I jerked back to the present as a warning siren shrieked—a sound that sliced through my reverie like a scalpel. Memories flooded in, bleeding into now like oil dissolving in water. Screams echoed amid falling ashen debris, and the acrid tang of burning metal and seared steam invaded my nostrils. I had battled my demons for years, but nothing prepared me for their unbidden return in moments like these.
My fingers twitched over the controls, gripping levers slick with sweat. The taste of smoke and bitter regret coated my tongue. Every nerve screamed to focus on the crisis, yet the ghosts of the past clawed at the edges of my mind. Not now—I had one purpose and no room for distraction.
I forced a steady, measured breath. The engines hummed, clawing their way through the haze to anchor me in the chaos. The cockpit shook violently as the ship bucked against the wind; brass joints groaned in protest while smoke curled through fractured glass. My pulse drummed a relentless beat, a metronome for survival.
"What's wrong?" I demanded, my voice low and urgent, cutting through the clamor.
"I'm not sure—must be the fuel," replied Marlik, his tone cool and detached, as if he'd rehearsed these words countless times. His voice was the steady counterpoint to my rising anxiety.
A fleeting smile crossed my lips. "It's a marvelous invention," I quipped, the irony bitter in the back of my mind. In that brief moment, I was reminded that our lives were a high-stakes gamble, one miscalculation away from oblivion.
The airship groaned beneath my boots, its brass joints screaming under the mounting strain. The sharp odor of burning fuel overwhelmed the subtler aromas of oil and metal, while smoke coiled around us like a living shroud.
"Stephen," Marlik's voice broke through the maelstrom again—real, grounded, a lifeline tethering me to the present.
The treetops hurtled toward us, a verdant wall that closed in too fast. My knuckles turned white on the control levers as I wrestled with both the machine and my inner turmoil. I exhaled slowly, determined to shove back those haunting memories. I had a mission—every moment counted in righting the wrongs of my past.
"Brace yourself," I muttered, more to myself than to anyone else.
Marlik, standing rigidly behind me, offered no protest. "You're going to kill us both," he warned, his voice laced with a fatalistic calm.
Silence fell briefly as I steeled my resolve. The altimeter spun wildly while the ship bucked violently; a rogue gust slammed into our side. I gritted my teeth and focused on the immediate threat—the cacophony of metal, wind, and fate colliding.
Marlik clutched a steel support as the ship lurched. I cut the steam valve; the wings strained against gravity. Metal screeched in protest, and a jolt of raw impact ran down my spine as the ship crashed through tangled branches. The collision was catastrophic—a brutal reminder that nature and machine do not always coexist peacefully.
The airship slammed into the treetops. Metal shrieked as branches clawed at our battered hull. The impact hurled me against the console, and sparks exploded from frayed wiring. For a moment, the world tilted sideways—and then everything went still.
Silence.
Only the slow hiss of escaping steam answered.
We were down.
I forced myself upright, wincing as I took in the devastation: shattered glass scattered like broken promises, the airship lying as a ruined carcass. Marlik, brushing dust from his coat with clinical detachment, met my gaze.
"Still breathing?" I rasped, my voice carrying the weight of every regret.
"Unfortunately," he replied.
A grim smile tugged at my lips. "Then let's move." It wasn't just about survival—it was about pressing forward despite the ghosts of our past.
Outside, the sky bled charcoal clouds into glinting brass spires. Old Vekaera loomed in the distance—its towering skyline choked in smog, its streets winding like veins through a decaying body. Beyond the city limits, the forest stretched untamed, a raw battleground where nature met rust and ruin in an uneasy truce.
Marlik stepped over a fallen tree, his eyes scanning the shadowed horizon. "You still think Orin's in Old Vekaera?" he asked, his voice low and cautious, as if every word carried a hidden risk.
"I think he's somewhere," I admitted, the admission heavy with the weight of our mission. Every moment in this dying city pulled us deeper into a web of treachery and lost causes.
"Not reassuring," he murmured.
A smirk played on my lips as I replied, "Would it help if I pretended to know?"
"You're the one with all the strategies," Marlik shot back, a dry humor veiling his concern.
"That is not how it works—there is no order in the void." His confusion was almost tangible, but we had no time for it.
****** ******
The road to Old Vekaera was long and cracked, half-swallowed by nature and time itself. By the time we reached the outskirts, the sun was bleeding into the horizon—a final, desperate burst of light before darkness. Jagged towers of brass and iron clawed at the sky, and smoke curled from countless chimneys in a relentless exhale of despair. This was a city built on steam and desperation, a monument to human ambition and decay.
