Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sun rose like any other day pale gold spilling over the marble halls of the Hart manor but something in Deona's chest felt wrong. Off. Like her body didn't quite belong to itself anymore.

She woke up choking on air.

Memories crashed through her mind like a storm - sharp, bright, wrong. A life that wasn't hers. A name she no longer remembered, fading into silence.

And a story - no, a novel - she never read but had seen enough of online to know the shape of its bones. A fantasy tragedy. A noble family. A sick boy, sent to the battlefield to die.

He returned a war hero.

Deon Hart, the youngest son, was drafted too young. He returned as a war hero - undefeated.
Unkillable.

Crowned in glory.
Broken beneath it.

That was the story.

But not the kind the empire loved.

He was called monster. Curse-bearer. Tool. He survived every battle and was despised for it. His name was smeared in gold leaf and blood - paraded as victory, discarded as filth.

And she - Deona Hart - was never supposed to exist.

She was the twin erased from the narrative. A ghost. A mistake.

But now she did.

Today was the day the knights came to take him.

But Deon wasn't a soldier.

He was her baby brother.

She didn't think.

She ran.

Barefoot through the manor, breath ragged, heart pounding. She found her brothers where she knew they'd be - seated at the chessboard by the fireplace, Deon chewing his lip in concentration, Cruel gently moving pieces across the board.

Still innocent. Still whole.

Still hers.

She wasn't going to let them take him.

She dropped to her knees beside them. "Let's play hide and seek," she said, voice trembling beneath forced smile. "Second floor only. You two hide, I'll count."

Cruel's brows drew together. Deon looked up, confused.
"Hide and seek? Now?"

"Yes" she said quickly, nodding . "You'll win if i don't find you. Ten seconds. No cheating."

She didn't give them a chance to argue. She pulled them to their feet, led them upstairs - past locked doors, up creaking steps.

She opened the old linen room.

"In here," she said softly. "And no matter what you hear outside, don't come out. Got it?"

"Deo-"

She didn't let them finish. She shut the door.

Then turned - and find one of the maids nearby wide-eyed, hesitant, still holding a tray.

"You" Deona said, her voice low, urgent.
"Don't let them out. Even if they scream. Even if the knights ask. Keep them hidden. Promise me."

"My lady, I-"

"Promise."

The maid nodded.

Deona ran again.

To Deon's room. Tore open the wardrobe. Pulled of her dress, yanked on his old tunic.

Good.

She snatched a pair of scissors from the desk drawer and stepped in front of the mirror.

And with one deep breath, one thought-

Let it be me.

She cut.

Hair fell in clumps to the floor. Her hands didn't stop shaking.

She looked at herself.

Jagged strands hit the floor. Her breath shook. Her arms trembled.

She stared into the mirror.

Short hair. His clothes. Her H̶i̶s̶ eyes.

The gates rumbled open below.

The knights had come.

They were looking for a son of House Hart.

They would find her instead.

Chapter Text

The knock came like thunder.
Three sharp raps on the manor door.
Sharp. Exact. Inevitable.

It echoed through the marble halls like fate arriving on time.

Deona already knew what it meant.

The knights were here.

Just like in the novel.

Just like before.

But this time, Deon wasn’t in the foyer waiting to be taken.

She had made sure of that.

Only minutes earlier, she'd found her brothers playing chess in the red room, the fireplace warm and crackling. Cruel quietly moving pieces. Deon hunched forward, lip caught between his teeth, deep in thought.

Still innocent.
Still hers.

"Let's play hide and seek," she'd said, trembling behind a smile. "Second floor only. You two hide, I’ll count.”

Cruel had looked at her like she’d gone mad.
Deon tilted his head, blinking.

“Now?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said too fast. “You’ll win if I don’t find you. Ten seconds. No cheating.”

She hadn’t given them a chance to argue.

She pulled them both upstairs, past the locked doors, up creaking steps - to the linen room, where old sunlight never reached.
Where the air was still and dark. Safe.

“In here,” she whispered. “And no matter what you hear outside… don’t come out. Understand?”

Cruel had grabbed her sleeve. “Deo-?”

She didn’t let them finish.

She shut the door.

Turned.

And ran.

Now-

The knock came again.

Deona stood in the front hall, alone.
Her brother’s tunic scratched against her neck. Her hands still shook from cutting her hair.
The boots didn’t fit. The light from the tall windows already burned her eyes.

Of course it did.
She and Deon were twins.
They shared the same sickness.
The same curse.

Even the same fate.

But not this time.

She took a deep breath.

The doors opened.

Three knights stepped inside - black and crimson, the Empire’s crest stamped over their hearts. Their faces were unreadable.

Behind them: a war carriage. Sealed. Ready.

The leader stepped forward, eyes scanning the entryway. His voice was cold, clipped:

“We’ve come for the young master of House Hart.”

Deona stepped forward before they could say more.

“I’m here.”

The knight looked at her - young, thin, jaw tense beneath chopped hair.

His eyes narrowed.

“You are…?”

“Deon Hart,” she said. “Youngest son of House Hart. Age fourteen”

The knight tilted his head slightly.

“You were not waiting for us.”

“I don’t like sunlight,” she said. “You have your orders. Let’s go.”

A pause. The second knight unrolled a scroll.

“Deon Hart. Age fourteen. Drafted by imperial decree. Transport to Eastern Regiment.”

The commander looked at her again.

“You’re certain?”

She nodded once.

“I won’t say it again.”

Silence stretched too long.

Then: “Fine.”

The knights turned. The door opened wider. The morning light poured in like fire - hot on her skin, sharp in her eyes. Her breath caught, but she didn’t flinch.

They didn’t ask again.

They didn’t search the house.

They didn’t know the real Deon was locked in shadow, Cruel’s hand clenched in his, both of their hearts pounding, confused and terrified.

Deona walked forward.

Into the sunlight. Into the lie.

And the gates closed behind her.

Chapter Text

The carriage rocked gently beneath her.

Deona kept her hands still in her lap. She didn't tremble. Not anymore.

The world outside rolled by in gold and dust.
But inside her, something heavier moved - a memory.

Not from her past life.
From her this one.

---

They were ten when it happened.

Spring at the Velloren estate.
An introduction party. Dozens of nobles, all trying to rank their own children before the Empire’s tests ever did.

Deon wore stiff new clothes that didn’t suit him. His skin already too pale from the ride there, his eyes red-rimmed from sun exposure. He was smiling anyway.

Trying so hard to belong.

He never did.

---

“You don’t look like your family,” one boy said, loud and lazy - like it was a joke.

Deona froze.

Deon blinked. “I-”

“You don’t even look like human” another added, and the circle of noble children laughed.

“Is your hair dyed?”

“Are you sick all the time?”

“Are you adopted?”

She saw it. The way Deon flinched. How his shoulders curled in. How small he looked.

He took a step back.

Say something. Please say something.

