The carriage smelled of lavender and polished leather, a hermetically sealed bubble of wealth moving through the streets of Oakhaven.
Kael Ravenshade sat against the plush velvet cushions, his hand resting on the silver head of a cane. He didn't need the cane—at least, not as much as he pretended to—but it was a useful prop. It signaled fragility. It made people look at the stick instead of his eyes.
"We are approaching Madam Stitch's, My Lord," the driver, Old Garret, called from the front. "Finest tailor in the Upper District. Lord Rowan insisted they use the imported silk for your gala suit."
Kael looked out the window. The Upper District rolled by in a blur of white marble and manicured ivy. Citizens walked with their heads high, wearing bright colors. Shops displayed cakes, jewels, and mana-lamps in pristine glass windows.
It was a paradise. A golden cage built on a lie.
Kael felt a phantom itch in his palms. His mana was restless today. The Gray Core was spinning slowly in his chest, hungry for activity. The peacefulness of the Upper District felt suffocating, like a blanket pressed over his face.
"Garret," Kael said. His voice was soft, but it carried through the partition.
"Yes, Young Master?"
"Turn left at the next intersection."
There was a pause. The carriage wheels clattered rhythmically against the cobblestones.
"My Lord... left?" Garret's voice was confused. "That leads to the Iron Bridge. That's the way to the Industrial Sector and... well, the Lower Districts."
"I know," Kael said. "I wish to see the river."
"But the river view is better from the Promenade, sir. The Iron Bridge is... it's for cargo wagons. It smells of coal. And the people there..." Garret trailed off, the distaste evident.
"Turn left, Garret."
It wasn't a request. Kael pitched his voice perfectly—not loud, but infused with a sliver of the command aura he had used to lead armies in his past life. It was a tone that bypassed logic and struck directly at the instinct to obey.
The horses veered left.
The transition was immediate. As they crossed the massive Iron Bridge that spanned the Oakhaven River, the white marble vanished, replaced by soot-stained brick and rusting metal. The air grew heavier, tasting of sulfur and stagnant water.
Kael leaned forward, pressing his pale face closer to the glass.
Below them, the river was a sluggish, brown artery. And on the other bank lay the Lower District. The Dregs.
"Lock the doors, My Lord," Garret called back, his voice tight with anxiety. "We shouldn't stop here. It isn't safe."
Kael clicked the lock, but he didn't lean back. He watched.
The buildings here were piled atop one another like a tumor, wooden shacks leaning precariously against crumbling stone tenements. Clotheslines strung between buildings dripped gray water onto the muddy streets.
And the people.
Kael's eyes, sharpened by his Abyssal Respiration, took in every detail.
He saw a man sitting in the mud, his legs swollen with edema, staring blankly at the carriage.
He saw a woman washing clothes in a puddle that shimmered with oil.
He saw children.
That was what hit him hardest. In the Upper District, children played with clockwork toys and ran in parks. Here, children sat still. They didn't run. They didn't play. They conserved energy.
Starvation mode, Kael's tactical mind analyzed cold and fast. Low muscle mass. Distended bellies. Pallid skin indicating vitamin deficiency. This isn't poverty. This is a famine.
"Why?" Kael whispered.
Oakhaven was the jewel of the continent. The trade reports Finn left on the desk spoke of record surpluses in grain and mana crystals. There was enough food. Why was it not here?
The carriage slowed as the street narrowed, clogged by a broken-down coal wagon.
"Apologies, My Lord," Garret grumbled. "Traffic. Filthy wagons."
They were stuck.
Kael watched a scene unfold in an alleyway just ten feet from his window.
A baker's cart was parked there, guarded by a burly man with a club. A small boy, no older than seven, was inching toward a loaf of bread that had fallen into the dirt. The bread was ruined, caked in mud.
The boy snatched it.
The guard moved. He didn't shout. He didn't shoo the boy away. He swung the club.
Crack.
The sound was dull and wet. It struck the boy's shoulder. The child collapsed into the mud, curling into a ball, but he didn't drop the bread. He shoved the muddy loaf into his mouth, chewing frantically even as he screamed.
He was eating through the pain. He feared hunger more than he feared the beating.
Kael's hand crushed the silver head of his cane. The metal groaned under the sudden, impossible pressure of his grip.
Kill him, the War God instinct whispered. Shatter the guard's knee. Throat punch. End it.
Kael's hand moved to the door handle.
Stop, the Rational Mind countered. You are a cripple. You are the heir of a noble house. If you step out and fight, you blow your cover. You expose Rowan. You lose the element of surprise against the true enemy.
He froze, his hand trembling on the latch.
The guard raised the club again.
"Hey!"
A woman rushed out from a nearby shack—the mother, presumably. She threw herself over the boy, shielding him with her own thin body. The club came down on her back. She grunted, a hollow sound, but she didn't move. She just hugged the boy and the muddy bread.
The guard spat on them, kicked the woman in the hip, and walked back to his cart.
"Vermin," the guard muttered, loud enough for Kael to hear through the glass.
The carriage jolted. "Path is clear, My Lord!" Garret shouted, whipping the horses. "Getting us out of here!"
As the carriage surged forward, leaving the alley behind, Kael stared at the woman and child. They were still in the mud. The boy was swallowing the last of the bread.
Kael sank back into the velvet seat.
The smell of lavender inside the carriage suddenly made him want to vomit. It smelled like a funeral home. It smelled like indifference.
He looked at his hands. They were pale, soft, unscarred. The hands of a noble who ate three meals a day.
"Garret," Kael said. His voice was devoid of emotion. It was dead flat.
"Yes, sir? Sorry about the delay. Nasty business down there. Animals, really. They steal anything not nailed down."
"Turn the carriage around."
"Sir?"
"Take me back to the Estate. I do not wish to see the tailor today."
"But... the suit, My Lord. The gala is coming up."
"I said take me home."
The command was laced with mana this time. It hit Garret like a physical blow. The driver yelped and immediately pulled the reins.
Kael closed his eyes.
He visualized the map of the city in his mind. The Upper District—a circle of white. The Lower District—a ring of gray rot surrounding it.
It's a farm, Kael realized. The rich graze on the poor. The surplus grain isn't missing. It's being hoarded. The taxes aren't for infrastructure. They are for extraction.
He remembered Rowan's voice from yesterday. "Magnus is doing everything he can. The tax revenue from the lower district is minimal."
Rowan believed that. Rowan sat in his office, looking at papers provided by Magnus's clerks, believing the lies because he couldn't imagine a system so inherently evil.
But Kael had seen evil. He had led armies against necromancers who turned cities into fuel. He knew the look of a population being bled dry.
This wasn't incompetence. It was engineering.
Kael opened his eyes. The Gray Core in his chest was no longer just spinning. It was boiling.
He looked down at his cane. The silver handle was warped, the metal indented with the perfect impression of his fingers.
"Animals," Kael whispered, repeating the guard's word.
He looked at his reflection in the darkened glass.
"No," he said to the ghost of the War God in the reflection. "They are not animals. They are fuel."
And then, a colder thought followed.
And if they are fuel... then someone is tending the fire.
Kael smoothed his coat. He adjusted his cravat. He placed his hands calmly on his knees.
By the time the carriage crossed back over the Iron Bridge, returning to the world of white marble and sunlight, the look of horror was gone from Kael's face.
It was replaced by the bored, vacant expression of a spoiled noble heir.
But deep inside, in the place where the Gray Mana lived, a target had been painted.
He wasn't going to just recover. He wasn't going to just survive.
He was going to burn the farm down.