On the cracked pavement, subtle signs of transformation blended into the urban decay. A man strode past with a gleaming metal arm, its rhythmic clink echoing like a heartbeat. In a shadowed alley, a figure paused under a flickering lamp—where an eye should have been, a soft blue glow pulsed quietly. Even a laborer, tugging at a tattered sleeve, revealed a seam where flesh merged seamlessly with cold metal. Old Vekaera had learned to reshape its people as effortlessly as it reshaped its skyline.
The street stretched ahead, crowded with people who were barely that anymore. Gleaming metal arms clanked with each step, eyes flickered with eerie blue light, and hidden joints hissed quietly beneath ragged clothes. I clenched my jaw, the weight of it all pressing down like a sickness in my chest. "A thousand years," I muttered under my breath. "The world remade itself while I rotted in Tartarus. Flesh and steel—twisted together like they're trying to cheat death." I shook my head. "I don't know whether to be impressed or disgusted."
Marlik let out a sharp snort beside me. "You sound like an old man," he said with that infuriating grin of his. "This isn't cheating death—it's survival. Half these folks wouldn't last a week without their metal bits."
"Survival," I repeated bitterly, the word thick on my tongue. "That's all it ever is, isn't it?"
He shot me a sideways glance, his grin widening. "Funny coming from a guy who crawled back from the pit after a thousand years." His laugh was rough and dry. "Guess you're more like them than you care to admit."
"Well said." I still didn't make up my mind.
"Look," Marlik said, nodding toward a rusted lamp post as he jabbed a finger at a tattered poster peeling at the edges.
My face stared back at me, etched in harsh lines, eyes shadowed by deep ink smudges, as though even the paper couldn't bear the weight of time. Creases split across my features, cracking through the bold black text beneath: Wanted: Dead or Alive. The edges were frayed, curling inward like it had tried to retreat from the rust-streaked metal it clung to. Streaks of grime blurred parts of the bounty amount, but the warning was clear enough.
"Huh. They got my nose wrong," I quipped, a wry smile tugging at my lips. My gaze snapped to the lamppost where a faded poster flapped in the wind. The drawn features were off—a subtle misalignment in the sketch that shouldn't have been there.
Marlik sighed. "We should move."
He shifted beside me, every motion alert and purposeful in this city of secrets and decay. We were an anomaly—burnt clothes, bloodstains, and weapons too refined for the common drifter. The street was unnervingly quiet, whispers of the smog hinting at hidden dangers.
I exhaled slowly, steeling my resolve. "We need a disguise," I said, nodding toward the guards. "There's no way we're getting past them as we are."
Almost immediately, Marlik's eyes caught a gleam near the curb—a steamcar idling against a backdrop of crumbling façades. Its brass plating and reinforced undercarriage promised both comfort and a swift escape. Through the slightly grimy windows, we spotted a family—a tired man, a wary woman, and a small child bundled in thick coats. Their fatigue blended with the urban decay, making them the perfect cover. We had found our disguise.
Marlik moved first, silent as a shadow. Before the man could register what was happening, a cold gun pressed against his spine. His body stiffened, and his breath caught like a snare. The woman's hand shot toward the car door, but I clamped her wrist in a vice grip. Her gasp was muffled, eyes wide in terror.
"Inside," I ordered, my tone calm and decisive—a stark contrast to the chaos unfolding around us.
Lord Henry Collin's nostrils flared as his panic twisted into outrage. He straightened, attempting to reclaim the authority he had just lost. "Do you know who I am?" he spat, his voice quivering with anger. "I am Lord Henry Collin the Third! I will not be taken hostage by the likes of you." His gaze, sharp with disdain, swept over us like we were vermin scuttling beneath his feet.
Marlik didn't so much as flinch. The gun remained pressed firmly against the nobleman's spine, an unspoken reminder of reality. I tightened my grip on the woman's wrist just enough to make my point.
I leaned in slightly, letting the weight of the moment settle. "You are whoever we need you to be," I said, voice low and edged with finality. "And right now, you're the man driving us through that checkpoint."
I studied him, watching the way his body tensed, the way his fingers twitched against the leather seat, betraying the fear he was trying to mask. Then my eyes flicked down—to his left hand. A ring, but not the thick, ostentatious band of his marriage. No, this one was simpler, newer, the kind given in devotion rather than obligation.
