The royal study in the Obsidian Palace was a sanctuary of quiet warmth, a stark contrast to the freezing winds howling against the heavy runic glass of the windows. Maps of the Northern Kingdoms were spread wide across the massive mahogany desk, the borders of Firebrim heavily circled in dark red ink.
Devin stood over the desk, rubbing his temples. The political weight of the UEI summit still pressed heavily on his shoulders.
The heavy iron door swung open with a familiar, entirely unceremonious metallic groan.
Rebecca strode into the room. She was wearing her heavy canvas overalls, the fabric smeared with fresh, black engine grease and smelling strongly of burnt copper and ozone. She carried a heavy brass spanner in one hand, completely ignoring the opulent velvet rugs as her heavy boots tracked faint traces of ash across the floor.
"The transport is prepped," Rebecca announced, dropping the spanner onto a side table with a loud clatter. "I bypassed the standard heating coils and wired a direct runic feed from the secondary Frazer manifold. You and Dawson won't freeze to death over the Firebrim borders, even if a blizzard hits."
Devin looked up, the tension in his jaw instantly melting. He walked around the desk, closing the distance between them.
"You didn't have to wire it yourself," Devin said, his voice dropping into a soft, genuine warmth. "You are the Chief Mechanic, Rebecca. You have three hundred engineers who could have tightened those coils."
"They don't tighten them right," Rebecca argued, crossing her arms. She looked up at him, her piercing green eyes bright with stubborn pride. "And I wasn't going to let some third-tier apprentice handle the transport carrying my King into a potential warzone."
Devin smiled. He reached out, his clean hands gently cupping her face, entirely uncaring about the thick black grease she had smeared across her own cheek.
"When are you going to let me put a crown on this head, Rebecca?" Devin asked quietly, his thumbs brushing lightly against her skin. "I am tired of my Chief Mechanic sleeping in the lower bays when she should be in the royal wing."
Rebecca's stubborn expression softened, but she didn't melt. She reached up, resting her grease-stained hands over his wrists.
"I love you, Kross," Rebecca said, her voice fiercely earnest. "You know I do. You are the only person in this entire miserable empire who actually listens to me. But I can't be Queen right now."
Devin didn't push the King's Command. He never did with her. "Because queens don't carry spanners?"
"Because queens have to sit in velvet chairs and listen to diplomats argue about grain taxes," Rebecca corrected, a small, wry smile touching her lips. "If I sit in a velvet chair for more than an hour, my skin crawls. Cypris is finally thriving because our infrastructure is entirely rebuilt. If I walk away from the bays now, the new pressure systems will fail within a cycle."
She stepped closer, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his chest. Devin held her tight, breathing in the scent of oil and ozone that felt more like home than the opulent palace ever could.
"Just wait for me," Rebecca murmured against his shirt. "I found a kid in the lower rings last rees. Sharp as a tack. He understands runic compression better than most of the senior staff. I'm taking him on as my direct apprentice. As soon as I can train him to take over the Chief position without blowing up the capital... I'll wear your crown."
Devin pressed a kiss to the top of her dark, unruly hair. "I will hold you to that, Chief Mechanic."
Rebecca pulled back, leaving a faint, dark smear of grease across the front of Devin's charcoal tunic. She grinned, completely unapologetic.
"You better pack, Kross. Firebrim is waiting," she said, giving his chest a firm tap before turning and walking back toward the heavy iron doors. "And tell Dawson that if he lets anyone put a scratch on my transport, I'll dismantle his armor while he's wearing it!"
The door clicked shut, leaving Devin alone in the quiet warmth of the study.
He touched the grease stain on his chest, a soft smile lingering on his face. He loved her. She was the absolute, grounding reality of his present life.
But as the silence of the room settled, the smile slowly faded. His thoughts drifted away from the mechanical bays of Cypris and forcefully pulled him backward across the timeline, crossing the vast, bloody chasm of fourteen cycles.
I study the architecture of the soul.
Fenrys Mortipia's words from the UEI amphitheater echoed in his mind, sharp and haunting.
Devin walked over to a heavy leather armchair and sat down, staring blankly at the dancing flames in the stone hearth. How had she recognized him? He had worn the skin of Zain Ricky, and now the skin of Kross Sapien. He had changed his fighting style, his cadence, and his entirely biology.
