Aston's POV

"It was not my mother, my father, nor my siblings who cared for me when I scraped myself on thorns as a boy, but a red girl, executed the very next day."

—Aston von Rosenmahl

Arthur and I walk side by side through the streets, the rather slim greens and broad oranges in bright contrasts that clash almost violently in my eyes. Arthur resembles his family about as much as a human resembles an ape—same species, but the shared dignity stops there.

We Blues are taught from childhood not to question our reason for existing, but for days now I've been steeped in studying them. The Reds. Their culture, their ways, who they were before we stripped them of everything. I want to know them. I want to understand.

Arthur's hair is blond like mine, his eyes the same piercing azure. But there the likeness ends. He lacks the elders' beard of shimmering sand. Still, even in this thick, bluish fog, his eyes glimmer with a knife's edge sharpness. His brow is furrowed even though his body remains relaxed, as if the tension is ornamental, something he wears with the same care he would a military sash.

He isn't older than me—perhaps a decade at most—but when I'm forced to stand beside him, I feel dwarfed. He stands tall. I imitate him, chin up, posture stoic, exactly as all Blues are taught, whether by family or in those damned middle-class academies that pass for schools.

But I'm not like him. Not truly. I can't be like him. I don't want to impose. Don't want to wear the lie that I'm proud of what I am.

My gaze follows his, my mouth parting slightly in instinctive surprise before I snap it shut. I force myself still, stiff as a candle. We stand in the middle of the road, a carriage in the hazy distance. The ground here is dry, no Denklin mud clinging to our boots. The clouds have been swept away, leaving only the pitiless sun overhead.

How ironic. Helios, our so-called god of the sun, bestows this warmth upon us, as if he didn't forget us entirely in our making.

I watch the wind ripple through grass, capturing the fleeting moment of what we so pretentiously call Mother Nature while I'm surrounded by the higher-blooded.

"What in Apollo's name happened here?"

The question breaks the silence. It's delivered in a thick northern accent, hard edges softened by age, but still near impenetrable.

"What in Apollo's name happened here?"

The leader repeats himself, voice low and slow but no clearer.

Arthur doesn't move. Neither do I. I try to take in the scene.

At first I see a girl. Red. A slave. My brow knots to mirror Arthur's. Then I see him.

A man of nobility—like me.

Blond hair, shoulder-length, tied back. A trimmed beard I could wear myself if I didn't keep shaving it away in self-loathing. But it's what I feel, more than see, that hits me. My blood crawls in my veins, prickling in my fingertips.

It's a disguise.

He's faking the role of a noble.

I see him clench his fist and beat his chest twice. Then once, flat palm over his heart.

The veterans' salute.

I stand ramrod straight, concealing my shock.

Only veterans of the Great Fall of Delora are allowed that sign. Anyone else is executed on the spot. Even royalty would swing for such a transgression.

But no one around us seems to care.

The orange-blooded leader just embraces him.

"Long time, Erik"

"Long time."

I hear the disguised noble's voice, casual.

Arthur's face stays carved from stone, but his eyes sharpen with understanding. Mine do the same. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, there's a grin on Arthur's face, gone as quickly as it appeared.

…

"And then I told her she should go wipe someone else's ass."

Their laughter is ugly. I sit silent like a statue, while Arthur rests beside me, equally silent but infinitely more comfortable.

I want to frown. I want to tell the scarred bastard to shut his crooked-toothed mouth.

But he keeps talking, teeth bared in a grotesque parody of joy.

"Man, Eriksson. Long has it been."

He claps him on the shoulder.

The red girl stands close to the disguised noble—Eriksson.

I do frown now.

He's said that exact phrase five times already.

I squint at Arthur, whose eyes meet mine like knives crossing.

"Shall we now begin with our actual plan?"

Arthur's voice is dry, deliberate, cutting through the forced camaraderie like a guillotine blade.

It works. The room falls quiet. Greens, Oranges, that lone Red girl—all of them feel the change in the air.

Earlier, I felt sick enough to crawl out of my own skin, retching in the back room of the filthy bar. They told me just enough about the missions they wanted me to finance. Enough to bait me with promises of formulas and rare blood. Enough to make me play along for the access to ingredients only I could supply from my family's gardens.

A waste of time.

Arthur had already told me all of it before.

And now?

Now I sit among them.

Their eyes glint like predators spotting prey, and I'm the rabbit with my throat exposed.

