A/N: Okay. I wrote this off the back of Chapter 74 (which I was stupidly happy about), so be warned — spoilers. MASSIVE SPOILERS. Also, as this is based on the manga, Heine's main backstory has yet to be revealed, but I still reference what we know of it from the anime all the same.

That aside… This was a literal passion project for me. I cannot put how happy I was to be able to write this into words. I could only try.

Heritage

Alone, under the stars, on the palace grounds, I can't help but feel something to be true.

Happy as I am, I do not belong here.

The night isn't getting any younger and I have lessons to prepare. But after recent events… I need some time to think.

Though it looks different in the moonlight, I recognise the rose arbour that I often see the princes sitting under. They've frequented it many a time, whether to gather their thoughts or merely talk with one other. I hesitate. Then take a seat on the swing. It creaks lightly and the tips of my boots rest against the ground.

I look up. Tracing the stars.

Kvel.

A simple, four-lettered word. I haven't thought about it in a long time.

It came to light in the face of the situation with Cafe Mitter Meyer: Licht's place of employment and a target of harassment, merely because the owners of the business were of Kvel blood. And then Licht passionately declared that he wanted to help. He wanted to see the kingdom as it truly was, as part of his role.

And I should have said no. I should have recited my lines and refused to let him put himself in harm's way, yet his words struck a chord, a series of notes. A melody that I hadn't heard for a long time. And with Viktor's words and memories and image in my head, I falteringly gave my consent.

The situation was resolved with little incident. We never actually discovered who was behind the attacks on Cafe Mitter Meyer. Yet at the end of the day, on the long carriage ride home, Licht asked me why I let him help.

I could have given him a blasé answer. Yet his actions had struck a chord with me, and that I could not deny. And for the first time in years… I told someone I was Kvel.

I glance up at the palace, at the single block of gold light denoting Prince Licht's bedroom. Then I turn back to the stars.

Iel. Kvel. I whisper the words, reacquainting myself with the pronunciation.

It's my ancestry. My ethnicity. It's my blood, and who and what I am.

It's strange, that something so intrinsically part of you can be put to the back of one's mind with so little effort, regardless of all the grief it can bring about.

I sit for a moment more, then get up and walk back to the palace.

The clinking of glass, the burn of a fireplace.

'I have to wonder how this will change the princes' latest… Heine?'

'The princes, yes?'

'…The way you can tune out yet immediately quote back at someone is an enviable skill, you know. People would pay in blood for it in political circles.'

'Tis no special gift, more like knowing you well enough to guess what you're going to say.' I raise my eyebrows above my glass and take a sip. '"I'm glad to see you… I'd offer you wine, but I can't give wine to a child. Truth be told, I have something to tell you, my friend."' I feign being unable to speak. '"Forgive me, I'm overcome with emotion — 'tis only the other day Leonhard was scoring ones on his competency tests!"' I gesture with one hand. '"Whaaat, must you go already?! Don't leave me! I'll miss youuu — '"

Viktor chokes on his wine and splutters with laughter. 'Enough, enough — stop it! ...Do I truly sound like that?'

'Yes, and infinitely worse.'

'…"Jeez," as Licht puts it.' Viktor rests his head in his hand, and looks at me with eyes that flicker in the firelight. 'And I know you well enough to see that you have something on your mind. Is everything all right?'

I take another sip of wine. 'Of course.'

I give him a proper answer after a moment.

'…I told Licht of my… Kvel ancestry. I felt he deserved to know. Especially as he took such dramatic actions for my sake — even though he actually had no inkling that I was actually Kvel, at the time.'

'I see.'

I watch the fireplace. 'That was a well-thought-out, sophisticated answer.'

'It's because I don't know what to say.' He gets my attention, and I look over. He toys with his medallion, and regret taints his blue eyes. 'I can't pretend to understand how you feel. I can't say I understand, or that I know what it's like. And I don't want to pretend that I do, either.'

He was the first person to gain my trust. That pampered little royal, tumbling into my dirty sewer like a very lost Alice who took a wrong turn on her way to Wonderland. He was one of the first people I told of my Kvel heritage. Over time, I unbuckled my armour piece by piece until my heart was bare, and let him see what the chinks did not fully reveal. Giving him power over me, freedom to hurt me with words or weapons if he wished.

But he didn't.

'Thank you. But like you say, we know each other well. You don't have to dance around me as though I'm made of glass.'

'I know.' Viktor hesitates, then runs a hand through his hair. 'I know.'

I appreciate his tact. He doesn't know how much. It's true, I'm not made of glass. But that's because I learned to put the breakables away before they got smashed.

I learned that the hard way, many times. I learned that prejudice was interwoven into my people's past like threads in a stained tapestry. I learned that people could be cruel. I learned not to speak of my heritage to others, and I learned that my people are a bare three-percent of Glanzreich's population. I learned that six-pointed stars could be crafted in mosaics, scratched into backstreet alleys, painted on doors in a red that looked like blood, and drawn in the night sky.

Yet due to promises, I learned more. I learned from a promise I threw out like a lifeline, praying that Someone would catch it. I learned from a promise I made to a pampered royal, never dreaming that he would become king.

I learned of the past of my people, of a legacy that wove faith, history and religion in a song of sand and starlight and iron. I learned of a covenant made in blood. I learned of a promise to bless those who would bless, and curse those who would curse, a promise that traced down through centuries and echoed through thousands of facets and generations. A promise that holds me and my people in copper, tarnished, breaking, glittering chains that are made of things I still have yet to fully understand.

Maybe I never will.

I place my glass on Viktor's desk and get up. I pause at the back of his chair. 'Thank you, Viktor. But I'm all right.'

