Chapter I | Death of the Old King

Year 690 a.S., Summer | City Pyraleia, the Capital

Streaks of lightning scattered across the capital in burned flashes on steelhouse rooftops. Those who dwelled in the Endtown howled of apocalypse while those in the Hightown slept soundly in their quiet beds, high above the clouds where neither rain nor lightning reached.

Meanwhile, the highest among them, High Lord of All Purily and King of Old Luridia, sat upon his throne at the very top. Every inch of his cadaverous flesh leeched off of tubes and wires. One hundred and eighty years ago, he united the nine old kingdoms into one, and for one hundred eighty years, he remained.

Such great time passed that many began to think he could live forever. Yet it only took this single stormy night for a single thunderbolt to cause a surge that shut off his life support for just a second too long.

The Old King was found dead at sunrise.

❧☙

The storm lingered into morning.

Claude stood at the edge of the train platform, the toe boxes of his shoes teetering off of the ledge. Above him, the glass overhang drummed a raindrop beat, and in the distance, the ironwoods sang their earthy scents.

He was surrounded by his classmates. They were all dressed the same like soldiers or like robots, and like robots, they had stiff joints and sullen faces; they stared down at their cellphone screens, unmoving and unspeaking.

Claude never could bring himself to bring his phone outside with him. He liked to watch the cityscape instead while he waited for the train. He could hear it approaching already, its pale body blazing across the tracks in the distance.

“Wait for me!” a girl cried from the end of the platform.

The train stopped in front of him and the doors opened with a hiss. On every other day, he was always the first to walk on. Today, he stepped away from the door and let his classmates enter first. The distant stranger continued to make a mad dash to catch up, storm-drenched but cheerful. Her wet sneakers slipped across the polished stones in each striding step until, with a shriek, she tumbled.

The raindrop splashes dropped an octave and lingered; his classmates froze in place.

The spark had run down his spine already with a simple exhale, and for him, time slowed to a crawl. Claude sighed, then moved to slide between the gaps of the scrunched statues of his peers. Once he made it out, he headed for the girl. Her arms were held out in front of her, hands like claws like she could grip onto air. Her unusual chestnut hair, soaked through every strand, stuck to her cheeks and ran down her Fallryn Academy uniform. It was an odd thing. Her beauty bespoke a girl born noble, but he didn’t recognize her.

From his perspective in this slow time, it felt as if seven seconds had passed before it started to flicker around him. Streaks of lightning traced his path, and his heart creaked like a rusted lever as the trigger shut back off.

“Are you alright?” he said. A rush of wind followed his voice and blew the water from her hair.

Even though he appeared from nowhere to catch her fall, she smiled like nothing strange had just happened. “Looks like it,” she said.

As the words left her mouth, the little thing that she had kept hidden up her sleeve tore through the cuff of her blazer, and clattered to the stones beneath her.

Claude let the girl drop to the ground to inspect the object instead. It was a rootsteel dagger. From its tip and down its rough edges, the blade curled around the wooden handle as if eating it. A curious design, and not of military origin. He turned back to the girl. “Why do you have this?”

“Ah,” she said, rubbing her bruised bottom. “I guess the cat’s outta the bag now.”

“Where did you get this? Who are you?”

Behind him, the train doors slid shut and the beast sped forth again, faster than even he could catch up to. He didn’t care. The girl he found in front of him now captured his full attention, with her oversized uniform and perfect face. With her hazel eyes that glinted as her dry lips lifted into a smile. With the dagger she shouldn’t have had.

“I’m Lana,” she said, sweetly. “Lana Rose.”

Claude narrowed his eyes. “An endtowner? At Fallryn Academy?”

She wagged her finger back and forth. “I’m a lucky now. You couldn’t tell? I tend to catch the eye of all the lords I’ve met. And I’m only fifteen. Buncha freaks, dontcha think?” Her voice had a musical rhythm to it, with an appeal lost on the young prince.

“And the dagger?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Don’t you know who I am?”

“Of course I do!” she said with a clap. “You’re the crown prince of Purily. I know all sorts of secrets about you. Secrets like all the people you’ve killed. Secrets like why someone of your standing would need to wait for the train all the way down here in Layer 3 every morning. You understand, I’m sure. I’m only strong when I know all of your secrets and you know none of mine.”

He feigned nonchalance. “What if I ask nicely? The dagger. What were you doing with it?”

