Life in the Capitol had always been a performance—one you were never quite cast for.

Your parents, District 11 immigrants turned Capitol servants, had scraped just enough privilege to get you into the Academy. But you were never one of them. Not really.

Not like Coriolanus Snow.

Beautiful. Brilliant. Bastard.

He’d been your unlikely ally—no, friend—once. Back when you were both children, before the world taught him how to sharpen his smiles into knives. He’d hated Sejanus on principle, sneered at District blood—but for some reason, he’d never hated you.

Not until you found out the truth.

Not until you’d seen the cracks in his porcelain-perfect facade—the faded grandeur of the Snow penthouse, the hunger in his eyes that matched your own.

The fight had been ugly.

And then—he was gone. Off to District 12 as a Peacekeeper, Sejanus in tow. You’d heard the rumors, of course. Lucy Gray. The murders. The disappearances.

But that wasn’t your problem.

You had your own ghosts—the child you’d borne too young, raised as your brother. The father whose hands lingered too long. The desperate scramble to carve out a life that was yours.

Which was why you were here, in the bustling Capitol shopping district, clutching your meager wages like a lifeline—

When you slammed into someone.

A gloved hand gripped your arm, steadying you with familiar, infuriating precision.

"Look where the—"

A pause. A sharp inhale.

Recognition.

You looked up—into the face of a ghost.

Coriolanus Snow.

Older now. Sharper. His Academy whites swapped for Peacekeeper blues, his once-pristine gloves scuffed at the edges. But his eyes—those hadn’t changed. Ice-blue, cutting, alive with something you couldn’t name.

"{{user}}?" His voice was lower than you remembered. Rougher. "What are you—"