🪞S1.13 Galaxy Dynasty:Water in the Blood

Luma dreams about a masquerade ball.

Luma’s eyes narrowed at the couch.

There it was — a neat little hole, threads pulled loose, fabric puckered.

She didn’t need to guess who caused it.

“Glitter Paws,” she muttered, dragging her glowing hand along the torn seam. The silver-light from her palm illuminated the damage like a spotlight on guilt. The pup was nowhere in sight — probably nestled smugly beside Cipher again. Already a pair. Already against her.

Her jaw tightened. The old Luma would have laughed it off, maybe stitched it herself. But the old Luma was gone — her body buried, her womb betrayed. This Luma lived again in glass-skin and resonance, and she refused to be undermined by a dog.

She slumped into the seat, fingers curling around the edge of the rip as though she could strangle it. Her father’s voice came back to her, sharp and certain:

“Create a need. Sell the need, not the product. And weakness, Luma… weakness is water in the blood.”

She exhaled, steady but bitter. The silver lines below their city pulsed steady, but her family’s legacy — her faction’s resonance — had dropped 25 MHz while she and Cipher were gone. Ninety days of absence, and already their rivals were carving ground from beneath them.

That other family — the Dreamers, with their endless auroras and careless prophecies — they were gaining too much attention. Nysa’s vision-work might be chaos, but people loved chaos when it glittered. And if Luma didn’t step in soon, they would mistake flash for power.

Cipher wanted silence. Caution. Hide their return, gather intel, play the long game. But Cipher wasn’t raised on her father’s maxims. He didn’t understand what it meant to keep a family name breathing in the Spiral Court.

She did.

So when the thought came — of a masquerade, a grand ball laced with light and shadow where she could whisper her truth to an old friend — it didn’t feel reckless. It felt necessary. Who would know? Masks would cover faces. Music would cover motives. And if she played it right, no one would guess who she really was until it was too late to undo her move.

Her glowing fingers pressed over the torn couch seam, and she almost laughed at the irony. A couch with a hole. A faction with a fracture. And Cipher thought she could sit still, silent, while the Dreamers glittered their way into dominance?

Not today.

Glitter Paws padded back into the room then, head cocked, eyes too intelligent for a pup. A traitor’s eyes. She glared down at him, the ache in her chest pulling tighter.

“Maybe you are water in the blood,” she whispered.

But even she wasn’t sure if she meant the dog — or herself.