The city never slept. Its lungs were furnaces, heartbeat—the pounding of hammers on iron, bloodline of hissing steam pumping through endless pipes. Daylight lit a skyline forest of smokestacks, coughing black clouds into the heavens. By night, the glow of molten brass painted shadowy darkness in bruised shades of orange and red. From a distance, Braxmond looked less like a city and more like a spiderweb of forges where endless productivity of metal work presses on for eternity.
At the industrial center, rising higher than any other structure, stood the Kuznetsov Exhibition Hall—a cathedral not to faith, but to invention. Its brass dome gleamed even through soot, supported by pillars holding gearwork. Inside, my father's esteemed acolytes gathered that evening: aristocrats in tailored waistcoats, merchants with watch-chains glittering on their bellies, and apprentices in coal-stained tunics who had fought their way just to glimpse history.
They had come to see the impossible.
I stood on the balcony above them all, one hand gripping the rail lightly while the other held a glass of prestigious wine. At fifteen and already tall for my age, I wore a crisp black-and-gold suit of my family's house, its precious buttons polished to a mirror shine. A golden metal pinned on my chest bore the sigil of my line: a single gear encircling a flame.
To the crowd, I was the Kuznetsov heir—the boy who would someday inherit factories, wealth, and perhaps even control of the city. But standing there in the glow of gas lamps and electric light, I felt misplaced. I was a young man already tired of parties and galas. A golden gear in someone else's machine but not my own.
My father's voice thundered behind me, "Stand tall, Rhylorin. The city is watching."
Lord Gregor Kuznetsov was a man carved from iron. His beard was streaked with brass dust; his broad shoulders wrapped in a coat embroidered with dark rubies on the shoulders. When he spoke, people listened—not because they wanted to, but because his words carried the weight of nobility.
"Yes, Father," I murmured, straightening.
Gregor's hand clapped my shoulder, heavy as a vice. "Tonight, we show them what we are. Not just merchants, not just engineers. Tonight, we rise above the smoke."
Below, the Exhibition Hall shifted into place. With a crack that sounded like giant gears breaking, the doors at the far end groaned open. Steam wafted from the main factory floor as proud men stood stoic around the invention they had spent blood, sweat, and tears to create. And from the shadows emerged the thing that had consumed years of labor and fortunes of coin. The airship was born.
It glided forward on wheels, its brass hull gleaming, rivets catching the lamplight like stars. Gasbags stretched above it, stitched from fabric treated with oil and chemical varnish, strong enough to hold heated vapor without tearing. Along its flanks, wings of polished brass folded tight, each feather a separate plate that could fan open to steer the vessel. Pipes ran its length, vibrating faintly, carrying steam from its furnace heart. The embodiment of Braxmond taking the form of a bird, I thought.
Across the newly laid bow, in metallic block letters inked with fire red:
ASCENDANT
The crowd gasped. Some applauded, others crossed themselves, still others muttered that it was witchcraft. My own chest tightened. For all my anticipation, I could not deny the magnificence. It was all that my father promised, but could it fly?
My mind was not focused on this rather mondain affair as my Father and I had disagreement earlier today or rather—his judgment was final regarding me having to ace my upcoming academia exams. In the middle of my sparring lesion with fencing sword nonetheless and truly made me feel worthless in front of my peers.
"Speak," Father commanded just low enough so that only I could hear.
I blinked. "Me?"
"Yes, you," he said in a more authoritative tone. One thing Gregor Kuznetsov hated above all else was repeating himself. "They must hear the voice of tomorrow. Our invention is for your generation, not mine. Tell them what this ship means."
Hundreds of eyes were waiting on my father or I to say something. Expectation pressed down on me as I had only been instructed to stand with him—there was no mention of a speech. My mouth went dry.
Gregor stepped back and I found my voice carrying through the Exhibition Hall, "Citizens of Braxmond…" My words trembled at first but steadied as I continued. "This evening you see not merely a machine, but a promise. For centuries we have labored under smoke and soot. Our world has been bound to iron rails and cobbled roads. But with this vessel…" I gestured to the airship. "…with this vessel, we take to the skies. We prove that man is not chained to the earth, nor to his past. We rise."
The crowd erupted in cheers. Some banged canes on the floor, others shouted my surname. I stepped back, breathless. This contraption better flew, I thought as I caught a glimpse of the most unpleasant grin on my father's face. He never smiled; I could scarcely recall such a display of joy, but nevertheless, his metal jaw and lips showed one now.
"Well spoken, son. You have the fire of a Kuznetsov," he announced to his followers and high noses. "I personally will command the first voyage as captain with this hand-selected crew in front of you."
I nodded, though inside I felt hollow. The fire, if it existed, burned strangely. It was not pride I felt. It was something else—something like fear, but I had never been afraid of anything in my life. As I watched the attendance of privilege in this hall project almost euphoric praise of my father's invention, my mind was truly adrift. Because even as the airship gleamed, I felt it watching me. Not the machine, but something deeper. As though behind its rivets and brass hull lurked eyes of a predator, patient and waiting. I shook the thought away. Nerves. Nothing more, yet when the gas lamps flickered, I swore I saw grains of dust fall through the air, glimmering in the dull ambience like the sand of an hourglass.
The ceremony stretched into speeches and toasts, merchants proclaiming a new age, engineers boasting of valves and pressure gauges. I endured it all with a smile that was not of happiness but a forced expression. My younger cousins darted about, showing off miniature steam-toys to guests. My mother sat like a queen in her velvet gown, accepting flattery as if it were gifted roses.
But I drifted to the edges of the hall, away from the light. I found myself standing beside the airship, its hull warm beneath my touch as I traced rivets with my extended finger. The machine breathed faintly, like a beast at rest. Perhaps this was my unconscious conquering my internal woes.
