Cassian Vale stood at the edge of the Grand City, wind clawing at his coat, the scent of smoke and brass sharp in his nose. Below, the city shimmered; a thousand golden lights flickering through smog like embers in a dying fire. He should've felt triumphant. The presentation was perfect. The airship prototype hovered silently behind him, a marvel of aether-reactor balance and magnetic levitation-his design, his obsession, now finally reality.
And they were all here to see it: nobles, engineers, foreign dignitaries. His father, Duke Vale, even managed to attend, flanked by Thorne in his spotless military regalia. And beside him. Elira Lynden. Pale blue silk. Gloves like frost. She hadn't spoken to Cassian in weeks.
She nodded once when their eyes met. Cool. Measured.
Something was wrong.
Cassian turned from the crowd and whispered to the ship's engineer, "Check the coil pressure again. I don't trust the readings."
The man blinked. "Sir? It passed inspection twice."
"I said check it again."
Below, Elira leaned close to Thorne and whispered something. Thorne's jaw tensed. He looked up at Cassian, eyes unreadable.
Cassian felt it then. A tingle at the base of his spine. The sound of footsteps behind him-too soft for the grating metal floor.
He spun.
A half-second before the explosion.
The airship burst from within, a chain reaction screaming up through the engine housing. Aether ignited-blue lightning ripping through steel. Glass shattered across the spire. Flames spiraled up like a serpent. People screamed.
Cassian hit the ground as the shockwave punched outward. Heat roared over him. Somewhere, someone shouted his name. But another sound cut through it all:
The crowd, gasping.
"Elira!" a voice cried. Thorne's.
Cassian staggered upright, his vision swimming, and saw the foreign ambassador's air-cruiser listing, aflame. Guards scrambling. The Duke unmoving, his beard soaked red. The dignitary—dead.
Cassian's prototype fell in burning shards, crashing into the lower walkways below.
And amidst the chaos, standing calm as a painting, Elira Lynden turned.
She pointed up.
"To him," she said.
Cassian stared down at her. His voice was gone. His mouth moved, but no sound came.
Thorne looked up. His face not angry. Not devastated.
Relieved.
The guards came quickly. Too quickly.
Cassian backed away as gauntlets gripped his arms. "Wait. Wait. It wasn'tthis isn't right—Elira—!"
She didn't blink. She didn't look away.
"Cassian Vale," the Spire Guard captain barked, "you are under arrest for treason, sabotage, and high murder against the Crown of Aurelith."
He twisted in their grasp. "Thorne! Tell them!"
His brother stepped forward. Not too close. Not enough to help.
"You've always hated the nobility, haven't you?" Thorne said softly. "We just never thought you'd act on it."
Cassian froze. The words struck harder than the flames.
They knew. They planned this.
The guards forced him down. Shackles clamped over his wrists. The arcane locks hissed cold.
His father didn't speak.
No one did.
Not until Elira whispered to the guards, "Strip him of title. Let the soot claim what's left."
And Cassian Vale, once heir to one of the greatest houses in Aurelith, was dragged bleeding and burned through shattered glass-while the tower above him crumbled.
He didn't scream.
He looked up at them all, memorizing every face, every smile, every lie.
And in that moment, something inside him died; something bright and noble and young.
Because Cassian Vale had known.
Not everything. Not the who.
But enough.
The prototype he presented tonight? It wasn't the real design.
The real one had been hidden, segmented, cloaked in misdirection.
The airship on display? A decoy.
A carcass built to tempt envy. Because Cassian had seen the ledger disappear from his quarters two nights ago. He'd seen Elira in the reflection of a spellglass, speaking to someone she shouldn't know. He'd seen Thorne's troop orders mysteriously updated; posted just close enough to respond first to the explosion.
So he left bait.
And now he knew. Every falsehood. Every hand behind the dagger.
Not just Elira.
Dorian too-his old mentor, watching from a balcony. And another: a robed figure on the opposite spire, vanishing into a flicker of aetherlight.
Cassian lowered his head as the guards dragged him through the wreckage, his wrists bound and bleeding.
But in his pocket was a single aether key.
Engraved with the sigil of the true reactor.
It pulsed faintly in Cassian's palm, hidden beneath scorched linen and blood. A failsafe. The last untouched piece of his real invention; one they hadn't known to look for, because none of them had believed he could be smarter than their betrayal.
But he had been.
He always was.
"Get him on his knees," barked Thorne's voice, echoing across the wreckage.
They forced Cassian down onto the glass-strewn platform. Smoke curled around the crumpled remains of the airship, and from the edge of the rubble, Thorne approached perfect posture, unburned, unsinged. Not a mark on him.
Cassian looked up.
And his brother smiled.
"I always said you'd be a danger, Cass," Thorne said, just loud enough for only them to hear. "Father should've drowned you in the basin when you started speaking in full sentences at three."
Cassian didn't move.
"But this…" Thorne gestured to the fire behind him. "This was a gift. You framed yourself the moment you thought you were indispensable."
"I never thought that," Cassian rasped.
Thorne's smile widened. "No, but she did."
Cassian turned just as Elira stepped forward, skirts singed at the hem, her eyes wet-not with sorrow, but with heat and triumph.
"Hello, Cassian," she said coolly. "Still performing genius at the gallows?"
"You did this," he whispered.
She crouched so close he could see the thin sheen of powder along her cheekbones, the bloodless precision of her lips. "I gave you every chance to let go. But you kept clinging to the idea that you mattered."
"Elira"
"You're not the man I knew," she cut in. "You're just a mind with teeth. And now you're going to rot in the slums where you always belonged."
She stood, turned to Thorne, and said loud enough for the nobles to hear, "Let him be an example."
Thorne nodded once. "Strip him of title. Burn his name from the Registry."
Cassian's pulse slowed.
He stared at them; his lover and his brother. United. Victorious. Poisoned.
They thought this was the end.
But inside his bloodied palm, the aether key began to warm.
And in that moment, Cassian Vale didn't swear revenge.
He began calculating.