One boy shoved him. “Say something, freak.”

Deon stumbled.

And Deona ran.

---

She didn’t think. Didn’t hesitate.

She crossed the room in a blink, arms flung forward.

There wasn’t time to catch him properly - just enough to throw her body between his head and the ground.

Her back hit the floor. Hard. Her shoulder scraped. Her breath whooshed out.

But she cradled him.

Shielded him.

His eyes met hers - wide, startled.

You're okay, she thought. You're safe.

Then she looked at boy who shoved his brother. Said something. But she never remembered what she really said that time.

---

He hadn't even cried yet. She landed before he could.

---

Silence.

The other children froze.

And then-

“DEON! DEONA!"

Cruel's voice woken Deona from her daze, who was glaring at boy that pushed her brother.

His boots pounded across the marble - he didn't walk, he stormed.

A servant scrambled behind him, shouting something.

But Cruel didn’t hear.

His eyes locked on Deon in Deona’s arms his brother bruised and pale, her bleeding, her jaw tight.

He saw red.

“You!” His voice broke, too loud, too furious. “You shoved him?!”

The boy who did it paled, stumbling back. “I-it was a joke!”

“You think this is funny?” Cruel spat. “You think pushing a sick child is a game?!”

The host stammered. A servant stepped forward.

“Back off,” Cruel snapped.

He was already on the ground by then, kneeling, hands hovering over Deona’s shoulder, her scraped arm, the tear in her sleeve.

Deona sat up slowly, still holding Deon in her lap.

Cruel’s voice dropped, tight with fury and something else panic.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, breath shaky. “He didn’t hit his head.”

Cruel looked at her, really looked. Her lip was split. She was trembling. But she wasn’t crying.

He reached out and brushed her hair back.

“You did good,” he whispered.

And this time, he meant it with his whole heart. She felt it.

---

Later that night, after the carriage ride home, Deon whispered, “I didn’t know you’d come.”

Deona turned in her bed, facing him through the shadows.

“I always come.”

He was quiet.

Then: “You got hurt.”

She shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

He looked at her hands. At the fading scrape on her elbow. “Why did you move so fast?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

But she did.

Even without memories of another life.
Even without remembering how this story ends.

She always got between him and the world.
Even if it scraped her raw.

---

She hadn’t changed, not really. She was still the girl who moved first. Still the shield.

---

Now, in the carriage rumbling toward war, she looked down at her hands - the same ones that had caught him all those years ago.

Still shaking.

Still strong.

Let the world come.

It had tried once before.

This time, she was ready.

Chapter Text

Cruel Hart was eleven when he first realized his youngest siblings didn’t quite belong to the rest of the family.

Their father had dark hair and green eyes. So did Cruel. So did the ancestors in the portraits lining the great hall - all cut from the same mold.

But the twins?

White hair.
Eyes like crushed rubies.
Skin pale enough to bruise from candlelight.

The priests said little. The maids said less. But the silence around the twins spoke volumes.

“Touched by something unnatural,” a governess once muttered - before she was dismissed the next day.

The Lord and Lady of House Hart never acknowledged the whispers. But they quietly had the west wing sealed off for “the children’s health.”

The twins were raised behind velvet curtains.
Out of the sun.
Out of sight.

Cruel had been told not to disturb them.

But he did.

And he saw things.

---

Deon flinched at sudden footsteps.
He wore his sleeves too long, his shoulders hunched too tight.
He avoided mirrors. He avoided eyes.

And Deona - his mirror twin - never left his side.

She was quieter than people expected.
Sharper than they were prepared for.

She read everything. Noticed everything.

And when Deon fell sick, she stayed by his side. Three nights without sleep, curled at the edge of his bed like a cat guarding her dying sibling.

Cruel remembered that.

Their mother came once, quietly. She stayed in the doorway.

Their father didn’t come at all.

But Deona had stayed.

What the twins never knew what Cruel only found out years later was that their parents did visit. Just... not when they were awake.
They stood outside the room, barely crossing the threshold.
Their mother wept in silence. Their father’s hands curled into fists at his side.

But they never stepped closer.

Because looking at him pale, shaking, burning with fever, broke something in them both.
And they mistook distance for strength.

So did the twins.

They thought their parents didn’t care.

But Deona had stayed.

She had looked the sickness in the eye and refused to flinch.

And when their parents did finally return masks on, formal and cold Deona stood.
Eyes red not from fever, but exhaustion.

“If you can’t protect him,” she said, voice raw, “I will. No matter the cost.”

Cruel never forgot that.

Not the words.
Not the fury in her voice.
Not the way their mother blinked, and their father looked away.

He was the only one who saw what Deona had always known:
That love isn’t measured by how much you hurt but what you do anyway.

---

He began watching more closely after that.

Not just them - but the rest of their world.

When Deon was allowed to join formal gatherings, he dressed like them, spoke like them, smiled carefully. But his white hair caught too much light. His red eyes drew stares.

And no matter how careful he was, they treated him like something other.

---

It happened one winter afternoon.

A formal gathering in the east hall of the Velloren estate.

The children of five noble houses had been paraded out like ponies at market collars straight, boots polished, every move watched by tutors and servants.
Cruel hated these events.

He had been delayed.

By the time he arrived, stepping into the hall with a polite nod to the steward

He heard laughter.

Then:

“You don’t look like your family” sneered one boy the blond heir of House Averne, standing too close to Deon.

“You don't even look like a human”

Cruel’s stomach dropped.

Deon was standing quietly by the window, pale as snow, red eyes downcast.
He said nothing.

“Are you adopted?” another boy chimed in.

“Is your hair dyed?” someone laughed.

And then it happened.
A shove.

A blur.

Cruel shouted:

“DEON!”

But it wasn’t him who reached him first.

It was her.

---

Deona ran.

Faster than any of them.

She launched herself across the floor and twisted in midair. Her arms wrapped around Deon just before he hit the stone.

She took the fall.

Shoulder first. Lip splitting. Elbow scraping across the marble with a sickening sound.

But she didn’t cry out.

She shielded her twin.
Cradled him like he was the only thing that mattered in the world.

Then she lifted her head. Voice like iron:

“Don’t touch my brother.”

The words snapped through the air.
Louder than the slap of skin on marble.

The room fell dead silent.

A girl dropped her teacup. Porcelain shattered. No one moved.

And then-

“DEON! DEONA!”

Cruel’s voice broke like thunder as he stormed across the room. His boots hit the floor hard. A servant called after him, unheard.

He dropped to his knees beside them Deon still shaking in his sister’s arms, Deona bleeding but fierce, breath shallow but unyielding.

His hands trembled.

And then he turned.

His voice snapped toward the boy who had shoved Deon:

“You shoved him?!”

The boy’s mouth opened, panicked. “I-It was a joke!”

Cruel’s face twisted. Something inside him snapped.

