Elma, six months old, was strapped into her high chair, enduring what was, for her, the most agonizing torture: The Dinner.
It was served in the Great Dining Hall, a vast, echoing space designed to celebrate the wealth of House Altheris. Yet, the room itself was proof of the chasm between its occupants.
Lord Valerius Altheris sat at the head. Lady Christa Kresnik sat opposite him, beautiful but subdued. Elma sat between them, a small, helpless centerpiece.
The marriage was a political union, a merger of power lines, and the atmosphere reflected it perfectly. It was not a tense, suppressed anger that filled the room; it was simply a vacuum of connection.
The silence was monumental. It swallowed the soft scrape of silver on porcelain, the quiet padding of the servants' shoes, and every breath Elma took. It was a cold, oppressive emptiness—the sound of two people who had nothing to say to each other.
The veteran consciousness of D-66 raged against this polite, suffocating quiet. She longed for a fight, a clear threat, or even just genuine noise. The urge to break the silence, to shatter the crystal goblets, to tear the silk napkin from Valerius's lap—anything to force a real reaction—was almost unbearable.
Christa slowly raised her head. Her eyes met her husband's—and for the first time ever in the dining hall, Elma saw something in her mother's face that wasn't exhaustion or resignation, but a deep, quiet concern. She ignored Valerius entirely. Her gaze found Elma's.
"Elma," Christa said softly, her words aimed only at her daughter. "Our child is not normal."
The statement struck Elma like a sudden, brutal blow. Panic, cold and immediate, seized her. The six months of agony spent mastering the role of a compliant, idiotic infant—the hours spent biting her own sleeve to suppress the urge to fight, the sheer humiliation of her limited motor skills—all of it had been for nothing.
She caught me! Elma thought, the core of D-66 dissolving into frantic, primal fear. How? Did I slip? Did I move my eyes wrong?
Elma stared back at her mother, her baby face frozen in wide-eyed shock. Her mind raced through every interaction, every feeding, every time Christa had simply murmured a lullaby. When had she seen through the mask?
Valerius, still rigid, finally spoke, his voice dangerously low, "what do you mean?"
Christa stood up abruptly, knocking her chair back onto the polished stone floor. The unexpected, loud crash finally broke her composure; the usual resignation was replaced by raw, frantic emotion. She was shouting now, her voice echoing and cracking in the vast hall.
"What do I mean? I mean she isn't natural! She has never cried like a proper baby! Not when the nurse cleans her, not when she's hungry, not since her birth. She is six months old, and she has never cried!"
She gestured wildly toward Elma, her hands trembling.
"And when I hold her, I feel it! She goes rigid, she stiffens up, she holds her breath, or she stares right through me, pretending to be asleep! She barely moves a muscle when she's near us! She is afraid or she is cursed!"
Elma's consciousness felt a flicker of confusion and disbelief amidst the shock. Afraid? she thought. Isn't that how a smaller, weaker being should act when surrounded by a larger one? What is wrong with these people?
Valerius stared at his wife for a long moment, taking in her hysteria. Then, slowly, a wide, deafening laughter broke across his face. It was the same booming, empty, triumphant sound Elma had grown to hate.
"HA HA HA HA! My dear Christa! Your sensibilities are betraying you!" Valerius bellowed, rising to his full, immense height. "You see fear or a curse; I see the perfection of a leader!"
He moved to Elma's chair and gripped the wood so tightly his knuckles were white.
"She is my daughter! She does not cry because she knows she has nothing to fear! She is a force of will, Christa! She is not some weak-minded peasant child who needs to wail for attention! She is silent because she is strong, because she is disciplined! She is a true Altheris-Kresnik! You should be proud!"
Christa's shouting stopped instantly. She dropped her hands, her face crumpling with weary disbelief. "Proud of what, Valerius?" she whispered, the question hollow in the huge room. "Proud of your massacres? The Gods will curse us for this. I know it."
A simple, devastating truth clicked into place in Elma's mind, making her feel intensely alone.
Christa was desperately kind, but profoundly gullible, relying on old texts and superstitions to make sense of the brutal power politics she was trapped in. Her fear wasn't about Elma's disguise; it was about divine retribution.
Gods, Elma thought, the word a distant, meaningless sound from a world of old rituals.
Is that what brought her here?
Yet, the idea took root with chilling logic.
She stared at her mother, who was now slowly sinking back into her chair, defeated and utterly convinced of a coming cosmic punishment.
Is that what I really am... their curse?
Valerius's face went from booming pride to absolute, terrifying stillness. He closed his hands into fists, squeezing them so hard the leather of his gloves must have groaned. He was actively, visibly refraining from an action, something Elma had never witnessed the terrifying Lord Altheris do before.
Thinking back, Elma realized she had never seen him lash out at Christa. On the contrary, he always fell silent whenever she was present.
Without a word, Valerius turned his back on his wife and daughter. His massive figure strode quickly away from the table, vanishing into heavy steps that thudded away beyond the doorway.
Christa's shoulders began to tremble, and she raised a hand to her face, trying to conceal the raw, painful sound that escaped her: a choking sob.
She was crying.
Elma stared at the sight, utterly frozen. She felt an inexplicable, sharp guilt clawing at her consciousness. She had never seen her mother cry before, and the sight shattered the meticulous control Elma had fought to maintain since her rebirth.
The guilt, the pressure, the suffocating atmosphere, and the sheer helplessness of her tiny body collided with a new, piercing fear: that Christa's trembling voice had spoken the truth. That she wasn't a child at all, but the curse hanging over this family. The weight of it broke her, sparking the same uncontrollable, violent reaction she had felt on the day she was born.
She broke into a cry.
It wasn't the fake, half-hearted fussing of an infant; it was a raw, tearing wail, ripped from the deepest parts of her small lungs.
Christa's head snapped up. Her eyes, wide and shining with tears, fixed on Elma in profound shock.
She rose, overturning her chair in her haste, and hurried to Elma's side, fumbling with the unfamiliar silk safety straps.
As soon as Elma was free, Christa pulled the baby close, gathering her into a desperate, tight embrace.
"Oh, my baby, my little Elma!" Christa choked out, tears of relief now mixing with her sorrow. "I'm so sorry, my darling. I'm sorry I screamed at your father. I'm sorry I frightened you."
Elma clung to her mother, the violent sobs still racking her body. She didn't understand why Christa held this kind of power over her—why it was so much stronger than even Hephryx's.
And as her tiny body betrayed her, the thought formed with cruel clarity:
I soiled myself.