Jacob stepped out of his room and drew in a slow, measured breath, allowing the cooler hallway air to replace the slightly stale, enclosed atmosphere of the space he had spent the better part of the day in, a room that, while far from suffocating, often took on a stillness that dulled the senses, something he had grown accustomed to over the years, but never truly liked.

The air outside was clearer, touched with the faint scent of aged wood and polished stone, and it seemed to move with a quiet rhythm that gently eased his thoughts into order.

He began walking, his pace steady as his feet moved across the mansion's long, winding corridors, polished floors reflecting occasional shards of sunlight filtered through high windows.

His destination wasn't one chosen lightly or out of convenience; he was heading toward Henry's room.

Among all his siblings, Henry stood out in a particular way, not for his physical prowess, nor his strength or ambition, but for something far subtler and far more useful: people liked him.

That was the simplest way to put it. Henry possessed an uncanny ability to make others feel seen, valued, understood, and more importantly, to make them trust him. His speech patterns adjusted with chameleon ease to match the expectations of whomever he was speaking to, his mannerisms shifting just enough to put people at ease without ever seeming false.

He could disarm a suspicious merchant, amuse a tired noble, or win over a scholar in a single conversation, and for that reason alone, Henry had connections, a web of acquaintances and alliances stretching far beyond what most in the family could manage.

Jacob needed access to areas of high ambient mana for his tests, and the odds that Henry had, at the very least, heard of someone who could help were better than most.

And then, of course, there was the obvious question, why not just go directly to their father?

The answer to that, Jacob thought, was already clear. First, the man was still locked in discussions with the remaining pillars, a meeting that had already stretched for days and showed no signs of ending anytime soon. But even if he had been available, Jacob wouldn't have gone to him.

During the banquet attack, when the situation had turned violent and panic swept through the hall, Jacob had assumed that Belemir, his ever-present attendant, had been caught up in the chaos, perhaps separated from him by chance or necessity.

But after the event, Belemir had returned unscathed and unapologetic, and more importantly, unrebuked, Jacob had understood something that settled in his chest with a quiet, steady weight.

There had been no negligence. No mistake. Belemir had not failed his duty, he had obeyed an order. And so had Jessica's attendant. It was almost certainly a directive issued by their father, to allow the siblings to fend for themselves unless their lives were in direct danger, a brutal test masked as absence, another trial by fire passed off as growth.

That knowledge had changed something in Jacob. His fear of the man deepened, yes, but more significantly, so did his wariness. Trust, once chipped, never quite returned to its original shape.

Still, he could not bring himself to hate his father. He understood, at least on some level, that this was the man's way of forging something stronger from his children, a fire meant to temper, not to destroy. But even understanding didn't erase the lingering question: if he had done it once, what was to stop him from doing it again?

That question was still simmering in the back of his mind when Jacob arrived at Henry's door, a polished panel of dark wood, understated and smooth. He paused only for a second to draw in one final breath and rid himself of distracting thoughts, then raised his hand and knocked.

The sound echoed softly through the hall.

"Come in," a light, almost too-cheerful voice called out from within.

Jacob pushed the door open and stepped inside, immediately greeted by a thick haze that clung lazily to the air like a veil of fog. Smoke, unmistakably the bitter-sweet kind that came from a cigar, not the acrid stench of something burned by accident, but the slow, intentional exhale of someone too familiar with the habit to feel guilt anymore.

It curled through the room in silvery ribbons, catching the light from the chandelier and coiling around the furniture like slow-moving vines.

He sniffed once, involuntarily, and was met with that heavy, tar-stained scent. It hit the back of his throat and forced his brows together for a moment. He had never understood it, the appeal of that kind of indulgence, but he'd known for a long time that Henry was deeply committed to his particular vices, and cigars sat firmly at the top of the list.

"Oh, Jacob," Henry's voice came again, this time from somewhere to the left, hidden in the dimness. "Hope you don't mind the smoke."

Jacob turned and found him seated casually in a low-backed chair beside a tightly shut window, legs crossed, sleeves rolled up carelessly to the elbows. The cigar balanced loosely between two fingers glowed red-hot at the tip, and smoke drifted from his lips in lazy streams.

