The Eldest Son's Welcome
It began as an ordinary day.
Lefonya woke, dressed in the gown Birdie and Becky picked out for her, and sat patiently while her hair was brushed into neat, tidy waves. Breakfast was delicious, and best of all, her wooden horse had returned, now fitted with extra safety guards. Its speed remained as painfully sluggish as ever, but she was just glad she no longer had to be carried around everywhere like an oversized doll.
No irritating vassals hovered in sight, and their children—the attendants—had finally learned to perform their duties properly. By all accounts, it was a peaceful, unremarkable morning.
"My Lady."
"Mm?"
"His Grace has summoned you to the family sitting room."
"The sitting room? Why?"
It was Felence, tailing her as always, who barked the question rather than Lefonya. Birdie bowed respectfully at his sharp tone.
"Young Master Habelian, the eldest, has arrived."
Lefonya paused. Right. I completely forgot, but there's an eldest son in this family, isn't there?
"Brother? Why? Today isn't Mother's memorial. He never shows his face unless it's her memorial day." Felence curled one corner of his mouth into a cynical sneer, his reaction far too prickly for mere sibling rivalry.
So the father and son don't get along, and the brothers don't either.
Lefonya had already guessed they were distant, considering Felence rarely mentioned Habelian and admitted they hardly played together as children. If their relationship had been warm, Felence would never have told her that no family existed here on the day they first met.
As Lefonya was about to nod, Felence cut in before she could move.
"It's not like he came to say anything pleasant anyway. Tell them Ponya and I aren't going." Scooping Lefonya off her wooden horse with one arm and grabbing the horse with the other, he pivoted on his heel. "Let's head the other way, Ponya."
He clearly intended to put as much distance as possible between them and Habelian. Lefonya considered the situation. Well, I'd rather not meet him either, but...
Still, Habelian was the eldest son and the formal heir of House Craitan. It would have been one thing if she hadn't known of his return, but feigning ignorance after being officially informed was a poor move. If Habelian chose to make an issue of it later, she would have no defense.
"Brother. Let's go."
"No need."
"I've never met him before. I should go say hello."
"Forget it. Do it later."
"Then you can rest, Brother, and I'll go by myself."
"I'm your guard. Does it make any sense to send you alone?"
Tucking Lefonya securely under his arm while holding the wooden horse in his other hand, Felence marched straight toward the garden's glass greenhouse.
"Fluffball, you have no idea what kind of guy my brother is, do you? He once broke his leg falling out of a tree and didn't shed a single tear. Do you know how old he was? Barely nine. He was just a little kid, yet not one tear fell from his eyes. I honestly wondered back then if some monster had taken my brother's shape."
"Still, I think we should go greet him. Greeting someone when they arrive is written right on the very first page of the etiquette book."
"Nothing good comes from meeting him, Ponya. Father will deal with him, so don't worry about it. Word was he's training cadets at the Military Academy, so he'll probably head back this afternoon anyway."
No sooner had the words left Felence's mouth than an icy, unfamiliar voice drifted from within the greenhouse.
"I submitted my resignation to the academy before coming, so there will be no going back."
Lefonya turned her head toward the sound.
Sitting with effortless grace at a small tea table was a man, long legs crossed and back perfectly straight, tipping a porcelain cup toward his lips. Not a single wrinkle marred his trousers, nor was a stray hair out of place. His clothes were fastened meticulously from his high collar all the way down to his cuffs—the complete antithesis of Felence, who always went around with his collar undone and sleeves rolled up.
Sensing their gaze, Habelian slowly turned his head. Lefonya, still tucked under Felence's arm, locked eyes with him. Red met vivid red. And within those crimson depths, Lefonya detected a faint, unmistakable flicker of revulsion.
Ah. The face in that portrait.
The memory surfaced instantly: the family portrait hanging in the annex where she had hidden during their game of hide-and-seek. The bright, laughing boy in that painting flashed through her mind. Even without an introduction, she knew his identity immediately.
So this is Habelian, the eldest.
Yet hardly a trace of that child remained, perhaps because his current expression was so starkly different. The boy in the portrait had looked mischievous, radiant, and endearing, but the man before her radiated a chilling, overbearing authority. As an Aura Master, he barely appeared old enough to instruct cadets; he looked young enough to pass for an academy student himself.
"B-Brother?" Felence halted in his tracks, caught entirely off guard.
Habelian shifted his dry gaze from Lefonya to Felence. "I see your habit of holing up in this greenhouse whenever you want to avoid me hasn't changed, Felence."
Apparently, this wasn't the first time Felence had fled here to hide from his older brother. Cradling the teacup in his slender fingers, Habelian continued in a cool, unhurried drawl.
"You might have considered changing your routine. Or did you hide here secretly hoping I would come looking for you, Felence?"
"Are you insane? What kind of twisted logic goes through your head for you to say something like that?"
"I thought you would be pleased. What a pity."
"What? What kind of nonsense are you spouting?"
"When you were small, didn't you always wait for me to find you whenever you hid, looking so thrilled when I did?"
