Chapter 22

  The Magpie

  “What are you staring at?”

  “…Nothing. Forget it.”

  Rafinya looked puzzled, but kept leading the way without pressing. Dan watched their surroundings carefully. This family gathering brimmed with unfamiliar faces; he guessed over half the hall bore the Saint Pauli name in gilt letters.

  At first, she blended him into the flow of guests. He felt a brief wash of relief—maybe his name hadn’t climbed the ladder to the elders’ ears.

  Dead wrong.

  The moment people noticed Dan, eyes bulged, murmurs swelled—most of it shock from second-, third-, and fourth-tier relatives reeling at why Dan was here at all.

  “Rafinya, are all these people your relatives? Just how big is House Saint Pauli?”

  “Big enough to guarantee fresh chaos every year.”

  “Sounds like you adore your family.”

  “I do. I’m proud of its honor. Just… not of certain relatives.”

  Dan arched a brow: “Oh—okay.”

  Big houses are like that.

  She took him up the mansion’s spiral stair to the fourth floor. There, a huge golden “+” wreathed by roses dominated the hall. Master portraits by famous hands: generations of Saint Paulis, the Holy Pontiff, Luminus’s king—

  and the most important of all: the current head of house, Rafinya’s father.

  Dan stood before the grand canvas of the man.

  Click.

  A man in white Luminus knight’s dress stepped from the family head’s chamber. Early thirties—near Casca’s age—four gold bars on his shoulder, a blood-red sweep of cloak. The same sharp bone structure as Rafinya, the same streak of red in his hair…

  Rodrigo Saint Pauli—Rafinya’s elder brother, second son of the main line, the one who’d visited her that day.

  He spotted them—and paused for a fraction when he saw Dan.

  “Rafinya?”

  “Rodri.”

  Her tone softened—far more casual than when she spoke to Dan.

  “Father’s inside?”

  “He is.”

  She slipped past him and crooked a finger for Dan to follow. Dan dipped a courteous nod to Rodrigo and stepped in behind her.

  “Father.”

  Dan rounded the door with her—and faced the house head’s room.

  A study-suite of carved wood and devotionals: a magpie sculpture on the desk, church-like stained glass, the CIS sigil in the floor, a holy codex on a stand. The man was near seventy, hair gone gray, a mustache beneath a warrior’s gaze. The frame still hinted at the stature he’d once worn. He was dressed in Luminus plate with a half-draped cloak of black and white.

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  A five-bar knight—Supreme Commander of Luminus—under the “Magpies” battalion code.

  Shearer Saint Pauli.

  The old man lifted his eyes from a mountain of papers. The instant he saw Rafinya, she pinched her skirt and bowed. She might bark and bristle at anyone else—but not at her father.

  “Father, I’ve brought him…”

  His eyes passed through his daughter to Dan—and a smile formed.

  “Dan Burn… at last you agreed to come.”

  A house maid poured rose tea into three crystal cups. While the family gala throbbed below—no concern of Dan’s and of no interest to him—he, Rafinya, and her father sat in the private study to speak of serious things.

  “I don’t know how the stars aligned, but… thank you for coming at my invitation.”

  Dan nearly said: “More like half-forced,” but one glance at Rafinya’s lightning-bolted stare cured him of that. Fine. He was here.

  “Lord Shearer, I’ve been hearing for a while that House Pauli is… interested in me.”

  Hands folded, he kept very still—though you wouldn’t know his legs were jittering. He knew too well what holy magic did to a Diablo body—like throwing a live fish into a boil.

  End this quickly. Get out of this furnace.

  “I’m honored by the attention, but—”

  “What exactly did you hear? Tell me.”

  Dan hesitated… glanced at Rafinya. She kept her face neutral, avoiding her father’s eyes.

  So—he’d have to go first.

  “I heard you wished to arrange an engagement between me and Rafinya.”

  He said what he’d been told.

  The house head didn’t object—or even wince. He simply listened. When Dan finished—

  “So… if what I heard is correct, you’re offering wealth and advantage in exchange for an engagement to Rafinya. But I don’t feel anything for her. I don’t dislike her, but I don’t hate, don’t feel attached, and nothing special beyond that. Most importantly, it goes against my own philosophy. Therefore… I have to refuse.”

  He folded his hands again and went still.

  The old man nodded.

  “Dan… you speak well.”

  “Sir?”

  “I mean your structure—your poise. It runs far beyond your years. I mistook you for a hot-blooded boy; I was wrong. You’re older than your age… older, I daresay, than my daughter. Money and advantage won’t buy you—even if I can offer more than Casca.”

  “…Thank you.”

  “But what I’m offering is not an engagement.”

  He leaned in.

  “What I want is an heir—one you can give Rafinya.”

  There it was—exactly as Casca had warned.

  “Being engaged to someone you don’t love sounds suffocating. I understand your worry, but no—there’s no rush. I don’t want an engagement tomorrow or next year. What House Pauli seeks is offspring stronger than their parents’ generation. Ten, twenty, thirty years from now—if you and Rafinya can produce an heir, we will be here. We won’t meddle in your private life. The one and only thing we want is an heir only you can give.”

  In that moment, Dan saw it clearly: this man wasn’t playing the short game.

  He was playing the long one.

  It was an offer Dan could mull for five, ten years. He was sixteen—seventeen soon.

  There was time. Plenty.

  “Monster… you’re not even human! Do you still see your daughter as your daughter?! My child—I’d raise them myself! You’re insane!”

  Many would expect Dan to spit that out—

  and from a human lens, they’d be right.

  But Dan—Diablo prince behind the mask—reacted very little to this “bizarre” custom.

  If anything, a part of him nodded—quietly respectful.

  Because the Pauli tradition… wasn’t so different from Diablo’s.

  Shearer gave a soft “hm,” studying him.

  “You must think us perverse.”

  “Someone did warn me, Lord Shearer,” (Casca, of course). Dan nodded.

  “If it came from someone who didn’t understand themselves, I’d be done talking. But you look like a man who knows exactly what he’s doing.”

  !

  The patriarch stilled.

  So did Rafinya beside him.

  Minutes—only minutes—of conversation, and Dan had read it: House Pauli wasn’t the unfeeling aberration Casca cursed. They knew what they were about.

  And everyone involved assented to the creed handed down from head to heir—a creed that

  the children must surpass the parents.

  “Most people see Pauli as an inhuman oddity. To me… it’s a rational way to drive a house toward glory.”

  “What do you mean, Dan?”

  “The lion males fight for the right to sire. Elephants do. Stags do. Nature filters for the best to pass on, generation by generation, climbing the chain at the cost of sacrifice and inheritance. Humans aren’t like that—strength isn’t the only criterion for heirs. So some of us are born weak. Entire houses can crumble.”

  He paused and met the old man’s eyes.

  “Lord Shearer… I see the sacrifice House Pauli makes in every generation.”

  He looked to Rafinya.

  “And I see she respects you. But she isn’t afraid of you. That tells me you’ve found a way to teach that makes her willing to sacrifice her whole life to what this house asks.”

  “Dan! What are you—”

  “Rafinya.”

  “F—Father…?”

  “Wait outside a moment, please.”

  “…But—”

  “Help me, daughter.”

  “…Yes.”

  She rose, glanced between them, and slipped out.

  (door shuts)

  Shearer drew a slow breath.

  “Sacrifice, is it?”

  A faint smile.

  “Dan… what kind of life can make a sixteen-year-old crystallize thoughts like these?”

  “Lord Shearer…”