INTERLUDE 1

Brother is a Monster

Azure petals drift atop Nenuphar's dark waters, their fragile beauty hiding the abyss below.

Cyra stares into their stillness, waiting for ripples to bring her brother back—or swallow him forever. The Temple of Hope rises before her, its domed ceiling catching the morning light, a beacon of faith and foreboding. The air holds a sacred serenity, broken only by the soft whispers of waiting matrons.

"The waters accept who they will," a female whispers nearby, her voice trembling with barely contained fear.

"My daughter completed her baptism in mere minutes," another responds, voice threaded with pride and disappointment.

Cyra's jaw tightens, but she maintains her composure, channeling the quiet dignity she learned at her mother's knee. Kaelenya's lessons echo in her mind: "Stand tall, even when they whisper. Strength lies in silence and grace."

The waiting women cluster in small groups, their robes rustling as they shift from foot to foot. Their murmured conversations blend into a constant hum of anxiety and anticipation. Some clutch at ceremonial tokens, others press their hands to their hearts.

A ripple passes through the assembled crowd as the water's surface shivers. Cyra's fingers curl into her palms, her nails leaving crescent marks in her skin. The prayers she learned as a child rise unbidden to her lips, though she keeps them sealed behind a carefully neutral expression.

Cyra catches Helena's approach in her peripheral vision—a flash of crimson and obsidian cutting through the sea of cyan robes. The High-Chatelaine of House Vermilion moves with practiced grace, her gold torq gleaming like a badge of supremacy. A swan strutting among ducklings.

"Such a solemn vigil." Helena's voice carries across the space between them, smooth as silk wrapped around a naked blade. "I always envied the way your mother made brooding seem funereal. It’s a talent you’ve inherited, though with… less poetry, I fear."

Cyra maintains her stance, shoulders straight, gaze forward. "Every baptism carries its own weight, High-Chatelaine."

"Indeed." Helena steps closer, her crimson robes brushing against the stone floor. "Where is she by the way? Your mother?" She pauses, savoring the stillness. "Some say she is rarely in House Azure these days. High-Chatelaine in name only, perhaps?"

Cyra’s fingers tremble imperceptibly at her side, but her expression remains neutral. "Mother carries her responsibilities where they matter most. A skill I imagine you would find difficult to comprehend, tethered as you are to petty intrigues."

Helena’s lips curve upward, a smile as brittle as frost. "How dutifully you defend her. Though one must wonder—when one’s absence becomes habitual, does it not reflect a certain... disregard for her heirs?" She leans in, lowering her voice just enough for only Cyra to hear. "Or perhaps she knows there is little left worth defending."

"It must sting, Helena. To spend a lifetime chasing a love that was never yours, only to watch him give his heart—his everything—to someone else." Cyra's tone softens to a whisper, razor-sharp in its precision. "You mistake love’s quiet strength for absence. It would be unwise to confuse the two."

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Helena’s laugh sparkles like broken glass. Jagged. Sharp enough to cut. "What a wicked little tongue you have, my dear. How about I take it with me when I leave this place?"

The air between them crackles with unspoken tension. Matrons draw back, forming a subtle circle around their confrontation, their whispers silenced by the sharp edges of the exchange. Helena’s double pupils gleam like twin abysses, dark holes in azure seas.

"You could try," Cyra says, her lips lifting in a hooking smile.

Nenuphar's surface breaks into concentric rings, flowers parting as two figures emerge. Penelope and Castor, their platinum hair darkened by water, streaming rivulets down their faces. Gasps echo across the empty space before the temple.

Their new bronze torqs catch the light, pulsing with a steady, warm glow. Penelope helps steady her brother as they wade toward the shore, their movements precise despite the exhaustion evident in their shoulders.

Helena's transformation strikes Cyra as remarkable. The High-Chatelaine's mask of cold superiority dissolves into pure maternal joy. She rushes forward, ceremonial towels clutched in her hands, all pretense forgotten as she embraces her children. "My darlings, my brave ones," she coos, wrapping them in the thick fabric. "Tell me everything. Were you afraid? Did you feel it? The power of the House Absolute?"

Their voices overlap as they describe their experiences, Helena hanging on every word. The pride radiating from her seems to fill the space, infectious in its intensity. Around them, the other mothers relax visibly, their own fears easing at this display of success.

"House Vermilion proves its strength again," Chatelaine Kassandra whispers, and approving murmurs ripple through the crowd. The air lightens with collective relief, as if Penelope and Castor's emergence has broken some invisible tension.

Cyra notes how the other families draw closer, offering congratulations, their earlier wariness forgotten in this moment of shared celebration. Even those who had been whispering about her moments ago now beam at the twins, caught up in the triumph of young Optimates completing their sacred trial.

The celebrations around Penelope and Castor fade as Helena leads them into the Temple of Hope.

Minutes tick by without further movement from the waters.

Cyra's stomach twists as she watches the surface grow unnaturally still, the flowers settling into a perfect, undisturbed pattern. The sunlight seems to dim, casting longer shadows across the dark pool.

Janus. Where are you?

Cyra's nails dig deeper into her palms. Each heartbeat feels like thunder in her chest as she counts the seconds, then minutes. The nenuphar flowers should be moving, disturbed by the initiates below. Instead, they form an unbroken blanket across the water, as if nothing living stirs beneath.

Don't you dare…

The silence grows thick, pressing against her ears. No splashes. No gasps for air. No triumphant emergence of new Optimates. Just the weight of dozens of held breaths and the soft, steady drip of fear.

Kassandra clutches her ceremonial tokens tighter, the metal clicking against her rings. Another Chatelaine draws her robes closer, as if warding off a chill.

The nenuphar flowers explode upward, water spraying in all directions. Talon breaks through the surface with a sound that is more animal than human—a scream raw and guttural. His platinum hair clings to his skull as he thrashes, tearing at the floating flowers, ripping petals loose in his desperate climb to the shore.

“Talon!” Kassandra’s voice cracks with panic as she rushes forward. Other matrons follow, their hands reaching for his flailing limbs. Crimson streaks the water, petals floating like tiny funeral shrouds. His eyes dart wildly, unseeing, his lips shaping broken words: “He… it was… no, no, no.”

Cyra sways on her feet, her vision blurring. She knows that look, has felt it spread across her own face before. Janus—

No. Not again. This cannot be happening again.

The nenuphar flowers scatter like startled birds. Something launches upward with explosive force, water and light blinding the crowd. Cyra lowers her arm, her breath catching in her throat. A brown-skinned boy floats above the waters, his limbs limp, his head tilted back as though held by invisible strings. Water coils around his throat, shimmering, transforming.

Bronze. Silver. Gold.

And then something impossible.

White-gold.

Cyra stares up at her brother, the brother she knows is a monster—a monster Mother says she must love.