Rovan Ackerman waited until the last servant had left the study before he finally pushed himself toward his brother's room. His arms ached from the earlier training regimen his father insisted he maintain strength, even in a broken body, was still strength. But what exhausted him more wasn't the physical strain.
It was Lyor.
The door to his brother's chamber was half-open, the warm light spilling into the hallway. Lyor lounged on a velvet settee with a glass of something expensive in hand, his dark expression sharpening the moment he saw Rovan.
"You look like you have something to say," Lyor drawled.
Rovan inhaled slowly. "I came to talk as your elder brother. That's all."
Lyor scoffed. "My elder brother?" He leaned forward, smile sharp as a blade. "You sit in a gilded chair with wheels, Rovan. You can't even walk your own steps, and you expect me to believe you can lead mine?"
Rovan didn't raise his voice. He never did. "Father believes in what I can be. I want you to--"
"Oh, stop," Lyor snapped, rising to his feet. "I don't need your pity disguised as wisdom."
"It isn't pity. I'm trying to--"
"To teach me?" Lyor barked a humorless laugh. A laugh to mock him.
Rovan's jaw tightened. He exhaled, letting the sting fade before it could become anger. "I will be going to get some fresh air."
He turned his chair around. Lyor's mocking voice followed him down the hall.
"Yeah, you can't even say you are going out for a walk."
Rovan didn't look back. He only pushed himself toward the back terrace doors, toward air, toward anywhere that wasn't drowning in expectations he didn't ask to carry.
He only wanted a moment of quiet.
But Valenford was rarely quiet.
Not tonight.
Not with a shipwreck boiling the city in rumor.
********
Far from the noble manor, the sea spat out the dead.
Drea stood among broken planks and torn sails, the sting of saltwater drying on her skin. The wreckage crackled as the tide shifted, dragging crates and unrecognizable debris across the shore. Shouts echoed down the stretch of coastline, guards, Syndicate enforcers, and opportunists searching what little survived.
Ace clung to her side, trembling.
"Stay close," she whispered.
She scanned the shoreline. Soldiers in Valenford blue searched systematically. Syndicate men, identifiable even when trying to blend in. Prodded bodies, opened crates, questioned the half-alive survivors.
Drea knew they weren't here for bodies.
They were here for her.
The Syndicate didn't lose prey easily.
She pulled Ace into the shadow of a toppled carriage. Just beyond the dunes, girls in pale gowns and men in tailored coats hurried toward the city, gossip already spreading.
Nobles.
Valenford nobles.
Drea's throat tightened. She glanced down at herself, loose trousers, a weather-stained shirt, soot still clinging to her from the forge. She looked nothing like them.
Which meant she would be noticed.
Which meant Ace would be noticed.
Quickly, she reached for her hair. Her silver curls glinted under the moonlight, distinct, identifiable, dangerous.
She yanked a thin metal stick from her belt, a forged piece she kept for emergencies, and twisted her curls tight, pinning them up. Her fingers trembled, not from fear but urgency. Silver hair drew eyes. Eyes drew questions. Questions drew the Syndicate.
Kai watched silently as she knelt, grabbed a handful of damp sand mixed with coal dust from a cracked crate, and rubbed it into her scalp until her hair darkened to a muddy black. Another handful smeared across her cheeks and forehead, turning her pale complexion unrecognizable.
Ace blinked. "Drea… why are you—?"
She pulled him onto her back, wrapping a torn cloth around both of them like a cloak.
"Hide while I run," she whispered. "No matter what happens, don't show your face."
His arms tightened around her neck. "Okay."
The shouts grew closer.
Drea didn't wait. She sprinted.
******
Valenford's shoreline swarmed with chaos.
People gathered in clusters, whispering about the doomed cargo ship. Lanterns bobbed like fireflies as guards organized lines of survivors. Drea slipped between them, keeping her head low, cloak pulled high.
But the Syndicate was everywhere.
One wrong glance would end everything.
She kept running, weaving through scattered barrels and broken planks until fate decided to trip her.
Her shoulder slammed into something solid, no, someone.
A wheelchair tipped sideways.
The man in it fell hard onto the sand.
Drea froze.