And I smile, and he leans back to catch my eye. He smiles too. It would be easy for me to be jealous of him. Blond, blue-eyed, a part of this kingdom by law, birth, and blood — he fits into this place as easily as breathing. Yet I don't need to be jealous. Not of what he has, because the most important thing he has is not his looks, not his crown — but his heart. It's something I treasure, and I treasure him as a friend that I know I'm blessed to have.

He nods. 'I know I'm not… really able to help you with this. But if you ever want to talk… I'll listen.'

It makes me stop for a moment. …I don't think Viktor realises how much he's truly done to help me. He was there for me when I needed a friend. He accepted me when I was in one of the darkest times of my life. He didn't see my ancestry as something that had to divide us, and he accepted it at a time when I was so scared of getting hurt that I couldn't even accept myself.

'I know. It means more than you realise, rest assured.'

And as I walk to the door, a little part of me can't help but wonder.

A part of my heritage is a promise to my people. Part of that is that those who blessed us would be blessed.

Viktor had never even heard of the Kvel before he and I met — that was how people of my blood were painted and portrayed at that time. But as he pressed me for more information, and discovered more for himself, a place for my people became one of the many things that he aimed to achieve in his ideal kingdom. A kingdom where everyone has a warm place to sleep, with equal access to education, and no lack for food or drink. A kingdom free of poverty… and free of the cracks and chasms of the class distinction and ethnic discrimination in Glanzreich's foundations. He supported me, and supported my people, and still does to this day.

That little flicker remains in my head. I will bless those who bless. Viktor has done nothing since we met if not work towards a kingdom where people like me can feel safe, a kingdom where everyone has a future no matter their past. And on taking the throne, he brought the Kingdom of Glanzreich to become a world power in the blink of an eye, with one of the strongest armies on the Western Continent. Even his very words in a letter to me were, Happy as I am, I have been blessed with five princes and one princess.

I glance back at Viktor, dappled with firelight and watching me leave.

I will bless those who bless.

A coincidence?

I don't know. Yet I know the power of a promise. And a covenant is nothing if not a promise, sealed in blood, in the same way that my fate and heritage are sealed in the blood that flows in my veins.

'Are you planning on telling the rest of the princes?'

I hesitate a moment before replying. '…Not right now. It's a little… too soon.'

He makes no comment, merely nods in understanding.

'I just need some time to think.'

I need some time under the moonlight and stars.

It's been a long time since I've been to Maria Vetsera. I take the key I brought along and fit it into the lock, working the rusty thing in the dark. It's late at night now, and I remember well from my time there that the church is always locked up overnight to keep any unwanted visitors out.

I felt restless, I suppose. As though I needed to walk, so I didn't have to think. I did ride most of the way, but I had to leave my horse further back on the trail to reach the church, given how dense the forest is.

Wanderlust. A Gherman word, the desire to travel and see new places. From the language that I grew up speaking, as so many Kvel accept the languages of the countries they come to, unable to survive without forsaking their native tongue and learning another. The doors give under my hands and part to reveal the church's nave and worn carpet runner, painted in silver and blue and dust motes in the dark. You could call my restless spirit 'wanderlust,' I suppose. You could call my inability to find somewhere to belong by that name. Yet the word doesn't have the right facets to capture the feeling — the knowing it's not that you haven't found somewhere to call home yet, it's that for someone like me… I will never find somewhere to call home. Nor will I ever truly belong.

I pad down the aisle, fingering the sleeve of my overcoat with one hand and feeling the chill of the night air on my skin.

My people, the Kvel, once had a kingdom. A kingdom named Iel. Yet it fell to ruin, split in two, in twelve, then conquered, razed, and destroyed. It was briefly unearthed for a time, then shattered and scattered once again, the shards and broken pieces buried under one-thousand eight-hundred years of sand. The legacy it left behind faded to nothing more than a distant ache, an echo of an old injury. And we've been at the mercy of the wind ever since that time, blown and scattered to the four corners of the earth. We're wanderers, nomads, our homes tiny pieces carved out of other countries and other people's good graces.

But it was our nation that was destroyed, and our people that no longer have a land to belong to. So why does it feel so hard for each of us to even find merely just one fragment of a place that we can call home? I press a hand to my chest. It feels like a curse, sometimes. And it is.

It feels like I'm a broken compass. Constantly spinning, reaching out for a North Star that has long since imploded and died. A star that no longer exists. Knocked out of the night sky, and gone.

The altar stands before me, beneath dark stained glass. I get down on one knee and kneel. It's a familiar feeling: my knees on the carpet, and the stone underneath.

Yet, as they do each time I kneel to pray, the memories come back in faint echoes. Though faded and blurred to sepia, they're still painful even twenty-five years later. I exhale. Letting the memories come as they always do.

Memories of cobblestones painted with a slick of red. Of my voice breaking under the weight of a single person's name. Of carving an ugly dance of triggers and wood all the way up and down that alley. Of heavy manacles that trapped my hands. That trapped my body, because my sprit had died and disappeared somewhere in that jail wagon. Of my hair curling and falling about my waist during an eternity of chains, like broken angel's wings. A gunshot that cleaved the air in a burning flash of white. Of silence.

Yet though I can't deny the pain the memories bring… I can't deny Viktor's soft smile in the door of that prison cell. I can't deny the official letter of pardon stamped by the king's own hand. And I can't deny the fact that for all the pain that time in my life brought me, it brought Viktor and I together. It gave me a new path to follow. It gave this kingdom a future, one that may have never happened if Viktor and I had never met.

