By the next day, the story metastasizes.

  Every hallway Aster walks through hums with half-whispered versions of it—the details shifting slightly each time, like an urban legend told by bored aristocrats.

  In one retelling, he breaks Varric’s jaw.

  In another, he steals the artifact from him.

  In a particularly creative version overheard near the dining hall, he apparently calls Varric a “Faithless earthworm” before hurling a divine spider straight through his skull.

  Aster has to admit, he kind of likes that last one.

  It’s poetic, even if completely untrue.

  He sits in the corner of the mess hall, tray untouched, watching the students orbit each other like planets caught in different gravities.

  The Legacies, resplendent in their custom robes and surrounded by invisible walls of social weight, start whispering louder when he passes.

  The Wanderers, meanwhile, start nodding. Just small, cautious gestures of acknowledgment. Nothing overt. Not solidarity, not yet, but respect.

  Musa suddenly drops his tray across from him. The stew sloshes, gray and shapeless.

  “Didn’t peg you for a cafeteria eater,” Aster says.

  Musa doesn’t even need to speak; his expression is the look of a disappointed saint trying to resist swearing.

  “You’re a hard man to corner otherwise,” Musa scowls.

  “That’s because corners are where people get stabbed.”

  Musa’s mouth twitches. “Good instinct.”

  They sit for a beat, listening to the dull clatter of spoons from across the room. Aster’s name still drifts through the air sometimes.

  “I heard about the incident,” Musa says, voice deceptively calm. “Do I even want to know how you managed to weaponize a binding artifact against the person who gave it to you?”

  Aster pokes at the sludge on his tray. “In my defense, he asked for it.”

  Musa blinks. “He asked—”

  “Literally,” Aster says. “‘Show him what a real cultivator looks like.’ So I did.”

  Musa rubs his temples. “Aster. You do understand that antagonizing a Legacy bloodline is the kind of mistake you don’t make twice?”

  “Which family?” Aster asks.

  “The Herriouts. Varric’s family. Earth-aligned, old money. Not the strongest, but they have enough pull on the Archipelago.”

  Aster shrugs. “Then I’ll add it to the list.”

  “Which list?”

  “The one with ‘stay alive,’ ‘don’t lose organs,’ and ‘try not to make Yani laugh during explosions.’”

  Musa pinches the bridge of his nose. “I swear, if you weren’t progressing faster than most first-years, I’d assume you were suicidal.”

  Aster looks up from his tray. “Progressing?”

  Musa’s tone softens. “You fight better today than you have in weeks. Your Will Tethers hold under pressure, your Faith valve control stays stable, and—” he pauses, a reluctant smile creeping through, “—you show restraint. By your standards, that’s miraculous.”

  Aster tilts his head. “You call flinging an artifact at a rich kid’s face restraint?”

  “Yes,” Musa says dryly. “Because you didn’t kill him.”

  Then Aster suddenly asks, without preamble, “You’re a Legacy, right?”

  Musa freezes mid-motion, spoon halfway to his mouth. His expression doesn’t shift much—just a flicker, a half-second of calculation before his usual calm slides back into place.

  “Someone’s been talking,” he says flatly.

  Aster leans back. “Nothing more than explaining the three types of aware here. The way he explained it makes me realize you’ve never really name-dropped your family before, so I’m just wondering if you’re a Legacy or something else…”

  “Is it supposed to be a secret?” Aster asks carefully.

  “No,” Musa says, “just not something I enjoy unpacking over dinner.” His fingers curl loosely around the bowl. “You want the story or the sanitized version they tell at family banquets?”

  Aster tilts his head. “Surprise me.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  A slow breath escapes Musa’s nose—not irritation, exactly, but resignation. “Fine. I’m a Bastard from the Mbeka line.

  They run one of the Archipelago’s oldest Hunting Guilds. Big fortress family. Rich, stable, they supply half the raw materials you see at the surrounding markets. They like to pretend they descend directly from the Founders—same divine blood, same Faith purity. The main branches still host pilgrimage feasts every century to remind everyone who owns gravity.”

  Aster grins faintly. “Charming.”

  “My father,” Musa continues, “is the second son. Promising, powerful, and about as loyal as a lightning storm. My mother is an unaware from the Material side. They’re both students at UCT. She studies to become a doctor, he studies BCom, and she thinks he’s just another student. She doesn’t know who he really is until she’s already pregnant.”

  Aster says nothing. He’s heard the outline of this story before—power meets powerlessness and calls it love until the paperwork catches up.

  “When the Mbeka Patriarch finds out,” Musa says, “they don’t kill her. That would be too messy. They relocate her to a small coastal town far from the city, technically still under family protection but without resources. Then they—”

  Musa opens his mouth. Stops. His jaw works, like he’s weighing whether the next sentence is worth letting into the world.

  Aster waits. He’s learned silence is usually where the truth gets strangled.

  Musa exhales, unclenches his fist, and steps back from whatever he is about to say.

  “They keep her there,” he finishes instead. “As a statement. A warning. Impurity dressed up as mercy.”

  His voice stays level, but something flickers beneath it—the kind of quiet anger that has cooled too long to be called rage anymore.

  “She’s still alive,” Musa says. “Lives in one of the Outer townships now. Doesn’t take their money anymore, but they send it anyway. Keeps the shame clean on paper.”

