"Excuse me?" I said, blinking in disbelief.
This… wasn't what I expected. She loved her brother. Why?
The same brother who, by her own story, was the reason she was overlooked, ignored, pushed into this self-made crucible of worth and loneliness?
The storm, the rain, even the wind—somehow, all of it faded into a muted silence.
It was like my mind instinctively dimmed the world outside to process this... this paradox of hers.
Forza didn't respond with more words. Instead, she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, not her fingers, like most would. It was small, graceful, and practised. Probably some noble thing. Habit.
But that wasn't what struck me.
What struck me was that look on her face. The quiet, exhausted smile—like she was reliving something sacred, something painful yet a close memory. Her whole posture radiated truth.
Not pain.
Not bitterness.
But something far, far deeper.
"He was my younger brother," she finally said, voice soft but steady. "Of course, I loved him to death. I loved him more than I ever loved myself."
I blinked again. This time, slower.
"Why?" I asked. "Wasn't he the reason for everything you suffered through?"
Forza shook her head slowly, water slipping off the strands of her damp hair like silver threads, caught in the dim shimmer of stormlight.
"You're dumb," she said flatly.
Her tone wasn't mocking. It was observational, like a teacher correcting a wrong answer, not because she's annoyed, but because she expects better.
Me? Dumb?
Probably, yeah. In some situations.
But in this?
No way.
Unless… unless there was something else. Something she hadn't told me yet.
So I didn't speak. Didn't argue. Just waited.
Waited for the truth.
She exhaled softly and looked past me, eyes distant, staring into a memory no one else could see.
"Cris was always favoured. Yeah. For good reasons, I guess. But… how was that his fault?"
Her voice didn't shake. Not even once. That, somehow, made it worse.
"He never asked for any of it. He didn't steal my share of love. He just… received what should've been both of ours. That's not a crime. That's not something a child gets to decide."
She paused and finally looked at me.
"He never once acted like he was better than me. Never treated me like I was less. There was no sibling rivalry between us. He remembered my birthdays when no one else did. Handcrafted gifts with that awful glue that stuck to everything. He used to beg our parents to either bake or buy mango cheesecake every weekend—even though he hated cheesecake—because he knew I loved it."
... My chest tightened.
"He used to sleep beside me… because he knew I couldn't sleep alone in that ridiculously oversized room they shoved me into. He figured it out on his own. No one told him to."
She smiled again, faint and hollow and proud, all at once.
"We trained together. Studied together and played together. Even when he awakened his sound affinity—one of the rare ones in all of Verdun—he never once changed toward me. Not even a little. He was the same boy who shared his candy and tripped over his shoes and told me my voice sucked when I sang lullabies."
She paused, the air thick between us. My breath fogged the air. Hers didn't.
"I was the jealous one. Not him. He was… he was my everything."
A beat passed. Then another, alongside the winds carrying the cold rain droplets.
The wind picked up again, sweeping our cloaks back. Raindrops danced in spirals, swirling like a storm had cracked open not just the sky, but something in her.
And suddenly… I understood.
I wasn't talking to some emotionally distant noblewoman anymore.
I was talking to a sister who lost her whole damn world in a boy who used to sleep beside her so she wouldn't feel alone...
Why does she kinda remind me of-
"…You know, as messed up as everything may have sounded, life was… finally okay. Half-perfect, even. I was loving my life again—loving myself again—for the first time in a long while. A very long time, since the day my baby brother was born."
She paused, breath catching faintly, the wind muffling the silence between us.
"Then fate decided I was better off alone. Miserable. Without love or affection. Without someone I could love—or someone who'd love me without an exterior motive..."
Her voice was steady, but behind it, I could hear it. The fracture. The quiet break in someone who had held too much for too long.
Her brother's death. The event that reshaped her…
I wanted to ask. I really did. Ask what happened—how, when, why. The details. The sequence. Everything.
But not because I was nosy—maybe yes, a little, but mainly because I cared. Because something about this death felt wrong, like it wasn't just a tragedy. It felt unnatural, like a cut made from a blade no one saw coming.
"…What happened?" I asked, softly. "How did he die?"
The moment those words left me, I immediately regretted them, once I saw her reaction.
Shit. That was too direct. Way too direct.
I saw it in her eyes—the way my question hit her. The memory it summoned.
The memory of her brother dying… in her arms.
Fuck! I should've remembered that! How can I forget something she just told me a few minutes ago!? Why am I so reckless, and stupid during moments like these?!
I cursed myself. My breathing, heartbeat—both tried to punish me with guilt, but the damage had already been done.
Forza just kept staring at me, not with anger, but with something else—like she expected me to do… something.
Apologize. That would be a start. A real one.
"I'm so sorry—" I raised my hands and bowed my head forward, the bark of the log below us ready to take the hit. But before I could knock my head against it in repentance, a soft gust of wind intercepted me, gentle but firm—Forza's magic, stopping me.
"Don't stress it," she said calmly. "I didn't take offence. It was a blunt question, yeah, but it came from a genuine place."
