It was already dead of the night, yet he was wide awake. The cool bluish beam of the moonlight shining through his window was the only source of illumination in his dark room, he’d already turned the glowstones off.

Sprawled out like a starfish on his bed, Lazarus was staring idly at the ceiling, still remembering the feeling of numbness when he found out Reisha, the prodigy of a mage-... is supposed to be his sister.

Emilia and Veyron had explained more about Reisha but Lazarus didn’t hear any of it the moment it was revealed that she was his sister that was a year younger than him.

Just a few hours ago, during the party, Veyron was busy answering the questions of the nobles so Emilia had taken that chance to introduce his siblings.

They were taken to the side for a moment where Anastasia, Clovis and Lazarus waited as Emilia approached them with Reisha in tow.

Reisha kept glancing between the three of them and just meeting her gaze made Lazarus remember their encounter the night before. He’d made eye contact with her that night, and he immediately bolted for dear life. He didn’t know why, just that he felt guilty after being caught.

Unfortunately, Reisha was staring at him.

Why?

Does she remember yesterday?

He couldn’t handle Reisha’s stare so he looked to the ground. Even though he wanted to run and hug Emilia then and there, the pressure of meeting Reisha’s gaze deterred any further desire to welcome Emilia.

The stare from the genius he'd yearn to become was painful.

“Lazarus, Anastasia, and Clovis. This is your younger sister.” Said Emilia, pushing Reisha forward.

“I am Reisha Valheart, a pleasure to meet you, ” Reisha bowed politely, then glanced at each one of them, from Clovis, then to Anastasia and finally, Lazarus. “Big brothers and big sister. It is a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Lazarus felt his heart beat fast when she beamed happily. The near shakiness in her voice, the way she held her hand to her chest as if to stop her beating heart. He didn’t understand what they meant but he felt as if she really was glad to meet them.

It was then that Lazarus remembered that this girl was the very same girl who casted that snow magic that night.

She was a genius… a legend in the making. His sister, yet compared to him...

The heaviness on his shoulder, the feeling as if he was being sized up made him look to the ground once more.

What should he say?

Was Reisha really his sister?

Countless questions floated in his mind before a voice brought him back to reality.

“Lazarus, is something the matter?”

Emilia was looking at him, then he looked to the side and both Clovis and Anastasia were looking at him.

Why?

“It’s your turn to introduce yourself.” Emilia reminded him.

But didn’t Clovis and Anastasia need to introduce themselves first since he was always the last one in the pecking order?

“In case you weren’t listening, we’ve already done our introductions.” Said Clovis.

Oh...

"Haa-... Typical Lazarus." Said Anastasia with a roll of her eyes.

“I uhmm… Lazarus. I’m Lazarus. Nice to meet you...” Said Lazarus as he felt his throat tighten, making him look away.

Because he looked away, he didn’t notice Reisha staring at him.

“Big brother Lazarus?” She called out but he was deep in thought to say anything.

Then he felt a light tug on his shirt. Lazarus looked at the source, and saw the hand tugging him was from Reisha. He looked at her and…

Her eyes were sparkling in anticipation.

Lazarus wasn’t any good at reading people and being so young he only felt an immense pressure from her expectant gaze. It felt like it was getting harder to swallow.

When will this end?

------

Turning and tossing around once more, cringing at his idiocy at the party, Lazarus eventually heaved a sigh to calm himself. It was tiring to reminisce about yesterday's events.

Everything else was a blur besides those things.

He stumbled around in bed for a moment before heaving a sigh once more.

Was Reisha really his sister? No doubt, after all she resembled Emilia the most. The most noticable difference was the eye color. While Emilia had blue eyes, Reisha had Veyron’s emerald green eyes. And because Reisha was young, her cheeks were more rounded.

But the stark contrast of the lustrous black hair and emerald green eyes of hers made her even cuter. And the most troubling part was, she was a genius in magic.

Thinking about how she casted magic made his head throb.

He had worked harder than anyone. He was supposed to be the one to cast that magic and impress everyone. Instead it was her…

Why her?

Why not him?

Endlessly he thought about it but eventually the tiredness from it all made his eyes bleary and his mind numb.

And before he even knew it, he was sound asleep.

----------------------------

The dawn chorus of melodic birdsong drifted in.

It was warm…. warmer than usual and he felt being enveloped in a springy soft embrace.

Lazarus rubbed his bleary eyes and looked up.

“Good Morning Lazarus” Said a black haired beauty, her blue eyes sparkled with delight upon setting his gaze on him and her soft, restrained but elegant smile clearly displayed her elation being the first thing he saw when he woke up.

“Morning mom!” Replied Lazarus, beaming Emilia with a smile before embracing her.

Finally…

Finally she was back!

“Ah! I just remembered but… do I really have a new little sister?”

Emilia chuckled, tightening her embrace on Lazarus just to feel his warmth a bit more and this time it wasn’t for him, but for her, as she too missed him so much more than he could possibly imagine.

After letting him go, he looked up to her once more, still stubbornly looking at her for a reply.

“Yes, Reisha really is your new little sister. I’ve told you before that I’d tell you the truth about why I always had to leave right?”

Of course Lazarus remembered her mentioning it just before she left seven months ago. Because he would always remember it day by day.

“The reason for that was I had to take care of Reisha.”

Lazarus furrowed his brow, “Then why didn’t you take care of her here?”

It was because during her previdere.

Emilia remembered that when the Golden Angel’s emotionless magenta eyes looked at her. She had stiffened, dreading the fact that Reisha may receive the same fate as Lazarus. But she didn’t.

