When Glass Castles Shatter
It didn't come with fire. No, the fall of the Voss family came with a chill—a slow, icy descent, as if the world had simply decided that the empire no longer needed its greatest family.
The city held its breath as news traveled, swift as a shadow, through the marble halls of nobles and the bustling streets alike. There were no great war drums, no speeches or declarations. Just a creeping silence that rippled through every corner of the capital. Victor Voss had been arrested.
The weight of it hit like a storm. A slow, deliberate unraveling.
By dawn, the Voss name was as toxic as poison. It had become a whispered curse on the lips of all who once admired it. Merchants, who had once fought for his trade and luxury, now ripped his signature from their ledgers as if it were plague-ridden. The grand halls of his estate, which had once echoed with laughter and the sound of wealth flowing like rivers, were now shrouded in shadow. Where once there had been lavish parties, there was now only cold silence, broken only by the clicking of guards' boots and the rustling of unseen eyes watching from behind high stone walls.
Victor Voss—reduced to nothing more than a man in chains.
The cell he now resided in was far from the gilded chambers he once called home. There were no tapestries to soften the stone walls. No plush cushions to rest his back. Only dampness. The air in the cell was thick with decay and the smell of a life fading from grandeur to grime. Victor sat hunched, his hands bound by iron that felt like the weight of an empire crumbling, his eyes staring at nothing. No longer was he the feared patriarch. The man who had once dictated the world's pace was now reduced to nothing but a captive—his power stripped away.
The accusations were as brutal as they were precise. The illegal holding of a magical child. Smuggling enchanted artifacts through the capital's borders. Financing forbidden experiments that tore at the very fabric of the empire. Each accusation echoed louder than the last, and with each passing moment, Victor's empire—his life—disintegrated. The court would never hold a trial. His fate had already been sealed.
Yet, no one dared to speak of it openly. The implications were too far-reaching. If Victor Voss could fall, who among the noble families was truly safe?
And so, they whispered in hushed tones. They eyed each other with suspicion. And they waited, every last noble wondering if their turn would come next.
But among all the chaos, one person stood still, unmoved, in the quiet corners of the Voss estate.
Elara Voss.
She did not cry when her father was taken. There was no rage. No screams. She did not throw herself to the floor in despair. Elara did not even blink. She simply stood there, watching it all unfold. Her face was a mask—expressionless, calm, composed—but her eyes…
Those eyes burned with something far darker than mere anger. They were filled with a quiet rage, a silent promise. Elara was not defeated. She was not broken.
And in that moment, the rumors that swept through the city took root: Elara Voss was done for. She would wither like a flower left in the cold. She would retreat into the shadows of the Voss family's fall and never rise again.
But they didn't know Elara.
They didn't understand that she had been taught, from birth, to rise from the ashes. To endure. To fight.
To win.
Her family had fallen, but that meant nothing to her. She did not mourn their destruction; she saw it as an opportunity. An opening. The old world was crumbling, and Elara was poised to build a new one in its place. She would not allow the Voss name to fade into history like dust.
No. She would rebuild it—not from the ground up, but from the very heart of the empire.
Victor Voss may have been defeated, but Elara had not even begun to fight.