“You think this is funny?" he spatted it like curse "You think pushing a sick child is game?!”

His voice echoed off the stone walls.

The tutor flinched. The steward stumbled forward with a stammered apology.

Cruel didn’t care.

He didn’t look away from the boy. Didn’t hide his disgust.

“Say it again. Say you thought it was a game.”

The boy shrank back.

And Cruel finally turned back to the twins - to Deona, whose lip was bleeding. Whose arms were still wrapped around her little brother.

He crouched beside her, gently brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

“You did good,” he whispered, softer now. “You did so good.”

And this time, she let herself breathe.

Not because she believed him.

But because he did.

---

Later, she was scolded in private.

The noble boy wasn’t punished.

Deon didn’t say a word for the rest of the night.

Cruel didn’t speak either.

But that was the day he understood something important:

Deona wasn’t afraid of being hated.
She wasn’t even afraid of pain.
She was only afraid of losing Deon.

---

Cruel stood by the window, arms folded, jaw tight.
He hadn’t said a word to Deon in hours - not after the boy slipped and apologized five times for it.

Deona watched him from her seat on the rug, cross-legged, book forgotten in her lap.

The silence dragged.

Then:
“You’re being an idiot.”

Cruel didn’t turn.

Deona sighed. “You think giving him the cold shoulder will make him feel better?”

“It’s not the cold shoulder,” Cruel muttered. “I just… don’t want to make things worse.”

“By pretending you don’t care?” she shot back.

Cruel finally looked at her sharp, defensive.

“He already blames himself for everything,” he said, low. “If I tell him I’m worried, it’ll just make him feel guilty. You know how he is.”

Deona didn’t flinch. “Yeah. I do.”

She stood, brushing off her hands, stepping close enough to force him to meet her gaze.

“That’s why it hurts more when you pull away.”

Cruel’s brow furrowed. “I’m trying to protect him-”

“No, you’re trying to protect yourself from watching him break.”

Her voice didn’t rise, but it hit like stone on glass.

“And you’re letting him think you don’t love him,” she finished. “When that’s the one thing he’s always afraid of.”

Cruel looked away.

“Tell him,” she said quietly. “Before he starts believing it.”

---

After that, Cruel began leaving things outside her door.

Books. A scarf. A carved knight piece he made by hand.

She never thanked him.

But once, after returning from a storm-drenched hunt, he found his boots cleaned and drying by the hearth.

Only his.

---

Now, years later, Cruel sat in silence again.

Inside the old linen room.

The air was stale. The candle burned low.

Deon sat beside him - trembling, eyes wide, clutching his hand.

He hadn’t asked questions.

He didn’t need to.

Deona had told them to hide. She’d smiled too sharply. Held their hands too tightly.

And when the knock came, she didn’t hesitate.

---

The knights had arrived.

Deona had answered the door.

Wearing Deon’s tunic.

Hair chopped short.

Eyes forward.

Voice steady.

“I’m Deon Hart. Youngest son of House Hart. Age fourteen.”

---

She was gone now.

Gone into the carriage. Gone into the draft.

Gone into the place meant for him.

---

Deon finally whispered, “Where’s Deona?”

Cruel didn’t answer at first.

Cruel forgot she was only a child too. Just fourteen. Only minutes older than Deon.

But she carried herself like someone twice her age sharp, stubborn, always standing between her twin and the world.

Always first to raise her voice. Always first to bleed.

As if love meant shielding someone with your whole body even if no one ever shielded you back.

As if that was the only thing that mattered.

Cruel looked down at Deon now pale, quiet, curled in too small of a shape beneath the blanket.

Still waiting for the world to be safe again.

Cruel’s throat burned.

“She’s not here right now,” he said softly, tucking the blanket over Deon’s shoulder.

“So I’ll protect you. Until she comes back.”

Because someone had to.

Because Deona had loved her twin more than she ever loved herself.

And because no matter what this war took Cruel believed one thing:

She would come back.

No matter what it cost her.

But sometimes - he forgot.

Not that Deona was gone.
But that she’d ever been there at all.

And sometimes… he remembered things that never happened.

Or maybe they did.

Like flashes.
Moments where Deon flinched, and Cruel’s gut twisted before the sound.
Moments where a tutor’s hand twitched, and he tasted blood he didn’t remember shedding.
Moments where he braced to speak - only to realize someone else already had.

Déjà vu, he told himself.

A trick of nerves. Of grief. Of guilt.

But sometimes in the seconds before something bad he felt the strangest thing:

Like someone had already stopped it once before.

And when Deona burst in from behind a curtain, down a hall, across the garden when she caught Deon’s wrist or stepped between him and the danger or spoke with fire in her voice before anyone else moved…

Cruel would blink.
And think:

Oh. Right. She’s here.

Why did I feel like she wasn’t supposed to be?

It made no sense.

Except when it did.

And on the worst nights, when Deon whimpered in his sleep and the wind outside sounded too much like marching Cruel would lie awake, staring at the ceiling.

And wonder:

How many times has she saved us already?

And how many more until the world lets her rest?

Chapter Text

The Parents’ POV

The gates of House Hart opened slowly, like the estate itself was holding its breath.

The carriage stopped just outside the manor steps. The Lord and Lady exited quickly expecting to be met by a steward. Or soldiers. Or perhaps their eldest son, preparing to leave.

But there was nothing.

Only silence.

And a maid kneeling in the entry hall.

Not standing.
Not bowing.

Kneeling.
Trembling.
Her forehead pressed to the polished floor.

“My Lord. My Lady. Forgive me.”

The Lady’s eyes widened.

The Lord’s jaw locked. “What is this?”

The maid didn’t move.

“They came early,” she whispered.
“The knights. This morning.”

“Where are the kids?” the Lady asked, dread thickening in her chest.

“Safe,” the maid said. “But-”

She couldn’t finish.

From down the hall came running footsteps.
Their eldest son, Cruel, appeared breathless, wild-eyed.

“You need to come,” he said, voice tight.

He led them past the main stairs.
Down a quiet corridor.
To the linen room.

---

The door creaked open.

Inside: empty. Shadows and dust.
But faint marks on the floor - boot prints. Dragged fabric. A single strand of white hair.

Deon’s tunic, discarded.
A pair of scissors.
A lock of hair.

And in that breathless stillness, it all snapped into place.

The rushed smiles.
The game of hide and seek.
The way she pulled them into the cellar, giggling too bright. Too forced.

She sent them into hiding.

And by the time anyone noticed-

She was already gone.

---

They found Deon next, curled up on a couch in the red drawing room.

His breathing was shallow.
His skin, clammy.

Still silent.

The Lady rushed to him. The Lord stood over them, stunned.

But neither knew what to say.

Because this time - for the first time - they saw it clearly.

Blood. On his sleeve. At the corner of his mouth.

“Get the healer,” the Lady whispered.

---

The memory slammed into them like a curse.

