Solivair sat in the quiet solitude of his new office, the dark wood of his desk smooth beneath his calloused fingers. It was a simple room in Blacksword Manor, refurbished after years of disrepair, and yet it suited him well. There was no gaudy opulence, no unnecessary ornamentation—only a sturdy desk, a chair, a locked cabinet that would eventually hold his forms and records, and the quiet crackling of a lantern to stave off the gloom. A fitting place for a man who had spent his years in the shadows, now finding himself once more in service, though to a master unlike any he had known before.

  He exhaled, rolling his shoulders. The long years sat heavily upon him, though his body had yet to betray him entirely. Age had darkened his crimson skin, deepened the grooves along his horns, and stripped away the reckless edge of youth, but it had not dulled his mind. Nor had it stripped him of purpose.

  Lord Klarion Blacksword had already left for his studies, the Leporine woman—a warrior, sharp and watchful—trailing at his side. That left Solivair here, alone with his thoughts, a rare moment of quiet in a life that had never afforded him much of it.

  It was strange, this latest twist of fate. To be here, in a manor that belonged to one of the highest ranking noble houses of the western portion of the Empire, and at the express invitation of one of the scions of said Archducal House at that. It was not where he had expected to be.

  But then again, life had never led him where he expected.

  The past had a way of creeping up on a man when he least expected it. Sitting in his newly appointed office within Blacksword Manor, Solivair found himself dwelling on the winding, treacherous road that had led him here. The quiet crackle of the small flame on his desk cast flickering shadows on the walls, reminding him of the alleyways and hidden chambers he had once called home.

  He had been content there. Once. For decades, he had lived as a man of status—not noble, but respected in the circles where it truly mattered. His name had carried weight in the underworld, and those who knew the name Solivair had known it was spoken with either reverence or fear.

  That life had been good to him. His family had never wanted for anything. His children, his extended kin, had lived in comfort, untouched by the desperation that drove lesser criminals to take foolish risks. Solivair had been a man of pragmatism. There was no glory in chaos, no sense in reckless bloodshed. Their work had been precise, an art honed over generations.

  He let out a slow breath, leaning back in his chair as his tail curled absently around the leg of his desk. Yes, his family had always walked the edges of the Empire’s laws — though that could be said of nearly all Vileborn — skirting the lines between survival and crime, necessity and ambition. Thievery had been their trade, smuggling their art, and when needed, blood had been the price paid to ensure their continued existence. They had never dealt in the indiscriminate spilling of it, never worked for those who would bring the wrath of the Empire’s enforcers down upon them. No, their blades had been reserved for those who lived as they did, who played the same game and just happened to lose against more skilled opponents.

  For decades, he and his family had played that game well in the capital city of Alluria, a border world in this part of the Empire. He had built something lasting, something strong. A network of thieves, merchants, and informants, all bound together in the silent agreement that survival came first.

  And yet, as the years passed, he had known that the life he had forged would not last forever. The new generations were hungrier, more reckless. They did not understand the rules that had kept men like him alive. His children, his grandchildren—they had grown up in the shadow of his choices, inheriting his debts as much as his legacy.

  And then it had all crumbled.

  A rival house—one he did not care to recall the name of—had engaged in a betrayal against him.

  A war had happened then. Not the grand kind fought between nations, but the quiet, seething conflict that burned through the streets like an unseen wildfire. A feud between crime families that had simmered for years until someone had decided patience was no longer an option. Deals had soured, debts had been called, and suddenly, there had been no place left to hide.

  His family had been wiped out. His sons, his daughters, his cousins and kin, all gone in a matter of weeks. The streets they had once ruled with quiet authority had become hunting grounds where they were the prey.

  And he, Solivair the careful, Solivair the calculating, had been left with only three members of his once large, extended family. Damian, the eldest, who had always been the sharpest of his grandchildren. Kodrian, restless and reckless but full of potential. And Lilian, still so young, too young to have been caught in such a storm.

  He had been left with nothing but them.

  And vengeance.

  Vengeance had been the only thing left to him, the only course that made sense. He had taken the last of his wealth, the hidden caches of coin and favors long stored away, and turned to the one weapon no man, no matter how powerful, could escape.

  Poison.

  It had been swift, brutal, and final. The rivals who had torn apart his family never saw it coming. They had been cautious of blades, wary of open conflict, but in their greed and arrogance, they had let their guard down at the wrong moment. A drink, a meal, a mere touch of the wrong substance, and they had withered from the inside out.

