Lucian entered his carriage, where his sister Aileen was already seated. He sat down on the left side besides her.

The inside of the carriage had a comfortable atmosphere. Small windows on the left and the right side lightened up the brown leather seats and the beautiful designs of the inside walls. Those designs showed different sky cities flying in the sky.

The small metal slider in front of the sibling opened. On the other side of the slider was their butler Alfred, who asked them if they were ready.

“Mhm, we can drive now” Lucian answered his butler.

The metal slider was closed again, resulting in the sibling having full privacy.

Right away, after the slider was closed, Aileen leaned her whole body onto her brother, who was sitting on her left side.

“Is my cute sister this tired?” Lucian caressed her head with his right hand.

“Mhm” Aileen answered him lazily, while rubbing her face against Lucian’s chest.

His right hand wandered from her head downwards to her butt. Lucian gave it a short squeeze, and afterwards he just kept his hand there.

This was a normal occurrence for them. Lucian was the only person in the world who had the right to touch her body, as both siblings were each other's pillar and the most important thing in their lives. Aileen rarely even let someone, outside of her brother, touch her hands.

After a short ride of 30 minutes, the carriage stopped in front of a small mansion.

Lucian tapped his sister on the shoulders.

“Ai, wake up.” He was trying to wake her up carefully.

“Mhmmm” Aileen was slowly waking up. Her eyelids were opening and bit by bit presented her tea orange eyes.

Finally being awake, Aileen distanced herself from her brother and sat straight up. They didn’t want to show, even to their butler, how close they were to each other. It was nothing bad, but still unusual and indecent in the public’s eye.

TAP TAP TAP

Alfred knocked on the carriage door.

“Young lord and young lady, we have arrived”

“Ready?” Lucian asked his sister.

“Yeah”

Aileen stood up and opened the carriage door. The first thing the siblings saw was their butler standing behind the door with his elbow offered. Aileen walked out of the door and held on Alfred’s elbow to get off the carriage.

“Thanks, Alfred”

“That’s my job, young lady!”

Lucian also came out. He, of course, didn’t need help getting off the carriage.

“Young lord and young lady, please wait here, I’m quickly going to drive the carriage to the stable”

Alfred closed the carriage door and went back to the river seat of the carriage. After he sat down on the bench, Alfred drove away to the stable.

“Poor Alfred, he has just too much to do, and he also doesn’t get any younger..” Aileen spoke to Lucian with concern in her voice.

“Yeah.. I told him, he didn’t need to do everything and that we could do many things alone, but he doesn’t permit it”

Alfred was the only butler of the siblings, as everyone else left them, when their mother disappeared a couple of years ago. Although Lucian and Aileen were nobles, they were nobles just in name. In fact, the siblings were very poor and just trying to survive.

Alfred still stayed with the siblings, because of their mother, who was like a daughter to him, and this made Lucian and Aileen like grandchildren for him. He would do everything for them!

While Alfred was putting away the carriage inside the stable, the siblings were standing and waiting in front of their small mansion.

Years ago, it had been a vibrant and loud house, with maids chattering about their day-to-day stress and love stories, but now, it was an empty husk of its former glory. The beautiful flower garden turned into a small jungle, where ivy was slowly but steady creeping up the yellow house walls.

“A piety” Lucian was murmuring to himself while looking at the small yellow mansion.

Aileen heard her brother's murmur. She caressed his back with her hand.

“Don’t worry, we will get through this and build a bigger mansion. Yes, a mansion on the one hill we like!”

“You're right, AI” Lucian lifted his head and looked at the sky with newly found motivation.

The sound of steps was coming nearer to the siblings. It was Alfred, who came back from the stable.

“Please excuse my tardiness”

Lucian and his sister followed Alfred to the front door.

Alfred took a big iron key out of his pocket. He put the iron key into the keyhole and turned the key to the right.

CLICK

The door was unlocked with a satisfying metallic click-sound. Alfred opened the door slowly with a delicate movement.

“Come in, young lord and young lady”

The siblings entered the door, while Alfred was standing at the door side, keeping the heavy door open. As they entered the house, Alfred shut and locked the door.

A cold, empty hall greeted its residents. In the center of the hall was a massive wooden staircase leading upstairs to the chambers. The mansion was split into two floors and a small cellar. Upstairs were the chambers of the house lords and downstairs was the dining hall, training room and the bedrooms for servants.

Lucian went upstairs with his sister and each went into their respective bedrooms, which were right next to each other.

Lucian stepped into his room. The room was barren with only the most necessary furniture, since he didn’t like having too much stuff. There was, like in the other upstairs bedrooms, another door in the room. It led to the private bathroom.

Lucian slowly undressed himself. The old clothes were neatly folded and put on a small table next to the door.

Still naked, Lucian went straight to the bath to refresh himself. Once there, he used a big, complicated magic artifact to fill up the bathtub with water and another artifact to heat it up. It took him only a few seconds until steam was coming out of the water.

Those artifacts were custom-made magic artifacts. Magic artifacts used either a magic stone or the user's mana. These two used Lucian’s own mana.