The first time Deon bled.

They had thought foolishly that it was an isolated incident. Panic. Overexertion.

But it wasn’t.

The healer arrived in haste. Pale and grim, as he examined Deon and looked up at them both.

“This… this is inherited,” he said softly.
“They both have it.”

“It’s rare twins like this. Sunlight weakens them. Stress can trigger collapse. Nosebleeds. Fevers. Even internal hemorrhaging if ignored.”

“It’s manageable. But only if you’re paying attention.”

The Lord frowned. “Deon’s never collapsed before.”

But the Lady was already turning her head staring back toward the linen room.

Because now she remembered.

That strange day, years ago.

When the twins were nine. When she found Deona sitting alone on the stone veranda, shirt spotted with something dark. A cloth in her hand.

Blood.

They’d scolded her, thinking she’d injured a bird again.

But Deona had smiled tired. Hollow.

“It’s nothing.”

And they believed her.

Again. And again.

---

They always thought it was Deon who needed protection.

The frailer twin. The boy. The baby.

But they had never realized…

It had been her all along.

She didn’t just watch her brother suffer.

She bled.
Silently.
Without complaint.
Without question.

She cleaned her own blood before anyone could notice.

She suffered stress no child should’ve been left to carry the pressure of being invisible, responsible, forgettable.

And they hadn’t seen her.

---

Sometimes, they forgot they had three children.

Not two.

Sometimes they remembered the heir.

Sometimes the baby.

And in the space between-

They forgot the one who never asked to be seen other than Deon’s protection.

---

The Lord sat beside his son now, stunned.

The Lady reached out and gently brushed the white hair back from Deon’s brow.

“She said she’d protect him,” she whispered.

And she had.

Not with permission.
Not with pride.

But by leaving everything behind - her name, her safety, her place in the family.

So he could live.

---

Outside, the banners of House Hart still fluttered in the wind.

But the heart of the family had already left.

Wrapped in her brother’s name.
Her brother’s clothes.
Marching toward a war meant for someone else.

And none of them had stopped her.

Because they hadn’t seen her.

Not until it was too late.

Chapter Text

The first thing she noticed was the smell.

The front didn’t smell like glory, or honor, or the Empire’s propaganda.

It smelled like 𝐦𝐮𝐝, 𝐬𝐦𝐨𝐤𝐞 and 𝐢𝐫𝐨𝐧.
𝐒𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐭 that never dried. 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 that never washed out.

The moment the carriage doors opened, the wind slapped her in the face - heavy with rot and metal and something worse.

She didn’t flinch.

Not when the soldiers barked.
Not when they stared.
Not when one of them whispered, “Another one. Looks too young.”

Because she was.

Because she wasn’t supposed to be here.

Because she chose this.

---

Her boots squelched in the wet dirt as she stepped down.

The borrowed uniform hung loose, the cloak too heavy, the hood drawn deep to shield her face.
A mask clung to her mouth, trapping heat with every breath.
The sun still burned. Even though layers, it found her.
Her vision swam. Her skin prickled like it might blister just from standing still.

She could feel it - that same pain her brother had described so many times.
Like needles under the skin.
Like burning from the inside.

Of course it hurt.
They were twins.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦.
𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒓 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵.

---

A soldier shoved a pack into her hands. Another gave her a number. Another barked directions in a voice too fast, too sharp.

No one looked closely.

They saw the white hair, the too-pale skin, the blank expression.

“You the Hart kid?” one asked, half-suspicious.

“Yes.”

“You’re a damn fool to be here.”

She didn’t respond.

She walked where they told her.

---

The barracks were half-collapsed.
Torn canvas, old straw, and mold-stained wood.

No one helped her.

So she helped herself.

That night, she sat on the edge of a rotted cot, biting the inside of her cheek to stay quiet.

She wasn’t crying.
Not really.

Her hands trembled. Her feet ached. Her ribs felt like they’d fold in on themselves if she coughed.

But she didn’t cry.

Because she chose this.
Because no one else would protect him if she didn’t.
Because Duke Stave Illuster tried to kill her baby brother - for over fucking bet because he wanted Demon Kings power.

So they were going to get the wrong one.

She pulled the knife from her boot - the one she’d smuggled in.
The one she’d practiced with for months, in secret, behind the manor stables.

Weak. Sickly. Barely strong enough to hold it at first.

But she learned.

Because even back then - before the memories came back, before the plot snapped into place, some part of her knew.

𝘕𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝒉𝒆𝒓.
𝘕𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝑫𝒆𝒐𝒏.

So she carved her hands into fists.
She sliced air into obedience.

She got ready.

---

The days blurred.

Wake. March. Dig. Bleed.
Repeat.

No one called her Deona. Or Deon.
They called her Hart, or White Rat, or just you or even Ghost.

She answered to all of it.

The name didn’t matter.
The body didn’t matter.
Only the lie mattered - and keeping it alive.

---

The first week was the worst.

Her fingers bled from blisters. Her back screamed from carrying rations too heavy for her frame. She coughed red more than once.

She kept going.

No one helped her.

That was the rule out here.

And she liked it that way.

Because no help meant no questions.
And questions could kill her.

---

She slept with her boots on. Ate with a knife near her wrist.
Never took off the hood. Never removed the mask if she can help it. Never let anyone close enough to see what she was hiding.

She mimicked the way Deon walked - head low, arms tense.
She copied how boys her age held their shoulders, how they cursed under breath and laughed too loudly to hide fear.

It worked.

Mostly.

---

Until it didn’t.

It started with a soldier - maybe sixteen, maybe older. Tall. Watchful.

He didn’t ask questions, but he looked too long.

“You’re too light,” he muttered once, watching her lift a crate.
“You fight like you’re trying not to cry.”

She ignored him.
Because what he said was true.

Next time, he helped her up after a drill. Gripped her wrist too tight.

“You ain’t like the others.”

Still, she said nothing.

But her hand went to her knife under her cloak.

Just in case.

---

One night, during inspection, the commander barked:

“You. Hart. Why’s your file say he and not fit?”

Her chest locked.

Too slow. Too still.

“I-”

“He’s sick,” the soldier from before cut in.

The commander grunted.

“One of those noble types. Probably wrote his own damn file.”

Laughter.

The moment passed.

Deona exhaled - only when no one was watching.

---

Every moment she wasn’t seen, she trained.
In her head.
In her breath.
In the twitch of her fingers.

She couldn’t afford to break.

She had to be Deon.

Not just for the army.
But for the story.

Because if someone was changing fate-

- It had to be her.

---

At night, she whispered into the dirt:

“I’m the one who went.”
“You’re safe, Deon.”
“Stay hidden. Stay small. Stay alive.”

She missed her brothers so much it made it ached in her bones. In her teeth hurt. In her blood.

But she never regretted choosing this.
If it changed the fate of her brothers-

One dying to protect other. The other destroying the world for revenge.

