[Time]: Day 30 of Enrollment, 11:20 AM[Location]: Milan'thir · Ludwig Branch Community · Townhouse No. 107
The [Scarlet-Valkyrie] descended through the cloud layer, its candy-apple red finish gleaming against the azure sky.
Hathaway tapped the handle, banking sharply to the left as she navigated the airspace of the Emerald Ring. Below her lay the Ludwig Branch Community.
From the outside, it looked like a respectable, upscale neighborhood. Rows of elegant Victorian townhouses lined the streets, safe, uniform, and boring.
Hathaway didn't need navigation. She just looked for the Gold.
Townhouse No. 107 stood out like a supernova in a library. While the neighbors opted for tasteful grey stone, her home was a beacon of enchanted gold leaf that shimmered aggressively in the morning sun.
"Home sweet gaudy home," Hathaway muttered, smiling despite herself.
She kept her speed. On her first day back she had come through the front door like a guest and been warped straight into the living room; today she was driving, and the estate had a very different welcome for vehicles.
She aimed the Valkyrie at the second-floor balcony.
The biometric runes on the manor's facade flashed.
[System: Vehicle Detected. Priority Access Granted.][Disengaging Spatial Shortcut. Opening Airspace.]
The air in front of the balcony shimmered, and the solid brick wall dissolved into a translucent ripple of mana.
Hathaway leaned forward and shot through the wall like a bullet.
POP.
The moment she crossed the threshold, the claustrophobic limits of the "Townhouse" vanished. Her eardrums popped pleasantly as the atmospheric pressure shifted.
She didn't hit a living room wall. She hit the Sky.
Whoosh.
The wind roared in her ears. She was now soaring over 400 acres of eternal spring.
"Whoa..." Hathaway breathed, her eyes widening. "So this is the driveway."
Standard Witch Architecture 101: the outside is a lie, the inside is a kingdom. Every Witch with enough mana folded space like origami, because land was expensive and Dimensions were free.
Below her, the Artificial Lake shimmered like a giant sapphire. The "Sun," a glowing orb suspended in the fake sky, was calibrated to be exactly 15% brighter and warmer than the real one outside.
A flock of mechanical swans looked up as she zoomed past, their eyes glowing with soft surveillance magic, recognizing the Young Mistress's flight path. To her right, the Hanging Gardens defied gravity, waterfalls flowing upwards into floating pools of lotus flowers.
And in the distance, near the edge of the spatial fold, she could hear the deep, rhythmic rumbling of the Lion's Park. The family's "pets," three Fire Manticores the size of grain silos, were napping in a field of lavender, purring like diesel engines.
It smelled of money. It smelled of unreasonable magic. It smelled of home.
Hathaway executed a sharp dive, aiming for the manicured lawn in front of the inner manor. The Golems working on the hedges paused to salute as the Scarlet streak blurred past them.
Skid.
She pulled a flare landing clean enough to score. Her boots touched the soft grass, and the broom hummed into standby mode.
"I'm home!" Hathaway shouted at the double doors of the inner villa, patting the warm handle of her Valkyrie.
"HATTIE!"
Two blurs launched themselves off the terrace before the broom had finished powering down.
Margaret (smelling of vanilla and expensive moisturizer) and Anna (smelling of gunpowder and vintage champagne) slammed into her with a hug that nearly cracked her ribs.
"We saw the score! The Bat Familiar just flew back from the Institute!"
Margaret pulled back, took Hathaway’s face between her hands, and switched her eyes on. Two beams of red light. Hathaway squinted.
"128 points! Top 0.1%!" Margaret squealed, beaming her eye-lasers directly into Hathaway's retinas. "My baby is a genius! You inherited my brains! You inherited the Lion's calculation!"
Pop!
A cork sailed off the terrace and took out a topiary.
Anna was already pouring sparkling wine into three crystal glasses. Since Hathaway was 18, a full adult in Witch Law, Anna handed her a glass brimming with golden bubbles.
"And my charm! Don't forget my charm!" Anna laughed, her voice booming with the confidence of a retired Ace Pilot. "I knew it! Our combined genes are invincible, Margaret! We created a masterpiece! A masterpiece!"
"We must celebrate! A home dinner is not enough. I'm thinking a banquet. We'll rent the Floating Gardens of Babylon! We'll invite the entire Milan'thir! We'll hire a Dragon Orchestra to play your theme song as you walk in!"
A cold sweat went down Hathaway's back. Somewhere behind the smile, a second voice was already running the venue fee against the household ledger and coming back with a number that made her teeth hurt.
"No!" Hathaway shouted, shielding her eyes from her mother's high-beam gaze. "Mothers, please! Listen to me! If we rent the Floating Gardens, the venue fee alone is 500,000 Gold Solars! We won't be able to afford milk powder next month! Do you want my sister to starve? Do you want her to drink generic brand formula?"
