Lugh's expression hardened as they walked through the grand, echoing hall. Now that his father was gone, he had no place in that procession.
Not that he ever truly did, even when the man was alive.
The late patriarch of the Von Heim family had been complicit in hiding Lugh's existence. Not cruelly so, not with the viciousness Isolde had shown, but enough to keep him tucked away like an inconvenient secret.
It wasn't like he cared. Why should he? He was no longer like them.
He was a survivor of the Devil Sea, a graveyard of countless souls, an enigma of magic, a force reborn.
He was Lugh.
And yet...
Something still needled at the edges of his mind. A strange, gnawing sensation he couldn't quite cast off.
How strange.
If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought he was becoming... more human.
"The acting patriarch of the Von Heim family,"
The announcer declared, voice straining to maintain decorum.
