Erlankor, Irdalenvi Province, Nagasmar Kingdom - Present Day

The City of Erlankor stank of boiled roots, wet stones, and tired sweat.

Smoke curled above the tightly packed buildings, escaping chimneys like quiet sighs. Narrow alleyways snaked through the Commoner quarters, most barely wide enough for two people to pass. Clothes hung damp on lines between cracked walls, and underfoot, a slick blend of ash and old rainwater painted the streets gray.

This was Irdalenvi, one of Nagasmar's poorest Provinces, where the water pipes trickled with undrinkable runoff and meat was a rare dream unless snared in the Commoners' woods. Life thrived in scarcity. Slums residents survived not by coin, but by cleverness. A rabbit trapped deep in the Mana-thinned forests, a handful of wild mushrooms spotted before another hungry mouth found them. These were victories. Children carried buckets half their size to and from the square's well. Every step was a calculation: how much water to draw, how long it would last, how sore the arms would feel by evening.

On the sixth floor of one leaning tenement, the Krevoski family did what most did in Irdalenvi. They endured.

Grenar Krevoski, a soldier and gate guard, left before sunrise and returned well past dark, shoulders heavy from both armor and duty. His hands were scarred from years of holding more than weapons—sometimes bundles of firewood or crates of water, sometimes his youngest daughter, Yully, when the fevers struck and left her trembling.

His wife, Tasha, stitched dresses for Gentry women and the upper Commoners, though her needlework was never quite fine enough for praise. Her beauty remained untouched by hardship, light ash-brown hair pinned back neatly, green eyes sharp, but her patience frayed more each season. She favored their younger adoptive daughter, Betty, who showed real promise with Magic. Tasha always said Betty had the blood of her grandmother, a Gentlewoman who'd once stood among the refined. That blood, tainted or not, ran deeper than affection for the adopted girl: Sylia Masha.

Sylia, no Masha, had never quite belonged. With her emerald eyes and midnight blue hair, she looked more like a painted storybook child than one born in a cramped Slums apartment.

Grenar had found her, half-buried in snow beneath the Grayn Mountains, cradled in her dying mother's arms. He had knelt in the frost and promised the woman who had called on the Sigmundi blood that flooded in his veins he would raise her like his own.

Now, he was being forced to let her go.

It wasn't hunger that broke him, nor the ache in his joints, nor the shame to need permits to fish or hunt so his family could eat. It was the sound of his daughter's quiet breathing as she slept—softer now, thinner—and knowing the warmth she clung to would not be hers for long. That thought alone made him rejoice.

At last, Sylia—that creature who kept the Soul of his daughter Masha caged inside her—would be gone from his life.

Torn away.

Broken properly.

Condemned to the worst kind of enslavement.

And Masha? Masha would finally be free.

Free to claim a body of her own. A new host. Stronger, cleaner, better suited to her brilliance.

Perhaps Masha's Goddesses would divide Sylia's body into several pieces and shape something worthy from the best part.

Grenar smiled at the thought. It almost felt holy.

His adoptive brother, Drenek, had officially made the decision. His family debts had mounted over the years. There were whispers of confiscation, of soldiers reassigned and children seized. So, Grenar's family had been offered a path. Sell what was most precious, and survive.

Of course, it had all been Grenar's doing. His idea, his manipulation. He was the one who had enabled the family to sell off the very girl who had fed them, protected them. Sylia. The Saint.

His schemes had been nothing short of masterful. His talent for deception, exceptional. Not even his own adoptive brother had ever suspected a thing.

Grenar had employed intermediaries, careful hands to carry out his intricate designs. The Krevoski family, who had adopted many of Sigmundi blood, such as himself, over the decades—so eager to take advantage of others, had fallen for every one of his tricks.

Greedy. Rotten. Pathetically simple.

He could almost laugh. Almost. But now, he had a role to play—the grieving father. He had to stand there, weeping before the girl who, thanks to Masha and her Goddesses, had been made to forget who he truly was.

And he hadn't stopped there. He had even arranged the removal of the one Masha despised most. Betty.

The eleven-year-old Betty, radiant and gifted, would be taken in by a wealthy Gentry household as a Magic Companion. They called it sponsorship, but Grenar knew the price.

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Sylia's fate was worse. Grenar was truly looking forward to that part.

She was to be sold to the Dramziak's branch of the National State Church not at once, but gradually. Apprenticed first in Gentry homes as seamstress, cook, maid, clerk, dancer. Trained to be useful. Not for her own sake, but to serve the Church as a handmaid when she turned fifteen. A vessel for Magic. A resource to replenish what the land and its people could no longer provide.

There were rumors. Whispers in the streets, murmurs from old guards in smoke-filled barracks. The Church took more than Magic from its girls.

Grenar rejoiced once more. Sylia would be violated in that Church. They would break her while she lied helpless.

Grenar had told Sylia he had begged Drenek. Pleaded, even. But the decision, he claimed, had already been signed, sealed, and traded over a table to which he'd never been invited.

