled, bright and red.
The Patriarch's eyes did not move from the cut. For a long breath, silence held. Then—
The blood flickered. Once. Twice. Tiny sparks in the red, like stars drowned in wine.
Gasps rippled through the siblings. Selene's smile sharpened. Aurelius's grip on his hilt tightened.
The Patriarch exhaled. "Astralis."
The word fell heavy, like stone dropped in a well.
Zephyros's face was unreadable.
The old man leaned back, gaze still locked on the boy. "Seal holds. But it leaks."
He gestured. The knife was taken away. A cloth pressed into Seren's palm.
"Keep him in the house," the Patriarch said. "Train him. Break him. If he lives, he will be useful. If he dies, bury him with the dogs."
A pause. Then the old man's eyes met Seren's fully, for the first time. In them was no hatred, no love, no doubt. Only measurement.
"Until then," he said, voice low and final, "you are nothing. And nothing must learn its place."
---
Dismissed, Seren walked the long corridor out. His siblings' eyes followed him like blades.
Cassius's grin had returned, but it was thin. Lyra's ribbon of water spelled a single word before vanishing into droplets: Watched.
Aurelius's jaw clenched. Selene whispered something to her shadow and it laughed softly, though no one else made a sound.
Only Elara, waiting at the corner with her spoon tucked in her belt, let her breath out when he passed.
"You bled and lived," she murmured. "That is both a victory and a crime."
Seren said nothing. He kept his breathing calm. Four in. Two held. Eight out.
But deep inside, he knew: the Patriarch had seen. The Astralis seal had cracked. And now, every eye in the castle would sharpen against him.