  By the time the City Watch arrived, backed by the heavy boots of Imperial Legionnaires, it was already over. The men who had come for him did not care for the reasons. They cared only for the fact that among the dead was one with noble blood. A wretch of a man, no less vile than the rest, but noble all the same.

  And in the Empire, bloodlines mattered.

  He and his grandchildren had been shackled, thrown onto a transport, and sent to a mining labor camp. A place where those sentenced to die were made to break their bodies for the Empire’s gain before execution was finally deemed a mercy. That should have been the end of it. It would have been, had fate not taken an unexpected turn.

  More bodies had been needed for the Hall of Bonds at the Imperial Academy in their corner of the Empire. A rare chance, a stroke of cruel luck. He and his grandchildren had been selected, plucked from the slow march toward death and placed into a different kind of servitude.

  It had been a strange transition. From what brief glances he had been given, the Academy was an awe-inspiring place, a domain of power and learning beyond anything he had ever imagined. He had seen scions beyond his cell, the chosen heirs of noble houses, speaking of grand ambitions and legacies, of classes and Essences, of things he had never thought he would be close enough to witness.

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  Yet for all the opportunities that surrounded them, and the reason why they had been sent to the Hall of Bonds, no one had picked them. The scions of the Academy had looked at him and his grandchildren and seen nothing but refuse. Vileborn, criminals, remnants of a fallen house of shadows and blood. No one had wanted them. No one had even considered them.

  He had thought it was the end when they had lingered in the Hall of Bonds far past the selection of every other potential servant that had arrived alongside them. He thought it had been roughly a year of time spent standing in that cell, waiting to be claimed or cast aside. When no scion had so much as glanced their way, he had known what was coming.

  The Arena.

  For a Vileborn well past his prime and his three remaining grandchildren that he still saw as little more than children too young to stand a chance, it was a sentence worse than death.

  The last few weeks, he had just been waiting for the final axe to fall. And then his worst fears had come to light, and the Sentinels came to tear them resisting from their shared cell. To be taken to the Arena as fodder for some scion seeking to gain more levels.

  Until Scion Klarion Blacksword.

  A scion whose name had been as empty as his own, a noble in title but stripped of all power. A young man with, from what he could tell, no established standing, no allies, no certainty in his own future. And yet, Klarion had looked at them and seen something worth taking in.

  Solivair still did not understand why.

  Perhaps the young lord had simply seen an opportunity—loyalty from those who had nowhere else to go. Perhaps he had recognized something in them that others had missed. Or perhaps, like Solivair himself, Klarion understood what it meant to be left with nothing but the will to rise again. Whatever the reason, it had led Solivair here.

  As a Steward.

  He let out a slow breath, his fingers tapping against the desk. It was almost laughable. A lifetime of crime, of ruling the streets and shadows, and now he managed household affairs.

  And yet… he did not resent it.

  There was a strange peace in this role. Klarion was no fool, that much was clear. He was young, ambitious, and reckless, but there was something about him—an edge, a quiet intensity that reminded Solivair of the men who had ruled the underworld before the fools and butchers had taken over. More than that, there was potential. And his grandchildren were safe. For now. That alone would have been enough.

  His sharp eyes flicked to the papers on his desk, records of what little remained in the estate’s coffers, a list of supplies that needed to be procured, the names of merchants and contacts that might be willing to extend favors—though favors were dangerous things to owe. Klarion had ambition, that much was clear. He would need power, resources, and the kind of connections that could not be bought with coin alone.

  Solivair had spent a lifetime knowing where to find such things.

  The young lord had taken a risk in taking them in. Perhaps he was a fool. Perhaps he was something else entirely. Either way, Solivair had made his choice.

  He would see where this road led.

  The soft but firm knock at his door pulled him from his thoughts.

  “Come in,” Solivair called.

  The door creaked slightly as it swung open, revealing Margaret. The human woman stepped inside with the practiced efficiency of someone who had spent a lifetime managing estates, her sharp gaze sweeping over him like a drill sergeant evaluating a new recruit. She was a woman of strict principles, her graying hair pulled back into a tight bun, her posture straight despite the years that weighed upon her. She carried a small ledger under one arm, likely filled with notes on the manor’s progress.