None of it was true.

In reality, Grenar had orchestrated the entire affair alongside several of his sons. He had even assembled a military squad to drag Sylia out of the Slums by force. He had called upon the support of multiple Churches and powerful Nobles to enslave the Saint and bend her to their will.

They had accepted eagerly. After all, who wouldn't want a Saint to serve as a source of Magic?

In front of the family, Tasha hadn't cried for Sylia or Masha—only for Betty, whose loss she mourned like a limb torn from her side. And even then, she'd said it was better this way. An opportunity for their daughter Magali, for the rest of them. One less mouth. One less complication.

Grenar had not been pleased. He had cautioned her to show more restraint, more compassion—at least enough to keep suspicion from the rest of the household. However, Tasha had refused, flatly. Everyone already knew she hated Sylia. Why should she pretend otherwise? This was her triumph, and she meant to savor it.

They had even canceled Sylia's tenth birthday. Masha's birthday. Sylia had forced Masha's age to regress once again, denying her the body she had been promised. The canceled celebration was yet another form of punishment, a symbolic reinforcement of that denial. The body they shared had been shrunk accordingly, and the long-awaited promise delayed once more.

Sylia never asked why their plans had been cancelled. She'd only smiled weakly and said she understood.

Sylia had known this day would come. She and Masha had been spending more time in the house of Tasha's cousin, Adana Bimario. The woman and her husband Sylan Syresmundi had agreed to take Masha in since there had been some conflict in the household. The apartment had become too small for all the family.

Grenar could hardly wait for Sylia to be gone.

Originally, he had arranged for her immediate removal, but circumstances hadn't allowed it. The risk of exposure had been too great. The Churches they had conspired with required appearances to be impeccable—an image of righteousness, not coercion. It had to seem as though Sylia, the Saint, had gone willingly. That she had nobly taken her sister Yullina's place, offering herself as a sacrifice to protect the innocent.

It was, truly, a beautiful story.

They had hoped Sylia would play along from the beginning, shielding Yullina out of instinct. However, when that failed, they resolved instead to send Yullina away, both as compensation to their ecclesiastical allies and as a leash for Sylia's conscience. What kind of Saint would she be if she abandoned her helpless sister?

Of course, Yullina or Yully as they called her—an accomplice from the start—knew none of this. She still believed they would retrieve her after a few weeks. Poor, deluded child. She imagined she would return home, then be sent to serve in some opulent estate.

The plan had shifted, but that no longer mattered.

Two weeks from now, Sylia would be taken to the Daranzela Chapel. The coldest months of the year would see her shuffled between hands, ending at the Dranigla orphanage until spring. In April, the first Gentry family the Dwarions, seamstresses, would finally have room for her. The last part had been arranged without Grenar's knowledge and he now feared its meaning. This was definitely not in their plans. They would need to make new ones soon.

Grenar stood in the doorway that night, watching Sylia sleep in the small cot beside his silly granddaughter Pullina. Betty snored lightly nearby. From across the room, his adoptive son Kullen, sixteen, murmured in his dreams. He often slept there to guard his sisters from everyone including Grenar himself.

Grenar hadn't yet told him what really was coming. At sixteen, Kullen was no longer a boy. Not in the eyes of the Church or the State. In civil years, he was over twenty years. He had been emancipated since fifteen, able to marry without parental consent, to sign contracts, to lease property, to create his own family unit and to command a household. Sixteen meant full responsibility, full freedom and full exposure. Whatever mistakes he made now, they were his to own. There was no one left to shield him. And Grenar had taken full advantage of that.

He grinned to himself. Sylia, ever the fool, still believed the boy she relied on so often stood with her. She had no idea he'd already chosen Grenar's side. How utterly, pathetically naive.

Grenar's youngest daughter Yully was already at Adana's place. She needed the comfort, the care. And Kirshel, his fifteen-year-old son, wouldn't return from his apprenticeship until morning. Grenar would have to tell him then. It would break him. It would break them all.

Even Tasha, once she realized what her family and his had done behind their backs. However, there was no other choice in order to save Masha.

He told Sylia how much he regretted the deal he'd made with his adoptive father. He had lamented saying that his uncle had warned him, but he hadn't listened. He was too old now. He should have retired ten years ago, like most soldiers. But the debts kept him marching.

Grenar reached for the doorframe, the wood rough beneath his fingers, and clenched his hand.

"They're too frail." He whispered with a very sad and broken voice. "They will break them."

However, there was no one awake to hear him or notice the creepy smile on his face.

Outside, the wind shifted through the alley. A dog barked. Somewhere deep in the city, a church bell rang.

And Sylia, aware of the life being taken from her, turned softly in her sleep toward the warmth that would not follow Masha where she was going. Her eyes opened suddenly and a wicked smile appeared on her face, one that would have scared anyone.

So, they are planning on enslaving me, breaking me, violating me and making me feel hell? She thought.

Well, maybe it was time to give Masha exactly what she had planned for me. Piece by piece.

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