He was only eighteen years old.
In the grand scheme of existence, eighteen was merely the blossoming of youth. However, within the unforgiving and cutthroat ecosystem of the aristocracy, age was often just a number masking a terrifying maturity. In this rarefied world, more than ninety percent of the scions born into such immense wealth had already been tempered by their families into sharp weapons. By the time they reached adulthood, they were often already masters of manipulation, cunning schemers who could read the subtlest shift in a person's expression and calculate their next move with the precision of a chess grandmaster. They were groomed to rule, to deceive, and to conquer.