He looked as he always did, composed, undisturbed by his surroundings or by the presence of his younger brother, completely at ease in his domain.

Jacob gave a small sigh, half-exasperated, and gestured toward the window. "At least open that, will you?"

Henry regarded him with a mild smile, one corner of his mouth lifting in amusement, and let out a low chuckle, clearly entertained by Jacob's discomfort. He raised one hand, his fingers trailing with a soft crimson light tinged faintly with black and made a subtle sweeping motion.

No sound followed, no dramatic display of force, but the smoke dissipated in an instant, undone in the span of a breath, the room suddenly filled with clean, still air as though the haze had never existed at all.

Jacob inhaled a little more freely, and for a moment, he let himself appreciate the subtle elegance of it.

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Mages could bend the laws of reality with symbols and theory, yes they commanded mana like artists with paint, but knights, in contrast, were direct, brutal, and singular in their power.

Where mages conjured storms from thought, knights destroyed through will alone.

"So," Henry said, leaning back into the chair and resting his arm lazily across the armrest, the smile still lingering in his voice. "Why exactly has my charming little brother come looking for me, hmm? Surely it's not to ask for something. That would be a bit shameless, wouldn't it, showing up after all these years with a request instead of a 'hello'?"

Jacob felt a flush of heat crawl up his neck and onto his cheeks before he could suppress it. He hadn't expected Henry to say it out loud, not so directly, anyway but of course he would.

That was Henry's way. He had an effortless way of smiling as he drove a point home, making you feel foolish without quite insulting you. And now, faced with the truth of it, Jacob could see it plainly: he had kept his distance, barely interacted with Henry in any meaningful way for years, and now here he was, knocking at his door because he needed something.

It was shameless. And worse still, Henry had made him realize it without ever raising his voice.

Jacob glanced down briefly, cleared his throat, then looked back at his brother with a muted sort of honesty in his expression, not quite guilt, but something adjacent to it.

Jacob swallowed the lingering sense of shame, not the burning kind that demanded repentance, but the quieter, more persistent awareness that he was asking for something he hadn't earned and stepped forward until only a few paces separated him from his brother.

"I'll be shameless, then," he said, tone steady though tinged with self-consciousness. "I need a favor."

Henry tilted his head slightly, an amused glint rising in his eyes, his fingers still absently playing with the stub of his extinguished cigar. "Well, go on then," he said. "This should be good."

Jacob hesitated only a second longer. "I need access to a place with ambient mana, just for five minutes. I was hoping you'd know a place."

Henry raised his eyebrows but didn't look surprised, as if he'd already expected something along these lines. He reached casually into a small lacquered box by the side table and pulled out another cigar, slowly unwrapping the leaf and running it along his fingers before replying.

"That's a simple favor," he said, retrieving a lighter and flicking the flame to life with the ease of ritual. "But nothing comes for free, little adorable brother. Not even from someone as generous as I am."

He lit the cigar slowly, deliberately, and took a long, satisfied drag, letting the smoke swirl through his nostrils as he leaned back into the chair again.

Jacob tried not to sigh. The words Henry used, the deliberately annoying tone, the endearments, they irritated him more than he cared to admit, but he kept his expression composed and tried to think quickly. Was there anything he could offer? Anything Henry would value enough to exchange?

But before he could speak, Henry waved a hand as though brushing away the question itself. "Stop trying to melt your brain thinking about it. I already know what I want."

Jacob gave him a confused look, and Henry smiled, the kind of smile that meant he'd already set the terms long before this conversation started.

"It's simple, really," he said. "I want to know what the prince and princess said to you at the banquet. Every word, if you can recall it. I also want to know whether anything felt… strange about the mage you fought, and whether you remember the specific sensation of the poison you were hit with."

Jacob didn't respond immediately, but the meaning was clear. Henry wasn't just idly curious. He was gathering intelligence. And there was only one reason someone would be doing that in this context.

