The Valemont estate rose from the cliffside like a cathedral built to spite heaven.
Beneath its marble floors ran catacombs older than the kingdom itself — tunnels lined with jars, bones, and whispers.
This was where Ace's father kept his collections.
The Duke sat at a long oak table, a goblet of black wine trembling in his hand. His face was a ruin of age and arrogance, eyes like two embers that refused to die.
"You parade your tricks before the King," the old man rasped, "and you call it medicine?"
"You call it trickery because you cannot comprehend it," Ace said.
"I call it arrogance. You play at gods and think yourself clean because you use gloves."
Ace poured himself a drink, the liquid catching the light like blood.
"And you play at power and call it virtue. We're not so different, Father."
The Duke's laugh was low, hollow.
"You mistake cunning for strength. I crushed men with armies, not scalpels."
"And yet here you sit," Ace murmured, "rotting from the inside, drinking the poisons you paid priests to bless."
The Duke slammed the goblet down, shattering it.
"You think your mind makes you invincible, boy? The world eats its clever sons first."
Ace turned toward the shelves — a thousand labeled jars, each holding what the Duke had taken from those who crossed him: a tooth, a ring, a fragment of bone.
A noble lineage preserved like a morgue.
He traced one jar with a finger. "Tell me, Father. When you die, shall I keep your heart among them — or mount it in the hall as a warning?"
The Duke's silence was answer enough.
As Ace left, the old man's voice followed him down the stone corridor.
"Remember, Ace. The gods you mock are patient. They always collect what is owed."
Ace smiled in the dark.
"Then I'll make them wait.".
Scene II – The Princess and the Scalpel
The next evening, Lyra found him alone in the royal infirmary — the chamber lit by a hundred trembling candles.
Glass vials lined the counters like votive offerings. In their reflections, Ace looked almost holy — and yet entirely profane.
She stepped closer.
"They say the girl you revived is screaming now. That she begs for death."
He didn't look up from the dissection table.
"She should be grateful. Few receive the gift of extra hours."
"You call that a gift?"
"I call it proof. Her pain teaches us the limits of life."
Lyra's voice hardened.
"You measure souls the way butchers measure meat."
He glanced at her, the faintest flicker of amusement in his eyes.
"Better that than priests who measure salvation by coin."
She stepped closer still — close enough to smell the sharp tang of alchemical smoke.
"You talk of order, of knowledge… but I think you only crave control. You want the world to kneel under your knife."
"Perhaps," he said quietly. "And what do you crave, Princess?"
Her breath caught. "To be free of monsters."
He smiled — slow, deliberate.
"Freedom requires monsters to define it."
She flinched. "You're not a healer. You're a disease."
"Then pray I'm contagious."
For a heartbeat, silence stretched between them — fragile, electric.
The flicker of candlelight caught her eyes, and he saw not fear there, but fury… and fascination.
"One day," she whispered, "someone will stop you."
"Then I'll dissect the method they use," he murmured, "and perfect it."
Lyra turned and walked away, skirts sweeping the marble.
But she didn't look back — because she knew if she did, she might never leave.
When the door closed, Ace stood alone, staring at the blood still glistening on his gloves.
It trembled faintly — not from exhaustion, but something far more dangerous.
Interest.