Chapter 10: Rust and Roses

Arthur slipped back into his bedchamber and shut the heavy oak door, throwing the iron deadbolt with a muted clack.

His heart hammered violently against his ribs—not from the lingering weakness of the poison, but from the crushing, sheer scale of the truth.

The Capital. He limped heavily to his desk and collapsed into the wooden chair.

It wasn’t a jealous local baron. It wasn’t a trade dispute. Someone in the Imperial Court had signed his death warrant. The most powerful faction on the continent wanted the Ashborn heir eradicated.

“I’m a civil engineer,” Arthur whispered to the empty room, gripping the edges of the desk until his knuckles turned white. “I calculate load-bearing tolerances. I manage concrete supply chains. I don’t know how to fight a shadow war against an empire.”

He looked out the window. The moon hung high, casting a pale, cold light over the crumbling estate. Isolation hit him like a physical blow, threatening to drag him under. He closed his eyes, and the phantom scent of rain and damp earth filled his mind. He saw Elena’s face, alive and waiting for a man who would never come home.

I died once already, he thought, a hard, painful lump forming in his throat. I lost my name. I lost my future.

He opened his eyes. The suffocating despair crystallized into something cold, sharp, and utterly ruthless.

I am not dying twice. If the Emperor wants me in the ground, he’s going to have to dig the grave himself. Arthur reached under the mattress, pulling out the stolen notebook and a charcoal pencil. His hands stopped shaking as his mind engaged, breaking the overwhelming terror down into manageable, solvable data points.

The enemy was Imperial, capital-backed, their weapon a tier-four alchemical compound whispered of in hushed tones—Midnight Shade, invisible and merciless. Against that, he had six guards, barely armed, and the temporary protection of Lunalar escorts. A pitiful shield against shadows. The numbers told him survival was a coin toss weighted against him.

It was a statistical death sentence.

“Non-zero probability,” Arthur muttered, the panic fading into absolute focus. “If it’s not zero, it’s an engineering problem.”

He flipped to a fresh page, the charcoal scratching rapidly against the parchment.

The plan began to take shape, not in neat lists but in the rhythm of his thoughts. The estate was porous, its defenses laughably thin; he would need early warning systems, barriers, traps—anything to buy time with.

But defenses alone meant nothing without coin. He could not fight an Imperial assassin on an empty budget, and the territory’s economy lay in ruins. The iron trade had to breathe again, or all his schemes would choke before they began.

And if magic remained beyond his reach, then he would turn to the language of machines. Gunpowder, pressurized steam, hydraulic force—kinetic answers to arcane threats.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Arthur circled the word capital. Nothing happened without money. Every path led back to it, the lifeblood of survival.

He closed the book, hid it, and lay in the dark. He didn’t sleep for a long time. When his exhausted body finally dragged him under, he didn’t dream of assassins. He dreamed of blueprints and bleeding the mountains dry.

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The morning sun hit Arthur’s face. He groaned, his poisoned muscles aching fiercely from the previous day’s stair-climbing. But his mind was razor-sharp.

He went through his morning routine, carefully strapping on the ‘Oliver Mask’ before he left his room. He needed to look like a frail, recovering boy to keep Sylvia and his parents from asking questions.