**Cadiz**
Nobody needed me here.
I thought getting married would at least give me something to do. Father said it was political, joining houses to make alliances. That should mean responsibility, right? Duty. A place next to Raizel. Something more than just sitting around being useless.
But everyone here acted like I didn't exist. People were polite when they had to be, but they looked away quickly and found excuses to leave. It hurt worse than if they'd just been rude.
Every morning I watched Raizel put on his armor with quick, practiced movements. His face was like stone, untouchable. He carried the weight of everything like it was nothing. Everyone bent around him, officers waiting for orders, advisors bringing reports, stewards following with ledgers. They all needed him.
And me, his husband, got left behind every single time.
"Henrik," I asked one morning when the steward walked past my door with a stack of records, "is there something I could help with? The ledgers maybe, or accounts? I know how to handle estate records."
The guy froze. His bow was deep, his voice careful. "My lord, those matters are already handled."
Already handled. Always the same answer.
When I brought it up with Raizel later, he just shook his head. "Business here isn't your concern. You just need to stay well."
The words hit harder than he probably meant. But I couldn't help hearing the dismissal, the same dismissal Father always gave me. Like my thoughts, my efforts, my whole existence didn't matter.
I bit my tongue, but the bitterness stayed.
Days dragged by in the same pattern. I hung around the library because it was the only place nobody looked at me like I was in the way.
I got lost reading records - grain shipments, weapon counts, notes about seasonal supplies. At first it was just to pass time. But the more I read, the more I saw problems. A delayed shipment here, missing numbers there. This place lived on supplies, and I could see how easily that could go wrong.
When I finally worked up the nerve to mention something at dinner, the weak firewood sheds in the north that I'd seen myself, the silence afterward was crushing.
"The stewards handle that," Raizel said coldly, his voice carrying across the hall like ice. "You don't need to worry about it."
Don't need to worry about it.
The words stuck in my chest like a knife. I could barely eat after that, while everyone else went back to quiet conversations, careful not to look at me.
That night, I pressed my head against the cold window in my room, staring out at the black mountains. If I screamed, would anyone even hear me over the wind?
My brother would have known what to do.
Cassius had always been the one who got attention without trying, who could walk into a room and make it bend toward him like he was a magnet. Where I hesitated, he acted. Where I doubted, he was sure. Even when we were kids, he carried Father's approval like it was a cloak, while I stood in the shadows watching.
And now? Cassius was the empire's jewel, married in Avaly with every noble watching, while I rotted forgotten in these mountains.
I kept rereading that report about his wedding to Aldrik Von Draven. The words praised him endlessly - his grace, his beauty, how perfectly he'd fulfilled his role as heir. Everything Father ever wanted. Everything that was never meant for me.
Did he think about me at all when he stood at that altar with the whole world clapping for him? Or was I already erased, my name unspoken, my existence something nobody bothered remembering?
The thought made me feel even more empty inside. If even my twin, connected to me by blood and years of shared childhood, could live without remembering me, then what was I to anyone?
It all came to a breaking point in my mind not long after.
Raizel came back late from the fields, his cloak still wet from mountain rain. I waited by my door, heart pounding, the words clawing in my chest until I couldn't keep them in anymore.
"Do you want me to be nothing here?" I demanded, my voice sharper than I'd ever dared with him. "Am I supposed to just sit in silence while this whole place moves without me? What am I to you, Raizel? What am I supposed to be?"
He stopped mid-step, his pale eyes fixing on me with sudden, dangerous stillness. For a moment I thought he'd cut me down with words like he had at dinner. Instead, he let the silence stretch until my pulse roared in my ears.
"You don't understand what you're asking," he said finally, his tone low and hard. "The business of this place is dangerous. Getting you involved would put you in harm's way."
"I'm already in harm's way!" I snapped. "You think your silence protects me? You think being useless keeps me safe? I'm your husband, Raizel. I have the right to stand beside you."
His jaw tightened. For just a second, I thought I saw something in his face - not anger, not contempt, but fear. He turned away sharp, taking off his armor with harsh, precise movements.
"You will not get involved," he said flatly. "This isn't up for debate."
The words hit me harder than any shout could have. My throat closed up, my chest aching like he'd shoved me away with his own hands.
I didn't say anything more.
He went into his room without another look at me.
In the days after that, I pulled back. If Raizel saw the hurt in my eyes, he didn't show it. He carried on like nothing had happened between us, only speaking to me when he had to, leaving me to drift through these halls like smoke.
I started wandering the less-used passages, where servants moved without all the ceremony. Sometimes I helped them without being asked - carrying a bucket here, fixing a loose clasp there.
They looked at me with surprised wariness, but never said much. Maybe they were afraid of getting in trouble. Maybe they just didn't know how to treat me when I stepped down from being a silent decoration.
Still, those small acts helped something inside me. If Raizel wouldn't give me a role, I'd make one myself.
In the library, I started keeping my own notes, scribbling quietly on scraps of parchment. Lists of supplies, weather patterns, rumors I heard in the kitchens. Probably useless stuff. But together they painted a picture. A way of seeing this place not as somewhere that rejected me, but as something I might actually understand.
And in the quiet hours at night, when the fire threw shadows across my huge, empty bed, I'd put my hand on those ink-stained papers and whisper to myself.
"I'm not useless. I can't be."
The words were fragile, half believed. But they were mine.
And maybe, if I said them enough, they might become true someday.
Days passed in this new pattern. I kept doing my small acts of help around the place, my quiet note-taking in the library.
Slowly, some of the servants started nodding at me with something that looked like warmth. The cook's assistant even smiled when I helped carry heavy pots from the storeroom.
It wasn't much. But it was something.
One afternoon, I was helping sort through old supply records when I noticed something odd. The numbers for winter grain storage didn't match what I'd seen in the actual storerooms. Not by a little - by a lot. Either someone was stealing, or the records were wrong, or there was grain stored somewhere I didn't know about.
My hands shook as I copied down the discrepancies. This wasn't just busy work anymore. This was real.
I spent the next few days quietly checking other records, comparing them to what I could actually see around the keep. More mismatches. More problems. Some small, some that could be serious if winter got bad.
Part of me wanted to march straight to Raizel and shove the evidence in his face. See? I wanted to say. I'm not useless. I found something important.
But I remembered his cold dismissal, his flat refusal to let me get involved. He'd probably just hand my notes to Henrik and tell me to mind my own business.
So instead, I kept working quietly. Building a bigger picture. Learning more.
Late at night, when I reviewed my careful notes about supply problems and weather patterns, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. Hope. Not the desperate, grasping kind, but something steadier.
Maybe I couldn't be what Father wanted. Maybe I couldn't be what Raizel expected. But I could be useful in my own way.
This place might not need me yet. But I was learning to need myself.
I wasn't the golden son getting celebrated across the empire. I wasn't the perfect heir everyone expected great things from. I was just Cadiz, the forgotten twin, the failed omega with no scent and no holy power.
But maybe that was enough to start with.
Maybe being forgotten meant I could find my own purpose, in my own time, in my own way.
The thought scared me and excited me at the same time.