My eyes trace the carved details of the altar. Reading them as though I've never seen it before. I close my eyes briefly.

I knew very little of faith in the streets of Wienner. If I observed anything religiously, it was the fact that the children under my care would die if I didn't fight and steal and lie to keep them safe. I never prayed, nor could afford to pay my way out of my sins. The only time I thought of holy things was to uneasily hope that God would look the other way after a particularly outrageous job, like ransacking a merchant's office or picking the pocket of a man that I later realised was likely a noble, after examining the contents of his wallet. I knew I could have been jailed for my exploits, and I knew I was damning myself by my actions. I was not a virtuous man in those days, I told Prince Licht once. My hands were stained with sin, and I lived a life of crime. That I wouldn't deny. Yet Glanzreich was anything but a perfect world in those days. It was filled with trapped and desperate people willing to do anything and suffer the consequences, if it meant they could protect their loved ones. And I was no different; I was willing to damn myself if it meant I could keep those children safe. Gretel. Hans. Liesel. Johan. I would whisper their names at night, so I would remember that it was all worth it — even when I was bleeding from a stab wound, or suffering from hunger, or blinking back tears of exhaustion in the dark. It was worth every single moment.

If I knew anything of my heritage, it was that my people were of different blood than all the others in Glanzreich, not that we had a religion and faith tied to that blood. I knew at a young age what it meant to be of Kvel ancestry. Not in an educated way — not in that I knew the Kvel were persecuted and maligned for their ethnicity and religion alike — but in that I knew you were looked at differently. You were watched, unless you hid yourself and gave them nothing to see. It was inescapable, in the weighed glances and in the stars carved and etched and painted onto walls, yet so forgettable at times until it came back to bite you. Like the time I came across a building I hadn't seen before, as a child. It was adorned with domes and decorated with arched windows. I remember thinking it looked like it had been wrought from greying sugar. It caught hold of something inside me, and I even almost went inside. But then shouts and a rock cut the air and cut my face, and I barely realised that I was bleeding before I'd sprinted off and down an alley, gasping for breath and not looking back.

I found my own faith not in a synagogue nor in a cathedral, but in a prison cell. In a moment of desperation, of surrendering myself, not caring for my own life if Viktor could be saved. And it was not just Viktor that was saved. On seeing the impossible happen, somehow, past every wall and facade, I gave in. And let myself be saved too.

Yet pressure trickled in, from a dozen cracks. When I came to teach at Maria Vetsera, it was a very different world from what I knew: one of rosaries, stained glass windows, and hymns. I'd already gained more awareness of the Kvels' social standing in Glanzreich by then. We weren't standing, we were clinging the barest bits of solid ground that society deigned to give us. Despite being welcomed by the students and Sister Mary, I knew with the instincts I'd had engrained into me on the streets that the church's congregation would not be so welcoming. to So I quickly learned to hide my ethnicity, as well as my faith, whatever I understood it to be at the time.

And at one of the rare chances I had to speak with some other students while studying to become a teacher, I made the mistake of asking a question about the difference between the Kvel and Christian faiths. The other students instantly picked sides and shredded each other to bits in a violent argument, as though both parties had pulled out gatling guns and were trying to massacre each other. All I could do was sit back, scared to death, and pray that no one would guess why I had asked. They lashed out and attacked in a blind rage, attacking the Scriptures, the Torah, and the Bible. Was there a difference? They spat arguments at each other on the views of rituals and sacrifices as opposed to works and indulgences. Aren't grace and faith enough? They dragged each other down in horrific tangles over the inherent value of the Kvel people, as to whether they were a chosen people or a blight on the earth; whether they should stay or go; whether they should attempt to rebuild their country or take their place in a society that had no place for them. Do you even understand anything about us? I was too scared for my own safety to even stay in there, and I slipped out even as the 'debate' devolved into hurling slurs about the room, ugly words that made me feel sick to the pit of my stomach.

I never spoke to anyone of my faith again. Whatever it was — whatever it was to me — that was enough. It was that faint, inner peace despite my broken compass, despite my broken life. It was seeing a miracle happen before my eyes in an abandoned jail cell. It was what I knew to be true.

I hesitate, then lock my fingers together in the quiet of the chapel. A child's way of folding hands to pray, to be sure, but any other way doesn't… feel right.

My breath clouds in the air. I bow my head, and close my eyes. '…Help me. Please.'

Because like me, my faith is broken, a mess, and self-reliant and unwilling to rely on others, to the point that only ask for help with gritted teeth, after I've backed myself into a corner of desperation.

'…I know it's been a long time.' I manage a weak chuckle. 'I'm sorry.'

Busy with a thousand things, yet isn't that what we tell ourselves? As the mechanisms of our hearts run down, pleading for someone to rewind the key?

'…Lord… please help me. I'm… lost.'

If I know anything to be true, it's that. Since telling Licht of my heritage, it feels as though I've been trapped in an hourglass, with my hands pressed to the glass as everything gathers in drifts around my feet. Like I'm lost in my own thoughts. In my own past. In my heritage, in my doubts and fears, and in my own heart. I feel as though in finding out all the things I've forgotten about myself, I've lost who I am.

I sit in silence, in the dark. With a bowed head and listening heart.

What am I even doing here? Am I doing nothing if not raking through the ashes of everything I've left in my past? It's not as though I can change anything. I can't change my blood anymore than I can change my height… though I've often wished to change both. Something catches in my throat, a soft murmur of a laugh. I can't change my past, either. I can't undo all the pain, or all the mistakes.

But would I want to?

