ALISTAIR CARNADE
Being born into the royal family, I had always believed the luxuries I basked in within the ancestral halls were meant for me—my birthright. Servants who bowed low, never daring to meet my eyes as I passed, feasts laid out with delicacies the common folk couldn't even dream of, and every desire fulfilled with a single command.
I barely remembered my mother, her presence reduced to fragmented memories tucked away in the corners of my childhood. My father, though—he was the axis around which my world spun. The shield who stood before me when nobles sneered, the hand that brushed away my fears, the ever-smiling man whose charm lit up every room and whose affection made me believe I was special. I worshipped him. I would have died for him.
But that same man harbored darkness so vile it made my blood run cold when I discovered the truth. His love, his pride, his affection... all of it had been a carefully crafted illusion. A mask to use me for his own ambitions. And it wasn't just him. It was the entire royal bloodline—tainted, manipulative, rotten to the core beneath gilded crowns and practiced smiles.
My father wasn't a hero. The kingdom wasn't pure. And the truth seemed to twist and slither its way back to one chilling name—The Sovereigns.
The moment I laid eyes on the Sovereign's Artifact, a chill danced across my skin, raising goosebumps in its wake. My breath hitched, and my eyes widened as I took in the sight before me—The black cane wrapped in dusty, white cloth strips, carved from ancient black wood. There it was. One step forward towards my goal.
I clenched the handle of my paddle, knuckles turning white from the force. But just as I was about to raise it, someone's hand shot up. My eyes snapped forward, locking onto a boy two rows ahead. Dark hair fading into icy white at the tips, dressed in a black suit adorned with scattered silver ornaments.
Who is he?
"Ah! We have a bid! One hundred pounds sterling to the gentleman with paddle 32. Do I hear two hundred?"
My paddle rose declaring my bid.
"Oh? We have.....another bidder!"
The auctioneer's voice carried through the chamber, clipped and rehearsed, but it faltered for a beat when his eyes met mine. A flicker of curiosity surfaced in his gaze and suddenly, every pair of eyes in the room felt like they were on me.
In the blur of faces, I felt it before I saw him—a presence, magnetic. Turning slightly, I locked eyes with a boy whose stare held a weight beyond the moment. He sat beside the bidder, his companion perhaps, but it was him who held galaxies in his irises. Midnight hair glinted with an amethyst sheen under the dim chandeliers, and in that gaze—I felt recognition. I couldn't say how long the moment lasted and it was becoming awkward. So I tilted my head and smiled, as if to say You win. Or maybe Hello.
I'd been quite sure I had a chance at winning the black cane—until the auctioneer, clearly enjoying himself far too much, interrupted again.
"Oooooo! Is the owner of the house himself bidding now? How exciting! Anyone brave enough to stand against him? Anyone with heavier purses? Bigger guts?"
Owner of the house!
My gaze lifted to the highest point in the room—the private box veiled in scarlet velvet, wreathed in golden trim. I'd seen grandeur before—grander, even—back in the ancestral halls. But since leaving that world behind, I knew… I wasn't ready to stand against him.
Rubert Taylon, owner of the auction house. But what gripped me more than his wealth or power was what he knew. He was one of the few who understood the secrets of the Sovereigns. Eventually, our paths would cross. And when they did, I would have only two choices. To ally with him. Or to oppose him.
"Ten Million sterling pounds!" he announced—no paddle raised, no gesture offered—the highest bid of this evening. I glanced at the two boys, and a thought crept in—dangerous, clever, and entirely unkind. Stealing from them would be child's play compared to challenging Taylon.
But no one moved. Not a soul.
Who would've figured anyone but royals even knew what Sovereign power really was? Clearly, I was the one walking in blind. The cane was beyond me, for now.
"Ten million pounds sterling for Rubert Taylon! One..." The auctioneer raised his hand, voice trembling with anticipation. "Twooooo..." His whole frame leaned forward, joy swelling like a man possessed, ready to break into dance. "Threeeeeeeeeeeeeee—" The final syllable never came. Silence smothered the chamber like a heavy velvet curtain.
Then, from nowhere—and everywhere—a voice broke through. Soft. Not feminine, but gentle. Old, cracked with age, yet warm like honey left on the tongue too long. It was soothing and comforting but it felt wrong, like a lullaby sung in a graveyard.
"London Bridge is falling down, Falling down, falling down...My fair lady."
