The morning after the Bloodline Test, Aurelia's streets were alive with whispers. Merchants paused mid-sale, children hid behind carts, and the city's nobles shook their heads as if the sun itself had betrayed them.
Bravo Lucien walked quietly through the crowd, his cloak drawn tight around him. Every footstep seemed louder than the last, each one a reminder that he was different. Bloodless. Unchosen.
Only Lyra remained by his side.
"Let them talk," she said, her voice soft but firm. "They don't know you."
Bravo's lips twitched in a faint smile, but the weight of humiliation lingered. "Maybe they're right," he muttered. "Maybe I'm nothing."
Lyra shook her head, her hair catching the morning light. "Or maybe they're afraid of you." Her words carried a warmth he hadn't felt since the test began. For a brief moment, the world felt less heavy.
---
At the training grounds, his three friends—Cassian, Darius, and Renar—practiced under the sharp eyes of their instructors. Each bore the glowing mark of the Founder's bloodline, proof of the empire's favor. Pride radiated from them, sharp and cruel.
Cassian's eyes narrowed as he noticed Bravo. "You shouldn't be here," he said, voice low and cutting. "This ground is for the chosen."
"I trained here before," Bravo replied, his tone quiet but unwavering.
"Then you trained for nothing," Renar sneered, spinning his blade through the air.
Darius said nothing, but the slight curl of his lip told Bravo everything he needed to know. Even his closest friends were beginning to turn.
Lyra stepped forward, placing a gentle hand on Bravo's shoulder. "Ignore them," she whispered. "They see what they want to see, not what is real."
Her touch was like a spark. Bravo's chest tightened—not with fear, but something new, something fragile. A flutter he didn't yet understand.
---
Days passed, each one heavier than the last.
The academy's halls became corridors of whispers and sidelong glances. Bravo's absence from honor rolls, from elite training groups, from every corner where power flowed, was noted and mocked.
Yet Lyra remained, always patient, always near. She watched him practice in secret, sometimes joining with a small, teasing grin.
"Careful," she said one afternoon, "you might make them jealous."
Bravo couldn't help a small laugh, the first real sound of amusement in days. For a heartbeat, the burden of shame lifted, replaced by the quiet joy of her presence.
---
But shadows never slept.
One evening, as the sun sank behind Aurelia's spires, Bravo returned to find Lyra's apartment door ajar. Inside, the room was empty. A chair overturned. A faint scent of iron hung in the air.
He called her name, louder and louder, until the walls seemed to swallow his voice. No answer came.
Outside, the rain began to fall, cold and unforgiving. He traced her steps through the puddled streets, finding only a single clue—a pendant she had worn since childhood, lying in the gutter, glinting faintly in the storm.
The guards suggested she had run away, but Bravo knew better. Something darker had taken her. Something that whispered in the shadows and laughed behind closed doors.
His friends offered no comfort. Cassian's eyes flickered with unease, Renar avoided him entirely, and Darius's hand brushed his shoulder briefly before slipping away, silent and unyielding.
A fire, slow and cold, ignited within Bravo. He had failed the test, been humiliated, and now even those he trusted seemed part of the world's cruelty.
> "If the gods won't bring her back," he whispered to the storm, "then I'll make them remember her name."
From above, hidden in shadow, a pair of eyes followed him. Watching. Waiting. Patient.
Tomorrow, the city would wake.
But for Bravo, nothing would ever be the same.