A Veil of Ash and Glass

The dark before dawn wasn’t an absence of light; it was a physical weight. It was a listening, living thing that pressed against the windows of the estate, a presence that had teeth. Beneath the marble, the house hummed. It was not the sound of machines but of power in repose—a low, resonant thrum that vibrated in Althea’s bones, a call and response that had lived in her blood for generations.

*Briiiing! Briiiing!*

The alarm was a violation. A shriek of metal and time that tore the velvet quiet.

Althea didn’t move. She didn’t even open her eyes. A pulse of pure, cold irritation, a flex of her will, and a tendril of darkness detached itself from the gloom in the corner. It shot across the room and snuffed the sound mid-scream.

Silence rushed back in, heavy with the scent of burnt sugar and ozone.

“Vulture,” she murmured, her voice a rough, sleep-thick thing.

A deep rumble, more felt than heard, vibrated from the foot of the bed. Umbra, her Rottweiler, heaved his ninety-pound frame up the mattress. He was a bulwark of muscle and teeth, the only honest thing in the room. He shoved his cold, wet nose into the hollow of her ribs, a jarring, physical demand.

She gasped, her fingers sinking into the thick fur of his neck, clutching. He was her anchor. A solid, breathing wall against a house of ghosts and expectations.

“I know,” she whispered into his ear. “I’m up.”

When she finally swung her legs over the bed, the marble floor was another assault. It wasn’t just cold; it was a predatory, breathless chill that stole heat from her soles and shot straight up her spine. “Ang lamig!”

Umbra let out a clipped, amused bark.

“Oh, hush,” Smoke, black as ink, bled from her fingertips. It didn’t drift; it poured toward the floor, coiling around her ankles, weaving itself into a tangible, velvety warmth. It solidified into slippers just as the burning chill began to ache. It wasn’t a request. It was a demand.

Umbra huffed, unimpressed.

The bathroom lights answered her presence, swelling from a dim glow to a warm, golden bath that revealed the girl in the mirror. Sleep-heavy eyes, lips that still remembered how to soften, and dark hair pooling like spilled ink.

The house hummed, a note of acknowledgment. The mirror flickered, as if it, too, recognized the bloodline.

This was the cage. The Sombra estate was perched on the edge of the world, where the Pacific chewed at the cliffs below. This was the legacy. Mangkukulams who traded souls like currency. Spirit-keepers who commanded the reverence of the dead. Her father’s line. Her mother’s. A union of blood and power that had built empires and buried kings.

“Power,” her father, Ricardo, had told her, his voice devoid of warmth, “isn’t taken, anak. It’s inherited wisely.”

His wife, Nerissa, had merely smiled, her lips a perfect, cruel red. “And love, mahal ko, is a luxury for those with less to lose.”

Althea stared at her reflection, forcing the calm to settle over her features, a mask she’s worn since birth.

“We behave,” she whispered. “We blend.”

The mirror flickered once, in what felt like pure, cold defiance.

She dressed for a different kind of war. A black slip dress that clung like a second skin, a wisp of smoke given form. An oversized blazer, a shield of tailored wool. At her throat, an obsidian charm on a gold chain, a piece of captured night that was always cold, always cooling the restless, fiery itch just beneath her pulse.

The grand staircase was a river of polished Narra wood imported from the Philippines. The air in the dining hall was sharp with Barako coffee, sea salt, and the faint, acrid bite of burnt sage—the smell of power cleansing itself. The table was set for a state dinner, not a breakfast.

They were already there. A pantheon of beautiful monsters.

At the head, Ricardo Sombra. His stillness was an act of aggression, his black suit a uniform. His power lived in the pauses he commanded.

Across from him, Nerissa, his wife. A study in beautiful, terrifying restraint. She was a blade in wine-dark silk, her every motion a calculation.

Odesa, the eldest, her beauty an architectural judgment, her engagement ring—an alliance sealed in diamonds—flashed as she lifted her cup.

And Hiraya, the middle sister. Perhaps the most dangerous of all. Her softness was a lure, her grace a weapon. She was a Babaylan who held both salve and knife, and you never knew which you were going to get.

Althea slid into her chair, a ripple in a perfect, cold ocean. Umbra settled at her feet, a silent threat.

Nerissa’s gaze, a physical weight, found the dog. “Althea.” Her name, from those lips, was a scalpel.

“He’s not at the table, Mama,” Althea said, her voice leveled. “He’s beside me.”

“Loyalty like that,” Ricardo said, as his voice, a low rumble that vibrated through the table, “is a weapon. Let him stay.” No one dares oppose Ricardo. Opposing him usually heralds death.

Odesa sighed, a sound like dry leaves. “He still tracks dirt.”

The words, so simple, so petty, were a spark on dry tinder. A familiar, unwelcome heat bloomed in Althea’s palm. It wasn’t a thought; it was an impulse. A vicious, joyful urge to make Odesa’s perfectly arranged fruit platter shatter. The air around her hand thinned, shimmering with a heat that had nothing to do with temperature.

No.

She drove her nails into her own palm, the small, sharp crescents of pain a welcome anchor.

Umbra, sensing the shift, shoved his heavy head onto her thigh again, his weight pulling her back to the ground. Be still.

The heat receded, leaving her breathless, her pulse hammering.

“You’re going to be late, bunso,” Nerissa observed, her attention pivoting, the moment dismissed.

“Time is relative, Mama.”

Ricardo set his tablet down. The sound was a verdict. “St. Valen’s is informed of your arrival. You will represent this family well.”

“You make it sound like I’m going to war, Papa.”

His dark eyes, empty of all but expectation, pinned her. “It’s the same theater, hijaI. Smaller seats. Sharper knives.”

“Ay, nuku,” Odesa added. “Try not to attract unnecessary attention.”

Althea smiled, a slow, dangerous curve that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Define unnecessary. Because our name is a beacon, Odesa”

“Difference invites enemies,” her sister returned, her voice flat.

Then maybe being different is the only honest thing left.”

“Huwag matigas and ulo, Althea.” Nerissa’s voice was soft, but it was the softness of a blade’s edge. “You are not a child.”

Althea’s jaw tightened. The silence that followed was brittle, sharp. Beneath the table, Hiraya’s hand found hers. It wasn’t a gentle touch; it was a brief, hidden, desperate press of fingers. A moment of shelter. A shared breath in a room that allowed none.

“Konti na lang, bunso.” Hiraya whispered, a promise. “Smile and survive.”

Ricardo stood. The room gathered itself around the movement. “I expect an impression, Althea.” It was not a request. “Choose your allies as if they will one day be your adversaries. Because they will.”

“Romantic,” Hiraya murmured.

“Accurate,” Odesa said.

Althea rose, Umbra rising with her, a single, fluid entity. She paused by the ancestral portraits, their dark, judging eyes following her.

In tenebris potestas, in luce imperium

Power in darkness, Dominion in light.

The mirror at the end of the hall caught her reflection. For one, heart-stopping beat, the girl in the glass - the one with the smoke in her hands and the fire in her blood - smiled.

Then the image snapped back.

The heavy front door opened. The wind of the Pacific hit her, a raw, salt-laced promise. It tasted of iron and a different kind of war.

She stepped out of the house that knew her secrets and into the world that would try to tear them from her.