Two months. It had been almost two months since I came into this world, and I still had not gotten used to the sight staring back at me from the mirror.
I ran my fingers along the sharp line of my jaw and over skin so pale it looked almost sickly, before finally meeting the stark grey eyes reflected before me, deep enough that they seemed to pull in the light around them rather than reflect any of it back.
This face still gave me an eerie feeling every time I looked at it. The bloodless skin, the thin face and sharper features, the pitch-black hair falling loose over my forehead, and those strange grey eyes that matched nothing else about me.
The contrast should have been unsettling, and in many ways it was, yet somehow all of it still came together into something that could honestly be called breathtaking.
I turned away from the mirror and looked over what Ressa had laid out across the bed for me hours earlier.
A black formal outfit made from thick wool, with the horn of Claiom stitched into the left side of the chest in pale silver thread. Fur lined the collar and cuffs, soft beneath my fingers when I reached for it, while a polished silver clasp sat at the throat and a long dark coat waited beside everything else.
For the past two months, my routine had consisted of waking at the crack of dawn, working this body’s stamina and strength until noon, practising with the sword under Arn through the afternoon, and ending each day by exhausting whatever Ichor remained inside me on my Aspect.
Yet despite all of that, none of it had prepared me for what waited downstairs.
The official announcement of the Rite was being held in the manor today, and every family with a child participating this year had been invited, from the main line to the sub-lines and all the way down to the collaterals.
Right here, in the home of the head of House Claiom, where most of them were probably already gathered in the hall, waiting for the disgrace of the house to finally show his face.
Honestly, it was fucking annoying. I had written about so much of this world, planned wars that tore across continents and calamities that left entire regions ruined, but none of those events had anything to do with what was happening now, with this house, or with the body I had somehow ended up wearing.
I had not heard all the details yet, only bits and pieces caught in passing, but word that my Aspect was weak had clearly spread through the family like wildfire, giving everyone who already despised this body one more reason to look down on it.
That goddamn manipulative bitch. This was probably her doing again.
As I brushed down the front of my clothes, a quiet knock came through the door and pulled me away from the mirror.
"Young master, they are waiting for you." Ressa’s voice carried in from the corridor.
I let out a breath that came close to becoming a laugh.
"Coming," I called, taking one final look at the stranger in the mirror before leaving my room and making my way toward the hall.
The Rite itself was still a week away. Today was little more than a formal announcement, one the house had carried out for generations, where the lord gathered every line beneath him and publicly declared the beginning of that year’s Rite.
Still, to say I was nervous about the real thing would have been an understatement. There would already be too many eyes on me because of the reputation this body carried, and on top of that, House Claiom was more than a little deranged to begin with.
All the great houses were, honestly, with most of them having some equally cruel tradition in the form of a test of blood, honour or whatever other word sounded noble enough for them.
And I had no idea how any of this was going to unfold.
As I made my way along the corridor, nearing the stairs that led down into the main hall, the murmur of conversation grew steadily clearer from below, countless voices overlapping into a low, constant hum.
This would be the first time I met most of the family in person; even the old Yun had rarely spent time around many of them.
House Claiom had never been particularly important in my novel when compared to the other great houses.
A few of its stronger Touched, such as Harren and Aela, had gone on to play important roles in the future, but aside from Wren, there had not even been anyone from this family among the main cast.
I stepped onto the staircase, my shoes clicking softly against the wood as the hall spread out beneath me.
At one end stood a long table crowded with plates of food and dark bottles that looked to be wine, all of it catching the pale glow of the countless orbs hanging from the ceiling.
Round tables filled most of the remaining space, each covered in white cloth and surrounded by wooden chairs, though nearly all of them remained empty while the guests stood talking in small groups of their own.
A wide section through the middle had been left bare, with only a long carpet leading from the foot of the stairs to the heavy wooden doors at the far end.
Families were still arriving as I descended, each group welcomed by a waiting maid and followed by their own escorts, who took their coats the moment they stepped into the warmth spilling out from the hearths in every corner. Get faster updates on NovelPing.
I had only made it halfway down when something close to a wave of silence passed through the hall, the conversations nearest to me faltering first before heads began turning one after another, some faces holding curiosity, others open dislike, but nearly all of them carrying at least a trace of the same disgust and apprehension.
Well. Wasn’t that welcoming.
Their icy violet eyes stayed fixed on me as I continued down, probably waiting for me to flinch beneath the attention, but I kept my head raised and my pace steady, refusing to give any of them the satisfaction of seeing their stares reach me.
I found Harren easily in the distance. His presence alone made him stand out even in a crowd this large, and he was speaking with an older man and a woman, both holding glasses of red wine as they listened.
The longer I studied them, the more clearly I felt the Reliquaries within each of them, their Ichor pressing against my senses with a weight second only to Harren’s own.
Osric. Harren’s uncle, another Transformed much like Arn, though the years had clearly been considerably less kind to him.