Anna froze, the glass halfway to her lips. "Right. Budget. We are... currently liquid-asset challenged due to the... uh... renovation of the Lion Park."
"A home dinner," Hathaway said, before the silence could recover. "Just us. That's better. It's intimate."
Margaret wiped a tear and dimmed her eyes to a socially acceptable 20 lumens. "You are so sensible. So frugal. Just like... well, not like us, but wonderful."
They led Hathaway into the living room, where the interior was as plush as the exterior was loud: thick carpets, velvet drapes, and a fireplace large enough to roast a whole ox.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
And there, on the plush velvet sofa, wrapped in a thick, fluffy White Yeti Fur Blanket, sat The Egg.
It was still an egg. Large, pearlescent white, covered in faint crimson runes. It pulsed gently, like a heartbeat.
Thump. Thump.
"She hasn't hatched yet?" Hathaway asked, kneeling beside the sofa, her voice dropping to a whisper.
"Not yet," Margaret said, sitting on the armrest and stroking the shell. "But the Healers said the mana frequency is peaking. It could be any minute. We were just discussing names while waiting for you."
Anna hauled a leather-bound tome the size of a paving slab out from under the coffee table. The title was embossed in peeling gold leaf: The Encyclopedia of Historical Award-Winning Witch Names (1000-2000 Era).
"We need a strong name," Anna declared, flipping the heavy parchment pages. "A name that commands respect. Look, we marked a few candidates from the 'Great Families' section."
Hathaway leaned over to look at the open page. Her eyes landed on a name circled in red ink in the "Notable Apex of Dominion Holders" section.
[Alucard]Current Title: The Apex of Dominion (Milan'thir Consul / Twin Empress of White City).
Hathaway’s face twitched.
Out of the question. "Alucard" was a perfectly ordinary name right up until the woman currently wearing it took the [Apex of Dominion], and there were only thirty of those seats in the known universe. One sentence from an Apex could put a colonial galaxy into receivership; one signature could move a hundred million servant troops.
All of which was extremely impressive, and none of which was what the name meant to Hathaway. To Hathaway it meant: overworked, chronically insomniac, and pathologically addicted to capsaicin.
Naming my sister 'Alucard' feels like cursing her to a life of gastric ulcers and spicy torture.
"Pass," Hathaway said. "Too... ominous. And too much pressure."
"Okay, how about the First Family? The Milan'thir Style is always in fashion." Margaret pointed to the top of the list.
[The 3rd Seat: Ash]
"Ash is a nice name," Margaret mused. "Simple. Elegant. Smoky."
"Simple?" Hathaway raised an eyebrow. "Mother, look at the full citation."
She pointed to the fine print under the portrait of the blonde-haired Grand Witch.
Ash'sindra Nadezhda Ivanovna von Milan'thirskaya.
Hathaway stared at the text.Ash'sindra (High Fantasy) + Nadezhda Ivanovna (Russian Patronymic) + von (German Nobility) + Milan'thirskaya (Slavic-Elven Suffix).
"It's a linguistic disaster," Hathaway muttered, shaking her head. "By the time you finish reciting her full name to cast a locating spell, she would have killed you a hundred times. No wonder everyone just calls her Ash."
"It's traditional!" Anna defended. "The Milan'thir family is the First Family. They have to carry the weight of history. Look at the power in these names. All four sisters are legends."
Hathaway scanned the list of the Milan'thir Dynasty.
[1st Sister: Ash'sindra (Grand Witch / 3rd Seat)][2nd Sister: Anastasia (Apex of Dominion / Twin Empress)][3rd Sister: Alucard (Apex of Dominion / Twin Empress)][4th Sister: Liandra (The Zenith of Evocation)]
This family is a monster. Four point two billion Witches in the Inner Sea. Two hundred and thirty-six Arch-Witches. The Milan'thir family holds four of them, and that is the polite part. The shameless part, the one that had the Witch Authority's bureaucrats grinding their molars flat while the High Council studied the ceiling, is the Dominion Monopoly.
"The White City is the capital of Milan'thir. It holds the financial throat of the Inner Sea. Whoever sits on that throne is an Apex. That’s just Geopolitical Reality," Hathaway whispered, staring at the twin names. "But just because they birthed Twins, they demanded Two? That breaks the entire concept of 'One Domain, One Vote.' How did the Council even allow it?"
"The Authority didn't dare touch it," Margaret corrected with a grin. "They kicked the hot potato up to the High Council, hoping the Grand Witches would reject such a blatant power grab."
"But they forgot who sits at the 3rd Seat," Hathaway realized.
"Exactly. Ash." Margaret chuckled. "She didn't even call for a vote. She simply threw two application forms onto the table and said: 'My sisters are sharing the city, but they are not sharing a chair. Find another chair.'"
"And the Council listened?"
"It was a hostage situation disguised as a promotion," Margaret shrugged. "Ash made it clear: No second seat, no White City tax revenue."
