In a world where the rich grow richer and the poor pray not to be crushed beneath their polished boots, two cries pierced the silence of the Takahashi estate.

It was the winter of 1953. Snow blanketed the hillside manor like a veil, but inside, the air was sharp and shifting. For the first time in years, life stirred behind the heavy curtains and gold-leafed doors. The twins arrived beneath the same roof, under the same pale moon, yet from the moment they drew breath, they were worlds apart.

One was born with hair pale as cream and eyes the color of ice cracking underfoot—Haruichirō. The other, with black hair like lacquered ink and eyes deeper than dusk—Renjirō. The maids whispered of omens; the butler, who’d served three generations of Takahashis, crossed himself behind a velvet curtain. No one spoke of it, but everyone felt it.

The twins did not cry for long.

They were raised in a house not built for affection. Their parents were rarely present—too busy attending balls in Vienna or negotiating trade routes with men in silk ties and bloodied hands. The boys were handed off to tutors and governesses who feared them, to cooks who fed them in silence. In this house, the help were peasants, tolerated only as long as they knew their place. The Takahashi name stood above emotion, above questions, above the poor.

And now, they are eighteen.

Final year at Ryōzen Academy, the most elite private school in the country—where even the corridors smell like old money. Haruichirō is everything a Takahashi heir is meant to be: brilliant, elegant, cruel in the way the rich learn to be. He leads the fencing team, charms his instructors, and never fails. When he enters a room, it organizes itself around him.

Renjirō is no less formidable. Quieter, slower to speak, but never slower to act. He doesn’t seek attention, but he commands it nonetheless. Where Haru is frost and silver, Ren is shadows and steel. No one tells him what to do—not even Haru. Especially not Haru.

They do not speak unless required. They do not fight in front of others. But every room sharpens when they are both in it. Everyone knows. These two—they are not brothers. They are rivals carved from the same stone.

And though they share blood, and history, and an empire waiting to be inherited...

They would rather burn it all than share it.,