“I was deciding whether to kill you,” she said. Her eyes were averted, but she didn’t seem to be lying. The wind changed and the rain stopped. Her smile seemed to be swept away with the change, and she finally decided to push back onto her feet. For only these moments, she seemed so vulnerable to him. But Claude rejected the thought. To him, there wasn’t a single living person who was not vulnerable to him. So then what was it?

“You’re insane,” he finally said, and her smile returned with a draft of wind.

“And your responsibility. Isn’t that right, my lord watcher? We seemed to have missed the train, so I’ll be skipping today, but tomorrow for certain. I do think we’ll have quite the lovely future together, my prince. And I never tell a lie.”

❧☙

It was a hot Tuesday in the thick of summer. The short school break had just ended, and Tristan’s quiet afternoons on this particular bench in Layer 2 ended with it. Fallryn Academy chirped from the inside out with the minds of scholars, aged fourteen to twenty-two. In other words, it was a place he no longer belonged. Missed by a few years.

It didn’t bother him. Tristan now found himself in a tidy government job as the Minister of Transport, lowborn though he was. Without a real name to his name. Before, it seemed like no one had anything better to talk about than that. That was before he was chosen to head the Sea Train Project. It was before he completed it in less than a year. Suddenly, a commute to their sister city of Vergalis—which once took twelve days—was cut down to a mere twelve hours. It was a new truth that would forever alter the political landscape between the cities.

And it was true he didn’t belong at Fallryn Academy, but he found it too interesting to observe to stay away. He didn’t mind the lack of quiet. He invited it, actually. The quiet unnerved him.

The bell rang and the young scholars flooded out from the doors, dressed in the same monotonous colors as always. If it weren’t for the fall orange accents, it would have been just a sea of oil with flecks of skin and faces. Either way, it was one face in particular he searched for now. The face of Claude Morsylis. It was one he recognized since he first started to visit this place, but one he never paid very much attention to until recently. It hadn’t yet been announced publicly that the boy had been named heir, but those on the inside such as Tristan knew.

According to his observations, Claude was a kid who mostly kept to himself. He had dozens of acquaintances, but no close friends of note. Tristan placed his hand atop the tall black box he always brought with him. He wasn’t all too different himself. But today, something was different. He almost couldn’t believe his eyes when a girl he didn’t recognize pulled into his space to speak with him. She had a bounce in her step and almost danced around him to grab his attention. Claude pretended to not notice her. Tristan felt tempted to take to his feet and follow them, but his pocket buzzed.

His phone. A reminder about his meeting with the Duke of Vergalis. He glanced between his phone and the two, struggling to decide which to choose, but regained his sense and walked off for this meeting.

And Lana continued to bug Claude.

“You were so dashing today,” she said. “Did you see how all the girls swooned?”

“They did no such thing.”

Lana bumped into him with her shoulder. “Oh I know. No girl but me.”

“Shut up,” he said, but she continued on in a teasing, cloying manner until he had to clamp his hand over her mouth. “Did you hear that?”

She pried his hand off. “Nothing but the sound of your balls dropping.”

He ignored her and listened a little longer before marching himself back to the academy building. His hand brushed against her shoulder as he turned back, and knocked her off her feet. She landed on her bottom again, but gracefully pulled her legs in and pushed back up and pretended as if she hadn’t fallen. Or like she was used to falling.

Claude didn’t notice. He continued on into the school building and up the stairs to the right until the third floor, then down the hall a little until he found them. Three boys and two girls, all on the younger side. Lana was almost out of breath by the time she caught up, and it wasn’t immediately apparent what was wrong with the scene. But Claude slammed his boot onto the hardwood floor and shook the entire hall to its core.

The kids’ quiet, silly banter ceased, and their faces sunk when they saw Claude there. Drowned in less than two inches, a tiny guilt that could barely be noticed. But Lana noticed it. The face of the tallest boy didn’t change, though. He was the only one. And the only one to stare back at Claude. Still confused, Lana stepped closer, but Claude’s work was done and he turned back without a word. Reluctantly, Lana followed him again, but glanced back at the kids for one last chance to figure it out. Three boys, two girls. Was it bullying? But they all seemed like close friends. A few of them were already smiling again, including the tall boy. Something like drugs, then? But their hands were empty.

She wrinkled her brow and her head was starting to hurt, so she gave up. For the briefest of moments, she considered asking Claude himself what that whole thing was about, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She always regretted never asking.