"Ha. Just how far back are you digging?" Felence clicked his tongue in disgust. He set the wooden horse down and lowered Lefonya gently to the stone floor. "Do we really need to look at each other's faces?"
"There is certainly no need for that."
"Then after I went out of my way to avoid you, why the hell did you come barging in here?"
The air turned razor-sharp. Despite the venom dripping from Felence's voice, Habelian calmly sipped his tea as though entirely accustomed to it.
"Ha. Damn it..." Felence nearly let slip a string of foul curses, but caught himself just in time. He glanced down at Lefonya and cleared his throat roughly.
He doesn't need to censor himself on my account. Having grown up enduring horrific verbal abuse at the orphanage, the workhouses, and from the Pope himself, Lefonya remained utterly unfazed.
"Felence. Since when did you learn to read the room? That is news to me."
"Just shut your mouth, Brother." Felence bent down and hoisted Lefonya onto the wooden horse. "Fluffball. You said you wanted to go to the sitting room earlier, right? Father should be there, so why don't you head over first?"
He clearly wanted to spare her from witnessing a fight. Lefonya peered past Felence's shoulder at Habelian. If two Aura Masters clash in here, will this greenhouse even survive?
"Indeed. I wondered why Father and you were behaving so foolishly, but it seems an exceptionally well-crafted fake rolled into the house."
Habelian spoke as though it mattered little whether Lefonya heard him or not. Or perhaps he wanted her to hear every word and feel the sting.
"Brother, I said shut up," Felence warned, muttering through clenched teeth.
"From head to toe, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say she was manufactured specifically to deceive."
"You'd better shut your damn mouth while I'm still calling you brother."
"Do you feel no shame toward our late mother and sister, Felence?"
Unable to endure another word, Felence snapped upright. "Ponya. Wait outside."
Lefonya hesitated atop her wooden horse, considering whether she should leave.
"You will run into me eventually so long as you remain in this manor," Habelian warned, his tone flat. "If you prefer crossing paths when we are alone later, I will not stop you from leaving now."
He wasn't wrong. Since he had resigned from the Military Academy, he would be staying at the estate indefinitely. Running away now solved nothing. Instead of leaving, Lefonya remained still, watching the two brothers.
While Felence's face twisted with barely restrained fury, Habelian maintained his flawless composure, gracefully sipping his tea after tossing out those biting remarks.
"If you're only going to spew garbage like that, you shouldn't have crawled in here in the first place. I went out of my way to avoid that disgusting face of yours."
"Why don't you try putting that head of yours to better use for once? It is truly disappointing that every time we meet, there is zero improvement, little brother. When you run off to the exact same hiding spot every single time, I cannot tell whether you want to be found or not."
"Then you could have just stayed away from here!"
"This was a place Mother loved in life. I have no intention of avoiding it merely to spare your feelings."
Lefonya made a quiet mental note to retract her earlier thought that Felence and Duke Craitan had a bad relationship. Compared to this, their friction was practically nonexistent. The icy animosity rolling off the two brothers filled the greenhouse, threatening to freeze the very air solid.
"And you seem to be laboring under a grand delusion. I did not come here to see you." Finished with his tea, Habelian set the cup down without making a sound and rose to his feet.
His dark uniform remained immaculate, devoid of a single crease or speck of dust. With long, deliberate strides, Habelian closed the distance until he stood directly before Lefonya. Lefonya climbed down from the wooden horse to face him.
"Lefonya, was it? Father mentioned you."
Habelian looked down at her with an oppressive, towering presence. He was so tall that she had to crane her neck all the way back just to meet his gaze. He offered no courtesy of bending down or stooping to her level.
"Yes." Lefonya nodded and sank into a polite, impeccably measured curtsy—the exact etiquette drilled into her under the Pope. Her posture was flawless. "Lefonya Craitan."
"Father adopted you while you were on your way to an orphanage, didn't he?"
"Yes."
His overbearing tone and rigid expression resembled a commander addressing a subordinate. It was intimidating enough to send any ordinary five-year-old wailing in terror. But Lefonya was far from ordinary.
Cold disregard like this was the only treatment she had ever known. When had anyone ever smiled warmly at her before this family? If anything, Duke Craitan and Felence were the bizarre anomalies. Rather than feeling frightened by Habelian, she found his hostility strangely familiar—almost comfortable.
"I inadvertently overheard part of your conversation earlier."
"Yes."
"You said that greeting someone upon their arrival is written on the very first page of an etiquette book."
"Yes."
"So I came to greet you."
Lefonya tilted her head slightly.
"After all, it would be rather absurd for someone who isn't even a real member of this family to seek me out and offer greetings."
Looking down at her, Habelian's crimson eyes burned with a deeply entrenched mixture of suspicion, revulsion, and fury.
"Which is why I came in person to greet you—the outsider who has set foot in this manor."
His intent could not have been clearer. No matter how many years Habelian spent away, he was the true son returning to his rightful home. And Lefonya, clinging to the warmth of this estate, was nothing more than an intruder.