The solarium had always been Victor's least favorite room in the estate.
It was too bright, too open, too alive with color. Morning light poured through the curved glass dome and fractured into rainbows across white marble floors veined with rose quartz. Climbing vines of black ivy (the Von Ruin crest plant) strangled the iron trellises, their leaves glossy and sharp enough to draw blood if you brushed them carelessly. In the center stood the breakfast table: obsidian slab on silver claws, long enough to seat twenty but today set for only five.
Victor arrived first.
He had bathed, dressed, and dismissed the valet who tried to fuss over his hair. The shirt he wore now was charcoal silk, high-collared, sleeves long enough to hide the faint violet glow that sometimes crawled along his forearms when he was angry. Black trousers, polished boots that made no sound. He looked like a funeral announcement pretending to be a boy.
He took the seat at the head of the table. Not the place traditionally reserved for him (that was third on the left, the "invalid's chair" with extra cushions). The head was his mother's. He sat anyway.
A maid appeared with coffee. Victor waved her away. He wanted his senses raw.
Minutes bled past. The ivy rustled though there was no wind inside the dome. Somewhere high above, a glass pane creaked in its frame.
Footsteps.
Lady Aurelia Von Ruin entered like winter arriving early. Tall, silver-haired, skin pale enough that the blue of her veins showed at throat and temples. Forty-three years old and still the most beautiful woman in Eldridge, or so the gossip sheets claimed. She wore mourning black even though no one had died yet; the color suited the perpetual frost in her eyes.
She stopped three paces from the table. Her gaze flicked to Victor in her chair, then away, as though the sight offended her.
"You are up early," she said. Voice smooth, precise, the kind that could order an execution and then ask if you wanted sugar in your tea.
"I slept well," Victor answered. "The tonic worked wonders."
A lie. He had not slept at all. He had spent the hours between Mira's departure and dawn sitting at the window, watching the city and counting heartbeats.
Aurelia's lips thinned. She did not comment on the chair. Instead she moved to the place opposite him (guest position, never the hostess) and lowered herself with the grace of a falling snow.
Next came Elara.
Nineteen, golden hair braided in the Draven fashion, eyes the color of fresh blood. She wore crimson velvet slashed with black, the colors of her betrothed house. A ruby choker circled her throat like a warning. She took one look at Victor in their mother's seat and smiled the way cats smile at birds with broken wings.
"Little brother," she purred, "you look almost healthy today. Did the healers finally find a vein thick enough to stick?"
Victor inclined his head. "Good morning, sister. You're glowing. Draven dick must agree with you."
Elara's smile froze. Aurelia's eyes narrowed to shards of ice.
Before either could reply, Lena slipped in.
Fourteen years old, small for her age, hair the same raven black as Victor's but long and straight as spilled ink. She wore soft gray, the color of ash before it catches flame. Her gaze darted between mother, sister, and brother, then settled on Victor with something close to relief.
She started toward the invalid's chair out of habit, stopped, realized every seat was now a statement, and finally chose the one to Victor's immediate right. Close enough that their sleeves brushed when she sat.
"Morning, Vic," she whispered.
"Morning, little star."
Lena flushed and stared at her plate.
The last to arrive was Sylvara.
Second sister, seventeen, the spare heir no one spoke of because Elara already filled the role so perfectly. Sylvara moved like smoke, dressed in hunter green that made her copper skin and white-blonde hair look feral. A thin scar ran from her left ear to collarbone (training accident, officially). Everyone knew Elara had given it to her during a "sparring session" two years ago.
Sylvara took the seat to Victor's left without asking permission. Her eyes (storm gray ringed with green) met his for a long second. Something unreadable passed between them.
Now the table was set: mother opposite, golden daughter, copper daughter, ash daughter, and the cursed son wearing the crown he hadn't earned yet.
Silence stretched until the ivy seemed to lean in to listen.
Aurelia broke it.
"You summoned us, Victor. Speak."
Victor rested his forearms on the table. The obsidian was cold; it drank the warmth from his skin.
"I had a dream," he said.
Elara snorted. "How original."
