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Claude:

Claude had always known that Felix's younger brother, Cale, was different.

Not just different-wrong, somehow.

Even as a baby, the boy seemed out of place. Claude had witnessed enough newborns to know what a normal child looked like, the innocent, wide-eyed wonder, the curiosity about the world. But Cale? No, Cale had looked around as if he were already weary of it all, as though life had burdened him before he'd even taken his first breath. That distant, haunted gaze in a baby was unsettling, to say the least.

As the boy grew, so did the strangeness.

Claude was not a man who paid much attention to the nuances of others' behaviour. It was beneath him. But there was something about the child that caught his eye-something that made it impossible not to notice. It wasn't any one thing, but a collection of little oddities. The way Cale's eyes seemed to see everything and yet nothing at once. The way his words, though spoken with care, carried a weight far beyond his years.

And there was the way he moved-deliberate, cautious, as though the very act of living was a tiresome ordeal.

To Claude, the boy seemed less like a child and more like an ancient soul trapped in a young body.

It was a disturbing notion, one that Claude didn't care to dwell on. Yet, time and again, he found himself observing the boy with a mix of curiosity and unease. The older the child became, the more pronounced these unsettling traits grew. His speech, his demeanour, everything about him suggested a cold, calculating mind, one that did not belong to someone of his age. There was an intelligence there, a sharpness that cut through the air like a blade, making Claude's skin prickle in discomfort.

And yet, beneath that icy exterior, there was kindness, too. A quiet, reluctant sort of compassion that Claude didn't understand-and, quite frankly, despised.

Claude had never been like that. Compassion was a weakness. A trap. He had long since learned to harden himself to survive. He had no room in his heart for softness or sentimentality.

But Cale? Despite the loving family that surrounded him, despite the warmth and protection he had known since birth, the boy remained a strange, stubborn enigma. A puzzle that Claude couldn't help but examine, even though he had no desire to solve it.

The boy was still just a child. A loved child.

But strange all the same.

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Anastasius ascended the throne.

Claude couldn't have cared less. Crowns, thrones, politics-it was all nonsense to him. Let the empire run its course. Let others scramble for power and prestige. Claude had no interest in such trivial matters. He had always preferred the shadows, where it was quieter, where no one could reach him. It was safer there. No throne to defend, no betrayal lurking around every corner.

But then Anastasius had made it personal.

His own brother had tried to kill him.

Claude hadn't seen it coming. Not like this. Their relationship had always been a delicate balance of simmering tension and unspoken resentment, but this... this was betrayal of the worst kind. His mother had been the first casualty, her death hanging in the air between them like a curse. Claude could still hear the sound of her last breath, the echo of it reverberating in the hollow spaces of his mind.

So he killed Anastasius.

It was simple, really. A clean stroke. A necessary action. What else was there to do? Stand by and let his brother end him? That would have been weak. No, Claude had done what he always did-he survived. And survival, in this case, meant putting an end to the traitor who had once shared his blood.