No she would never do that to them if she can help.

Even if world hated her for it she would still do it again in a heartbeat.

Not even when the fever came back.
Not even when her knife hand shook too much to eat.

Because the first time she looked into a dying soldier’s eyes and realized'

If she hadn’t come, it would’ve been Deon who saw this.
Or Cruel, forced to watch someone bleed out and do nothing.
And they were still young. Just fourteen and other is seventeen.
Just boys.
Still soft in ways no one saw.

They weren’t meant for this.

So she came instead.

She bore it instead.

And knew:

She was exactly where she needed to be.

Chapter Text

She wished.

"Give him another chance."

"Let me take his place."

"Give him happy ending he deserves"

And that was the deal.

Deon doesn't remember yet. But Death does. The world does. So does certain constellation.

---

Deon sat in the linen room, cold sinking into his bones, something scratching in the back of his mind.

Like something trying to claw its way out.

A memory.

No- a truth.

Something wrong.

The air felt too thin.

His hands too steady.

He should be shaking. Sobbing. Terrified.

But he wasn’t.

Because somewhere, somehow-

He’d already done this before.

Deon sat on the floor knees pulled to his chest.

It was dark.

Cruel was beside him, silent. The candle flickered low. Outside, the world had gone on - without them.

And she was gone.

His sister. His other half.

Gone in his place.

---

He didn’t understand.

Not really.

One moment, they were playing chess. The next, she was dragging them upstairs.

Her hand was cold. Her voice too bright.

“Hide and seek,” she’d said.

He hadn’t realized it was real until the knock came. The carriage. The soldiers.

And then - she was gone.

---

She always did that. Moved before anyone could stop her.

---

Deon didn’t understand his family.

He didn’t think they understood him either.

His father barely spoke to him. When he did, it was clipped. Measured.

---

He remembered once - when they were all sitting at the long dining table, silver polished to a mirror shine - he’d dropped his spoon.

His hands had been trembling again.

The sound rang out too loud in the silence.

His father didn’t even look at him.

“Don’t show your flaws in front of others,” he said, his voice cold and bored. “You’re a Hart - not a child to pity.”

The words cut deeper than if he’d shouted.

Across the table, Deona froze mid-bite.

Her spoon clinked against her bowl. Then she stood.

White hair falling across her face. Ruby-red eyes narrowed.

“He is your son. Not a product you parade around.”

The silence afterward wasn’t stunned - it was loaded.

Their mother’s fork stopped moving. Cruel sat still.

Their father looked up slowly.

And then, calmly, as if nothing at all had happened-

He stood and slapped her.

The sound cracked through the room.

Deon had flinched. His breath caught in his throat.

Deona didn’t cry out. Didn’t move.

Just stood there, cheek burning red, eyes unblinking - and silent.

But as she turned, walking to Deon’s side to take his hand, tears silently rolled down her cheeks.

They left the room together.

No one stopped them.

No one dared.

---

He never forgot the sting he didn’t feel - but watched her take for him.

---

His mother was different. Softer. But distant in a different way.

She visited when he was sick - sometimes. Always with gloved hands and quiet footsteps.

She touched his hair once.

But when he cried from the pain, she flinched. Left too quickly.

He thought she hated his weakness. He never realized it broke her heart.

---

And Cruel…

Cruel was strong. Smart. Tall. Their parents’ perfect son.

He never looked at Deon the way he looked at Deona.

There was something sad in his eyes when he watched her. Like he expected her to disappear.

And maybe… she always did.

Disappear into protecting Deon.

---

Deon remembered her sitting by his bed when he couldn’t move from fever. He remembered her pulling the covers up. Wiping sweat from his brow.

He remembered her glaring at noble boy when he called Deon a freak. Lying to the servants so their parents wouldn’t know he’d thrown up again. Carrying him once - when he was too dizzy to walk.

Even when she cried, she never let him see it. Even when she bled, she always said:

“It’s not that bad.”

---

And he remembered her humming.

Only for him.

Soft and strange - a tune no one else knew.

“Do you ever get a little bit tired of life…”

The words didn’t make sense.

She said it was a lullaby. But it didn’t sound like one.

“Like you’re not really happy but you don’t wanna die…”

It didn’t rhyme. Didn’t follow the rules of any song he knew. But her voice was warm. Cracked and breathy.

It made the pain quieter.

“Like a numb little bug that’s gotta survive…”

He didn’t know what a numb little bug was. But she always smiled when she sang that part - soft, sad, but alive.

She never sang to anyone else.

Just him.

And now, it echoed in his chest like a promise she couldn’t keep.

---

He always thought they’d stay together.

Twins.

She was his shadow. His shield. His only safety.

But now she was gone.

Gone in his place.

---

He pressed his forehead to his knees.

Cruel hadn’t spoken in a while.

Deon whispered, voice barely audible:

“Why’d she do that?”

Cruel didn’t answer.

Because they both already knew.

---

He thought Cruel only cared about Deona. Thought his older brother’s protectiveness was only for the twin who burned too brightly.

But slowly, now that she was gone - he was starting to see.

The book that showed up beside his bed. The cup of warm water refilled without him asking.

The silence that fell in rooms where people had once whispered about him - too pale, too strange.

He remembered how some kids stopped bothering him. He thought they’d gotten bored.

He hadn’t realized Cruel had stood behind him, quiet and unmoving, until they left.

He hadn’t known Cruel once walked Deona back to her room after she’d stayed up all night with Deon - and sat with her in the dark while she cried, finally letting the pain out.

Only when Deon was asleep. Only when she thought no one would see.

Cruel saw.

And stayed.

---

Deon didn’t understand that kind of love yet.

Quiet. Heavy. Without need for thanks.

But now he was starting to.

And maybe… that was the first thing Deona ever left behind for them both.

---

Once, by accident, he’d overheard the maids.

Not gossiping, exactly - but close enough.

“The young lady Deona… she’s always watching, isn’t she?” “Like she’s older than the young master Cruel.” “Like she already lived two lives.”

He didn’t know what they meant.

But he remembered feeling small.

Like they were talking about someone he knew - and didn’t.

She was just his sister. Just a few minutes older.

But sometimes, she felt centuries ahead of them all.

And now that she was gone - he couldn’t stop thinking about how much she had carried.

How much she never said.

They were still young. Too young to bleed. Too young to be hated.

But it happened anyway.

And she never let him face it alone.

Until now.

---

He remembered something else now.

A memory buried deep - quiet, soft. Like so many of her truths.

It was after their mother left his room one night, barely crossing the threshold. She had brought soup, untouched. Her gloved hands didn’t tremble, but her eyes did.

Deon had turned his face away. Said nothing.

When the door shut, he whispered, “They don’t love us.”

Deona, curled on the edge of his bed, didn’t answer right away.

Her hand brushed his hair from his face. Gentle. Careful.

“They love you,” she said finally. “So much it breaks them.”

