Pain.
But not fire. Not like they warned. No, this is clean pain. Like someone reached down my throat with a needle made of light and started stitching every nerve together into something other. It isn't agony—it's refinement. Like burning off the filth of a lifetime to become something sharp, something holy.'
I look down with shaking hands as I vomit blood and silver onto the broken floorboards of the stolen house.
The ceiling leaks. The candles are stolen. The slug is still thrashing halfway down my esophagus like it's trying to crawl into my spine—and yet, I doesn't scream.
Because screaming is what they want from people like me. Screaming would draw attention, and right now that's the last thing I need while I am breaking damn near every law imaginable.
Instead, I grip the edges of the warped mirror leaning against the wall, a mirror cracked right down the middle. I watch myself change through fractured glass, and what looks at me is a face I don't recognize- but my eyes don't show fear.
It's defiance.
"Breathe through it, darling. Elegance is pain."
The voice glides into my skull like a violin bow across silk.
It doesn't laugh. It doesn't taunt.
It tastes.
"Ah. You're lovely, you know. Rough, like a gem no one bothered to polish. But I can help with that. We can shine together."
My jaw's locked as bones rework themselves. My skin peels in flickering lines of light, revealing glowing gold beneath. The bones holding my shoulders dislocate. But I don't cry. I still don't make a sound.
Who the hell are you?
'Your partner. Your curator. Your better half, if you'll allow it. I am Selanar.'
Selanar. The name tastes like perfume and ice.
'And you, dearest Lucy, are the greatest gamble I've ever taken.'
A sharp cracking sound pierces the room as my spine snaps once—then twice—and something grows. Wings—but not wings for flight. Wings for declaration. Silvered ridges of translucent bone erupt from my back, feathered with living flame, curling with golden smoke like some holy beast unearthed from a cathedral vault.
My body burns with light. But the fire doesn't hurt—it validates.
My skin doesn't crack. It crystallizes, like molten glass smoothed into flesh. Silver-gold veins thread through me like stained glass given life.
My brown hair turns white-blonde, catching the candlelight and refracting it like a halo. My eyes—formerly mud-brown—are now twin stars, yellow like dawn bursting over rusted rooftops.
I flex my fingers as the pain subsides, and claws of molten silver retract politely from my knuckles.
'I've known many hosts. Royals. Generals. Prima ballerinas. None of them deserved me.'
And I do?
You don't need to deserve. You claimed. That's more than most ever do.'
The transformation slows. I drop to one knee. My breath rasps like wind slicing between the towers of a ruined city. The stolen room flickers with golden fire.
From the other side of the room, a voice breaks the silence.
"You're… glowing."
It's a boy. Levi. Half her age, half her size. I'd saved him from a scab-faced loan shark last week. Now he watches from behind the chipped doorway, eyes wide like the sky might fall into them.
I smile—not a cruel smile, not a smug one.
But a tired one. A real one.
"I think I did something,"
"You opened it," he whispers. "That was a Gate. I saw it. You… You're not supposed to. You're not even—how?"
I take a stand fully. The wings of flame whisper behind me like silk flags caught in a summer wind. My new form still glows at the edges, humming with celestial authority even as it fades.
I walk over to the cracked mirror.
My transformation is beautiful.
No applause. No ballroom. No family crest.
Just me.
The fire in me bones and the whole world sharpening around me. I can feel everything.
'You'll die by fifty, of course,' Selanar murmurs politely. 'But what a life we'll make of it.'
I pull the torn leather jacket back over my shoulders.
"I'm going to the Capitol."
Levi stares. "You'll be killed."
"No." I look down at my pulsating hands again. "I'll be free."
...
They told stories in the slums of the Capitol.
Skyscrapers lined with gold filigree, elevated walkways made of glass, and sky-trams that hummed like lullabies. But no one ever warned us about the guards. The checkpoints. The blood-tinted spotlights that crawl over the undercity like predators pretending to be stars.
I've been walking for two days.
I don't ride the trams. You need a crest for that. Or forged credentials. I've got neither. I sleep under awnings, eat cold rice from stolen tins, and whisper to Selanar when the night stretches long enough to feel like dying.
He never minds.
'Most would panic in your place,' he muses as I tighten the wraps around my arms again. The silver glow still leaks through my skin, no matter how tightly I bind it. 'But I must admit, the quiet ambition you carry is intoxicating.'
"Shut up," I mutter, more out of habit than heat. My voice is soft. Not tired. Focused.
The wall marks the beginning of the Capitol. Black iron and white stone. Built tall enough to keep out hope. The closer I get, the more the air changes. It's cleaner, colder. Like even the oxygen's been filtered for the rich.
On the morning of the third day, I reach it.
Behind that wall, the Spires of Command claw the sky. I've seen them in holos—gleaming towers that house people who've never tasted rot. Never starved. Never bled without anyone caring.
A patrol finds me before I even touch the gate.
Three Royal Enforcers. One sneers like he's already imagining me as a smear on the pavement. The other two? Just bored. Like I'm another stray dog trying to piss on the palace gates.
"Slum trash. This far up?" the tall one says, like my existence is an insult to his uniform. His armor catches the sun. I spot the slug crest etched along his collarbone—obsidian lines, runes blinking.
"Turn around. Before you're dirt."
I don't move.
Instead, I step forward.
My boot hits the stone with a sound like punctuation.
"Name?" he snaps.
Selanar's voice slides through my spine, calm and crystal. 'Lucy Ahlstrom. Say it like it's sacred. Give it teeth.'
"I'm Lucy Ahlstrom," I say.
The name means nothing. Not yet.
But I say it like it's already been written on a stained-glass window somewhere.
The guard snorts. "Well, Lucy Ahlstrom, this gate doesn't open unless you're on the registry. So unless you've got a title… or a slug…" He looks at the other guards and they break into laughter.
I close my eyes.
And I let go.
It's not explosive. Not theatrical. Just… certain.
The air shifts. Colder. Crisper. Like something divine stepped into the alley with us.
My skin splits with light. Fire drips from my fingertips like I was dipped in starlight and told to walk among mortals. The silver in my veins pulses to life. Selanar unfolds inside me, curling along my spine with delicate precision, each vertebrae a note in his silent hymn.
I feel taller. Not in inches. In presence.
My wings open. Not wide. Just enough.
Just enough to make them feel me.
'Oh,' Selanar purrs, like he's savoring the aftertaste of thunder. 'How they will talk about this moment for years.'
The guard stumbles back, fumbling for his comms.
"G-Gate confirmed," he stammers. "Unauthorized merge. No crest. No registry. This one—this one's—"
I step forward and place one clawed hand on his chestplate.
He stops talking.
His mouth opens. Then closes. Then… nothing.
"Let me through," I say.
Behind me, the other two backpedal like they've seen a god with debts to settle.
And then—then—the gates open.
The Capitol breathes around me. Wine. Rosewater. The electricity of things possible.
I step through.
And for the first time in my life—
I will be seen.