I know what they are.

Veterans.

Killers forged in the empire's worst wars.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Men and women who fought against Yellow-blooded alliances and survived.

Nobody even knows how so many of them escaped the Imperial frontlines and ended up here.

Now they stand before me.

Greens. Oranges. But capable of so much more.

I swallow my fear, trying not to show it, as silence settles like a thick, choking fog.

"Ah… yeah."

Valea's voice breaks it—if I've heard her name correctly. She's the orange-haired woman, hair so dark it's nearly brown, though with that foul orange sheen at the roots.

She looks at her boss—Harmon.

Harmon.

The one who embraced Eriksson like a brother.

My gaze fixes on Eriksson himself.

Our eyes meet.

I swallow a mouthful of spit that feels like acid on my tongue.

"Yes," Harmon says, smirking. "We were going to introduce ourselves once everyone was here…"

He pauses deliberately, not because he's out of breath, but because he wants to.

"But a few couldn't make it. After all, some cannot be seen with us at all. Their reasons will become clear to you soon enough. Everything comes with time, boy."

He doesn't blink. Doesn't look away.

He wants me uncomfortable.

"But for now, what matters…" His gaze pins me to my chair. "…what matters is that we are called the Order."

My heart beats somewhat faster, my hands knitting the snow-white tablecloth.

"The name means nothing to most. Not to you, not to your family. There's no black market whisper, no underground code. Nobody except us. We work unseen, and for justice."

His burning eyes flick to the little Red girl beside Eriksson.

I notice the shattered teacup on the low table in front of me, untouched.

My breath hitches under the weight of the moment.

It makes sense. Discipline. The cold efficiency. The lethal silence.

They're the ruling and military class. Even if their blood is in the social order in the lower classes, they are still green and orange, they are upper in Elisia—dangerous, trained, relentless.

But then Harmon's words hit me with the force of a slap.

"We act for justice, and therefore against the injustice set upon the Reds."

My heart stops.

It feels like it circles my ribs before plunging deep into my gut.

"Reds?"

I force the word out on a shallow breath.

"Yes," Harmon says flatly, his eyes not blinking for a single moment.

He just watches the girl with an expression that's—gods damn it—almost melancholic.

I don't understand it.

"Yes, boy," he repeats, like he's spelling it out for a child.

Everyone is watching me.

Sunlight spills cold and pale through the windows, illuminating every set of unblinking eyes.

"We, the Order, have been working on a plan to rescue as many Reds as we can."

I want to laugh.

Instead, I look up at the ceiling, searching for a reflection of my own expression.

I find nothing but blank, empty light.

My gaze lowers in time to see one of them—the other-blooded—cutting his palm open.

The blood splashes onto the table in a sudden, savage gesture.

I watch as green blood splatters across the table. The man behind it is tall, thin, and stooped like a withered reed. He raises his bloodied hand and begins to chant in the tongue of the golden—the language of the gods.

"We, children of the goddess of mirage, of the goddess of veil. Oyá, we praise you. Let us, oh mother of nature, wield the power that flows through us all—once through you, and now through me."

He stops abruptly, breath ragged, pressing his hand to his chest. I hear his heart hammering, so loud it seems to match the shuddering in my own lungs. Blood drips between his fingers—green as new grass—soaking the front of what was once a pristine white shirt.

He draws a cross over his heart, closes it with a circle. Over his chest, blood traces the crude shape of an eye without a pupil. I watch him, and for a moment I wonder if it's only my imagination that makes the wind coil around his form.

But no—I see it. Oxygen thins in the room, the air swirling in distorted eddies, a maze that collapses and reforms around him.

This is what I've always longed to see. The power in our blood. Its true origin. The origins of blood itself—the legacy of the gods. The golden ones. Even though I despise them.

I keep my gaze fixed on him. His hair is the same brown as everyone else here, though there are variations—a bit more amber here, more burnt sienna there. Only the noble in disguise, Arthur, and I are blonde. But I can't look away from the one performing the ritual, speaking the gods' tongue, his eyes gone entirely pupil-less, shining with a deep emerald glow.

"I sacrifice my blood for your holy tears to fall upon us—for the sweat and hardship you gave us by making us mortal—to grant us the use of your powers."

His fingers curl inward, closing over the blood. Everyone's eyes are on the green luminescence spilling between them.

Most look unimpressed. Only I—and the red-haired girl—stare in open wonder. But the instant Eriksson squints in my direction, I force my expression to flatten.