I slowly lifted my head, my eyes- eye* still filled with hesitation, with worry.
"My brother…" she began, "…he was a prodigy. Yes, that was clear to everyone. The way he used his affinity, how he manipulated sound—it felt unreal. Unnatural. For someone so young to wield that much control, that much mastery…"
Her eyes softened, distant.
"My parents? Oh, they were delighted. Proud. They'd already planned his entire life—from his academic trajectory to his inheritance, even the politics surrounding marriage alliances to increase our House's power and wealth."
I stayed quiet. Listening.
"Cris… he wasn't just born with a gift. He was born with a curse, too. One none of us could see coming."
She looked down.
"He tried, you know? He really tried. He tried to live up to their expectations, to be their perfect son, their shining beacon, their investment, their future. He carried that burden on his tiny shoulders… the dreams of a noble house. And still… he smiled. Still, he loved. Still, he stayed humble and kind."
I swallowed.
"He achieved so much, so fast. But no matter what he did, it was never enough. It never stopped. The pressure. The weight. He should've been playing. Laughing. Learning things like music or painting, making friends, getting scolded for silly mistakes like every other kid… But instead, he was shackled. Bound. And the worst part?"
She looked up, her voice now like steel under velvet.
"He took most of that pressure onto himself. Voluntarily. The rest? It was forced. Slammed onto him by my parents, the House, society… expectations. Unrelenting, merciless expectations."
I could feel the metaphor coming, but it didn't soften the impact.
"It was like a dormant volcano," she said, voice quiet now. "You never know when it's going to explode… Until it does."
Wordlessly, I stood up and took a step beside her. Our shoulders touched, arms and legs lightly pressing against each other. I didn't say anything. Didn't need to.
I just waited.
Forza turned slightly, met my eye with something different now. Not pain. Not grief. Just… quiet understanding.
Then, she moved her right hand slowly across her body, reached for mine—the one resting limply over my thigh. Her fingers laced into mine and gently curled around, locking tight. Not shaky. Not uncertain. It was a firm, steady grip—hers.
I let her. No hesitation. No second thought.
As my own silent gesture, my right arm curled around her shoulders and pulled her close. Just enough. Not forceful, not needy—just real. It was something I'd learned from Sia… and Sara. A quiet gesture of comfort. A shared pain without words.
Forza leaned in but kept her head down, her eyes hidden from mine.
She was awkward. Not in a clumsy way, but in a way that said she didn't know how to act around someone she didn't fully trust yet—someone she hadn't labelled as safe.
It wasn't her fault. It wasn't even really awkwardness.
It was a lack of experience. A lack of emotional memory, emotional experience.
Because of these things, these human things? You don't learn them from books. You don't study them at academies.
You feel them. You experience them. And through that, you begin to know.
She never had that. Not the space. Not the time.
But that's okay. No one's perfect, not me, not her... And sometimes, it's the cracks, the flaws, the missing pieces—that make us human. That makes us real. That makes us different from the rest… and, maybe, just maybe—better.
"He was twelve. I was fifteen."
Her voice was faint now, weathered by memory and rain.
"He knew about my dreams. All of them. I wanted to be a researcher… a scholar. Study at AIMS—the most prestigious institution in all of Verdun."
Thunder cracked in the far distance. Her body flinched slightly against mine.
"Th- the fees for AIMS? Insane. The kind of insane that even noble families like ours hesitate at. The achievements required? Near impossible. The expectations? Ridiculously high."
She paused, her fingers squeezing mine. I held tighter.
"And the worst part?" she continued. "Even if I had all the merit, all the accomplishments, all the credentials—there was one thing that barred me from even applying for the scholarship."
Her lips curled slightly—not a smile. Bitterness.
"You have to be a non-noble. A commoner. One of the Nmanas. AIMS reserves its scholarship programs only for them. Apparently, it makes the world more 'fair' that way. Like nobles don't suffer their own kind of unfairness amongst themselves."
I said nothing. Just listened.
"I knew my path was going to be hard. Brutal, even. And I had zero expectations that my parents would help. Why would they? I wasn't their prized investment. Not like Cris."
Lightning lit up her face for a second. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears—memories, not rain.
"That's why I had plans. I worked day and night. Found ways to earn. Designed proposals. Competed in early tournaments. I checked every box. Every requirement, just for a chance to apply for the entrance test. A series of brutal exams conducted by AIMS officials. I had it all mapped out. I was going to make it happen. My dream… was going to be real."
She stopped. Just enough for the rain to take her place for a heartbeat.
"But my brother?" Her tone shifted—softer now, almost distant. "He had his own plan. One he never shared with me. Not even once."
I looked at her, felt her presence begin to drift, like her voice was stepping outside of her, leaving only the shell behind.
"He went behind my back," she said. "And struck a deal with our parents."
She chuckled. Not the happy kind. The kind that breaks you.
"They actually agreed. On both sides. There were conditions, of course. Always are, with them. But Cris—" her voice faltered, "—his only condition was that they let me attend AIMS. And that they'd pay my fees."