Though I can't recall the exact phrasing, I remember the words of Scripture I heard in a sermon here once. I listened from the narthex, pressed into an alcove because I was too shy to take a seat in one of the pews. I didn't and couldn't bind the Scriptures upon my forehead and hands with the intricate binding of strings, tefillin, as some the Kvels who practiced our faith did. But I could still bind the words upon my heart and remember them nonetheless. I will work all things for good…

I open my eyes. 'Lord, I…' My cynicism holds me back from voicing my thoughts aloud. Just one of many chains that binds me. Yet I can't shake this idea, no matter how foolish it sounds, from my head.

'Lord, if… was it your will for me to endure this?'

I try and talk, yet falter. I stop. I think, about everything that's happened up until now, since Viktor and I met, since this kingdom began to change. For where would this kingdom be if Viktor and I hadn't met in the best and worst of circumstances?

I close my eyes again. 'Lord, if it was your will to use me… to make even one change for this kingdom, then… who am I to deny that?'

I take a breath. And whisper a request. 'All I ask is for your strength. Please.'

Because despite what the princes may think, I'm only human. I need "rewinding" just as much as anyone else. I so rarely see to my own needs, but I need the strength to continue to carry my secrets. I need the strength to keep my promises, to help Viktor shape this kingdom into what we both want and need it to be. I need the strength to bear the burdens of my past, because I can't do it alone.

And… I can't deny that I need courage. Ever since I came to the palace, one person after another has tried to sabotage me and get me to leave. Count Rosenberg and the Council already regard me with suspicion, as a commoner with a sordid past, regardless of how much they actually know. But if they were to find out that I was Kvel… They would run me out of the palace. And they wouldn't stop until they had my blood. Yet I'm not going to give in that easily. I can still fight, and for the time being, I can still defend myself. But I can't deny that the pressure sometimes makes my bones feel like they're going to crack.

I whisper the requests one-by-one, for strength, and for courage. And I feel that faint hint of peace. Shalom. Peace, in the Kvel tongue. Then I say something else. Not in the clipped, brisk manner of the Gherman tongue that I grew up speaking, but in a softer, honeyed voice that plays with the intonation of the original word, penned in the manuscripts of the Torah.

'Āmēn.'

I spend another moment before the altar, then with a lighter heart I get up and slip into the night, locking a door behind me.

I'm back where I started, on the palace grounds. I make my way back from the stables and watch the stars instead of watching where I'm going. My thoughts are quieting. They're no longer the messy tangle that they were this evening, and I've cleared my head enough to put up my facade again: a teacher with amber eyes and little to say. A barricade, one that I can stand poised behind with my hands full of secrets, ready and waiting for whatever may come my way next.

Yet I still have other things on my mind, and as such it's too late for me to back up and run the other way when I see Count Rosenberg leaving the palace from a side entrance. He catches sight of me, and I refrain from opening up the nearest window and diving into the palace, halting to meet with him instead.

'Why, Herr Wittgenstein. A pleasure. What brings you out here at this hour?'

'I could ask the same.' Normally I wouldn't risk taking my eyes off him, but for once I glance aside, up at the palace lights. 'A shame to waste the night, I suppose.'

He shrugs elegantly. 'True enough. I've certainly wasted my evening, however. I was just helping clean up some of the paperwork for Prince Licht's townhouse.' He puts his cane under one arm, yet doesn't move to open the door of his carriage. 'That was certainly a quick little stunt on the fifth prince's part, I must say.'

True. Prince Licht certainly didn't work at the cafe full-time for that long, considering it was meant to be a long-term venture. Yet when faced with a choice, with the reality of his kingdom, he put down his chips and painted his heart on his sleeve at once, an example that would do the people of Glanzreich good to follow.

'Perhaps. It is the prince's choice what he does, not mine. If you'll pardon me, I should be going — '

He takes his cane and blocks my path. The wood and silver of the cane knocks against my hips. He smiles, a toying smile. 'Now now, don't be so hasty.' I give him a sideways glance, and his eyes narrow. I'm evading even more than usual, yet not on purpose. And there's no way he would pass up the opportunity to pry me for information. 'I heard there was some unfortunate affair involving the cafe. The owner was Kvel?'

He likely heard that the street had been plastered with bills and that I was involved in the matter. He likely heard how it was all going when he received reports from the people behind the sabotage, knowing him.

I say nothing, waiting an extra beat as though I don't understand what he's trying to say.

'Yes. They've been run out of business on Kohl Street, for now.'

'What a pity.'

'Indeed.'

'To think that they could have dragged the prince's name through the mud, with their inability to manage their affairs.'

'Yes, they should have gone to greater lengths to not be targeted by someone who was after them merely for the bloodline they were of.'

There's an art to street fighting — if you get dragged into a fight, make sure you take the other person down with you. And if you can, smash them into the paving stones while you're at it.

I wonder if he knows I'm Kvel.

It's possible; he's teased me many times, saying I'm not 'from our side' and not 'one of us.' Whether that means he thought I was not a noble; not of Gherman blood; merely an outsider, or Kvel, I do not know. He even managed to trace me back to Maria Vetsera before hitting a dead-end, forced to stop at one of the whitewashed walls that I had put up around my identity. So I don't know whether he truly knows or not.

I even believed the words that he would whisper in my ear. I told them to myself, before he ever had the chance.

You're not one of us, are you? I know who you really are. Shut your mouth, you filthy commoner. Kvel.

It burned me. I tried tell those same things to Viktor when he first asked me to come to the palace to be the royal tutor. I penned them in a letter that I was ashamed to send, for many reasons. I was not one of 'them,' them being the upper class. I was a criminal, with a black past and a sordid history. I said that I was a commoner, not a noble, and not eligible to be royal tutor. I was Kvel.

