Princess Sophie Virelyn

From the high terrace above the western archive, Sophie Virelyn—currently known as “Marin”—watched the world unfold beneath her with a scholar’s poise and a predator’s patience.

She wore her illusionary disguise, though she didn’t need it here. Her robes were subdued—unadorned ivory with a charcoal sash, plain enough to pass for student-issued, but tailored enough to make the assumption difficult. Her fake hair looked like it had been cut to her shoulders and tucked behind one ear in a way no princess would have allowed. Not in court. Not in House Virelyn.

Which was the point. She wasn’t a princess here. Officially, she wasn’t here at all.

She sipped cooling tea brewed from jasmine petals and bone-leaf. It helped steady her mana signature, keeping it flat, quiet. Non-threatening. Just another curious young academic.

It was almost fun. But not as fun as watching him.

Down in the courtyard below, Ethan Zhou walked beside his brother-in-law, Nathan Li, speaking quietly as they packed up their cases. Behind them, the vault’s exit shimmered with residual warding—subtle power that didn’t announce itself, but couldn’t be ignored.

Ethan didn’t laugh like Nathan. He didn’t strut or posture. The man spoke and acted like he had contempt for the world—but then tackled problems with the focus of a monk.

This was her first time seeing him in person. Though she did know him.

There had been reports when he was still at university. He’d received grants and had finished something like a twelve-year school course in less than five years. Top of his class in practically every subject.

He had saved the Matriarch of the Li Family from a blood disease that the medical sect had given up on. He had done so without pomp or ceremony.

That was what caught her attention—not the power, not the bloodline, and certainly not the reputation. It was the utter, unnerving focus on the practical.

Meeting him didn’t disappoint. He moved through a room like every variable was part of an unfinished equation still running in his head.

The palace reports had called Ethan Zhou a prodigy—a genius. And like most prodigies, he was erratic, strange, and more than a little unnerving. Some in Imperial Intelligence thought he was radical—dangerous, even—in that singular, brilliant academic way.

But even with all that preamble, he hadn’t been on their radar. He dropped off the map until two months ago, when he married Vivian Li—and saved her lover by kneeling, full kowtow, in front of her father and the entire bloody Empire.

The act brought him attention. A lot of it. It made her go back and research him. His projects. His academic record. His habits. What he wanted to accomplish. His likes, his dislikes, his romantic entanglements—everything.

She found a truly interesting man.

What the intelligence reports hadn’t said was that Ethan Zhou was trying to build a new world underneath the old one. That he wanted to rewrite their foundation of magic, cultivation, and inheritance.

He’d written theories in three incredibly difficult fields that even his professors didn’t fully understand—let alone grasp what he was trying to accomplish.

Now that was a man.

Sophie tilted her head, eyes narrowing. She hadn’t come here for him. This trip—this “personal sabbatical”—had been about surveillance. Academic monitoring. An excuse to walk the halls of the Empire’s greatest research stronghold without dragging House Virelyn’s expectations behind her.

But Ethan Zhou had changed that.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not really. The “lost Zhou son” turned political sacrifice, married off to the Li family like a pretty tool. That was the story.

That was the script.

But what she saw yesterday in the debate chamber... That wasn’t a man reciting theories. That was a man redirecting gravity. He stood in a room full of legacy bloodlines, dismissed everything they thought sacred, and replaced it with something more... clarity. And an even more dangerous plan.

He doesn’t belong with the Li family, Sophie thought.

She didn’t mean that cruelly. The Lis were loyal. Strong. Formidable. Vivian Li was the definition of an imperial warrior-elite: elegant, terrifying, ice wrapped in silk.

But that was the problem.

The Lis were swords. Ethan Zhou wasn’t. Ethan Zhou was the one building the forge.

Sophie rested her chin lightly on one hand.

She liked smart men.

She liked engineers, scholars, and machine mechanics, the architects of systems. Men who didn’t just move the world; they rewrote its rules and pretended not to notice.

Ethan Zhou was one of those men. This man was trying to shake the foundation of their world.

And in a word—it was sexy as hell. And he was bloody handsome to boot.

Her brother would hate him. That thought came and went, fleeting, but it made her grin. Prince Alaric Virelyn didn’t like things he couldn’t punch or seduce or bend with titles. He liked warriors. Showmen. People who would bleed for applause.

He wouldn’t see the threat—or potential—that Ethan Zhou represented. But Sophie did. And maybe that was why she couldn’t look away.

She adjusted the cup in her hands, letting the tea’s warmth settle over her fingers as Ethan and Nathan mounted a waiting carriage and began to roll down the central avenue, heading back toward the Li estate.