My breath hitched.
"That was it," she whispered. "Just that. A single, simple request. No demands. No trades. No threats. Just… a brother trying to help his sister chase her dreams."
She tilted her head faintly in my direction, but didn't meet my eye.
"Cute, right?" she asked. But the way she said it… It wasn't rhetorical. It wasn't even sarcastic.
It was grief.
I could feel her falling apart, piece by piece. The way the rain kept slapping her skin. The way her shoulders trembled—not from cold, but from holding back.
So I moved. Gently. My hand rubbed up her arm, up to her shoulder. I tried to warm her. To remind her that she wasn't alone, not here, not now.
She needed a break. Not from walking or fighting or breathing—but from feeling. From carrying this weight by herself.
I didn't speak. Just offered a soft hum, a signal that I was still here, still listening. For some reason, words felt… wrong. Like they'd break the rhythm. And this? This had to flow.
"My parents agreed," she said again, voice even smaller now. "Too fast. Suspiciously fast. But Cris? He was smart. He knew there'd be a catch. There had to be. With our parents, there's always a cost."
Her head dipped. Her grip on my hand loosened slightly.
"They gave him a list of conditions. Several, I'm sure. What were they? What was the context? I don't know. They never told me. And Cris… he never got the chance to either."
The rain fell harder, or it simply felt like it.
I didn't move, not even a little bit, except my arm, which was around Forza... Even my breath felt controlled, measured.
I just waited. Because I knew the worst part was coming. And some truths are best unravelled without interruption.
...
AIMS—the Imperial Academy for Mana and Sciences—wasn't just an institution. It was the summit. The untouchable peak nestled at the heart of Verdun, right inside the imperial city of Arengard. People didn't just dream of it—they worshipped the very idea of stepping through its gates.
Even Sara had once wanted that. She told me, a long time ago, about her wish to enter through the Scholarship Program—the same one Forza had just mentioned.
But the requirements? The expectations?
Utterly insane.
The kind that didn't just push limits—they shattered them. When Sara got her first look at what was required—not to get in, but just to qualify for the entrance exams—she froze. And then, she gave up, not as easily as it sounds, but she did give up before it was too late, before it consumed too much of herself and her time she could've invested elsewhere.
Not because she wasn't strong. Not because she lacked resolve. But because even she understood that some things were built to keep people out, and fighting those things may sound like a good story, but it can never be practical to be its main lead.
Even Mercy—the man who taught her to never quit, never falter, never kneel—had told her, "Don't waste yourself on places that were never meant for people like you."
It broke her a bit, but thankfully, she had friends on her side to help her.
The undeniable truth, though? It was and still is that the path to AIMS is different for everyone.
Forza's road was that of a scholar, a researcher, a thinker, a seeker of truths. It was brutal, yes. Unforgiving. But it was attainable.
Sara's path, on the other hand, was that of a combatant. A warrior. And that path? It wasn't just brutal. It was damn near suicidal, at least ten times harder than the one Forza was and still is walking.
The same path that Cris, Forza's younger brother, must've been forced to walk.
Taking on that burden—for someone else? For Forza? It wasn't just noble. It was heartbreaking and perhaps the pinnacle of selflessness...
It reminded me why, no matter how beautiful the dream of AIMS was, I could never bring myself to chase it.
It demanded too much.
It demanded everything, and I knew I wasn't cut out for it.
"Before you continue," I said quietly, turning to her, "Before you go deeper into that part… let me just say this."
She looked up, her eyes expectant, softened by grief and rain.
"You're a strong woman, Forza." My voice trembled slightly—not from fear, but the weight of truth. "A real one. You've been through more than most, and I could tell, even before you ever said a word. I'm… grateful. For trusting me. For sharing this. For opening up when it would've been easier to shut everything down and further drown yourself in this guilt you've been into for god knows how long..."
The rain drummed between us like a slow heartbeat.
"Someone like you—someone so talented, and so full of heart—you didn't owe me this. But you gave it anyway. So… thank you. Truly."
My words hung in the air. Raw. Unguarded. But I meant every syllable, even though the environment, the setting, was not compatible for this sort of talk... But then again, things just happen, events occur, nothing ever goes as intended... Especially in our case, people like us.
The corners of her lips twitched into the faintest smile, then, without warning, Forza leaned in and gently rubbed her head against my shoulder—like a cat seeking warmth, like a tired soul finding comfort in touch.
It caught me off guard. But I didn't move away. I let her stay there, close and quiet, her hair damp and messy against my soaked cloak.
And then she whispered, like a breeze threading through the thunder,
"You're a good man, Lucius."
The words wrapped around my chest like a bandage.
Soft. Simple. But powerful.
I didn't reply. I couldn't. Not right away. Her words echoed through my thoughts like a loop, bouncing between the hollow parts of me I'd never dared examine too closely.
A good man, huh?
Maybe. Maybe not... Mostly not.
But right now—right here—I wanted to be. For her.