The Cyprian Preparatory Academy was not a place of learning; it was a cold, militant forge designed to hammer the children of the elite into ruthless imperial administrators.
Because Cypris had been permanently banished from the United Educational Institute decades ago, Count Sapien had constructed his own academic fortress. The walls were made of polished obsidian. The windows were narrow slits designed to prevent distractions. The air inside the classrooms smelled of ozone, bitter ink, and harsh discipline.
Devin sat at a heavy iron desk near the front of the lecture hall. He was five cycles old, yet his mind held the tactical, bitter exhaustion of a dead prince. He stared at the chalkboard as the instructor—a retired military strategist missing two fingers on his left hand—droned on about the logistics of border fortification.
Devin leaned his frail chest against the cold metal of the desk, suppressing a harsh, rattling cough. His lungs burned. Every single par spent outside the climate-controlled royal wing was a grueling physical marathon.
Exactly two paces behind Devin's chair stood Dawson.
The super-human boy did not have a desk. He did not take notes. He stood in the aisle, his dark gray tunic perfectly pressed, his dead, oxidized steel eyes scanning the room. The other thirty aristocratic children in the class were absolutely terrified of him. They didn't understand the complex venom woven into Dawson's embryonic DNA, but they instinctively recognized a predator standing among them.
The heavy brass bell above the chalkboard chimed thrice, signaling the mid-par break.
"Dismissed," the instructor barked.
The children stood up quickly, gathering their leather satchels and filing out into the walled, indoor courtyard. They gave Devin and Dawson a very wide, respectful berth. Devin was Count Sapien's heir. He was untouchable. And because of that, he was entirely isolated.
Devin slid out of his chair. His weak legs trembled slightly as they hit the stone floor. Dawson immediately stepped forward, his hand hovering just an inch from Devin's shoulder, ready to catch him if the frailty won.
"I'm fine, Dawson," Devin murmured quietly, adjusting his thick wool coat. "Let's get some air."
They walked out into the courtyard. It was a massive, vaulted atrium sealed beneath a canopy of thick, runic glass to keep the freezing Cyprian climate out. Small clusters of stone benches were scattered around neatly trimmed, utterly uniform hedges.
Devin found an empty bench in the corner and sat down heavily. He closed his eyes, pulling a slow, painful breath of the filtered air into his lungs. Dawson took his standard position, standing rigidly beside the bench like a gargoyle.
The other children gathered in small, whispering groups on the opposite side of the courtyard. They cast nervous glances at the sickly prince and his terrifying shadow. Devin ignored them. He was a twenty-cycle-old royal trapped in a broken shell; he had absolutely zero interest in the playground politics of five-cycle-old aristocrats.
"You breathe like a flooded Frazer manifold."
Devin opened his eyes.
Standing directly in front of the stone bench was a girl. She wore the standard, dark gray uniform of the academy, but her collar was slightly askew, and her heavy canvas satchel looked like it had been dragged through the mud. She had dark, unruly hair cut sharply at her jawline, and her eyes were a bright, piercing shade of emerald green.
She wasn't looking at Dawson. She was looking directly at Devin, her arms crossed over her chest.
Dawson instantly shifted. The super-human moved a half-step forward, placing himself between the girl and Devin. His jaw tightened, assessing the sudden approach as a potential variable.
"Dawson, stand down," Devin commanded softly, raising a pale hand.
Dawson froze immediately, stepping back to his precise position, though his gray eyes remained entirely locked on the girl's throat.
The girl didn't even flinch at the lethal guard's movement. She just tilted her head, observing Dawson with a look of intense, analytical curiosity.
"Is he broken?" she asked, her voice completely devoid of fear. "He hasn't blinked in twelve seconds. I counted."
Devin let out a small chuckle, which immediately turned into a dry, scratching cough. He covered his mouth, his shoulders shaking until the brief spasm passed.
"He isn't broken," Devin replied, his high, childish voice raspy. "He's just very focused. And you have terrible manners."
"Manners are for people who don't have anything interesting to say," the girl stated matter-of-factly. She dropped her heavy satchel onto the ground and plopped down right onto the stone bench next to Devin.
The sheer audacity of the movement made Devin blink in genuine surprise. No one in the entire stronghold—not the handlers, not the guards, and certainly not the other students—ever sat next to him without being explicitly invited by Count Sapien.
"I'm Rebecca," she said, holding out a small, ink-stained hand. "My father is the Chief Alchemist for the northern armories. He says the Sapien bloodline is untouchable, but you look like you'd blow over if someone sneezed too hard."
Devin stared at her hand.
He didn't engage the Holy Gene. He didn't project any charismatic gravity or silent, demanding authority. For the first time in three full cycles, he was just looking at someone who was looking right back at him without a single drop of terror or sycophantic worship.