The tongue of the gods... I know it. I've learnt it from a young age. However, without experience, a single slip can send your mind spiraling into madness. I exhale sharply, watching as the blood hovers mid-air, unnaturally suspended. It spreads, thins out, vibrates, and reshapes.

It's there before me—clearer than any vision. Something the reds might call a hologram, except it's made of blood, animated by power stolen from a true deity.

I gasp.

You can gain strength from consuming other blood, sure—you can even steal abilities that way. But you have to consume from other blood colors, other kinds. And with the prayer to the golden, you can ask for things you could never achieve by simple theft.

But it has a price.

I focus, analyzing the ritual despite the awe clawing at my chest.

Harmon's voice cuts in as the image forms—a picture of trees inside a vast estate. I see it first from above, descending abruptly to treetop height. The blood's thin strands hang in the air, vibrating, generating a sound like rustling bushes.

It's not perfect. Everything is in shifting hues of green, unpolished and raw. But the shapes are there. I can see them. I can even imagine touching the moving picture with my hand.

Leaves flutter. Flowers bloom in sped-up cycles. Then I see it—things only I would recognize. Ingredients, rare ones, growing only in the Rosengarten—the garden of my family's estate.

I swallow, my throat dry.

The green blood changes shape again, forming dim outlines of people in a room. There's a window, curtains drawn, obscuring their forms. The voices leak through, warped and underwater.

"Their Highness has agreed to Sebastian. They'll send a few thousand more over the next days, maybe more in the future. Those pigs can't rebel now. All hope they had is lost."

There's a short, ugly laugh. The curtains part.

I see her.

A young woman with blonde hair, so much like my own.

My mother.

She leans on the sill, half-naked. My father is there too, equally exposed, watching us through the window. Maybe a foot away in the blood-born vision.

"Perhaps you should concentrate on the estate," she sighs, voice low, "rather than these pigs."

My father looks at us with grim eyes, his imposing hands closing the curtains.

"Hire more maids to make sure no birds defile our grounds…" He says, and I feel my stomach twist.

The blood pattern collapses, colors darkening to deep green with streaks of azure light. My jaw works soundlessly.

If these higher blooded claim to care for reds the way I care…

But my thoughts are cut off as the picture twists again.

Now it's waves. Rolling, boiling, vast.

Massive fish—whale-like creatures break the surface of green-lit water. One launches skyward in a shower of pale droplets. In the distance, a ship cuts through the murk, sails reduced to pale green shapes.

Fog peels back. Clouds churn.

And I see them.

Humans.

Reds.

Being butchered.

Their bodies split lengthwise, bones snapped open, organs hauled free. They're eaten alive in crude, methodical bites.

I lower my head, but I don't close my eyes. I watch.

No one else does except the red-haired girl, her hands, knitting the shirt of Eriksson.

We all look the same. Skin, eyes, bones. Blood color is the only difference. And for that, we do… this?

Even now, I don't understand. I don't want to understand.

But the answers are always the same: It's healthy. It's nutrient-rich. It will make you stronger.

Or worse: The taste.

Human meat is cheaper than animal stock. Easier to come by now. Said to be better than low-blooded meat.

I feel bile rise in my throat as the bird's-eye perspective shifts. The vision swoops from galleon to galleon, revealing the same horrors on each deck. Everywhere, at least one orange among the crew.

And all the while, the others in the room turn to stare at me as the images fade.

The man who performed the ritual—face ashen now that the blood is gone from his body—leans back on his heels.

"Aston."

Harmon's voice is calm. He doesn't care how they found me out, how they know I side with the Reds.

He just says my name like an accusation and a promise both.

My knees start to bounce beneath the low table. I only now notice how low it really is—far lower than anything back home. Everyone sees my agitation.

But Harmon smiles at me. Not a mockery. A genuine, warm smile. He watches my hsnds, continuing to knot the carpet, then meets my eyes.

"We want you to know we're on your side. On her side."

He nods toward the red-haired girl seated beside Eriksson.

"We just want one thing."

His gaze is steady. The others in the room are silent. Over half of them are strangers to me; the other half have faces I can barely stand to look at.

I realize too late that I'm smiling—lips drawn tight, the faintest curve at the edges.

The sight before me swims, blurs like it did when the green blood was hovering in the air.

Except now it's my own eyes watering.

But no tears escape.

There are others like me.

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