  Margaret had proven herself invaluable since the day Klarion had chosen them from the Hall of Bonds. Unlike many others in the Empire, especially among the humans, she had never flinched at Solivair’s presence. She had not sneered at his crimson skin, nor recoiled from his tail or the horns that curved back from his head. She had looked him over with the same scrutiny she would any other man and had simply nodded before setting about her work.

  It was a refreshing change from the prejudice he had long since grown accustomed to.

  “Steward,” she greeted, her tone as crisp as ever.

  “Margaret,” Solivair replied with a small incline of his head.

  She wasted no time in launching into her report. “The refurnishing efforts are progressing, but we are still far from completion. The grand hall has been restored to a functional state, and the west wing’s primary chambers are now livable. The scion’s quarters, of course, were our priority, and those are in proper order. The kitchen has been cleaned, though there are still issues with the storage rooms—some of the shelving has rotted through and will need replacing.”

  She flipped open the ledger, scanning down a list before continuing. “The upper floors are another matter entirely. Many of the rooms there remain in a state of disrepair, with broken furniture, dust thick enough to choke on, and more than a few places where the ceilings need reinforcement. That doesn’t even account for how much is actually missing. It will take significant time and effort to restore everything properly.”

  Solivair nodded, taking in the information. It was what he had expected. While they had made good progress, the manor had been abandoned too long for this to be a quick fix. They would need many more weeks to get it back into shape.

  Margaret sighed, tapping a finger against the open pages of her ledger. “And then there’s the issue of money.”

  Ah. There it was. Solivair laced his fingers together, leaning back slightly in his chair as he regarded her with a smirk. “Always comes down to coin in the end, doesn’t it?”

  Margaret gave him a pointed look. “It does when we’re running low.”

  He chuckled, though there was little humor in it.

  “We’ve been stretching what we have as far as possible,” Margaret continued. “I’ve been keeping costs down where I can—prioritizing essentials, ensuring we’re not wasting funds on unnecessary luxuries. But restoration costs coin. Good labor and good materials don’t come cheap, and we’ve nearly exhausted what we had. If we don’t secure more funds soon, we’ll be at a standstill.”

  Solivair studied her for a long moment, appreciating the bluntness of her words. Margaret did not dance around a subject, did not sugarcoat reality. She spoke plainly, a quality he had always respected.

  More than that, he appreciated her lack of fear.

  Had they met in his former life, she would have been the type to clutch her purse tightly upon seeing him, to cross the street when he passed by. Perhaps she would have called the City Guard had he lingered too long in her presence. Or, if she had known his name, she would have fled outright.

  And yet here she stood, speaking to him as she would any other man.

  It was amusing in its own way.

  “Your concerns are noted,” Solivair finally said. “And well-founded.”

  Margaret exhaled, her lips pressing into a thin line. “And what do we plan to do about it?”

  He chuckled again, waving a hand. “Patience, dear Margaret. Our young lord seems to have a plan for coin, though I suspect he has not yet shared the details.”

  She frowned. “You trust him to handle it?”

  Solivair tilted his head. “I trust that if he does not, it will become my concern to bring it to his attention.”

  Margaret crossed her arms. “And what if his ‘plan’ doesn’t pan out?”

  “Then we shall have words,” Solivair said, his tone casual yet firm.

  Margaret gave him a long, considering look, then let out a small huff. “I hope you’re right about him, Steward. I’ve served plenty of nobles who thought money would fall into their laps without effort. It rarely does.”

  Solivair inclined his head. “Our Scion Blacksword is not like most nobles. He does not have the luxury of waiting for fortune to come to him. He knows he must seize it with his own hands.”

  Margaret tapped her ledger closed. “Then let’s hope he seizes it soon. Because if we run out of money before this manor is properly restored, it won’t matter how much potential he has.” She turned to leave but hesitated for a moment before glancing back at him. “And Steward—if it does come to that, I expect you’ll make sure he understands the severity of the situation.”

  Solivair’s smile widened. “Oh, I will. Rest assured, Margaret, I do not intend to let this place crumble after all the work we’ve put in.”

  She gave a curt nod and exited the office, leaving Solivair alone once more. His smile faded as he leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling. Margaret was right, of course. Coin was a pressing issue, and if Klarion did not secure more soon, they would find themselves in a difficult position. But Solivair had been in difficult positions before. He had clawed his way out of worse. And now, he found himself in a strange new role, overseeing an estate rather than a criminal empire. A steward rather than a crimelord.

  It was almost absurd.

  Yet, strangely enough, he found himself growing invested in this place.

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