He didn’t look up. Didn’t glance back. Didn’t notice her at all. Perfect.

She smiled as she considered the first rule of politics, which was surprisingly simple:

You couldn’t control what you couldn’t see coming.

And Ethan Zhou didn’t see her at all.

Yet.

The carriage disappeared from view a minute later, swallowed by the shifting mist of the southern wardlines.

Sophie sat still. She let the glamour hiding her true appearance fade. Her tea had gone cold. She didn’t notice.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

She looked down at the contact on her message crystal where Ethan Zhou’s name sat, superimposed. It had taken a call to her assistant, Elizabeth, to get his number. It was that easy for her.

Now the question was: should she reach out? Talk to him? How would she even do that?

Could she do it as Marin? That wasn’t weird... was it?

She considered her options as she thought about the way he’d spoken in the debate hall—measured but unshaken, his voice threading through the noise and dragging every ear toward him like gravity made audible.

His voice was nice—measured, low, with a cadence that seemed to steady the air around it. Controlled without being cold. Intense, but never theatrical. It had the kind of resonance that made people stop what they were doing and listen, even if they didn’t understand why.

And Sophie liked the way it sounded. She liked it a lot.

She would have liked it even more if she’d understood what he was saying. But the truth was, she’d caught maybe twenty percent of it. Not because she wasn’t smart—she was—but because he wasn’t speaking for an audience. He was speaking in structure. In scaffolding. In the bones of a system she didn’t yet recognize. It wasn’t just a theory. It was a reframing. A realignment of perspective. A pivot in how the entire room—even reality, maybe—was supposed to function.

She hadn’t felt it in her chest, like charm or conviction. She’d felt it in her mind—a shift, a pattern trying to reveal itself, a pressure behind her thoughts urging her to pay attention.

And for Sophie Virelyn, who had grown up trained to defend her heart, it was the mind, the pull of an idea too big to look away from, that was always the greater threat.

She stood slowly, moving through the high terrace and back toward her hidden chamber within the Academy’s upper faculty housing. Her guards didn’t know she was here, excluding her personal bodyguard, who wouldn’t let her out of his sight. Her brother didn’t know anything, nor her mother. Only her eldest cousin, Princess Kaela, knew the full extent of Sophie’s unofficial excursions.

She reached her room, shut the door, and unpinned her hair. Then she sat by the window and stared out over the grounds, thinking not of names or politics or succession, but of need and the future.

The Empire’s future. Ethan’s future, should he accomplish even half of what he was trying to push.

The Li family was powerful. That was undeniable. But they were also... simple. Not stupid. Never that. Vivian was sharp, lethal even. But she was predictable in the way all weapon-born nobles were.

She lived in service to control, their Legacy, and her reputation. Her instincts were brilliant, but always pointed in one direction: forward.

Push harder. Swing cleaner. Move faster.

It made them great cultivators and specialists, powerful friends and allies. It did not breed innovation or stimulate the mind. The Li House couldn’t cultivate Ethan Zhou. Not the way they needed to.

Sophie considered Vivian Li. The Ice Lotus. The Crane of the House of Li. One of the Four Great Beauties, and for good reason. Graceful, fierce, and unbelievably beautiful. Vivian seemed born with the kind of cultivated presence that made entire rooms stand still when she entered. Among the Four, she was the most mysterious, the most coveted, the most untouchable. But more important than that, Sophie respected her. Respected her work ethic, her desire for perfection, her focus on leading her house.

Yes, Sophie respected her. But she didn’t envy her. And she certainly didn’t want her to win.

Ethan Zhou had already started drifting out from under the Li shadow in a quiet, calm, reasonable manner that disregarded both resistance and permission.

Before yesterday, Ethan Zhou was being whispered about because of his humility, his restraint, his perseverance.

Now? Now it was going to be because of his genius. And based on her investigation, Vivian hadn’t noticed how desirable her husband really was. And instead of sealing their bond, their marriage, she was somewhere on a mountain swinging a sword.

Sophie smiled a wicked smile. She had to make a play.

She didn’t know what that looked like yet. Was it for power? Partnership? Loyalty? Subjugation? Just the satisfaction of drawing him into her orbit?

Did it matter which it was? Probably not. She was the Princess of the Empire. She was going to win. She always did. She wasn’t going to rush. She had time.

Let them train him in swordplay. Let them beat forms and loyalty into his bones. Let them believe they owned his future. Then, when the time was right, Sophie would offer him something else. Something she knew he wanted.