From the memories inside me, I knew he had once been renowned for his strength and had even been considered a real contender for the position of house head, before Harren’s father claimed the seat instead.
He had always been the sort of man to place the house above anything else, and by every account, he had never carried any resentment over losing that position.
But that was everything I knew about him. He had never appeared in my writing, not even once.
Beside them stood a woman I recognised without needing the memories to name her.
Vesna, Harren’s sister.
She was beautiful, almost dangerously so, with a presence that pulled at the eyes of everyone around her without requiring the slightest effort on her part.
Her hair carried the same moonlit silver as the rest of Claiom, though unlike most of them she wore it loose, and where the family seemed determined to bury itself beneath pale colours, she had chosen a deep red dress that made her stand out even more sharply against the crowd.
I already knew better than to stare at her for too long.
Her Aspect was infamous for precisely that reason. She could draw people toward her with almost no effort at all, turning attraction into something far more insidious until even their dreams belonged to her.
I know. Fucking horrifying.
I had written that ability for a particular purpose later in the story, though Vesna herself had never been one of the major characters. If I remembered correctly, she had died during the war as well, just like Harren.
She was also probably the only person in the main line who had never looked down on Yun for what he was.
Instead, she had always been playful with him, sometimes embarrassingly so, a sharp departure from the cold and oppressive presence nearly everyone else in this house seemed determined to carry.
Looking across the rest of the hall, I noticed several other powerful presences scattered among the guests, enough that the Ichor in the air seemed to shift beneath the weight of having so many Touched gathered in one place.
Most sat around Evolved or Shaped, with fewer than a handful of Transformed mixed among them, and that made sense when the total number of Transformed across the entire world probably sat within two digits, while the publicly known Claimed could be counted on little more than one hand.
None of that made the disdain aimed at me any easier to tolerate.
I kept walking and studied the younger faces instead, trying to work out which of them would be entering the Rite alongside me and what I would actually be facing in a week’s time, when a familiar figure separated from one of the groups near the centre of the hall and started toward me.
Vesna. What does she want?
Some part of me did know that I should try to get closer to her if possible. Her strength could be of use to me in future after all.
"I heard about your strange Aspect from Harren," she said as she approached, her red dress doing very little to discourage the eyes following her through the room.
When she drew closer, the colour of her eyes softened toward an icy blue, and my heartbeat immediately quickened against my will.
Oh my lord...
Damn it. This was exactly why I did not want to be anywhere near this woman.
"Is it really wise to use your Aspect so openly right now, dear aunt?"
Her smile only widened as she stepped closer.
"Come now. I only wanted to put you at ease with all those unfriendly stares," she said, gesturing playfully toward the hall. "Then again, my Aspect never seems to work properly on you, does it?"
Like hell it would.
Her eyes returned to their ordinary violet as she studied me for another moment.
"Well, enough of that. Show it to me."
"Show you what?" I asked, taking a small step back despite myself.
Even without the Aspect pressing against my mind, standing this close to her was more than distracting enough.
"Your Mark," she said, pointing toward the wrist hidden beneath my sleeve. "To think you bonded with an Aspect so unusual, even by the standards of Dream. You truly never stop finding ways to surprise me."
I pulled the sleeve back just far enough to reveal the fine grey lines beneath my skin, thread-thin and already stretching further along my forearm.
She stared at them for several seconds, a small frown passing over her face before her gaze lifted to mine, lingering there as though she expected the answer to whatever troubled her to be written somewhere in my expression.
Fuck, does she know it’s not Dream...
Before she could ask, the mood in the hall shifted, conversations quieting as attention turned toward the entrance.
"They are finally here," Vesna murmured beside me.
I followed her gaze through the crowd until it settled on the doors, where a familiar and almost wicked smile had already appeared on a woman’s face.
Ilsa Claiom.
What is she planning now?
Vesna noticed my expression and let out a quiet laugh.
"Well, it appears you have your work cut out for you tonight." She leaned closer, lowering her voice. "Try not to disappoint me during the Rite, Yun. I might be the only person in this hall supporting you."
She winked before turning away, disappearing back into the crowd before I could decide whether any part of that had been sincere.
Unbelievable, that woman.
Roderic led his family into the hall, his presence carrying the unmistakable weight of a Transformed, heavy enough for me to feel even from across the room.
Harren stepped forward to meet him, and the two brothers clasped forearms without either of them showing anything close to warmth.
Ilsa walked close beside her husband, wearing the same perfectly pleasant expression she always carried, and behind them came the twins.
Kessler found me almost immediately, his gaze locking onto mine with the same haughty contempt he seemed to wear as naturally as the silver hair on his head.
I had not heard much about him since the day Aela and I encountered him in the city, but I already had a feeling he would be the one I needed to worry about most when the Rite began.
Beside him, Wren remained half a step behind, quiet as always. Her eyes met mine for only a moment before she looked away again.