In the silent, marble halls of the Von Granz estate, there was no such thing as a "child." There were only assets.
Nyxelle and Solvayne were born as identical mirrors—two dolls carved from the same pale ivory, destined to be the crowning jewels of their lineage. From the moment they could stand, their lives were governed not by the warmth of a mother's touch, but by the cold, biting kiss of the tailor's tape and the sterile scent of starch and iron.
Every morning at dawn, the ritual began.
The twins stood atop silver pedestals in the center of a freezing dressing room, the floor chilled to a temperature that kept their skin taut and pale. Their parents sat in high-backed chairs of dark mahogany, sipping tea and watching with eyes as sharp and clinical as surgical scalpels. They did not look at their daughters' faces; they looked at the lines of their bodies.
"Measure," the father commanded, his voice a dry rasp.
The head maid moved with clinical precision, her movements as mechanical as a clockwork toy.
Height. Waist. Inseam. Neck.
The numbers were barked out and recorded in a heavy leather ledger by a silent scribe. For the twins, their names didn't matter—only the symmetry did. If Nyxelle's waist was a fraction of a centimeter wider than Solvayne's, the air in the room would turn to ice. If Solvayne's hair grew a millimeter shorter than her sister's, the "flaw" was treated like a terminal disease that required immediate, painful intervention.
They were not sisters; they were a set. And in the Von Granz estate, a set must be flawless, or it must be destroyed.
Then came the day of the Great Weighing.
The girls were led to the brass scales, a massive, ornate contraption that felt like an altar. Solvayne went first. She stepped onto the cold metal, her breath held. The needle swung, settling perfectly on the designated mark. Their mother offered a thin, ghost-like nod of approval, a gesture that was the closest thing to affection the girls had ever known.
Then, Nyxelle stepped up.
The brass mechanism groaned, the sound echoing off the marble walls like a death knell. The needle swung past the mark, trembling for an agonizing second, and finally coming to a rest.
Three pounds.
Nyxelle was three pounds heavier than her sister.
The sound of the tea cup hitting the saucer was like a gunshot in the stagnant air. Her father stood, his face a mask of disgusted disappointment. He didn't see a daughter; he saw a masterpiece that had begun to warp and rot before his eyes.
"You have allowed yourself to become a burden, Nyxelle," he said, his voice a low, terrifying hum that vibrated in her very bones. "You have broken the symmetry. You have stolen your sister's perfection by your own lack of discipline."
"I... I'm sorry, Father," Nyxelle whispered, her small, skeletal frame trembling. "I ate the extra bread at dinner because I was... I was so hungry, I couldn't sleep..."
"I do not care for your hunger. I do not care for your excuses," he snapped, his eyes flashing with a cold, blue fire. "I care for the ledger. The ledger is the truth of our bloodline. You have defiled it. You will rectify this. Immediately."
The punishment was swift and calculated. While Solvayne was taken to her lessons and fed a single, translucent slice of pear on a silver plate, Nyxelle was led to the courtyard. The sun was a blistering, unforgiving eye in the sky, reflecting off the white stone until the world felt like it was made of salt.
"Run," the tutor commanded, holding a silver stopwatch.
Nyxelle ran. She ran until the heavy silk of her dress was sodden with sweat, dragging against her legs like lead. She ran until her lungs felt like they were filled with crushed glass, every breath a jagged blade in her chest. Every time her pace slowed, the memory of her father's cold gaze acted like a whip across her back.
From the high balcony, Solvayne watched her twin circle the courtyard. She reached out, her fingers pressing against the cold glass of the window until they left pale, ghostly prints. She wanted to scream, to share the weight, to give up her own blood if it would make them equal again. She looked at the slice of pear on her table and felt a sickening wave of guilt.
But in that house, love was a variable that had been factored out of the equation long ago. To show empathy was to admit a flaw.
Nyxelle finally collapsed in the dirt, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird dying in a cage. Her face was flushed a violent red, a stark contrast to the pale perfection her father demanded. She looked up at the high window, seeing her sister's pale, haunting face.
They were mirrors, but the glass was beginning to crack. One was being polished until she was translucent, while the other was being ground into the dust to fit the frame.
In the ledger of the Von Granz family, there was no room for hunger. There was only the weight of expectation, and for Nyxelle, that weight was far heavier than three pounds. It was the weight of a life that was already being sold, piece by piece, to maintain the illusion of a perfect line.