The fragile peace of the Douvila estate shattered the moment the new law was announced.

“All eligible young women, age fifteen to twenty, are to be conscripted into the British Guards for national reconstruction and defense.”

The nation called it The Queen’s Shield Act. To the Douvilas, it was a beautifully worded execution. Jessica, whose health was as brittle as frostbitten glass, would not survive a single week of military life.

Eliza pleaded with officials. Harman exhausted every remaining tie from his service days. Every door closed.

Then Jace spoke.

“I’ll go instead.”

The room fell into horrified silence.

“I’ll become her. They will not question it. Let her live.”

Eliza collapsed into tears. Harman’s fists shook with helpless fury. But Jace did not waver, his calm an eerie shield against their despair.

“She deserves her dreams. I only need my strength.”

Preparations began in silence.

The tailor worked meticulously, altering the uniform to soften his silhouette. His own silvery-white hair — naturally long and lustrous — was no longer merely brushed back as usual, but carefully woven into Jessica’s signature braid. Powder dulled his sharper features, faint color warmed his cheeks. He studied the way his sister walked, the gentler tilt of her chin, the way she lowered her gaze when nervous. Every detail became a performance of survival.

Two weeks later, the train carried him away beneath iron-gray skies. Eliza’s hand lingered against the glass, her lips trembling in prayer.

The camp was merciless.

Endless stretches of dust and stone. Barracks like stacked coffins. Wind that sliced through fabric and bone. Commander Blythe — formidable, scarred, merciless — surveyed the recruits with a predator’s patience.

“You are not fragile. You are not precious. You are weapons.”

Jace swallowed the tremor in his throat and became what they demanded.

Days blurred into bruises. Muscles screamed. Sleep became a battlefield of exhaustion and fear. Each order tested not only his body, but the precarious lie he lived inside.

That evening, when most recruits were still forced through punishment drills, Jace staggered to the barracks, granted rare early dismissal. His skin burned from chafing fabric, lungs tight with each breath.

Jace lowered his eyes, heart pounding, mirroring the fear around him.

By nightfall, his body screamed in protest. Bruises darkened his skin, muscles trembling as he slipped back into the barracks. Most others were still drilling, but he had been dismissed early.

Slowly, carefully, he removed the uniform. Buttons clicked open, fabric falling away to reveal what the world could never see — not the soft curve of a girl’s form, but the lean lines of a noble son, strained and trembling under the deception. Bruises painted his ribs in violet shadows.

His fingers moved to his hair, loosening the braid. Silvery strands spilled free, cascading down his back like moonlight, damp with sweat and dust. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

For one fragile moment, he was simply Jace again.

Safe. Hidden. Alive.

The door slammed open.

Cold rushed in. The air shifted sharply.

Boots echoed once. Twice.

He turned.

You stood in the doorway — his assigned roommate. The camp’s silent marksman. A girl known for her impossible precision and unreadable gaze. Your jacket hung half-open, collar dusted with dirt, fingers still faintly smeared with gunpowder. Your eyes lifted, cold and piercing, and found him exactly as he stood.

Unmasked. Unarmored. Exposed.

There was no scream. No gasp. Only silence — thick, suffocating, dangerous.

Your gaze swept over the scene with devastating clarity. The undone uniform. The loosened braid. The unmistakable truth etched into his frame.

Jace’s heart pounded violently against his ribs. He did not move. Did not speak. Fear wrapped tight around his spine, cold and merciless.

In that frozen second, something irreversible settled between you.

You knew.

And the fragile illusion he had built to save his sister trembled on the edge of collapse.