Then again.
"London Bridge is falling down...Falling down, falling down, my fair lady…"
I sensed a foreign presence dip and weave through my mind, seeking and probing every which way. Every place it brushed sent numbness through my body like an anaesthetic drug was working on my neurons. But this was no drug. It was manipulation magic. High-tier, maybe even ancient. The kind that targeted the mind and bypassed the body entirely.
The very air inside the house thickened into silence. Faces froze in rigid masks. I couldn't move, couldn't blink. Only the rhyme—London Bridge...—echoed softly, endlessly, as darkness swallowed everything.
A mage? The thought flickered somewhere deep inside me, half-formed and drifting through the fog of intrusion. I couldn't let this force subsume me any more than it already had. I had to fight it, to oppose it and repel it with my own magic. My focus constricted, the effort of keeping each fragment of my identity intact unleashing waves of agony through my mind and eyes.
A metaphysical barricade materialized within the synaptic interstice of my encephalon enshrouding it like a veil.
I summoned a flood of my own magic and thrust it forward, pouring every drop of focus into the effort until I drove back the encroaching malignance, and the spell finally fractured.
As the haze of my vision began to clear, the world reshaped itself in peculiar hues, and there—on the stage—stood a figure. He wore a vest in all the riotous shades of a rainbow, tempered only slightly by the stark white of his coat. A gentleman in the loosest sense, with a black hat perched atop long silver hair and a mustache that curled like calligraphy ink in water. In one hand, he held a white cane—a proper one, as opposed to the ancient relic. He looked like he'd stepped from the pages of some twisted carnival story, part magician, part menace.
But as my eyes met his, I realized I hadn't just seen him—he had seen me too. Not the way a man sees a stranger, but as a predator notices the one creature not running from the fire. His smile unfurled slowly, deliberate and full of dark satisfaction, as if he'd just confirmed a suspicion he hoped would be true
"No wonder, the infamous boy of the Carnades would slip my hold so easily. You put up quite the fight. Admirable!" He gave a chuckle that sounded rehearsed, scratching his chin as if the motion might stir some mighty thought from that odd-looking head of his. "But tell me—what's someone like you doing in a place like this? Looking for something, are you? A token of affection? A gift for your sweetheart, perhaps?"!
He gasped, hand flying to his chest in mock shock. "Oh, don't tell me! You're here for that old stick of firewood?" He pointed toward the glass case, where the black cane was laid.
I rose slowly from my seat, my body tense. I could already feel my aphenes activating, writing across my skin like an interface syncing with battle-mode.
"Who are you… and why do you want it?"
"What?" he blinked at me like I'd just asked something absurd.
"Relic of Sovereign Darius L Malcom."
"Hoah! Sovereign huh! And tell me this, bright boy—why in the god's name would I slaughter an entire security force, spell-bind a room full of high-blood nobles, and throw this grand little circus just to get my wrinkled hands on a relic of some crusty old man who lived—what?—a few millennia ago?"
"Don't spin me, bastard! I know what you're—"
"Jonathan!" the old man introduced himself. "That's my name. Jonathan. And considering I'm likely older than your dear grandfather, perhaps a bit of manners wouldn't go amiss? That sort of language really doesn't suit a prince, you know."
"I'm not a prince!" I shouted.
"And I'm not a bastard!" He crossed his arms like a child denied sweets, lips curled into an exaggerated pout. "Honestly, where do they teach manners these days?"
"Who you are doesn't matter now! Jonathan or whatever, I won't let you have your way forward." I finished my warning even as I caught the knife meant for my throat. Turning, I found not a shadowed assassin but a bloated noble—moon-faced, belly distended, absurdly out of place with blade in hand. His movements were jerky, unnatural. I sidestepped, barely dodging another slash, and grabbed his wrist mid-swing. His eyes didn't blink. His face was vacant—like no one was home. I twisted just enough to disarm him, then pushed him back.
Then I heard glass break.
More footsteps. More of them were rising. The entire front row—nobles in gowns and tuxedos—their limbs moved like puppets pulled by too many invisible strings. One woman tore off a high heel and hurled it at me. Another snapped a chair leg and came at me like it was a club. I backed up, ducking a bottle that whistled past my head.
As the fragments aligned in my mind, comprehension settled in.