But Fenrys hadn't looked at the flesh. She had looked at the ghost.
Memories that Devin had forcefully buried beneath the Cyprian snow began to unearth themselves. He remembered a time before the venom, before the slaughter, before he was a parasitic entity jumping between lives.
Imperial Calendar 57k. Four cycles before the fall of Trangdar.
The Mortipian royal family had traveled to the Trangdar capital for the summer solstice trade negotiations. While Emperor Mortipia and King Arthur had debated steel and tariffs behind closed doors, the royal children had been left to their own devices in the sprawling, sunlit gardens of the Trangdar palace.
Devin remembered Ferran as a fourteen-cycle-old prince—arrogant, loud, and constantly trying to prove that Mortipian combat forms were superior to the Trangdar agility. Ferran had swung a wooden training sword with reckless, aggressive power. Devin had easily disarmed him, sweeping the Mortipian prince into the dirt with a fluid, laughing grace.
But Fenrys hadn't cared about the swords.
She had been sitting under the shade of a massive weeping willow, a heavy, leather-bound book resting in her lap. She hadn't been reading. She had been watching Devin.
Devin closed his eyes, the memory washing over him with an agonizing clarity.
He remembered walking over to her after Ferran had stormed off to demand a new training sword. Devin had dropped onto the soft grass beside her, completely out of breath, grinning like a fool.
"You fight like you're trying to impress someone, Prince Devin," the young Fenrys had noted, her dark eyes entirely too perceptive for her age.
"I'm just trying to survive your brother's temper," Devin had laughed.
Fenrys had closed her book. She had reached out, her fingers gently brushing a stray lock of hair from his forehead. It was a simple, innocent gesture, but it had carried a profound, terrifying weight.
"You have a loud soul," she had whispered. "It hums. It feels like... gravity."
Devin remembered the sudden, intense flush of heat in his cheeks. He remembered leaning in, drawn by that exact same esoteric gravity she possessed. Their lips had met in a clumsy, fleeting, deeply innocent kiss beneath the willow tree. It was the absolute, pure rush of a first love, untainted by war or venom.
They had spent the rest of that summer inseparable. They had climbed the highest towers of the Trangdar palace, hiding from their handlers, whispering about the future. Fenrys had promised to study the stars, and Devin had promised to build a kingdom where she could read them in peace.
Then, the summer ended. The Mortipians returned to their frozen federation. Four cycles later, Cypris unleashed the beasts, and Prince Devin was ripped apart on the courtyard stones.
Devin opened his eyes. The flames in the Obsidian Palace hearth snapped, pulling him violently back to the year 65k.
He was breathing heavily, his hands gripping the armrests of the leather chair. The phantom ache of the young Trangdar prince warring with the cold reality of King Kross Sapien created a nauseating friction in his chest.
Fenrys had been his first love. She had seen the hum of his soul when he was a boy, and she had recognized that exact same hum beneath the grease of a barista and the crown of a dictator's son. She was the only living tether to the boy he used to be.
Devin stood up abruptly, shaking his head to clear the ghosts.
He couldn't afford to be Prince Devin right now. Prince Devin was dead. He was Kross. He loved Rebecca, and Rebecca loved the man he had become, not the ghost he used to be. And the age difference between them was also considerable. The nostalgia was a dangerous, distracting poison.
He walked over to the heavy wooden wardrobe in the corner of the study and pulled out a thick, reinforced leather travel bag. He began tossing his gear inside. Extra thermal tunics, heavy alchemical heat-stones, and a pair of compact, lethal throwing daggers he kept hidden beneath his royal mantle.
Firebrim was waiting. Queen Atelia was waiting. The frozen wastelands of the Northern Expanse and the radical revolutionary named Enoch were waiting.
And Fenrys Mortipia would be there, guiding them through the volcanic ash.
Devin pulled the leather straps of the travel bag tight, buckling them with a sharp, definitive click. He shoved the memories of the weeping willow firmly back into the dark. He needed a clear, ruthless mind for the expedition ahead.
He slung the bag over his shoulder and walked out of the study, leaving the warmth behind.