If I were to come to the palace, I said, my past could come to light and tarnish the princes' reputations. The marks on my record, and the stain of my blood. Both could damage the name that Viktor had worked so hard to build for his family. I was ready to push him away, to even keep myself in chains of guilt and denial to keep that from happening.

Yet I got his response, and I could hear his sigh in my head and feel the ghosting touch of his hands on my shoulders as I read the words — the words that told me to stop tarnishing my heart in such a way. That I was worth more than that. And to this day, it's been like a trigger guard, reminding me to defend myself when I'm attacked. No matter the whispers that flood my head at other people's words, whispers of 'worthless' that twist in my stomach like poison. No matter how unworthy I may think myself to stand in the court of this king.

I look at Rosenberg and our narrowed eyes lock. He smirks. A war of secrets between the two of us, he and I.

I push his cane out of the way and walk beneath it, taking my leave. 'I have lessons to prepare.' Yet for once, I'm not thinking about his words. I just… can't be bothered.

To h_ with his scheming. I've got more important things to think about.

More important things to do with my life than waste it on him and his ruby-eyed arrogance.

I deign to glance back. Deign. Viktor would laugh if he were here. Yet despite my stance on the matter, I can't help but note the thought that's been ticking in my head for a while now. It's just that, well…

The name 'Rosenberg' actually has origins and associations with the Kvel.

'Far be it from me to keep you from it,' he says. He climbs into the carriage with perfect grace and takes a seat. 'Good evening.'

I could get in trouble for this. But I pretend as though I don't hear. And I walk inside the palace and slam the door.

The crystals tremble on the chandelier.

Immature, yes. Cathartic? Tremendously so.

It's later than I realised, and I still have those lessons to prepare. I open the doors to my chambers, to my messy room with books on the floor and papers in snowdrifts on my desk. With a dusty Bible carefully placed on the bedside table, and a dish for my glasses and pocket watch beside it. A fire burns in the grate. I close the door and remove my heavy overcoat, and drowsily pad over to my desk. I'll try to stay awake long enough to prepare the princes' lessons.

I catch sight of myself in a mirror as I pass. I'm not one to spend time in front of the looking glass, but just this once I take the time to stop. To touch my fingertips to my reflection. I wonder… do people see my Kvel blood when they look at me?

Maybe they see it, maybe they don't. Between living on the streets and having red hair and a small build for my age, I've always attracted attention no matter where I go. Unfortunately. It would be easy for people to assume I was foreign trash, given my looks and lack of family or background. Maybe they even take guesses still now, or even an educated guess. Except I've yet to find a person who's known anything of consequence about my people.

I carefully hook the key to Maria Vetsera from beneath my shirt collar. Why is it that it's our fate to be called out wherever we go? To be called out over the truth behind out blood, over what we believe, over what our ancestors did in the past? Does that curse extend to each of us? It feels that way sometimes. When I'm called into question over my background, over my secrets, over my motivations.

Sometimes it feels like I'm caught in a tangle of chains, barely able to take a step with them piled around my legs. Like bronze cuffs around my wrists, glittering with some kind of promise.

Sometimes it feels as though all the world can see, despite the fact that no one can see inside.

I trace the outline of my figure, and my reflection does the same. A small, slender body that's been no end of frustration over the years, marked with scars and wiry from living on the streets. A ragged crop of ginger hair like torn silk and a blend of spices, sweetened with cinnamon. Wide, feline amber eyes, flecked with gold and framed by sooty lashes. Skin that's light and pale, yet painted in a shade just slightly different to most people. A collection of normal and unique. Flawed, but not broken just yet. Both commonplace and flavoured with foreign blood, both on each side of the same coin.

It's invisible if you're not looking, but engraved and painted on my skin and bones once you are. My looks are a stamp that says, Look at me. This who I am.

A commoner. A criminal. A teacher. A wanderer. A Kvel.

I wonder what people see when they look at me. If I took a guess — a rather small redhead. Nothing more. A half-smile gives my mouth a crooked lilt.

I put my introspection aside for the time being, and take a seat at my desk. I sift through a pile of papers. But my thoughts are occupied, although mainly with the fact that I could kill for a cup of coffee right now. I rest my head in my hand, and yet again, memories of the time that I studied to become a teacher come back.

I But before Maria Vetsera, along with learning all the things I'd never known in order to be able to teach there, I took it upon myself to learn more about my people, and my heritage. I combed the second-hand bookstores of Wienner for any Kvel religious texts I could find, and Viktor also exploited his connections to find some more. He would have them sent the boarding house where I lived during my studies, sacred texts wrapped in brown paper. I'd stay up until past midnight reading them. I read the Tanakh — the Kvel Old Testament — and I read both legal and Biblical texts — halakha and the hagada. I studied the Talmuds, and I read the written records of the oral law. It was backbreaking work regardless of the language barrier, but I relished every scrap of information I could get my hands on. Despite it seeming that — as with any religion — the religion of my people had split into parts and into parts again until I'd come up for air with my head spinning and full of bewilderment, I also discovered the teachings of Baal Shem Tov. He gave hope to the poorest people on the Western Continent — in that he taught that even the most ignorant Kvel peasant could experience divine intimacy with a loving God. It felt as though it were talking about me, so familiar did the words feel. It was likely my most cherished memory from those years of studying.

I also took it upon myself to learn the Kvel language. What texts were available in Gherman would vary, and I needed to be able to read Kvel in some part if I wanted to read Kvel texts. I wanted to at least try. It was painfully slow and I knew no one else whom I could speak to or ask for help. Yet it was rewarding, to be able to read the Scriptures and understand the texts, or even merely to be able to speak the words of my own language — in syllables that dripped with honey and were burnished with gold.