Instead Elysia’s face was still and didn’t have a blanket of emotions on them. She said,

“This child’s mana reserves are greater than what you have now.”

Emilia was silent. It was relieving to know that Reisha wasn’t the same as Lazarus, but this?

Her heart was bursting with Joy, yet the feeling of having something stuck in her chest lingered.

This was the very first time that someone was born with that amount of mana. Even Veyron only had half her mana pool when he was an infant. When he was born, he was considered a legend for that already.

Reisha could perhaps even grow to be as powerful or if not even more powerful than an Angel. Maybe perhaps on the level of the Golden Angel, Elysia.

But power came at a price. If it was known that Reisha held this much power, no doubt that not only would there be assasination attempt at her life by many different races like Veyron had experienced, but there would also be assasination attempts from the humans.

It reminded Emilia of the stories that Veyron shared when he was growing up.

Veyron was always the envy of his siblings and countless times they had tried to kill him and sabotage him and in the end they all died by his hands. Even his own mother had tried to do unspeakable things to him, but all of this made him the strong and resolute king he is today.

But that was a life she never wanted Reisha to have. Not for the child she loved so much.

She had favored Lazarus so much but in time Emilia came to love Reisha just as much.

Emilia wanted to see them grow up together and get along-

But…

Clearly the two would have very different fates. Reisha with this much mana would already be destined to become the crown princess, while Lazarus might only be left with the bare minimum…

Emilia felt a cut in her heart. With each beat came with a subtle but deep pain.

Lazarus didn’t deserve that.

Emilia shook her head, now wasn’t the time to think about such things.

Instead, she had to think up a plan with what to do with Reisha. It was then that she nodded back to the Golden Angel and promptly left.

Emilia relayed a few orders to the captain of the knights who waited outside and arranged for a meeting with Veyron.

And when she met with Veyron, he too looked shocked to his core. Emilia could feel his mana surging around from the shock.

After he calmed himself, they had an intense discussion on how Reisha was going to be raised but ultimately they both came to the conclusion that she was to be raised somewhere else. Somewhere far and isolated.

No doubt, that even if they would hide it, people would feel her mana when she became just a year old. And that was enough to get people to try and kill her.

And all these months when she’d have to leave Lazarus, she had to go somewhere isolated with a couple of trusted maids. She raised Reisha there and taught her magic and she learned incredibly quickly.

Maybe a bit too quick. And it was then that Emilia realized that not only did she have immense mana, she was also a genius when it came to its casting.

The hard part of raising Reisha was the fact that she never had kids her age to play with.

She always looked so lonely.

It was then that Emilia thought of a solution. It was a good plan since Reisha would have something to look forward to when she joined her siblings eventually.

And so she began telling her stories of Lazarus, Clovis and Anastasia.

This seemed to light a spark in little Reisha's eyes and she always asked stories about them whenever she came back from seeing them.

It had been that way for a while, until now.

However, out of all of the siblings, it seems like Reisha took a significant interest in Lazarus. Perhaps it was due to Emilia herself talking about how cute and kind Lazarus was?

Emilia thought that that was probably the reason. She couldn’t help it, because she adored Lazarus and always wanted to talk about him to other people but she couldn’t, he was weak and none of the nobles cared for him since they knew he would grow up to have no influence whatsoever. So she had to tell them about Clovis and Anastasia since only they were of interest.

But now? When Reisha listened with sparkling eyes and seeing how happy it made Reisha just to hear about Lazarus made it seem worth it.

Perhaps she could warn Lazarus about it?

Maybe not. It was more interesting to see how Lazarus would handle Reisha's interest.

Still, the only thing Emilia was going to tell Lazarus for now was that,

“The reason why we never raised Reisha here is because of her power. She is so strong that people will envy her. So I hope you two will get along.”

Lazarus looked at her for a bit and seeing the longing look in Emilia’s eyes, Lazarus pumped his fist and said,

“I will try!”

Emilia chuckled at his childish determination and enveloped him in her chest. He squirmed a bit but she held him down because he was too cute and eventually let him go.

“I-.. I thought I was going to die...”

“You're exaggerating hehehe.”

“No! I couldn’t breathe!”

“Oh alright~”

“I’m serious!”

“Of course you were."

Lazarus protested for a bit before eventually letting it go seeing as Emilia is just teasingly nodding along.

"Lazarus?"

"Yes mom?"

Emilia suddenly enveloped him in a hug once more, but this time it was gentler, yet firm.

"I've missed you so much Lazarus, more than you know..."

Hearing those words... Feeling his mother's gentle warmth made Lazarus feel a sort of ache in his heart. It wasn't the painful kind of ache, but it made him feel like crying.

"I-...I've missed you too mom."

"This time. I won't ever need to leave for months on end. I'll always be here for you my dear child." Whispered Emilia, before she gave Lazarus a peck on his forehead.

Feeling a bit embarrassed, Lazarus squirmed a bit before trying to let go. But Emilia kept her embrace, she wasn't satisfied yet.

After a good while, Emilia finally let Lazarus go and said,

"Shall we have breakfast?”

Lazarus smiled.

“Sure!”

“Reisha will be joining us though, and it will just be the three of us.”

Lazarus' eyes widened.

“W-what..? W-why’s she joining us??”

“I promised her.”

Lazarus was frozen stiff. The thought of having breakfast with his genius sister whom he just met yesterday was… too much. He needed to find an excuse.

“Now then, let us be on our way.”

But it was too late.