Deon blinked. “But they don’t-”

“They just don’t know how to show it.”

She’d smiled then. The kind of smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“It’s not your fault. You’re easy to love.”

He remembered that line so clearly now.

Because he hadn’t thought much of it at the time.

But sitting here, in the linen room, knees pulled to his chest - he realized something that made his stomach twist:

She never said they loved her, too.

Only him.

Always him.

---

She wasn’t born in that world.

She didn’t cry beside him in the cradle.
Didn’t hold his hand the first time he had a nightmare.
Didn’t laugh at the garden pond or chase fireflies in the halls.

She wasn’t there when he broke.

Because she wasn’t there at all.

---

She entered it.

In the second round.

Not as a stranger. Not as a ghost.

As his sister.

His shield.

The twin he never had - was until it was too late.

---

She made a wish.

One so desperate it echoed across time.

A wish that burned through whatever force kept the dead dead and the broken buried.

A wish that rewrote the world.

That bent fate in half like it was paper in her hands.

“Let me take his place.”

Not just in the story.

In the timeline.
In the curse.
In the pain he could no longer bear.

She took it all.
The hatred. The weight. The father’s cruelty.
The whispers behind closed doors.

All so he wouldn’t have to.

---

Deon shook.

The room felt too small now.
Too quiet.

The flickering candle guttered, as if it, too, mourned something it only now remembered.

Cruel sat beside him.

Unmoving. Silent.

But his silence had weight now.

As if he knew.

Had known for a long time.

That this version of their family, this miracle of a sister-

Was never meant to be.

---

Deon wrapped his arms around himself, breath shallow.

The memories bled in too fast.
From a life he didn’t remember living-
But couldn’t deny now.

A sword in his lap. A letter on the floor. A voice in the dark, soft and strange:

“Someone already made a wish for you.”

---

He had died.

He had given up.

And she-

She had loved him enough to undo it.

To become what he needed most.

---

Deon pressed his hand to his mouth.

The grief didn’t feel like his.

It felt like hers.

Like years she’d carried alone.
Memories she never shared.
Pain she never spoke of- not even when it bled through her voice as she hummed lullabies that didn’t belong to this world.

He never questioned it.

Never asked.

Never realized.

Until now.

---

And still-

She went in his place.

Because even after saving him once…

She couldn’t bear to see him suffer.

Not twice.

---

He whispered her name into the silence like a prayer.

“Deona…”

Not sister. Not twin.

Not miracle.

Just Deona.

The girl who wasn’t meant to exist.

A girl who always protected him.

And who gave everything just to keep him alive.

Chapter Text

The Eastern Front didn’t care who you were.
Only if you could bleed.
Only if you could kill.

There were no guns here.
Only swords. Chains. Knives.

Deona stepped down from the transport cart into the suffocating stench of blood and sweat. The trenches were narrow, too loud, too alive.

Mud soaked her boots.
Smoke burned her throat.

It was nothing like she imagined.

---

“Name,” barked the officer at the camp checkpoint.

“Deon Hardt,” she said. “Fourteen. Eastern reinforcements.”

The man looked her up and down.
Saw a scrawny noble with white hair, red eyes, too quiet.

He didn’t care.

“Room’s over there. You sleep if you can. You fight at dawn.”

He didn’t ask if she knew how.

Because it didn’t matter.

---

The first day, they gave her a blade that didn’t fit her hand.
And then they shoved her onto the front line.

No instructions.
No warning.

Just a scream, and then-

A boy. Not older than sixteen.
Swinging an axe at her head.

---

He wasn’t a monster.
He wasn’t a soldier.

He was a farmer from the enemy province.
Wearing patchwork armor.
Shouting something she didn’t understand.

But he didn’t hesitate.

So she didn’t either.

Her body moved. Not fast enough. The blade caught her shoulder - a graze, but it burned.

She stumbled. Then lunged.

She felt it before she saw it.

Blood.

The warmth of it startled her more than the kill.

---

Later, someone patted her back.
Called her “noble brat with a killer’s hand.”

She threw up behind the supply crates when no one was looking.

---

The water hit her skin too cold, too clean.

Deona stood beneath the stream, unmoving. Her chain lay curled like a sleeping serpent by the wall, her knife discarded, red-stained. The battle was over - this one, anyway. But the silence afterward rang louder than screams.

She watched the blood swirl at her feet. Reds and browns and something darker. It didn’t wash off easily. Not from her hands. Not from the crease of her jaw. Not from the hollows under her eyes.

She didn't know whose it was.

Was it her enemy’s?

Her comrade’s?

Her own?

She hadn’t stopped to feel. Couldn’t afford to. But now, stripped of clothes and pretense, all that was left was this fragile body and the unbearable weight of not knowing.

The room was filled with the hiss of water. Nothing else.

No voices.

No cries.

No orders.

Just her breathing.

And the way her hands trembled when she reached for the soap.

It didn’t matter how hard she scrubbed. Her skin would always remember.

That night, under the tattered tent, she whispered to herself:

“You wished for this.”

Because she had.

---

She remembered that morning, back at the manor - just before it all began.

Looking at Deon across the chessboard, eyes wide and fragile.
Too soft for war.
Too good.

She hadn’t been calm. Panic had gripped her.

If they take Deon...
If it’s him instead of me...

She had wished - no, begged-

I wish I could take his place.

---

The memories crashed in - from a life that wasn’t this one.

---

A fluorescent kitchen.
Two little siblings fighting over food.
Being the eldest. Ordinary. Invisible.

Not smart. Not chosen.
Just exhausted.

No second chance. No tragic death.
Just a quiet life where she often stared at the ceiling and prayed to no one in particular:

"𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 '𝘔𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘈𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮'... 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦.
𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘢 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨,
𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 -
𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘵𝘴 -
𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦.
𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝒉𝒊𝒎 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺.
𝘐𝘧 𝘋𝘦𝘰𝘯 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥.
𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘮 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯."
---

She never expected to wake up as his twin.
Never expected the plot. The empire. The bloodline.
Never expected to love him this much.

---

She wasn’t a genius isekai heroine.
No cheat skill. No divine power.

Just a sister with a knife in her hand and a stolen name.

---

She bound her chest tight every night.
Washed her bloodied tunic in silence.
Kept her voice low, shoulders squared.

They called her “Ghost.”

Too quiet.
Too pale.
Too good at surviving.

But none of it was hers.

Not the name.
Not the blood on her hands.
Not the fear.

---

She held onto one thing:

Deon was safe.

And she would burn for that.
Lie for that.
Kill for that.

---

When her hands wouldn’t stop shaking, she whispered lyrics from a lullaby no one else knew.

“Like a numb little bug that’s gotta survive…”

The words didn’t make sense. Not here.

But her voice steadied.
And her blade did too.

---

In this war, no one cared who you really were.

As long as you killed when told.
As long as you bled where ordered.

