It was early spring. The snow cover lay in tatters here and there, and the primroses were full in bloom.

The Fireblood Manor had already woken up from winter slumber. The servants were running around carrying out various tasks.

Young master Starlight finished with daily chores and was taking a leisure walk.

Don't look down on young masters, as even if their chores were not sweeping passages and washing clothes, they still had lots of responsibilities to fulfill. Such as learning how to manage household and family business, or the right way to instill and uphold laws, not to say literature, philosophy, fencing, and magic. All of these were duties he had to pay attention to every day.

Although young master Starlight was 27 years old, he was still considered a youth in the house. Even if everyone knew that he was first in line to become the next family head, he still needed to learn, and his prestige wasn't yet fully established. Many family elders were waiting for him to make a mistake and snatching the position of the family head from him for their own offsprings.

As such, he only had a couple of hours a day to himself.

Surprisingly, he didn't spend this time with his wife, but with his little cousin sister.

The building his sister lived in situated in the outlying part of the manor. It was not a shabby building, as there were no bad buildings in the entire estate and even servants lived in good houses, but still, it was just that, a servant house, nothing like the house his uncle's family had used to reside in.

They'd used to occupy one of the better buildings in the manor, but the fire that year had left nothing of it.

It was a wonder, how the strongest mage in the whole family had managed to die in the fire, but when the fire had been extinguished nothing had been left of him. He had been young and very talented, he'd been just thirty when he'd been entrusted with leading the family army. Everyone's expectations of him had been very high. Unfortunately, he and his wife had died in the fire which had broken out of nowhere in their house, and only their little daughter had somehow survived.

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Some said they had sacrificed themselves to save their daughter, some that they'd been just unfortunate to not notice the fire when it had just started and had fallen to it as it had grown too large to cope with.

Anyway, most agreed that little girl was a jinx being a reason for both her parents' death. As such, the people in the family unanimously did their best to avoid the little girl.

Starlight's father was also a general. It was the responsibility of the Fireblood Family to lead Stonerule Kingdom's armies, so there always were two generals in the family, one was leading the family own army, and the other was leading the kingdom armies. The one leading kingdom armies was Fireblood Skysword - Starlight's father and the oldest son of current family head Fireblood Goldflame, and the one leading family army was Fireblood Brightsword - Skysword's second brother.

Two brothers were quite fond of each other, and as Skysword was often outside with all army things, his children were mostly taken care of by Brightsword, especially his oldest one, Starlight.

Starlight treated his uncle as a father, and in his turn uncle treated him as his own son. To the point where Brightsword even taught Starlight his self-invented sword art which he never taught to anyone else.

From Starlight's early childhood and up to the end uncle was the closest kin to him. When Brightfeather was born, Starlight was especially delighted. He remembered her being just a little cute ball full of smiles.

Unfortunately, after her parents' death and as time went by she turned more and more collected and impassive.

It was no wonder as almost no one in the house interacted with her.

It's not that she was bullied or oppressed, no such thing. Just, that nobody would be first to talk to her, and if she were to speak they would politely but curtly reply and hurry away. Eventually, she stopped trying to interact with others and only would smile sometimes at her big brother.

Starlight tried his best to accommodate her, but his time was limited. As an heir to the family, he had many things to do and wasn't able to spend as much time as he wanted with her.

This year she was turning fifteen and was considered old enough to marry. It was common in the mage families to get engaged even before birth. Fifteen was the age when any engagement done prior would be fulfilled.

It didn't matter that a mage at this age was not yet considered adult of any sort. This kind of engagements had more meaning as a political move. Also, it was believed that people who would be the lifelong support to each other should start early. It was not in the custom to get divorced or engagement annulled, so once it was decided it would be carried for the rest of the lives.

The problem was, Brightfeather was extremely disinclined to marry.