I also learned of the traditions, rituals, and practices of my people: of the dice and stories of Purim, of the practice of Passover. I even marked the holy days on my calendar and took the time to remember each of the five as best I could. It wasn't that I wanted to keep the Kvel faith. I wasn't even certain what my faith at that time was. But I wanted to honour the traditions of my people, and I couldn't deny that there was something special about remembering the days — they were reminders, of who we were and what we believed.

I should be working on the princes' lessons, yet… I rest my elbows on my desk and let myself daydream for a while. A luxury. Something I rarely ever allowed myself when I was growing up. When I was growing up, I didn't know my parents. It was also likely that I was abandoned, in a back alley or something of the sort. A small mistake made by someone else. A had a few early, vague impressions of my mother, enough to know for certain what ethnicity I'd been saddled with — but yes, I was undoubtedly better off alone. I still wondered what my parents were like sometimes, if they were anything at all like the couples I saw in windows on the streets. Painted in firelight, they would read the Scriptures to their children and take it in turns lighting intricate candelabra called menorah. They would cook together, exchanging smiles and softly spoken words. I knew I was a fool for wondering. But I would still stop in the snow and the cold, watching the pretty dioramas with longing in my heart. No, my parents were undoubtedly Kvel — or at my mother was — but they likely didn't practice anything resembling kindness, nor practice the faith of our people. There are millions of us scattered about the world, after all, and more distance grows between our people and the faith that they were known for with each century. Now we're associated with our political position, with our ethnicity, with anything but our origins. It felt more like a fairytale to me as a child, than the truth — that our people had a legacy of kings and prophets, of sinners and a messiah.

I rest my folded arms on the desk and lay my head on them. I give into the temptation to close my eyes, and doze. Even as a child, I'd dreamed of seeing the country my people hailed from one day. A foolish dream. It's no longer even a country — the Kingdom of Iel was burned and razed thousands years ago, leaving sand, ashes, and ruins behind. It didn't even reach a fraction of its former glory before the it fell apart again. Like an explosion, that scattered my people as far as east is from the west. But you can always dream. A part of me wonders if seeing the place for myself would help me understand a little better. Another part wonders if I would feel even just a little more at home in the land of my people, despite being born and raised in Glanzreich. Maybe someday. Maybe the Kvel will be able to rebuild Iel again, and raise up the temple. We've done it before, long ago in the past. Maybe I'll get to see the Kingdom of Iel with my own eyes one day. But for now, I can be content with engravings and books and daydreams. Because dreaming about something is always more lovely than the thing itself, because you never know what the reality will shape up to be.

I daydream for a little while longer, about sand and ashes, about fallen kingdoms and foreign things — before the door slams open and Prince Leonhard marches in, popping my bubble like a stray blue-eyed, blonde-haired foreign object. He couldn't be more out of place in my daydreams if he tried. I sit up and abruptly come back to the present.

He doesn't even give me the chance to greet him before he thrusts his math homework for the day in my face. 'Heine. Homework. Now.'

'Good evening to you too, Prince.' I take off my glasses and rub my eyes, then take the papers. 'Your maths homework, is it? Was it too difficult? I know we only just began to cover this, but — '

He gives me a ragged grin, accented by shadows under his eyes. 'What — you think I wasn't able to do it? Take a look.'

I look down, and realise that not only has he started on the sheet, but he's completed all the questions. 'My word. I beg your pardon.'

He lays claim to the bed and flops onto it, leaving me to check over his work. 'Yeah, that's right — bow before my skill.'

'I'll bow once you get a hundred-percent; this is currently looking like a sixty.'

'What?!' I place the paper back in his hands before he can argue, and he bites his tongue. 'Nnnh… I guess that's… all right. Considering it was maths.'

'Good job, Prince.'

He blushes slightly at the praise, then obviously notices something in my appearance, because he sets the paper aside. 'You look wrecked.'

'I could say the same about you.'

'Rude!'

'Impudent.'

'…Wordy.'

'Granted.' I smile, and finger the papers on my desk.

I want to tell him.

I realise it, suddenly. I want to tell him. I want to tell him about my Kvel heritage, if for merely nothing more than to know what he thinks. Yet the rest of me pulls back, rightfully wary of giving away my secrets. Rightfully scared. Of getting hurt, yet again.

'Did you hear that Prince Licht came back to the palace?' I finally say.

Leonhard stops playing with my pillow and looks over. 'Huh? Yeah, I did. What happened with that, anyway?'

'…The owners were being harassed because of their Kvel heritage. Licht came to the conclusion that he could do more to help them by returning to the palace and continuing his royal studies.'

'Help them? How?'

'By advocating for equality as a royal.'

Leonhard shifts so he can see me better. 'Equality?'

I choose my words with painstaking care. 'Equality between classes and ethnic groups. The idea of everyone having equal rights, regardless of the colour of their skin or the role they were born into.'

He blinks in confusion. 'But… why… isn't everyone…' He stops and changes tack. 'You said the people at the cafe were being harassed because they were from… Kael?'

'Kvel.' Saying the word with its lilt and intonation in front of someone else makes my breath catch. 'From the Kingdom of Iel, the Kvel people. And yes, that's right.'

'But why?'

I turn to face him. 'Because they were Kvel,' I repeat, wondering if he misheard me.

He sits forward. 'No, I mean — why were they being harassed just for being Kvel?'

My lips part, only… I realise I don't know what to say.

For shame. You're the Royal Tutor, and you can't even answer a simple question. Say something. Recite a line out of one of those history books you memorised.