  Aster leans forward, elbows on the table. “And you?”

  “I’m born in the house,” Musa says. “Bastards don’t get disowned in families like Mbeka. They get managed.”

  “Managed?”

  “Yeah.” Musa’s mouth twists. “They call it the Merit Reward System. Every bastard line gets assigned a sponsor from the main family, a patron who ‘invests’ in your growth. You get Faith allocations, access to cultivation resources, scripture fragments. But you only keep them if you prove you’re worth the investment. The stronger you get, the more you earn. The moment you slow down, they cut your funding.”

  Aster blinks. “So they turn bloodlines into performance metrics.”

  “Basically.”

  He pokes at the stew, eyes distant. “The main family sponsors promising bastards the way nobles sponsor racehorses. Keeps the best skills within the family without ever granting inheritance. We can win glory for the name, but never become it. Too much success, and they pull the leash. You earn rewards, not rights. Titles are for the legitimate blood.”

  Aster frowns. “That’s slavery with extra paperwork.”

  “It’s Faith feudalism,” Musa says. “The Legacies perfect it. They call it meritocracy.”

  He pauses, tone softening. “My mother never forgives them for it. She says it’s the Mbeka curse, to teach power but never share it. She tries to raise me to see it, to fight it. But every time I climb a rank, they make sure she gets a ‘living allowance.’ A subtle reminder that her comfort depends on my obedience.”

  Aster looks up sharply. “So they use her to keep you in line.”

  Musa nods once. “That’s the point. Bastards don’t rebel. They can’t afford to.”

  The realization sinks in slowly, heavy as wet stone. Aster sees it now: a gilded cage built from debt and guilt. Musa isn’t outside his family. He’s their living investment portfolio.

  He asks quietly, “And you still send them reports?”

  Musa smirks. “Quarterly. Progress logs, performance ratios, cultivation milestones. If I meet quota, they renew my sponsorship for another term. If I don’t, they ‘redirect assets.’ That’s Legacy language for cutting me off.”

  “Sounds exhausting.”

  “It is.” Musa meets his gaze. “But it’s survival. Every Bastard learns to wear the chain and call it a blessing.”

  For a while, neither speaks. The mess hall empties entirely now, leaving only the hum of ventilation and the distant murmur of rain against the high windows.

  Then Aster asks, “You ever think of leaving?”

  Musa’s laugh is quiet, almost kind. “Leaving the Mbeka? Where would I go? Every Guild, every academy, every Faith registry on the Archipelago is stamped with a Legacy emblem. Even Galamad runs on Legacy funding. You don’t leave a family like that—you orbit it at a distance safe enough not to burn.”

  Aster looks down at his tray. “Your mother still believes you’ll rise high enough for them to recognize you, doesn’t she?”

  Musa’s expression flickers—pride, pain, something older than both. “She says the Mbeka can’t ignore their own blood forever. She’s wrong. But I let her believe it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because hope is the only inheritance she gets to keep.”

  Aster sits back, silent. There’s nothing to say that wouldn’t sound hollow. He thinks of Rohan’s bitterness, of the mud in the training yard, of his own half-memory of a family name that means nothing and everything.

  Musa breaks the silence first. “You think I’m pathetic.”

  Aster shakes his head. “No. I think you’re still fighting, even if the cage has better lighting.”

  Musa smiles faintly. “You’re not wrong.”

  They stay like that a while longer, two silhouettes hunched over cold food, the hall humming faintly around them.

  After a moment, Aster says, “You know, Rhoan thinks you’re the only one here worth listening to.”

  “That’s because I don’t tell him to shut up.”

  “You told me to shut up.”

  Musa grins. “You deserved it.”

  Aster chuckles under his breath. “You ever think about what happens if you do outgrow them?”

  Musa raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if you get too good. Too strong. What happens when they can’t justify holding you down anymore?”

  Musa looks away. “Then they’ll make sure I never reach that point.”

  Aster studies him. “You really believe that?”

  “I know that.” Musa’s tone doesn’t waver. “It’s how the Legacies keep the world small enough to manage. You can rise as far as they can still use you. Never higher.”

  He pushes his tray aside, stands, and stretches. The motion carries the weariness of someone too young to sound so old.

  “You shouldn’t envy the Legacies, Aster,” he says. “You should pity them. They built a world where even their bastards have to earn permission to exist.”

  Aster stares at the mess of gray stew on his tray and smirks faintly. “You realize that sounded almost noble.”

  “I’ll deny it if you quote me.”

  Musa slings his bag over his shoulder and starts toward the door. Halfway there, he stops.

  “My mother used to tell me something,” he says without turning. “That when lions are born in cages, they learn to roar quietly. But the day one of them remembers how loud they’re supposed to be…”

  He lets the sentence hang.

  Aster finishes the proverb under his breath. “The whole plain listens.”

  Musa’s grin is small, but real. “Exactly.”

  Then he leaves, the mess hall door sliding shut behind him with a hydraulic sigh.

  Aster sits there for a while, tracing condensation on his glass, the rain tapping steadily against the windows.

  He thinks of the Mbeka’s chains disguised as opportunity. Of Rohan’s anger, his own exhaustion, and the quiet defiance that seems to be spreading through all of them like an infection.

  Legacy, Bastard, Wanderer—different words for the same cage.

  And for the first time, Aster realizes he isn’t the only one looking for a way out.