THE GLASS CASTLE

CHAPTER 1

THE SERVANT AND THE HEIRESS

The Glass Castle wasn’t really a castle, though to Ethan it may as well have been. The sprawling mansion glittered on the hillside, its walls of glass and steel catching the sun in dazzling fragments. To him, it was a prison of labor, but to the world it was a kingdom of wealth.

At nineteen, he arrived with nothing but calloused hands and the hunger of a boy who had lost too much. His parents had perished in a fire that devoured their modest home when he was twelve. Ever since, survival had been his only companion.

And now he served the Veyras.

Isabella Veyra, the heiress to the billion-dollar empire, was the castle’s queen. She was beautiful unreal, like something sculpted rather than born. But her beauty was a blade, sharp and merciless. To Ethan, she was untouchable. To her, he was invisible or worse, disposable.

“Don’t scratch the glass,” she snapped one morning as he polished the towering windows. “You people don’t understand what perfection costs.”

Look at you. Just look at the way you hold that glass. Your fingers tremble as though it is too heavy for you, yet you grip it like it is nothing more than a common jug from a roadside tavern. Do you even realize what it is you are touching? Or is your mind too dull to comprehend the value before you? That is no ordinary glass, boy. That is crystal, cut by hands far more skilled than yours could ever hope to be. It costs more than everything you have ever owned, more than the very rags that hang off your back, more than the roof you have slept under your entire life. And yet you hold it with the same disregard as though it were a broken shard picked from the dirt.

Tell me, is this carelessness, or is it envy? Do you secretly wish to see it fall, to hear it shatter into a thousand fragments on the marble floor, simply because you cannot bear the sight of something so fine in your hands? Do you want to destroy it because you know it belongs to a world that will never welcome you? Perhaps, in that small heart of yours, you think if you ruin what is mine, you will somehow prove we are not so different. But you are wrong. If that glass were to fall and break, it would only prove what I already know that you are clumsy, unworthy, and unfit to stand in a place where beauty and refinement live.

Do you even understand what it means to have such a thing? That glass is not just glass. It is history, it is art, it is wealth preserved in form. Generations of nobles have sipped from such cups; kings and queens, people of power and honor. It was crafted by masters who gave their lives to create perfection, men and women whose skill is worth more than your entire existence. And now here it is, in your trembling hand. Do you not feel the shame? Do you not feel how laughable it is that someone like you, born of mud and sweat, should be trusted with it for even a moment?

I watch the way you look at it, and I see ignorance written across your face. You do not know the worth of what you hold. How could you? Poverty blinds the eyes, dulls the sense, numbs the heart. To you, this glass is only a vessel. To me, it is a symbol. And symbols matter. They separate those who belong from those who serve. They are the difference between my world and yours. Do you see now? That thin line of crystal is the wall between us, and no matter how much you polish it, no matter how carefully you wash it, you will never own it. Just as you will never own anything in this house, in this palace, in this life.

Do you think we keep you here because you matter? Do you believe, even for a second, that your presence is more than convenience? No. You are here because your hands are meant to labor, to scrub, to carry, to serve. Not to possess. Not to enjoy. Never to claim. When you touch this glass, you are not closer to me you are only reminded of the gulf that lies between us. You may carry it, but it is not yours. You may serve it, but you will never drink from it as I do. Even if I allowed you a sip, it would taste different to you, because you would be tasting envy, not elegance. Hunger, not satisfaction.

And yet, here you stand, fingers twitching as though you wish to let it slip, as though you wish to see the priceless reduced to nothing. That is the nature of the poor, is it not? To destroy what they cannot have? To mock what they cannot reach? You think breaking it would wound me, but it would not. I would replace it within the hour. Another glass, finer still, would take its place. And you? You would be dismissed, discarded like the dirt beneath my shoes. Broken glass can be replaced. A broken servant cannot. Remember that.

So answer me, boy. Do you hold it steady because you fear me, or because you finally understand that some things are far beyond you? Do you grip it tight because you value it, or because you dare not imagine what will happen if you fail? Know this: the glass you hold in your hands is more precious to me than your entire existence. Do not forget it. Do not ever forget it. For in this palace, wealth is eternal, but servants are replaceable. One slip from you, one careless moment, and the glass will be gone and so will you."

Ethan bit back his retort. He knew better than to answer. But deep in his chest, something stirred not admiration, not hatred, but a dangerous mix of both.

He didn’t know it yet, but the story of his life and hers was already being written in fire.