The carriage wheels crunched over the cobblestones, their rhythmic grinding a stark contrast to the unusual silence that had settled over Braxmond's normally thunderous industrial heart. The ever-present veil of smoke and steam had thinned to wisps, revealing glimpses of actual sky—a sight so rare it felt almost otherworldly. Mother sat across from me, resplendent in emerald silk that caught the filtered sunlight, her golden hair wound into an elaborate crown befitting her station. This was the week of Madam Asena's Magnificent Carnival, and it was almost terrifying to witness the great furnaces standing cold, the hammers silent, the very soul of our brass city stilled. For the first time in memory, nothing was being forged, nothing crafted, nothing made. The absence of creation felt like holding one's breath.
Yet the people didn't seem unhappy—quite the opposite. Through the carriage window, I watched small crowds shepherding excited children toward the city's edge where colorful pavilions and striped tents promised wonders. Laughter carried on the cleaner air, a sound so foreign in Braxmond that it might have been birdsong. This was also the last day of classes while the Gypsies remained within our borders—a concession Father had fought bitterly in Parliament.
"I can hardly believe Father allowed you to accompany me," I ventured, testing the waters of today's unexpected tranquility. The words felt careful on my tongue, weighted with the memory of last night's confrontation.
Her lips curved into that cryptic smile I knew so well—the same expression of quiet defiance she wore when my dreams troubled me and Father demanded rational explanations. "I listen to your father's counsel, my dear son, but my will remains my own. He may command the factories and Parliament, but he doesn't control me." She adjusted her emerald gloves with deliberate grace. "Besides, Lord Gregor is beside himself with all this industrial progress being halted for mere carnival festivities. He's spending this very morning attempting to make such disruptions illegal through permanent parliamentary policy. Just another battle being waged by the Mortal Instruments Order, I'm afraid."
The gentle swaying of the carriage lulled us into comfortable rhythm, but the fervor of last night's vivid dream had left me sensitive to every nuance, every unspoken current flowing between us. "Mother, may I ask something that's been weighing on my mind—about my grandfather, about Lord Mikhail?"
Her cornflower-blue eyes clouded briefly, like sunlight passing behind storm clouds, resurfacing memories long kept buried beneath layers of propriety and pain. "A harsh man, Rhylorin. Unforgiving iron bound his heart where mercy should have dwelt. He measured all of humanity in terms of legacy and accumulated power, nothing more."
"But he disapproved of you specifically?" I pressed gently, sensing the edge of a story that might explain the shadows that sometimes crossed her face when Father spoke of family honor.
A wistful, almost melancholy expression touched her features—the weight of an old bridge crossed under duress, with no possibility of return. "Your grandfather saw me as an interloper from the very beginning. House Avarthi and House Kuznetsov were never natural allies, you see. My family traced our roots to Tundrathan before the great exodus, and there our name—House Avarthi—is still whispered with a mixture of awe and superstitious reverence." She paused, fingers tracing the embroidered edge of her sleeve. "There were two suitors competing for my hand in marriage when I came of age: the dreadful Lord Bastien Veynar, whom Mikhail favored for his industrial connections, and your father."
"Heaven preserve us, Mother," I said with genuine distaste, imagining that alternative fate. "What thoroughly dreadful options you faced, though I count myself extraordinarily fortunate not to have been born into House Veynar's cold embrace—truly a genuine blessing of fate's design."
"Indeed it was," she nodded, a shadow of old pain flickering across her features. "Here in Braxmond, after my parents fled the mystical trials and political upheavals of our true homeland, we found ourselves relegated to the status of merely lesser aristocrats, accepted but never fully trusted. But history runs deeper than surface appearances, my son. Blood carries memory, and memory never truly forgets its origins."
I listened with growing intensity, seeing in her quiet grief and carefully chosen words the profound crossroads of identity she'd been forced to traverse. The weight of her sacrifice—leaving behind whatever mystical heritage House Avarthi represented—suddenly felt enormous. "Grandfather Mikhail couldn't see past old rivalries and industrial calculations. He would have dismissed any talk of prophecy or inherited gifts as mere superstition, wouldn't he?"
She leaned closer across the carriage's narrow space, sharing confidences that felt both intimate and dangerous. "He never approved of my union with your father, viewing me more as a potential threat to family stability than as an ally to the Kuznetsov legacy. But sometimes, my dear boy, the heart's threads weave patterns in ways that calculating eyes simply cannot perceive or control."
Her silk-gloved palms cupped my face for a tender moment, her presence anchoring me against the storm of questions and uncertainties that had been building since the factory incident. The familiar scent of her lavender perfume mixed with something deeper, more mysterious—like incense from distant temples.
"There's a vastness hidden within dreams, Rhylorin, and also within the legacies we inherit whether we choose them or not. Never allow yourself to feel permanently bound by the judgments and limitations others have imposed. Your path may lead where none have walked before."
I held the gilded pocket watch Father had given me, feeling its steady tick like a heartbeat against my palm, sensing somehow that it connected me to threads of family history I barely understood. The carriage ride seemed to exist outside normal time—suspended in this cocoon of maternal wisdom and shared secrets—before the imposing stone facade of Braxmond Academy materialized through the window.
"Thank you, Mother, truly," I whispered as the carriage drew to a halt, my voice thick with gratitude for truths finally shared. "For everything you've told me, and for everything you've protected me from."
Her parting touch, light as butterfly wings on my shoulder, seemed to carry forward with me as I stepped down onto the cobblestones. The academy's wrought-iron gates loomed ahead like grasping metallic roots twisted into elaborate patterns, their black paint gleaming wetly in the filtered sunlight. Beyond them, the familiar limestone corridors waited.
Inside the academy's hallowed halls, the air felt unnaturally thick with anticipation and barely suppressed excitement. Whispered conversations died as I passed, only to resume in urgent undertones behind me. My classmates practically vibrated with eagerness to escape these stone walls and explore the carnival's promised wonders—exotic performances, fortune tellers, games of chance, and mysteries from distant Tundrathan. But as I strode purposefully between familiar faces, holding my head high despite the weight of recent events, I sensed far more than casual curiosity in the glances cast my way.
The factory incident had spread through the school like wildfire racing through dry wheat; Rajnish's inflammatory accusations and the Mortal Instruments Order's propaganda had seen to that. An uncomfortable weight settled across my shoulders like an invisible cloak. Where my presence had once commanded automatic respect as heir to the Kuznetsov industrial empire, now suspicion lingered in every sideways look, clinging like persistent smoke to suggest I might be dangerous, unstable, or worse—touched by the very supernatural forces our rational society had worked so hard to suppress.