But I still don't know.

Because despite knowing the history of my people. Despite knowing the points in history where we were 'dispersed' and scattered and the historical reasons for it. Despite knowing we'll always be set apart as a 'chosen people,' for better or worse. Despite knowing that we'll carry the curse and blessing of our fate until the day we die. Despite knowing it all in my head and my heart, that still doesn't change that… that I…

That I still don't think I understand why. I don't know why.

I know my heritage is just my lot in life, at the end of the day. But that doesn't mean I don't feel everything that the truth of it evokes. I can't simply turn my feelings off, and just because I can analyse and label them, that doesn't mean I can always pretend as though they don't exist.

My heart just feels so tired under the weight of it all. So tired of looking at the world with eyes wide shut. It's one thing to hear others say that they'll never be able to understand, it's but it's another to know in painful clarity that it's true.

I don't think I ever will ever understand what it means to have Kvel blood in my veins. It's a thousand broken pieces, both beautiful and ugly, and I'm only so much in comparison.

Have you ever hurt like this, Viktor? Have you ever hurt until you feel like your heart's bleeding? Do you know how you're meant to bear it?

I take a quiet breath.

If you do, please tell me. Because it's so heavy a burden to bear.

Yet I still have a life to live despite it all. I have four princes to teach and a future to build for this kingdom. And I know I can do it. Even in the face of everything in my way, despite a thousand pieces of coloured glass.

'Heine?'

'…You likely haven't seen discrimination in practice before, Prince. You see very little of the outside world from the palace.' I rest my arms on the back of my chair, speaking quietly against the crackle of the fireplace. 'People can be cruel. We judge each other on an unending number of things: the country we hail from, the colour of our skin, and what we possess. And we fight over it, using our differences to draw lines and justify arguments, both political and otherwise.'

Leonhard looks out the palace window, as though he'll suddenly see what I'm talking about if he looks for himself. He bites his lip, then turns back and gives me a look. 'Well, that's just stupid, isn't it? If we were going to fight over something, you'd think we could fight over something worthwhile, like whether coffee should be banned throughout the kingdom.'

I blink. Then laughter fizzes in my lungs, and I laugh, until my chest hurts and my ribs positively ache.

'What's so funny? What did I say?!' he protests, a mortified blush splashing over his expression.

I try and get my breath back, with some effort. 'I'm sorry. It's not you, I was just laughing at myself.' I compose myself, and murmur, 'You have a valid point, Prince. While warfare and fighting have their place and yet can never be truly justified, people do fight over pointless things.'

Leonhard crosses his arms, and stares at the carpet. 'So people just fight over… what?'

'Whether they're better than each other. And I don't mean difference in rank — I mean one person shunning another merely for their ancestry. One person judging another by the colour of their skin and eyes. You're lucky, Prince.' His eyes widen in question, and I say with a half-smile, 'You're of Gherman blood, like most of Glanzreich. You'll always find it easier to be accepted than those from some other nations, whose looks and voices set them apart. It is a gift not to be taken lightly.'

He touches his cheek, and fiddles with the blond bangs that frame his face. 'But I didn't do anything to deserve it. I mean, it's not like I picked to be born Gherman, right?'

His good attitude takes me aback, and I have to say, 'Where's the, "I'm the fifth prince of Glanzreich and I'm entitled to everything I set my eyes on" manner, Prince?'

'Oh, hush,' he grumbles. He hesitates. 'I mean, we're entitled because we're royalty, yeah.' I refrain from rolling my eyes, but he continues. 'But… I didn't know that other people… don't have it so easy. I wish I could do something about it. …Hey…' He sits bolt upright, and says, 'If Licht is doing something then I can't let him show me up! So how can I help?'

I nearly pratfall face-first onto my desk. My word, this one's motivation is all over the place. 'Well, we could advance with your foreign history studies, perhaps. A more well-rounded view of Glanzreich's population would certainly not do you any harm.'

Leonhard smiles. 'Mm.' He pauses. 'Hey, Heine. Where are you from?'

I flinch.

I can't. It's too soon, I…

'I'm… not at liberty to disclose my background, Prince.'

'Oh come on, don't give me that,' he teases. 'Besides, I want to know.'

I don't say anything for a moment.

He blinks, then tilts his head. 'Heine?'

'I-I…'

Doubt sinks its claws into my stomach, and purrs its lies in my ear. The only reason that he wouldn't despise you is because he doesn't know he's meant to, you fool…

I can't speak. 'I'm…'

I can't do it. I can't tell him, I… I'm scared —

'I-I'm…'

Yet… how will the princes ever learn about my people and the changes that need to take place in this kingdom, if I'm too scared to even teach them?

I lick my lips and swallow. Then say it. 'I'm… Kvel, Highness.'

He frowns. 'Pardon? Speak up.'

Is fate trying to work against me or something of the sort?

I shake my head with a weary smile. Despite having faced the music, I get the feeling that door has slammed shut for the moment. But that doesn't mean I can't be ready for the time when it does come to tell the princes more about my past.

'I'm fairly certain you haven't heard of my homeland, Your Highness. I'm… from a people whose kingdom fell long ago. We've been scattered to the winds ever since. We've often been judged for our history, and our faith. It is our fate to be maligned wherever we go.'

His expression is stunned. It likely hasn't occurred to him or his brothers, that some kingdoms and empires are not spared from the cruel fates that Glanzreich's military power and reputation protect against. 'What, but… where are you from? What people are you from?'

I look down, and trace the carving on the back of my chair with a hand. 'I think that's a story for another day, Prince.'