Devin reached out and shook her hand. Her grip was surprisingly firm.
"I'm Kross," Devin said.
"I know who you are," Rebecca replied, pulling her hand back and digging into her satchel. "Everyone knows who you are. They're all just too scared to talk to you because your dog over there looks like he wants to bite our faces off."
"He doesn't bite," Devin said, glancing up at Dawson. "Usually."
Rebecca pulled a heavy, brass-bound notebook from her bag. She flipped it open, revealing pages filled not with standard academy notes, but with complex, messy sketches of alchemical arrays and mechanical gears.
"The instructor is an idiot," Rebecca declared, tapping a drawing of a heavy repeating crossbow. "He spent the entire first rees talking about border fortifications, but he completely ignored the thermal degradation of the iron they use in the gates. If a Mortipian Frazer cycle hit those gates at top speed, the cold-rolled steel would shatter on impact."
Devin looked at the sketch. His past life as Zain Ricky at the UEI instantly flared to life in his mind. He remembered standing in the mechanics bays with Ferran and Karin, discussing pressure valves and engine integrity.
"You're assuming the Mortipians could get a Frazer cycle through the snowdrifts," Devin countered, leaning closer to look at the notebook. "The treads on their standard cycles are built for cobblestone and dirt, not deep ice. They'd stall out fifty miles from the wall."
Rebecca paused. She looked at Devin, her green eyes widening in sudden, genuine respect.
"I didn't think of the treads," she admitted quietly. She pulled a piece of charcoal from her pocket and immediately began violently scribbling a new set of calculations in the margins of her notebook.
Devin watched her work. It was a bizarre, profoundly comforting moment. In the middle of an empire built entirely on blood, venom, and subjugation, sitting beside a boy engineered to be a remorseless killer, Devin had just found a girl who cared more about mechanical logistics than royal titles.
Rebecca finished her scribbling and blew the charcoal dust off the page. She looked up at Dawson, who was still staring blankly down at them.
She reached into her uniform pocket and pulled out a small, wrapped square of salted caramel. She held it up directly toward the super-human.
"Do you want this?" Rebecca asked Dawson. "My father brought them back from a trade route. They're better than the dry rations they serve in the mess hall."
Dawson didn't move. His programming did not recognize unauthorized food sources, and he certainly didn't accept gifts from strangers. He looked at Devin, a silent, tactical query in his gray eyes.
Devin smiled. It was a real, unguarded smile.
"Take it, Dawson," Devin nodded.
Dawson slowly reached out, his precise movements contrasting sharply with Rebecca's casual demeanor. He took the caramel from her hand. He unwrapped it with mechanical efficiency and placed it in his mouth.
"Well?" Rebecca asked, crossing her arms. "Good?"
Dawson chewed in absolute silence. His face remained a rigid mask of stone, completely devoid of expression.
"It is acceptable caloric intake," Dawson stated flatly.
Rebecca rolled her green eyes, groaning dramatically. "You two are the most boring people in this entire courtyard."
"And yet, you're the one sitting on our bench," Devin pointed out, leaning back against the cold stone.
"Only because the lighting is better over here," Rebecca shot back quickly, though a small, sharp smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She pulled her knees up onto the bench, resting her notebook against her legs. "So, Kross. If Mortipian treads stall in the snow, how would you breach the wall?"
"I wouldn't breach the wall," Devin answered, the tactical mind of the Trangdar prince slipping effortlessly into the conversation. "I'd poison the aqueducts that run beneath it. The guards would abandon the gates within three pars."
Rebecca stared at him, her charcoal hovering over the paper. A slow, brilliant grin spread across her face.
"That is horribly efficient," she whispered.
"I try," Devin said.
The heavy brass bell chimed again, echoing loudly across the vaulted glass ceiling, signaling the end of the break. The other children began scrambling back toward the heavy iron doors of the lecture hall.
Rebecca closed her notebook and shoved it back into her ruined satchel. She hopped off the bench, slinging the strap over her shoulder.
"I sit in the third row, by the window," Rebecca said, looking down at Devin. "You should move your desk tomorrow. The instructor spits when he talks, and you're right in the blast zone."
Without waiting for a response, she turned and jogged across the courtyard, disappearing into the crowd of gray uniforms.
Devin sat on the bench for a moment longer. The burning ache in his lungs hadn't faded, and the oppressive, terrifying reality of his existence in Cypris remained absolute.
But as Dawson stepped forward to help him stand, Devin realized the crippling isolation of his five-cycle-old vessel had cracked just a fraction. He had a shadow that would burn the world for him, and now, he had a girl who wasn't afraid to argue with him.
The trio was formed. And Devin knew, with absolute certainty, that when the time finally came to tear Count Sapien's empire apart, he wouldn't have to do it entirely alone.