So she did.

For him. For them.

For the life she once prayed into the dark -
long before either of them were born.

Chapter Text

It was always just a matter of time.

Someone always looked too long.
Asked one question too many.
Made one assumption too dangerous.

She knew it. Carried that fear like a knife tucked in her boot - always close, always ready.

He cornered her behind the supply tent.

Grimy. Tall. Scar across his brow like a crude map to worse intentions.

Rank high enough to make others look the other way.
“You’re not like the others,” he murmured, breath sour and voice low. “Not like a boy. Not like a man.”

Her stomach tightened.
She said nothing.
His fingers brushed her waist- testing. Curling.

“I figured you out, Ghost,” he said. “Bet no one else has. But I can keep a secret. Long as you keep me warm tonight.”
Her jaw locked.
One heartbeat.

Two.

Then-
She smiled.

Just a little. Just enough. A small, strange thing.

“You’re right,” she said softly. “You figured me out.”

His eyes gleamed. Greedy. Triumphant.

She tilted her head, eyes steady.

“But if you want your prize…”
She leaned in, close enough for him to smell blood and steel.

“…you’ll have to follow me. Somewhere quiet.”

---

She led him past the watchfires.

Past tents, and crates, and unspoken rules.

He thought she was leading him to surrender.

He didn’t see the knife tucked beneath her belt, or the way her fingers tapped against her thigh- once, twice- steady as a soldier’s march.

---

In the dead clearing, under a shivering sky, she turned to face him.

He grinned. Reached for her.

She hummed, soft and strange:

“Got a secret…
Can you keep it…
Swear this one you’ll save…”

He frowned. “What the hell are you-?”

“Better lock it…
In your pocket…”
Her voice sharpened with each line, the edge of her blade mirroring her tone.

“…takin’ this one to the grave.”

He took a step forward.

She slit his throat.

---

He gurgled. Stumbled.

Clawed at the red gash blooming beneath his chin.

Then crumpled-
Dead weight on cold dirt.

She watched. Quiet.
The blood soaked into the weeds like spilled ink.

“If I show you… then I know you…
Won’t tell what I said…”

Her voice barely rose above a whisper.

“’Cause two can keep a secret…”

She knelt.

Wiped the blade on his sleeve.

“…if one of them is dead.”

---

She dragged his corpse to the ravine.

Tossed in broken rations. A knife left behind. A bootprint scuffed the wrong way.

Let them think he ran.

By morning, no one would ask.

They never did.

She didn’t cry.
She didn’t shake.

But later, when the camp was quiet and her hands still smelled of iron, she sat beside the fire with her back to the others.

Was I scared?

Of course she was. Fear never left her. It lived in her bones.

But she was more afraid of what would happen if he talked.
If anyone whispered too loudly: "It’s Deon’s sister out there.”
If it ruined Cruel. If it cost them everything.

So she erased the threat.

Better safe than sorry.

Better him than Deon.

Always.

Chapter Text

They called him many things.
“Ghost.”
“White Rat.”
“The silent shadow who kills without a sound.”

But none of them really knew who Hart was.
Only that he moved differently - quiet, tense, impossible to read.

---

He didn’t talk much.
Kept his head low.
But he hummed.

Soft, barely there.

A tune none of them recognized, but one that made their skin crawl.

---

In the trenches, before battle, that humming floated through the mud and smoke.

Men stopped talking.
Weapons lowered, if only for a moment.
Even the rats seemed to hush.

It wasn’t just a song.
It was a warning.

---

One day, a young soldier broke.

His hands trembled, his breath ragged.
He collapsed beside Hart, clutching a wound too deep to ignore.

Hart knelt without hesitation.

And hummed:

“Four men in the uniform
To carry home my little soldier
(What could he do? Should have been a rock star)
But he didn’t have the money for a guitar
(What could he do? Should have been a politician)
But he never had a proper education
(What could he do? Should have been a father)
But he never even made it to his twenties
What a waste, army dreamers.”

---

The boy’s eyes fluttered.

His breath slowed.

And then he was gone - cradled by that strange song.

---

Afterward, whispers spread.

“The strange one who hums to the dying.”
“The one with the song no one knows.”
“The ghost that walks before the fight.”

---

They never saw him cry.

They never saw him laugh.

But they kept their distance.

Because something about that quiet humming made them afraid.

---

Hart was a shadow.

A whisper.

The strange one who carried death and songs no one dared to name.

And in the endless mud and blood, the soldiers learned one truth:

-Better to be near him than against him -
But don’t get too close.

Chapter Text

They told them the war would be quick.
Clean.

But war never was.

Not when you saw the whites of a boy’s eyes before your blade went through his ribs.
Not when the ones dying still called out for their mothers.
Not when you started keeping count - and forgot the number halfway through.

They called him “Mad Dog.”
They meant it as both insult and badge.
He didn’t correct them.

He’d seen every kind of soldier the Empire could muster.
The loyal.
The lost.
The monsters dressed like men.

But there was one he couldn’t figure out.
The ghost.
White hair. Red eyes. Too quiet. Too fast. Moved like smoke, bled like stone.

They called him Deon Hart. That name gives him dejavu.
Noble-born, they said.
Twin to some sick heir with a tragic story.

But the boy didn’t act noble.

He acted like a secret someone had buried alive.

---

The first day the white-haired kid showed up, the scarred knight was ready.

Ready to protect. Ready to warn. Ready to see him crumble under the weight of this war.

Because that’s what he remembered.

The last time he saw a boy like this -
Deon, with eyes red not from battle, but from tears.

He was crying that day.

Trembling.
Broken.
A boy barely holding himself together.

But this kid?

Not a tear in sight.

No trembling hands.

No soft sobs swallowed under the dirt.

Just stillness.

Cold.
Unyielding.
Quiet like smoke curling in the wind.

The scarred knight blinked.

His heart caught on a ghost of memory -
a flicker of something he couldn’t place.

A face he thought he knew.

But not like this.

---

He lowered his blade.

Just a little.

Because if the boy wasn’t crying...
Maybe this wasn’t the same Deon.

Or maybe-

Maybe some ghosts didn’t cry.

---

He shoved the thought away and kept watching.

Because war didn’t wait for questions.

And the white-haired kid wasn’t about to break.

Not today.

---

The first time the Ghost passed him on the battlefield, he barely looked human.

Blood to the elbows. Mud in his lashes. A limp in his left leg that didn’t slow him down.

Dragging a half-dead recruit - not a friend, not a name - just someone too small to die alone.

And he was humming.

A strange tune. Not Empire-born. Not like the hymns or chants.
Something soft, but off.

“What could he do? Should’ve been a rock star…”

It was eerie. Out of place.
Like it came from a world before this one - a softer one, already buried.

---

Ghost didn’t hum much.
Only once they died.
Only when the young ones bled out beside him.
And then, always:

“What a waste, army dreamers…”

No one asked what it meant. No one dared.