A puppeteer. He isn't just stilling their bodies… he is controlling them entirely
I ducked a slash of the man with the chair leg, grabbed his arm, spun him toward the wall. He crashed harmlessly into velvet seats, but I had no time to breathe. Another woman with a silver hair pin lunged — too close. I leaned back, and used my knee to knock her off balance. Her pearl necklace snapped and I caught the pieces mid-air, and with a whisper of will, wrapped the fine silver chain around her arms like a soft trap.
That's two.
Another man threw a chair at me. I lifted my hand and the brass nails flew from its joints mid-air and sent it crashing into splinters before it reached me in multiple parts.
Then came a child, charging with nothing but a plastic toy. I couldn't manipulate plastic—only metal bent to my command—but silencing him with a firm slap, like an angry mother, was enough. But the mob was swelling. Fast. I couldn't hold them much longer. I needed a large-range spell. Now.
My hands opened and I felt the pull of the metal around me as my Aphenes began to code themselves. I reached it out without touching. A ripple answered.
Spoons shook on silver platters. The chandelier's chain rattled softly. I clenched into ball fists and curtain rods unhooked themselves from the walls, slithering like snakes and coiling around legs and ankles, pulling them gently but firmly down. It was like conducting a symphony of restraint.
By the time I turned back, the old magician was already cradling the cane like a rapier. "I'd rather fight you directly. That would at least be fair."
"Pardon my manners—for the sake of your sincerity young child,I guess i should be sincere too". I braced, expecting power to swell. But instead, he grinned wickedly and shouted, "Zinph! Come out and ravage. It's your time to shine, young lad!"
An unsettling feeling loomed over me, so heavy it crushed the breath from my lungs. My knees buckled, collapsing to the floor as instinct kicked in—I flooded my body with magic, augmenting every nerve, every muscle. What kind of monster had he summoned?. For the first time in a long while, I felt like a child-an actual, helpless child in front of the boogeyman.
The domed ceiling above the dais cracked—then tore apart, cleaving clean in half. The walls trembled. It was like the auction house itself was being devoured. Chandeliers crashed down splintering into twisted gold and shattered glass. Lights exploded. The floor quaked. People bound by my metal spells, and those still trapped by Jonathan's magic, couldn't even scream. The dust swallowed them first. Then the stone devouring their lives.
As the ceiling split into two collapsing slabs, a gust of air roared downward—followed by the slow, thunderous beat of enormous wings. They were white, but not heavenly. Their feathers were yellowing, browned with rot and decay, eaten away by unseen parasites. Dust clung thickly to them, like a dove once pure had crashed into filth and clawed its way free.
Then he appeared.
One phrase echoed through my mind: Tainted angel.
He wore tattered robes, draping in shreds that oddly resembled the wrappings around the black cane. In his hand, a red spear took form—its hue not painted, but soaked in the blood of countless fallen. Without hesitation, I pulled every shard of metal to me, forged them into sharpened spikes, and launched them at Zinph. He only gazed down—and spun his crimson spear. Every spike shattered like glass.
Then he was upon me—his crimson spear aimed straight for my heart. I reacted in an instant, metallic tendrils lashing out to seize the shaft. Using it as leverage, I pivoted and drove my foot hard into Zinph's side, sending him hurtling away through the air. But even as he drifted back, I wasn't done. I yanked him toward me with a surge of metal, tendrils spiraling around his spear, dragging him into range. I reeled in my fist for a clean strike—only for him to twist mid-air and deliver a sharp, punishing kick to the side of my head.
Dazed, I staggered back and widened the distance. My hands thrust forward, palms open. A swarm of metal slithers surged ahead. Zinph shot backward, cleaving through the serpentine coils with brutal precision. They chased him still—growing, twisting, living torrents of steel—but he moved faster, slicing through each one in a blur of crimson motion.
If I had any hope against him, I need to figure out how to reach him. I concentrated on the coiling streams of metal and mentally felt around them. A black wave of metal surged to life front of me just in time to deflect a sweeping cut aimed at my neck.
I gritted my teeth. I couldn't forge yet—not real weapons or reinforced structures. My aphenes were underdeveloped, barely reawakened after years of dormancy.
I had to act—my focus tightened at the sound of metallic slithers. Zinph descended, spear blurring crimson through the air. I met each strike with slashes and spikes of steel, rising to my feet, matching the angel blow for blow—until his spear found flesh, driving deep into my stomach.