He drags my pillow onto his lap and rests his arms on it. 'Huh? Why? I want to know.'

'It's a long story, and I need some time to… think about it.' I give him a smile. 'And besides. When one tells a story, one may as well tell it well, no?

He shrugs. 'Fine. But I'll hold you to that promise.'

'You may even dislike me when I tell you, Prince.' The words spill out, and the guilt of them stains my lips. 'Many people do. And even if you haven't heard of my people before, you may…'

Then Leonhard gets up and drops to one knee beside my chair, and gives me a look. 'I already said — I don't want to be that kind of prince.'

His words are an echo of what Viktor said to me, when I bared him my secrets. A perfect echo.

I take his hand. 'I wish with all my heart that you'll be the kind of prince that the people in kingdom will be able to come to, Highness.' My voice is unsteady, and it could even betray me if I don't take care. Everything, all my feelings, are in those few words. I pray that it reaches him. 'That is all I wish for.'

He lightly holds my finger in his. He avoids my gaze. 'Well, I guess I can try. I don't know how much, but I'll try my d_ed hardest.'

I don't even deserve a promise, Prince. You haven't even heard my story yet.

'That means more to me than words can say, Prince. Thank you.'

He risks glancing back at me, and smiles. Then he pauses. 'Hey, is that why you're so small? Because all your people are really short?'

My mouth falls open. Then I smack him over the head with a sheaf of paper and huff, 'No! Some of us are relatively short — but I said there are millions of us, and you don't see an abundance of short people about town every time you leave the palace, do you?!'

'Well, I never leave the palace!'

'Ah. …Fair point.'

I reluctantly put the sheaf of papers down, but the prince is still examining me closely. Then he obviously comes to a decision, because he hoists me out of my chair, pulls the covers aside and dumps me on the bed.

I'm too startled to even voice a protest.

'Go to bed already,' he says. 'You look exhausted. And it's…' He glances at the clock. 'Late.'

As much as my tired limbs have already given into the softness of the covers, I still try to sit up. 'I still have lessons to prepare — '

'Then prepare them in the morning.' He stifles a yawn and gives me an irritated look. 'Are you going to let me go and get some sleep myself, or not?'

I retrieve my pillow and pull the covers up. 'Far be it from me to keep you from your much-needed beauty rest.'

A beat passes, then he realises my meaning and explodes. 'Hey! What do you mean by that — I'm the most beautiful boy on the Western Continent!'

'When you don't have shadows under your eyes and horribly-snarled hair…'

He storms off, yelling over his shoulder, 'Forget it, I'm done! Forget this, forget I was ever here, and forget…' He passes the mirror and stops, saying, 'Wait…' He pokes at the dark shadows under his eyes, then flinches. 'Oh, d_it, you weren't kidding.' Then he blushes bright red and opens the door with a slam. 'Goodnight!'

I smile behind my hand. 'Goodnight, Prince. Sweet dreams.'

He gives me a half smile back. 'You too.' Then he remembers that he's meant to be annoyed with me, and he storms off in a huff. Yet he doesn't slam the door too hard.

What a fuss.

Yet I smile, unable to help just a little amusement at the prince's words.

It's easy to remember everything at night.

I turn over, and look at the stars framed by the palace window. Fragments of the evening pile up, arranged into a mosaic. Six-pointed stars. Sand and iron. Promises, blessings, curses. A heritage. A kingdom.

Why?

I don't understand why, but I can keep attempting to. I don't understand why people take such pains to draw lines around themselves, to distinguish themselves by their country and blood for the sake of being able to call someone else different. Yet I can try. I can try to puzzle it out, and try understand it so that I can teach the princes how to face it and understand it too.

But truly, isn't a country just a block of land?

Yet even for my cynicism, even for not having a true country to call home… I know that's not true. To each person — a country isn't the land, or necessarily even the people that live therein.

It's the scent of spices in the desert.

It's a romantic evening in a city of lights.

It's the scent of snow in the dark.

It's the sound of a gypsy song played to firelight.

It's a journey in a city of rivers.

It's the sound of a clipped, rugged accent.

It's the taste of chocolate and the scent of glass windows.

It's the sound of strings being played in a temple.

It's gold and vibrancy mingled with stone.

It's the rustle of silk on sand.

It's the sound of the ocean.

It's the flavour of wine mingled with starlight.

It's the collection of memories that we each make — jewels and fragments and photographs gathered in a jar. It's the memories and the people. Those things become what we think of as being 'home.' And we name those memories 'Kvel.' 'Fonseine.' 'Orosz.' 'Romano.' 'Venizia.' 'Ghermany.' 'Beyer.' 'Yapan.' 'Madri.' 'Kataro.' 'Laguna.' Those memories are an imperfect stained glass window that we see our world through. We know and love our homelands for the memories we have of them or what we've learned of them from others, and for the people we know there and who belong to those places.

It's our heritage and our culture, and our history. It's our differences, and for all the heartache they can bring, it also makes us who we are.

So what does my heritage make me?

I know that if people were ever to discover who I am — if they discover that I have the potential to influence the fate of the Kvel by way of the royal family — then I'll be at extreme risk. Yet I can fight to stay. I can fight for as long and as hard as I can. I can fight both to stay with the people I love and for the changes that Viktor and I want to make in this kingdom.

Because at the end of the day, my heritage makes me a member of the royal household of Glanzreich, for better or worse.

I trace a six-pointed star in the air with my fingertip. I smile.

Chazaq. Take heart.

And I fall asleep to dream of a kingdom under a night sky, lit with candles, at the end of a path of stars.

The End

A/N: Reviews welcome, and thanks for reading!