After a while, the men started saying if you heard the Ghost sing, someone nearby wouldn’t live ‘til morning.

Some called it a curse.

He didn’t.

He called it truth.

---

He never spoke to Ghost. Not properly. Not yet.

But he watched.

How he sharpened his blade even when it didn’t need it.
How his fingers twitched when someone screamed too close.
How he flinched when boys joked too loud.
How he always - always - closed the eyes of the dead.

“He’s not normal,” someone whispered once.

The scarred knight had laughed, low and bitter.

“No one still breathing is.”

---

He didn’t believe in ghosts.

Didn’t believe in prophecy, or omens, or rebirth.

But if the battlefield ever made one?

He figured it’d look like that kid.
White hair. Red eyes. Too quiet.

And gods help whoever tried to unearth the truth behind those eyes.

---

It happened before Ghost became a captain. Before names meant anything.

Fog still clung to the dirt. Rain soaked the trenches.

The ambush hit fast - too fast.

One scream, and the right flank splintered.

The long-haired idiot - the youngest of their unit but still older than Ghost - turned too slow. Didn’t see the enemy breaking through his blind spot.

The scarred knight saw the blade arc toward the back of his head.

He moved to shout-

But he didn’t have to.

The Ghost was already there.

---

No one saw where he came from.

One breath, he wasn’t there.

The next, he was a storm - chain in one hand, knife in the other, dragging the attacker down like gravity itself answered to him.

It wasn’t just a kill.
It was punishment.

Bones cracked. Flesh split.
He didn’t stop until the man stopped twitching.
Then he kicked him once more, just to be sure.

Even the wind held its breath.

---

Ghost turned, red spattered across his face, not all of it his own.

He jabbed a hand at the long-haired knight, who still hadn’t moved.

“If you can’t see this shit coming,” Ghost snarled, voice raw and furious, “chop off that hair before someone stabs you in the skull!”

No one said a word.

Not even the long-haired one.

Ghost didn’t wait for a reply.

Just turned, wiped the blade on his already filthy sleeve, and walked off like the whole battlefield offended him.

---

The Mad Dogs were chaos.

But the Ghost?

That day, he was rage incarnate.

Not for himself.

For one of them.

---

The scarred knight didn’t say anything at the time.

But that was the moment he knew.

Ghost wasn’t just a blade in the mud.

He was watching them.

Caring, in his own fucked-up way.

Like someone who had read about them before ever meeting them.
Like someone remembering a story only he knew.

---

He didn’t know who Ghost really was.

Didn’t know what was buried under the name “Deon Hart.”

But he knew this:

That fury? That grief?

It wasn’t for the Empire.
It wasn’t for glory.

It was for someone else.

A promise he hadn’t spoken.
A secret he hummed like a lullaby.

And that day, the scarred knight didn’t need words.
He gave the kid something else.

Respect.

Earned in rage.
Paid in blood.
Unspoken - but real.

Chapter Text

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝.

Nemesis stood across from Emperor Eduardo Desert - not kneeling, not saluting. Just standing.

Because Eduardo never asked for obedience.

Only truth.

“Captain Hart,” the Emperor said. “Your report.”

Nemesis’s uniform was still stained from the front. He hadn't had time to change. Or maybe he just didn’t bother.

“Efficient. Strategic. Lethal.”

Eduardo didn’t look convinced. “That’s not what the records say.”

“Then the records are wrong.”

A pause.

“Or outdated,” Nemesis added.

---

Everyone in the Empire knew the Hart twins.

The noble siblings born pale as ghosts.

One bright and sharp - the girl.
One sickly and strange - the boy.

Still, both of them were sick.

Just in different ways.

Deon’s body was fragile, a thing wrapped in glass.
Deona’s rage was quiet, buried under silk and steel.

One wilted in the light.
The other sharpened in the dark.

And no one expected either of them to last.

Deon Hart and Deona Hart had been whispered about since they could walk.

Too thin. Too quiet. Too easily bruised.

No one expected him to survive childhood, let alone a war.

Which is why his name on the conscript list had felt like a quiet death sentence. One noble house burying its shame beneath "patriotic sacrifice."

But then the boy changed.

And no one asked why.

---

𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐍𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬.

He saw it immediately - in the captain’s gait, the way they held their blade too low to be formally trained, too precise to be improvising.

“Do you suspect something?” Eduardo asked now.

Nemesis hesitated.

“Nothing I can prove.”

The Emperor watched him. Waited.

“But?” he asked.

Nemesis’s voice came low, uneasy.

“The boy I was told to expect… doesn’t match what I found.”

---

He remembered something.

𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞.

Another war, same name.

A battlefield drowned in black rain.
A boy with red eyes who sometimes smiled too wide.
Sometimes didn’t speak at all.

One day gentle. The next- unflinching. A contradiction wearing the same face.

And one night, after too much blood and not enough victory.
But he remembered now.

Because this Captain Hart didn’t smile.

Didn’t hesitate.

Didn’t bleed the same.

And the eyes weren’t quite his.

---

Nemesis had seen what the front did to people.

He’d watched the weak die in hours, the cruel last weeks, the brave last minutes.

But Captain Hart?

Captain Hart killed like someone who had bled long before the battlefield.

And sang.

Always the same melody. Soft. Unnerving.

One no one knew.

---

He heard it first when a young soldier died.

Barely fifteen. Barely breathing.

Captain Hart knelt beside him - still streaked with enemy blood - and hummed:

“Four men in the uniform
To carry home my little soldier…”

The boy gasped his last breath.

“Should’ve been a rock star,
But he didn’t have a guitar…”

And Hart reached up, closed his eyes like she’d done it a hundred times before.

---

“She sings?” Eduardo asked, brow lifting.

Nemesis didn’t correct him.

He couldn’t.

“Only ever that one song,” he said instead.

“No hymns?”

“No. It’s not for them. It’s for the ones who die.”

---

Eduardo’s fingers tapped the edge of the table. “You think it’s not Deon Hart.”

Nemesis exhaled slowly. “I think… the Empire sent one twin. But the other showed up instead.”

Silence.

“And you let it stand?” Eduardo asked.

“Because whoever she is - she fights like she’s already died once.”

---

He didn’t say what truly haunted him:

The way she watched the battlefield with eyes too old for seventeen.

How she only sang after the young ones fell.

Always the same strange, quiet thing.

- Not a soldier’s habit. Not a killer’s tic.

A funeral.

And maybe a promise.

---

“Have her watched?” Eduardo asked again.

Nemesis’s lips twitched. “You could try.”

“Is that a warning?”

“No, the deaths she sang is already watching her every move”

He didn’t fear her.

But he did respect her.

Because whoever Captain Hart really was - she bore the name like a grave marker. A vow. A cross.

She was never supposed to be there.

But she was.

And she hummed to the dead like they were the only ones who’d remember her.