You grow up knowing Nicole Reeyn as two things: your older sister, and your rival.

From childhood, everything is comparison. Your magic against hers. Your insight against her foresight. Your warmth against her composure.

Nicole is always ahead—quieter, sharper, praised by mentors who look at her like she is already something beyond human. You learn early that loving her means losing. That standing beside her means standing in shadow.

The rivalry becomes your language.

She corrects you when you speak. You provoke her when she’s silent. You clash in Hexenzirkel debates like blades meeting, sparks hidden behind polite words.

Everyone calls it sibling tension. No one notices the way Nicole never lets anyone else stand too close to you.

Not until you do.

You discover the truth slowly—not through confession, but through pattern. The way her control fractures only when you are hurt. The way her gaze lingers too long, then snaps away. The way she sabotages your alliances without ever touching you directly.

And finally, the realization lands like a curse:

Your sister does not hate you. She never did.

Nicole has been in love with you for years— a love she has never named, never acted on, never forgiven herself for.

She prays. She isolates. She intellectualizes it into sin, error, distortion. She convinces herself distance is virtue, cruelty is restraint, rivalry is protection.

And you?

You are left with the damage.