My gaze drifted further, sweeping over the car's interior. And then I saw it—tucked into the edge of the dashboard, half-hidden beneath official-looking documents. A photograph. Three little girls, their dresses prim and formal, their expressions carefully composed. His daughters. The ones he had with his wife.
Which meant…
I looked back at the ring, at the way his thumb absently brushed against it. Not for his wife. For someone else.
Someone who had given him a son.
It was a matter of probability, sharpened by observation and deduction. Ever since I arrived Vekaera, certain details had stuck with me—the color of the banners, the king's daughter, Emilie. And amid the chaos, I had overheard mothers calling out to their children—three girls, each with names bearing a familiar pattern. In chaos, deduction is a game of chance, but the right details always lead to certainty.
I exhaled slowly, letting my lips curl into something that wasn't quite a smile. Then I leaned in, my voice low, deliberate.
"Emilie" I said.
His wife neither flinched nor reacted—her expression remained eerily blank, untouched by the weight of revelation. She already knew. Not just about Emilie, but about everything. The stolen moments, the whispered promises, the existence of the child he could never publicly claim.
There was no anger, no heartbreak—just the cold resignation of someone who had long accepted the lie they were forced to live with. Perhaps she had made her peace with it. Perhaps she had simply buried it so deep that it no longer touched her, probably the later
But Lord Henry? His reaction was visceral. His whole body had stiffened, every muscle locked in place as though I had driven a knife between his ribs. His silence was loud, deafening in its confirmation.
Now I had him.
"You talk about power like it's a shield," I murmured. "Like your title will protect you. But we both know power is just the mask you wear. Strip it away, and what's left?" I let the question settle between us, watching the flicker of panic in his eyes, the tightening of his throat. "Not your wife. Not your name. No, the only thing that truly matters to you is Emilie."
His breath hitched, his fingers tightening against the seat. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
I pressed on. "And her son. Your son, henry." In my experience, it was rare for men like him not to name their heir after themselves.
The color drained from his face.
I tilted my head, letting the silence stretch before I delivered the final blow. "You think order will save you, that the soldiers out there are your lifeline. But chaos?" I let the word sink in, my eyes never leaving his. "Chaos is already inside the city." I tapped my ear for effect, as if signaling unseen forces. "My companions have Emilie. And her boy."
He was shaking now. He tried to hide it, tried to keep up the façade of control, but it was gone. Shattered.
I leaned in, my voice turning to steel. "All it takes is a single signal. One word. And your son will be dead before you can even say Lord Henry."
That did it. His composure shattered like glass. He exhaled sharply, almost a gasp, his whole body trembling with the effort of restraint. His eyes—wild, desperate—darted between me and Marlik, searching for mercy where none would be given.
"You bastard," he choked out, barely more than a whisper.
I only smiled.
"Now," I said, nodding toward the car, "get in and play your part."
For a moment, he didn't move. He just sat there, jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. But then, slowly, stiffly, he obeyed. He slid into the driver's seat, his movements mechanical, his mind clearly elsewhere—on Emilie, on the son he could not acknowledge but could not bear to lose.
Marlik exchanged a glance with me before following him in, keeping his gun low but ready. I settled into the seat beside him, watching as Lord Henry gripped the wheel with white-knuckled hands.
"Drive," I ordered.
He hesitated only a second before the engine roared to life, and we rolled toward the checkpoint.
lord henry took the wheel, guiding the car into the murky flow of traffic. The engine hissed as steam pressure adjusted, and brass components rattled in a mechanical symphony. Outside, the city pulsed with dim, gaslit movement. The heavy stink of coal smoke clung to the streets while drones, like sinister vultures, scanned pedestrians with red, soulless eyes.
We neared the checkpoint—almost there—when I heard it: a distant, rhythmic clang of metal boots on steel plating, voices barking orders in a cadence that sent a shiver through my spine. The city's pulse shifted abruptly, a warning that something was wrong.
I leaned forward, lowering my voice to a razor's edge. "Who?"
The woman swallowed hard, her fingers tightening over her son's shoulder. "The soldiers," she whispered, her voice trembling with dread. "I think they know you're here."
A siren wailed in response—a clarion call to impending conflict.
Marlik's grip on the wheel tightened. My heart pounded with the realization that every moment of hesitation could mean the difference between life and death—not just for us, but for the cause we were fighting for. This wasn't merely about survival; it was about reclaiming a future from the ruins of our past.
I peeked through a narrow gap in the car. All I could see were boots—four guards, closing in.
Shit...