The study was bathed in a thick, honeyed gloom that felt worlds away from the jagged tension of the dining hall. Elric sat in his usual chair, the leather creaking under his weight. Across from him, silhouetted against the dying embers of the hearth, Isella swirled a glass of amber brandy, the liquid catching the firelight like a trapped sun.
Elric watched his sister over the rim of his glass. She looked smaller in the shadows.
Their relationship had always been a convoluted mess of sharp words and fiercely guarded loyalty. People called it a "sister complex," a phrase he found both reductive and annoyingly accurate. Isella didn't just love her brothers, she protected them. She was the filter through which every potential intruder had to pass, and god's help the woman who didn't meet her impossible metrics.
Isella was the family's resident vulture-scarecrow. She kept the opportunists at bay so her brothers could bleed in peace on the battlefield.