He ignored her. "I dreamed the sky cracked open and black rain fell for forty days. When it stopped, the dead walked and the living wished they didn't. I dreamed every noble house in Eldridge burned, starting with ours. I dreamed you, mother, on your knees in the courtyard while Draven dogs pissed on your hair."
Aurelia did not blink. "Dreams are wind."
"This one left marks." Victor pushed up his left sleeve.
Along the inside of his forearm, faint but unmistakable, violet lines pulsed like living tattoos. Veins that had never existed yesterday.
Lena gasped. Sylvara leaned closer. Elara's smirk faltered.
Aurelia's expression did not change at all.
"Parlor tricks," she said. "The healers can—"
"There will be no more healers." Victor's voice cut like glass. "No more tonics. No more capsules. No more pretending the Von Ruin blood in me is asleep instead of poisoned."
He turned to the side. Mira had entered silently and now stood near the archway with a fresh pot of coffee. Her old uniform was gone. She wore a simple black dress that actually fit, sleeves short, neckline modest but not severe. Her hair was down for the first time Victor could remember, auburn waves brushing her shoulders. She looked terrified and radiant.
"From today," Victor continued, "things change. The estate will prepare for siege. The vaults will be inventoried. Every servant loyal to me personally will be marked and elevated. Those who prefer the old ways may leave with a single suitcase and my blessing."
Elara laughed, sharp and ugly. "You've finally cracked, haven't you? Mother, give him the tonic twice a day. Chain him if you have to."
Aurelia raised one pale hand. Elara fell silent instantly.
"You speak of loyalty," Aurelia said. "Yet you sit in my chair and issue orders like a lord. On what authority?"
Victor smiled. It was the same smile from the mirror, the one that promised ruin.
"On the authority of the boy who has already died once and found the experience underwhelming."
He stood. The movement was smooth, no trace of the weakness that should have plagued him.
"I am taking control of House Von Ruin effective immediately. Anyone who objects may challenge me in the old way (blood duel in the crypts, no healers, no surrender)."
Absolute silence.
Then Sylvara laughed, low and delighted. "I'll sharpen the knives."
Elara surged to her feet. "You little—"
"Sit." Aurelia's single word cracked like a whip. Elara sat.
Aurelia rose in turn. She was taller than Victor by a full head, but when their eyes met it was she who seemed smaller.
"You want the seat?" she asked softly. "Earn it."
She extended her hand. Pale fingers uncurled to reveal a single drop of blood hovering above her palm, dark, almost black, spinning slowly.
"Drink," she said. "If your veins accept mine without burning, the house is yours. If they reject it, you die screaming. That is the old way."
Victor did not hesitate.
He leaned forward and closed his lips around the drop.
The taste was wintergreen and grave soil. For a heartbeat nothing happened.
Then fire exploded along every vein in his body.
He staggered but did not fall. Violet light flared beneath his skin, racing up his arms, across his chest, into his eyes. The glow was bright enough to cast shadows on the glass dome.
Lena whimpered. Mira dropped the coffee pot; porcelain shattered like gunfire.
When the light faded Victor was still standing. Sweat beaded on his brow, but his smile had widened.
"Delicious," he said.
Aurelia stared at her empty palm as though it had betrayed her.
"Impossible," she whispered.
Victor wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'll be in the library reviewing the ledgers. Mother, you will join me in one hour. Elara, you will inventory the armory and report by sundown. Sylvara, the outer wards need reinforcing. Lena…" He softened. "Stay close to Mira today."
He turned to leave.
At the archway he paused.
"Oh, and breakfast is cancelled. We're at war now. War runs on coffee and spite."
Then he was gone.
Behind him the solarium dissolved into chaos: Elara screaming, Aurelia silent and pale as death, Sylvara laughing like a woman who had just found religion, Lena staring at the place her brother had been with tears in her eyes and wonder in her heart.
Mira alone moved. She knelt among the broken porcelain, gathering shards with shaking hands, and when no one was looking she pressed one jagged piece to her lip until it bled.
Just to see if the pain felt real.
Because everything else suddenly didn't.