CHAPTER 230: THE FEAST

The manor of House Caelum was alive that evening. Lanterns swayed gently along the carved arches, their glass etched with spirals resembling wings. Inside, the air smelled of spice and roasted fowl, a fragrance that lingered in the rafters with the faint sound of strings being plucked by the family’s hired musicians. Tonight was no ordinary supper. It was the Feast of Pale Flames—a tradition older than the kingdom itself, when a new child of the bloodline was welcomed formally into the world.

At the head table, Darius Caelum sat tall, his pale hair tied in a modest knot. His shoulders carried the posture of a swordsman who had traded battlefields for hearth and home, though no one in the hall could mistake the steel in his eyes. Beside him, Selena Caelum looked almost ethereal in the firelight, her hair nearly silver in its brightness, falling down her back like flowing silk. She held her infant son close, swaddled in soft white cloth.

"Little Zane," she whispered to him, though the music and chatter of the hall drowned her voice. "Remember this warmth. It may not always be so."

From the side, Aunt Lira swept across the floor like a flame given form. Unlike Selena’s gentle grace, Lira’s beauty was sharp, proud, her pale hair cropped shorter than most women of the house—a silent defiance of tradition. She raised her cup.

"To the child of our line! May he bear the gifts of the Caelum name!"

A cheer rippled through the gathered kin, goblets lifted, wine flashing like rubies in the torchlight. But behind the smiles, whispers stirred.

"Eight years until the Veins are tested," muttered an elder, his voice low. "And if he proves Hollowborn?"

The word hung in the air like smoke.

Lucius Caelum, a cousin only a few years older than a boy, sat at the children’s table with a grin far too sly for his age. His pale hair was streaked with a faint golden hue—a quirk of his father’s bloodline, making him look almost otherworldly. He leaned toward another cousin and whispered, loud enough for Selena to notice, "If he’s Hollowborn, perhaps I’ll inherit the blade of our house instead."

Selena’s eyes flashed, though she said nothing.

The great hall itself seemed to listen. Along its walls hung portraits of past scions of House Caelum, pale-haired figures holding blades of wind, earth, and storm. Each one bore the same sharp eyes, the same heritage that weighed down on every child born under that roof.

Darius stood, his voice carrying above the noise.

"House Caelum does not measure worth in whispers. Whether the boy awakens wind, stone, or nothing at all—he is of our blood. He is ours."

The hall quieted. For a moment, the weight of his words pressed heavier than the stone walls themselves.

But later, as the night waned, the whispers returned, softer this time, slipping like threads into the shadows. About Hollowborn. About weakness. About fate.

And in his cradle, Zane slept soundly, unaware that before he had even spoken his first word, the world had already begun to question his place within it.