The dampness of the dungeons wasn't just a smell; it was a weight. It clung to the back of Olivier's throat, tasting of saltpeter and rot.
He held a single tallow candle, its flame sputtering in the drafty corridor. Behind him, Gaston Moreau hovered, his footsteps hesitant on the slick stone.
"Your Highness, I must protest," Gaston whispered, his voice echoing off the moss-covered arches. "The girl hasn't been purified. If the Church finds out you've entered the cell of a Soulbound without a priest... the scandal alone would be ruinous."
Olivier didn't slow down. "The Church isn't here, Gaston. Gravity and moisture are. And right now, the moisture is ruining my boots."
He stopped in front of a heavy iron grate. The air here felt different. It wasn't just cold—it was charged. The fine hairs on Olivier's forearms stood on end. It was a sensation he knew better than his own name: the prickling tension of a high-voltage field before a storm.
"Open it," Olivier commanded.
"Sir—"
"The key, Gaston. Or I'll find a heavy rock and do it the loud way."
With a trembling hand, the accountant produced a heavy iron key. The lock groaned, a rusted protest that set Olivier's teeth on edge. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The girl was huddled in the corner, a heap of grey rags against the wet stone. She didn't look up. Her breathing was ragged, shallow.
Olivier crouched, keeping a respectful distance—not out of fear, but out of observation. He held the candle closer. "I'm told you're a vessel for lost spirits," he said softly. "That you're a walking blasphemy."
The girl flinched, pulling her knees tighter to her chest. "Kill me and be done with it," she rasped. "The humming... just make the humming stop."
Olivier's eyes sharpened. The humming.
"Is it a sound?" he asked, leaning in. "Or is it a vibration? Like your blood is trying to move faster than your heart allows?"
For the first time, she looked up. Her eyes were a startling, luminous amber, pupils blown wide. "How do you know?"
"I spent my life chasing that hum," Olivier muttered, reaching out.
"Don't!" Gaston hissed from the doorway. "She'll burn you!"
Olivier ignored him. He stripped the glove from his right hand and reached toward the girl's tattered sleeve. As his fingertips brushed the fabric, a bright blue spark snapped between them—a violent discharge of static that cracked like a whip.
Olivier didn't flinch. He grinned.
"Arc discharge," he whispered, his heart racing. "Gaston, she isn't cursed. She's a capacitor."
"A... what?" Gaston blinked, looking as though the Prince had started speaking in tongues.
"She's accumulating a charge. The atmosphere in this swamp is thick with ions, and for some reason—biological, most likely—she's acting as a lightning rod." Olivier looked at the girl, his gaze no longer one of pity, but of professional fascination. "They call you Soulbound because you can't control the output. You're leaking energy, and it hurts, doesn't it?"
The girl stared at him, her terror momentarily eclipsed by bewilderment. "It... it feels like fire under my skin. All the time."
"Because you have no ground," Olivier said. He stood up and looked around the cell, his mind working at the speed of a spinning turbine. "We need copper. Or iron. Long rods, driven deep into the earth. And wire—thin, conductive wire."
"Your Highness," Gaston interrupted, his voice reaching a pitch of genuine panic. "The Commander is already meeting with the local clergy. They are calling your 'deliberation' a lapse in judgment. If you bring this... this anomaly into the light, you won't just be an exile. You'll be a martyr."
Olivier turned, the candle light casting long, sharp shadows across his face. The "useless prince" was gone; in his place was the man who had died trying to light the world.
"Let them call the priests," Olivier said, his voice cold and precise. "Hugo thinks power comes from a sword. The Church thinks it comes from the sky. They're both right, and they're both wrong."
He looked back at the girl. "What is your name?"
She hesitated. "Elara."
"Well, Elara, I'm going to move you to the north tower. It's the highest point in Ashbourne, and the dampest." He offered her a hand—not the gloved hand of a royal, but the calloused hand of a builder. "You're not a curse. You're the first component of my new grid."
"I don't understand," she whispered, looking at his palm.
"You don't have to," Olivier said, a reckless spark in his grey eyes. "But by tomorrow night, I'm going to show you something this world hasn't seen since the dawn of time."
He glanced at the sputtering tallow candle in Gaston's hand and smirked.
"We're going to retire the candles, Gaston. All of them."
The move was made under the cover of a freezing rain. Olivier watched from the tower window as Elara was led up the spiral stairs, wrapped in heavy wool.
He didn't sleep. He couldn't. His room was littered with sketches—not of coats of arms or tactical maps, but of Leyden jars, insulators, and primitive filaments.
The Kingdom of Cinderfall was a dark, stagnant pond. It needed a shock to the system.
"Step one," Olivier muttered, sketching a rough diagram of a lightning attractor. "Find a way to survive the night. Step two... invent the future."
He looked out at the dark town of Ashbourne, where the only lights were the flickering, orange glows of dying wood fires.
"Just wait," he whispered to the shadows. "I'm going to turn the lights on."