"Magnificent, isn't it?"
A strange man stood framed by flickering brass lamps, commanding yet unnoticed—silver-grey hair swept back like frozen storm-winds, lending him the air of a scholar maddened by brilliance. His spectacle lenses glowed with unnatural blue light, cosmic currents writhing behind glass, while his pristine white coat bore a lapel pin shaped like a scale encircling an eye and flame—a mark of allegiance to something older and darker than any guild I knew. His face was pale as fresh snow, unmarked by Braxmond's soot, and when he smiled with mechanical precision, the expression never reached those cold, calculating eyes that studied me like a jeweler examining flawed stone. His gaze, though shielded by eerie goggles, laid me bare—every thought, weakness, hesitation exposed—and I realized this was no mere scientist but the architect of some unseen design, whose presence swallowed the space between us, leaving me to wonder whether I faced my greatest rival or the herald of my ruin.
I inclined my head politely. "It is. Lord Gregor is bent on changing the world and believes this will be the inspiration to do so."
"The world does not change so easily," the stranger stated, his voice carrying the chill of winter frost. Each word seemed measured, deliberate, as though he were reciting lines from some ancient scripture. "Some things are fixed by forces beyond mortal ambition. Some..." He paused, one pale finger rising to adjust his spectacles with surgical precision, the wire frames catching the light in brief, silver flashes. "Some resist even the most determined efforts of industrial titans."
There was something in his tone—not quite mockery, yet far from genuine concern. It reminded me of the way business rivals spoke at dinner parties, their words honeyed poison wrapped in silk courtesy. The man's lips curved slightly wider, that mechanical smile deepening as though my father's grand exhibition amused him greatly.
"And you are?" I asked with a frown.
The man bowed slightly. "Merely an observer. One who believes reason, not superstition, should guide our future. Tell me, young heir—do you believe in prophecy?"
"No," I hesitated at first but then proudly declared, "Spiritual revels and magic may have been real at one point; however, I'm more of a practical persuasion and believe prophecy only has a place with the weak-minded or Gypsies."
The man smiled more but looked sinister, as if he had won a card game by cheating. "Good. Then perhaps you will not trouble yourself with the shadow that follows you."
Before I could reply, the stranger melted back into the throng, disappearing like smoke. I felt compelled to learn this man's identity—a commoner or rival infiltrating such a distinguished gathering ought to have been flogged through the thoroughfares. Yet others would uncover the imposter as I moved away from the airship, stepping onto a terrace overlooking the smaller factories below.
Spread out before me were smokestacks like pillars of iron trunks, chimneys breathing fire, rail lines stretching through the city like veins. The air reeked of coal and oil, so thick I could taste it. This was my heritage: brass and smoke.
A ridiculous horn sounded set the stage of a big raffle my father arranged to select which members in attendance would be chosen to ride on the first flight. I knew the truth, though—it was rigged so that only the highest-paid patrons would get to ride.
Where I had been standing, laborers completed final arrangements for the airship's transport when one fellow lurched toward the assembly. He grasped his skull, reeling as if intoxicated. A colleague extended his hand, but the man howled—not speech, but a piercing cry that made crystal fixtures shudder. He crumpled, convulsing, froth spewing from his mouth. I approached for a closer view.
Workers cried out in alarm, voices echoing across the hall. Some stumbled backward, tools clattering as they fled their convulsing colleague. Others stood frozen, staring at foam bubbling from his lips.
Aristocrats huddled together, silk rustling as they pressed like frightened birds. Voices rose in urgent murmurs—speculation about poison, whispers of sabotage. A woman in emerald velvet clutched her pearls so tightly I thought they'd snap.
"What manner of affliction—" began Lord Castellane, my uncle, but his words died as another worker near the boiler gripped his head and wailed.
The man's eyes rolled back—then snapped open, glowing faint red like heated brass. His body convulsed, then moved with unnatural stiffness. He rose in a grotesque lurch, jaw cracking wider than possible, as though hinges replaced bone. The furnace wheezed, pipes rattled.
"Contain him!" Father shouted. "Get him out!"
But the worker moved like a marionette, lunging at the nearest apprentice.
"Blood into brass. Brass into life. Life into dominion."
The words came metallic, ground through gears. The apprentice screamed as hands clamped his throat. Chaos erupted. I froze, legs refusing to move—and suddenly I wasn't near the balcony.
I was inside the worker's mind.
The hall vanished. I stood in darkness filled with clattering wheels. Sand poured endlessly, burying the floor in glowing tide. The worker hung shackled to a massive cog, twisted each turn. Above, a shadow whispered.
"You are mine. Brass is life."
I stumbled back. "Let him go!"
The silhouette turned—no face but gaping jaw filled with metal fangs. "I sensed something unusual about you..."
Darkness swirled around my legs. I couldn't breathe, sinking deeper.
"Rhylorin!" A hand gripped my arm, and the vision fractured. I returned to the balcony, breathless, soaked in cool sweat. My mother was next to me, frantic. "What are you doing? The guards are ushering us away—your father will be furious that his distinguished occasion has been disrupted. All the women will be talking about us. This is so mortifying!"
We were guided to our chambers as I glimpsed the worker one final time—he looked utterly broken now. Iron shackles bound his wrists, metal links jangling as guards hauled him off. His eyes no longer blazed with that eerie light; instead he sobbed, trying to form words through what was obviously a broken jaw. What in hell had I just seen? Had that thing—whatever it was—truly spoken to me? Had it sensed something in me? And had I been caught in the same enchantment? The way the darkness had wrapped around my legs, the suffocating sensation... was I becoming like that poor worker? These thoughts plagued me as Mother, and I climbed the winding stairs.