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Training Yard – Alice's POV
The steel glinted faintly under the lantern light as she wiped the blade down for the third time. It didn't need cleaning anymore. She just needed something to do with her hands.
The yard was quiet. Cold. She liked it better that way.
Then she heard him.
She didn't need to turn to know it was Lucien. His footsteps were heavier than Titus's. More deliberate than Michael's. Always like he was ready to fight something—even if it was just the ground.
"You're not limping. That's new."
It came out more casual than she felt. She didn't look up.
"I need your opinion," he said.
That made her pause.
Her eyes stayed on the blade, but her fingers stilled. She already knew where this was going. He'd been too still the past few days, too quiet. Something had been building.
"This about the spar " she asked.
"No," he said. "It's about House Ravelin."
Her spine straightened slightly.
He stepped closer. "I'm considering letting them take me in. Officially. Name, crest, everything."
There it was.
She looked at him—just once. Just long enough to read his face.
He wasn't playing. He meant it.
Of course he did.
He's really going to do it.
She would deep down in her heart she knew she would denounce her whole family
The thought sat heavy in her chest. She didn't show it. Just turned back to her sword and folded the cloth.
He'll outrank me.
Just like Titus
That was the first thing that crossed her mind.
Not resentment. Not anger. Just that dull, unwelcome fact. No matter what she'd trained for, studied, earned—he'd leap over all of it. Not because of noble blood. Not because of merit through channels she respected.
Because he survived something they hadn't.
Because he had a mentality no one could ignore.
"It's just... strange," she said aloud. It was all she let herself say.
Unfair, she didn't say.
Why is he asking me
Unsettling, she didn't say.
He's not supposed to be the one I haveyo be worried about after the spar she was disappointed but felt she could make a rival without any of the complicated feelings she had towards Titus
He didn't argue.
Alice stood, set her rapier down, and faced him. Her expression was calm, but her pulse was tighter than usual. Her thoughts too loud.
You're respectable and now you're going to have a title.
She stepped closer. Looked him in the eye.
"If you're going to take the name," she said, "fine. Just don't force yourself
She meant it.
Even if part of her wished she could stop him.
Even if the idea of seeing him seated at a noble table—with weight, with say-so, with that same unbending gaze—made something twist in her chest.
You weren't supposed to move this fast.
You weren't supposed to feel like a threat.
But the truth was... he already did.
She kept her voice steady. Her stance clean. Her eyes sharp.
"If I were you," she added, "I'd take it."
But I'd watch you closely after.
He nodded, like he understood. Maybe he did.
He turned to go.
She almost called out.
But she didn't.
She just watched him walk into the dark, back straight, steps steady.
Don't forget your clan if you did something like that I could not respect you anymore
The yard was quiet again.
But it didn't feel peaceful anymore.
Lucien POV
Lucien never liked ceremonies. but
after speaking with Alice he was assured Not on Earth. Not here. Not anywhere.
They always felt like rituals for people who had something to prove—or worse, something to hide. A stage. A costume. A speech carefully stripped of all the things that mattered and polished until it sparkled with meaninglessness.
But this wasn't just any ceremony.
This was his.
And it wasn't meant to crown him.
It was meant to mark him.
Lucien stood alone in the circular chamber beneath Rosehall's eastern wing—a place none of the servants spoke about. The room smelled of limestone and smoke. The stone walls were carved with old sigils: House Ravelin's crest repeated in perfect symmetry along the inner circle, each one identical except for the faint bloodstains darkening the center of each crest. The floor was smoother than it should've been, like too many feet had walked across it in silence.
This is where they did it.
Adoptions, oaths, soul-binding pacts.
The quiet politics that shaped noble legacies.
Lucien stood in the middle of it now, staring at the obsidian pedestal at the room's center.
On top of it sat a single object: A black stone. Smooth. Rounded. And glowing faintly—like it had just woken up from a deep sleep.
The Synchro Stone.
He didn't reach for it.
Not yet.
Three days earlier, it had arrived unannounced.
No trumpet. No escort. Just a black carriage and a courier wearing no house colors.
Titus had opened the letter.
He hadn't said anything at first—just stared. Then passed it to Lucien without a word.
The seal was unmistakable: Count Ravelin's personal crest—stamped in red wax and braided with silver thread.
Inside:
"To Lucien, bearer of darkness and storm.
A stone for a soul unclaimed.
A question, not an answer.
What you build, I will not deny.
What you destroy, I will not save.
Choose carefully.
–R."
No signature. No formal welcome. Just that.
A gift. A warning. A test.
Lucien knew what it meant the second he saw the box.
Synchro Stones weren't toys.
They weren't even technically artifacts.
They were catalysts—tools used by nobles and power-chasers to alter their Sacred Gears. Not to replace them, not to upgrade them like some spell-forged trinket.
But to fuse them.
To reshape the Gear's form using something deeply personal—a monster's bone, a cursed heirloom, a memory carved from soul-regret.
Once fused, a Sacred Gear never returned to its previous state.
This was no honor.
It was leverage.
And Count Ravelin had just thrown it at his feet.
Now, standing in the chamber, Lucien stared at the stone.
He didn't breathe.
Didn't blink.
He just listened—to his own pulse, to the whisper of mana sliding beneath his skin, to the hum of the black ring tightening on his finger like it sensed the moment approaching.
He wasn't scared.
But he was cautious.
Because the Synchro Stone didn't just add.
It mutated.
It didn't just strengthen your power. It warped it. Personalized it. Bent the laws of your Gear around whatever piece of yourself you forced into it.
The more broken the offering?
The more monstrous the result.
As Lucien reached out for some of the multiple rare materials given to him by barron Rosedale a grave feeling overcame him convincing him to wait