Hathaway rubbed her temples. One family holding two out of thirty seats in the universe just because of a biological fluke. If nepotism had a final boss, it would be wearing a silver dragon horn and eating a Ghost Skull Pepper.
The comparison stung. Her cousin Rhode von Ludwig, current heir of the whole family name, was still headbutting the ceiling of High Witch.
This is the difference between 'Old Money' and 'Absolute Imperial Royalty'.
"Wait..." She pointed at the page. "Look at the first and the last. The Eldest is Ash'sindra. The Youngest is Liandra. They both end in '-dra'. But the twins in the middle, Tasia and Alucard, break the rule."
Hathaway frowned.
Why? Noble families stick to a naming theme like a religion. Did the Mother name the first and the last, and hand the twins to somebody else? Or did Ash get a vote on the youngest?
"Too complicated," Hathaway concluded, shutting the heavy book with a thud. "We are Ludwigs. We don't need names that take thirty seconds to pronounce. We need something punchy. Something that sounds good when shouted across a battlefield."
The grandfather clock in the hall chimed 11:30 AM.
"Oh! Lunchtime!" Margaret clapped her hands, her eyes lighting up (literally, about 50 lumens). "Anna, you cook. I'll supervise the sauce. We'll make Hattie's favorite. Abyssal Crab Stew!"
Anna stood up, rolling up her sleeves. "Right! A feast for our genius!"
Margaret clung to Anna's arm, pecking her on the cheek. "You are so strong when you hold a cleaver, darling."
The two of them drifted towards the kitchen, radiating a sickeningly sweet aura of love and chaos, leaving Hathaway alone in the living room.
"They really are... a handful," Hathaway sighed, watching the kitchen door swing shut.
She turned back to the sofa. Just her and the Egg now, the room quiet except for the crackle of the fire. The sunlight from the artificial garden filtered through the curtains, casting warm beams on the rug.
Hathaway sat on the floor, resting her chin on her arms, staring at the pearlescent shell.
"Don't listen to them," she whispered to the egg. "I won't let them name you 'Ash'sindra'. You'd get bullied in kindergarten. And I won't let them name you 'Alucard'. You need to sleep more than four hours a night."
She laid her palm flat against the shell instead, where it was warmest.
Which raised the single most interesting question in any Witch household. Genetics.
Witch Genetics was a Gacha Game with the rates rigged in the house's favor. Elves and Humans made Half-Breeds; Witches made Witches. Dragon, demon, angel, it all went into the same slot: the Donor supplied the Flavor Text, the Mother supplied the Source Code, and [Absolute Genetic Sovereignty] ate the difference.
It was the ultimate biological arrogance: Your bloodline becomes our fuel. Our species is the only future.
But the "Traits"? That was the lottery.
Ancient families like the Ludwig had a massive "Gene Pool" accumulated over fifteen hundred years. Every ancestor contributed a "Card" to the deck.
Usually, you pulled the "Rate Up" items. For the Ludwigs, the Fixed Traits were:
[Ludwig Red Eyes]: High-lumen night vision (and intimidation).
[Neural Overclock]: Insane reflex speed, allowing for casting speeds 30% faster than average.
"You're probably a Standard Ludwig," Hathaway whispered, analyzing the odds. "Red eyes, Neural Overclock. Solid. Reliable."
But... everyone dreams of the SSR. The Mutation. The Golden Legend.
"What if..." Hathaway leaned in close enough to fog the shell. "What if you are a Balor Witch?"
A Balor Witch. One of the Top 3 lineages in the universe. Born with wings of fire, immunity to heat, and the ability to cast Meteor Swarm before she could even walk.
If her sister was a Balor, Hathaway wouldn't need to protect her. The baby could protect her. They could conquer a galaxy together before the kid turned ten. Imagine it: A tiny, fire-breathing toddler roasting her enemies while Hathaway collected the loot. Perfection.
"Come on," Hathaway whispered to the egg, willing the universe to give her a miracle. "Big Sister needs a carry... Give me the Fire... Be a Balor. Be a Dragon. Be something hot and destructive."
She reached out and poked the warm, pulsing shell with her index finger.
Just one poke for good luck.
Ting.
A sound echoed in the silent room, and it had nothing to do with the fire. It was the crisp, delicate sound of something Freezing.
The temperature fell off a cliff.
Hathaway’s finger, still touching the shell, felt a sudden, biting cold. Frost began to creep out from the point of contact, spreading across the pearlescent surface like a fast-forwarded winter.
The warm, cozy fireplace seemed to dim. The "Artificial Sunlight" outside the window seemed to lose its heat.
Hathaway sat up straight, her eyes widening. The smile froze on her face.
Wait. I asked for Fire. Why can I see my breath?
CRACK.
A jagged, electric-blue line appeared on the smooth white shell. Right where her finger had just poked it.
Every muscle in Hathaway's body locked.
The frost reached the White Yeti Fur Blanket and went straight through it.
Uh oh.