"You've already picked a prince," Jacob said, not quite accusing, but not neutrally either.

Henry gave no confirmation. He merely exhaled a plume of smoke and smiled again, not denying it, not elaborating. Just watching.

"Is it a deal?" he asked, the tone light but with a deliberate finality behind it.

Jacob exhaled, slowly. "It's a deal," he said, "but I'll tell you everything after I finish what I need to do."

"Fair enough," Henry said, standing up and brushing ash from his sleeve. He reached for Jacob's hand without ceremony. "Now, hold on, and try not to vomit."

Jacob barely had time to blink before the world around him twisted.

Everything became wind, not the gentle kind that rustled through leaves or cooled sweat on your neck, but a roaring, disorienting force that seemed to shear reality sideways.

The floor disappeared, sound distorted into a rush of motion, and his body, though upright, felt utterly detached from gravity, from weight, from sense. It was like falling through something that didn't exist, and by the time it stopped, his stomach had already decided it had had enough.

He doubled over almost immediately and vomited onto the dry grass, coughing out what little food remained in his system, his legs wobbling from the abrupt stop and the sheer wrongness of the sensation that still lingered in his chest.

"Jeez," Henry said with a grimace, taking a step back as he tapped the ash from his cigar. "I told you not to puke. What, never experienced the speed of a rank-two knight before?"

Jacob didn't answer right away, couldn't, really, as he remained hunched over, still recovering from the disorienting, nauseating speed at which Henry had carried him across what must have been dozens, perhaps hundreds, of kilometers in mere seconds.

His body was only just beginning to process the stillness, and his mind, still lagging behind, struggled to keep pace with the absurdity of what had just occurred.

Though Henry was his next eldest sibling in terms of family order, there was nothing remotely close about their ages; the man standing calmly beside him, puffing lazily on a cigar as though they'd merely taken a stroll, was a hundred and eighty years old, a full century and a half older than Jacob.

Their father, after all, was nearly six hundred, and had been fathering children across centuries, with the inevitable consequence that many of Jacob's siblings were not just older, but practically relics compared to him. Only Jessica shared a closer bracket of age and experience to him, the rest, Henry included, belonged to a different era altogether.

And despite his age, Henry had only recently broken into the second rank of knighthood, a milestone that for most took over a century to reach from their first awakening, and several more to progress further.

It was commonly said that to reach Rank One might take a hundred years of relentless training, and to ascend beyond that into the ranks known as Zero or higher often required lifetimes of effort, barring extraordinary talent.

Henry, gifted as he was, had managed to reach Rank Two in slightly less time than most, but not dramatically so, a reminder of how high the ceiling truly was. Still, the power he wielded now, enough to drag Jacob through space at that terrifying speed, was proof enough of what a knight's path could become.

Perhaps that was another reason it had always been difficult for Jacob to truly connect with him, not the age alone, but the scale of experience, the weight of years, the way men like Henry saw time itself. Conversations always felt slightly askew, mismatched, as if one of them was translating into a language the other could only partly understand.

He finally straightened up, exhaled, and reminded himself, not for the first time, that he'd been allowing his mind to drift into these strange, tangential thoughts too often lately. And then he raised his head to see exactly where Henry had brought him.

His breath caught slightly in his throat.

It wasn't the smell of smoke, or the fading dizziness, or the distant aftertaste of bile that caused it, it was the building before him, tall and elegant and suffused with a subtle, unmistakable glow that clung to its structure like woven light.

They hadn't just landed in some anonymous mana-rich forest or secluded ancestral hall.

Henry had brought him to the heart of elven Eterna, to the central grounds of one of the most prestigious, reclusive, and carefully guarded places in the entire kingdom.

Jacob took an instinctive step back, his mouth half-open, not in fear but in quiet astonishment. How Henry had gained access to a place like this, how he had secured passage for the both of them, no less was a question that defied immediate logic.

And Henry, ever casual, simply stood there beside him, glancing at his reaction with a grin that bordered on smug.

"Well," he said, exhaling a lazy puff of smoke into the pristine air, "you said you needed ambient mana."

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