For one heartbeat, one painful, stretched moment she considered running.
She didn't even turn to look at him.
But Ace's voice, small and trembling, whispered right into her ear.
"Drea… he's cripple. You need to help."
Drea squeezed her eyes shut. "I don't have time for this."
Another whisper "Drea…"
Gritting her teeth, she turned back.
The man lay half-propped on his elbows, stunned but silent. His hair was dark, neatly kept; his coat a fine navy trimmed with silver. His aspect speaking nobility. His wheelchair lay on its side, one wheel still spinning.
Drea approached carefully, glancing over her shoulder to ensure no Syndicate eyes were on them.
She knelt, grabbed the wheelchair, and righted it in a swift, practiced motion.
The noble blinked up at her. His eyes sharp, steady, intelligent studied her dirt-darkened face and the small boy clinging to her.
She looked away and muttered, "My life is already cursed. I can't afford more curses by leaving you on the ground."
It was the closest thing to an apology she could offer.
She frantically patted her coat pockets for something, anything to give him in formal apology. Nobles were unpredictable. One insult could doom them both.
But she had nothing.
Nothing except--
Ace tapped her shoulder. "Drea."
He reached up and pulled the metal stick from her hair.
"No....Ace....."
But he had already extended it toward the noble.
Drea's breath caught.
The man accepted it gently, glancing down its length.
The weapon was simple, yet deadly. One end curved into a hooked arc; the other tapered into a sharp point capable of piercing leather, wood, even bone.
And near its base was a small, almost invisible engraving.
A curve. A insignia.
Her father's mark.
Her true identity.
Her forbidden mistake.
She only engraved that mark on weapons she made for herself, never for sale, never again for outsiders. It was the only piece of her father she carried forward, the only legacy she dared to keep.
And now it was in the hands of a stranger.
Drea's heart thrashed against her ribs.
She grabbed Ac's wrist. "We need to go."
Without waiting for an answer, she ran.
Her feet pounded across the sand, cloak billowing, Ace clutching her back with trembling hands. She vanished between two cargo wagons, then into the dark, narrow lane that led toward Valenford's lower ring.
She didn't look back.
Not once.
*****
Rovan Ackerman remained where she left him.
For a long moment, the world around him dimmed into muffled noise, guards shouting, nobles whispering, waves gnawing at the shore.
He lay half-seated in his wheelchair now, someone having helped him back into it, though he barely remembered the motion.
His eyes stayed locked on the empty lane.
She had disappeared like a shadow fleeing dawn.
He exhaled, trying to steady his breath. Everything had happened too quickly to process. A girl coated in soot, running like the ocean itself chased her. A boy clinging to her. A fall. A return. A whispered apology about curses.
It was madness.
Yet it lingered in his mind like a half-remembered dream.
Rovan lowered his gaze to the object in his hand.
The metal stick.
He turned it slowly between his fingers.
Perfectly balanced. Hand-forged. The curve was elegant, purposeful. The point sharpened with a precision he had only seen in master artisans. This wasn't scrap metal. This was craft.
But the mark carved near its base…
Rovan traced it gently.
A insignia he recognized.
Barely, but he did.
He had seen it in a book once. A journal of abandoned forges, lost craftsmen, missing legacies. The same mark appeared there, belonging to a vanished blacksmith whose works were said to rival noble weaponry.
A mark believed to be extinct.
"Impossible," he whispered.
Why would a girl like her carry a weapon with that sigil? Why hide her hair, her face? Why be so afraid?
Why run from him as though he might drag her into chains?
Wind brushed across his face, carrying the distant cries of Syndicate men still searching the wreckage.
The Syndicate.
Rovan's grip tightened around the metal stick.
Whatever she was running from. Whatever danger followed her. It was already too close to Valenford's gates.
He turned the weapon again, examining the engraving under the moonlight.
It was her identity.
Her history.
Her warning.
Rovan closed his fist around it, gaze fixed on the dark lane she vanished into.
"Who are you?" he whispered to the night.
The sea answered with another broken wave.
And somewhere, deep in the twisting streets of Valenford, a girl with soot-darkened hair and a boy clinging to her back vanished into the shadows bringing with them a storm that House Ackerman had no idea was coming.