"You mean to say… there is a Mage Dweller inside Althurd?"
Aquila's voice came out small at first, then edged into something raw — disbelief, horror, fury braided together. She stared at Zejidiah as if she might wring the truth out of his face.
"Yes." Zeji's answer was flat, concise. No theatrics. No relish. Just that one terrible fact.
Aquila looked from him to Hans — to the blindfolded man who had not flinched once while naming the impossible. Zeji was not the sort to spin stories; he was not a man who'd trade lies for comfort. The knowledge landed like a cold stone. Her knees felt far away.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, very small. The question trembled on the edge of accusation and understanding. She heard the echo of her brother's nights at their mother's grave in it.
Zeji's gaze dropped. "I planned to. I didn't know how." Guilt softened the corners of his voice. "Do you know how ridiculous it would sound? That I would come to you and say, 'Aquila — I will kill our family'?" He tried a humorless half-breath, then there was only the weight of what had to be done.
Aquila closed her eyes once, a long, steadying inhale and exhale. The hate she'd directed at strangers, the slow hardening of her chest since their Mother's death — all of it rewrote itself in this new light. Her hands curled at her sides. "I'll help you," she said.
Zeji's reaction was instant and raw. "No." The word cut the air, a hand on an unhealed wound. "I cannot afford for you to taint your hands, Aquila."
"Brother," she said, softer now but just as fierce, "do you think I'll simply stand by and watch? Do you think I can live with doing nothing after I watched Mother fall?" Her voice broke on the last words; the memory still sharp enough to taste.
He could not find a rebuttal. He only repeated what he had told himself: he could not let her be the one to soil herself. His face closed like a gate. But when she pressed, when she offered every other scrap of help she could give without laying a blade, Zeji exchanged a look with Hans. The blindfolded man exhaled, and something like inevitability settled between them.
"We do not know how strong the Mage Dweller inside Althurd is." Hans said, speaking carefully, as if picking through fragile glass. From the folds of his cloak he produced a small vial and set it on the table between them. The glass caught the light and looked ordinary — a bottle of sleeping draught, perhaps. A dangerous simplicity.
"So," Hans went on, "will you at least make him drink this? It's a poison I made."
Aquila's fingers hovered over the vial. The world narrowed to that little thing in clear glass. "Will he not notice?" Her throat clicked.
"No. It will take two days to take effect. That will be enough time." Hans's voice was steady; there was no cruelty in it, only the engineer's calm. "We will handle the rest."
Zeji watched her like a man trying not to break into pieces. He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. When he finally smiled, it was small and brittle — relief edged through grief. The smile slipped Aquila's chest tight as a band.
She stared at the vial for another breath, then slid it into her palm as if it might burn her. The decision did not feel like triumph. It felt like falling and finding footing on a knife's edge.
"After… after you finish this, Zeji," she said, voice steadying with the iron of resolve, "can we at least lend some of our knights to Nexus? If we strike true, lend us the strength to hold them — to keep the seashores safe?"
Zeji did not need words. He nodded once, hard as a promise and twice as solemn. In that movement she read the agreement: when the house that had hidden death within its own blood was brought low, they would not turn away those who needed them.
"Do this without losing yourself," Zeji said at last, barely more than a whisper.
Aquila's jaw set. "I won't," she said, and whether that was a vow or a lie she could not tell. But she slipped from the chamber with the vial warm against her skin and Hans and Zeji already moving through the shadows, folding the city's future into their hands like something fragile and dangerous.
The next morning came, and Aquila wasted no time. She invited Prince Althurd to a simple tea in the garden. Althurd, ever casual, didn't question it—still believing his little sister was as naive as always.
"You rarely invite me, what's going on?" he asked with a grin plastered across his face.
"Well…" Aquila lifted a cookie and took a bite, her tone deceptively light. "I am going to get married in a few days."
"Right—married off to the Kingdom of Emperyus, huh?" Althurd said, watching her carefully.
Aquila arched a brow. "Brother, you were tasked with the knights. Why is it they still can't eradicate those peasants?"
Althurd chuckled darkly. "Don't worry, my little sister. I'm already planning how to kill every last one of those who dare defy us." His grin stretched, sharp and menacing, before he sipped his tea.
But then—he froze. His lips parted slightly as he peered into the teacup. No reflection. Not even a shadow.
Aquila sipped her own tea, her voice drifting casually into the silence. "I wonder… what Mother would think of this."
The name made Althurd jolt, just faintly. He forced a smile. "To what, my sister?"
"That the very people she fought for, the ones she believed deserved rights, are now rebelling against the Empire."
Althurd leaned back in his chair, lifting the cup once more before laughing carelessly. "It was ridiculous."
"What is?" Aquila asked, eyes narrowing.
"That Mother thought commoners had the chance to stand toe-to-toe with us. I hated her ideas." His smile lingered, but his eyes—dark, cutting—made Aquila's spine stiffen.
"You hated it?" she repeated, softly.
"Of course. Father knew it. Matthew knew it. That law of hers was never going to pass." His tone soured, irritation bleeding through despite his efforts to mask it. "She wasted her breath. Always did."
Aquila caught the flicker of disgust in his gaze, however well he tried to hide it. Her throat tightened.
"You're right," she whispered. "And that's what killed her, too…"
For the first time, Althurd's expression faltered. His eyes lingered on her, searching, before he hummed dismissively and finished the last sip of his tea.
"Well then, my dearest sister," he said, standing and leaning just slightly over her, his hand pressing down on her head. "I'll take my leave and check on our knights."
Aquila's glare cut upward. "Stop it."
He laughed and walked away, waving his hand lazily as though nothing mattered.
Silence fell.
Aquila's fists curled tightly in her lap, nails biting into her skin. Her heart thudded against her ribs as the memory of what she had just witnessed replayed with brutal clarity.
"How could I miss it… it was so obvious…" she muttered under her breath.
The butterfly magic was still humming faintly in her veins, her senses heightened, sharpened like blades. And with it came the truth she could no longer ignore.
Althurd hadn't cast a reflection in the tea. The surface had been still, catching the light, yet it showed nothing of him—not a shadow, not even a distorted outline. He had sat across from her, laughing, sipping, sneering—and the cup had been empty of him.
Her breath shook, her vision tunneling as she pressed a hand to her mouth.
And then there was the smell. It had clung to her nose the moment he sat down, faint at first, but impossible to dismiss once her magic sharpened it. Rot. Damp earth. The putrid stench of meat long left in the sun. Not the sweat of a man fresh from battle, not steel or leather or horse. This was death—seeping, crawling, suffocating.
It wasn't her brother. It couldn't be.
But how? How did it happen?
She trembled violently, the air around her quivering with the weight of her restrained magic.
"Is that why you killed her?" she whispered into the empty garden, her voice breaking.
"Because she stood in the way of your twisted ideals? Because she saw what you'd already become?"
The tea before her rippled, as if even the air recoiled from the truth.