The freedom to build.

And the only thing she would ask in return was a place where she could watch. Her power purred in satisfaction. Her bloodline told her her thoughts were right.

Sophie took another sip of tea as she retreated into herself. Her bloodline ability, they called it Insight, was as much a mystery to her as to anyone else. Some called it foresight. Some called it prophecy. Some called it the third eye or the voice of the gods. But it was all of those things and none of those things.

Mostly, it was wisdom. Patterns surfaced when she watched long enough. Connections emerged between data points no one else noticed. Not answers, rarely that clean. But always with direction—towards something that brought momentum of thought and history.

And now, as she watched Ethan disappear into the avenue mist, something clicked.

Her breath caught. The Insight wasn’t a vision. It was a whisper of causality folding in on itself. The sensation of standing next to a locked door and knowing the key existed somewhere, just not where anyone was looking. But this piece of wisdom came at her like a gods-damned meteor. Clear. A piece of some puzzle she didn’t know she was examining.

Divine Moonsteel. Ethan was going to need Divine Moonsteel.

She didn’t know what it would do exactly. Not at this level of Insight. But she felt it, fully, like a pressure just beneath her thoughts. It would solve… something. Something troubling. A piece in the enigma that Ethan faced.

It represented dissonance—both potential and folly, salvation and yet revolution. Not evolution of one’s person... but one potential.

And that didn’t make any sense. Yep. Wisdom that made about as much sense as drunken Murai from the Eastern Islands—and those people sliced their bellies when they were dishonored.

Crazy talk.

But the impression couldn’t be ignored. The Insight, when it wanted her attention, would not be denied. Ethan Zhou needed Divine Moonsteel. He would need it soon. And someone would have to get it to him.

Sophie started to pace in the room as she ran her hands through her hair, a nervous habit that her mother absolutely hated. Her disguise had served well. The illusion let her watch the Empire’s brightest minds try to out-talk one another, let her see Ethan Zhou, and let the magic in her blood do its work.

Sophie didn’t pretend to understand the full depth of what Ethan Zhou was going to build. She didn’t know how he took his ideas and turned them into reality, but her Insight didn’t care about understanding. It cared about patterns. About pressure. About what was missing.

And right now, her Insight was screaming. Ethan Zhou was close. Too close. He was pushing toward something raw and vital, a breakthrough that hadn’t existed in the Empire before. Even without understanding the math, Sophie could feel it: if he continued like this, something would break. And when it happened, it wouldn’t just be his theory that snapped. It would be him. His mana. His mind. Maybe even more.

Unless someone gave him what he needed. She didn’t know how her Insight knew. But it did. And it was never wrong.

Her mind went into overdrive... Divine Moonsteel.

The thought dropped into her chest like a weight. Cold and final. So rare. So valuable. Sort of. She didn’t know why he needed it. Not exactly. But her Insight whispered that this was the missing element.

The bridge between control and chaos.

Between building something important—and stopping something destructive. She didn’t even know what destruction her Insight was referring to, but the feeling was so distinct and prominent, it was almost scary.

Otherwise, it didn’t make any sense. To most practitioners, Divine Moonsteel was priceless precisely because of its temper. When a spellcaster channeled power through it, the alloy locked onto the spell’s core resonance like a tuning fork and bled away stray frequencies—stripped anger, panic, or doubt from the caster’s intent. The result was a cleaner, sharper working that kept its original design, yet refused to warp under pressure—a gift, said the priests, granted by the Moon Goddess herself. It helped that the stuff was absolutely stuffed with divine power.

But there were materials that could do things similar... why did it have to be Divine Moonsteel...?

Really, it didn’t matter why. To Sophie, it was just a solution to a problem, and Insight told her if he didn’t have it—soon—he wouldn’t make it.

She exhaled and stood, tea forgotten on the ledge beside her. Sophie had done many things for many reasons—political leverage, seduction, even power when the occasion called for it. Her actions had a deeper meaning now. A greater direction. One that had just taken a sharp right turn.

Vivian Li might have married the man, but she hadn’t seen what Sophie saw: that Ethan Zhou was already walking out from under their name, already reshaping the world in his own quiet way. And was already something important and prominent.

Sophie wouldn’t try to stop him. She would help him finish whatever her Insight was telling her was so important.

She stepped into her bath chamber, already forming the plan. She would find the steel.

She would bring it to him. And when the time came—when he finally looked up from the impossibility he was trying to build—he would see her.

Not as a rival. Not as a princess. But as the first person who believed he could finish it.

And refused to let him fall short.