thanh.nguyenhoang.1403@gmail.com
Stories
168
Chapters
1,512
Words
3.2 M
Comments
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Reading
11 d, 4 h
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The heavy iron cuffs lock around my wrists with a definitive, metallic click. The sound bypasses every defense my military training has ever built. It drops me straight back into the subterranean testing labs of the Capital. The phantom straps bite into my ankles. The air in the Collegium’s upper courtyard is freezing, thick with the threat of incoming rain, but I cannot breathe it. Adjutant Thorne holds the chain tethered to my wrists, his polished leather gloves squeaking as he pulls the slack…-
10.3 K • Completed
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The heavy rain washes the blood and pulverized stone across the Collegium’s shattered courtyard. Adjutant Thorne levels his military-issue sidearm directly at my chest. Beside him, the lead academic councilor holds the crystalline execution seal high, its blinding white magic hissing against the downpour. "Step away from the asset, Captain," Thorne orders, the leather of his gloves squeaking as he tightens his grip. I do not step away. I step forward. My left leg does not bend. The joint is…
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10.3 K • Completed
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The glowing letters of my own true name reflect in the glass of the terminal. Before my trembling fingers can strike the kill-command to wipe the search history, the ambient hum of the server racks shifts pitch. The temperature in the archive drops, a sudden, biting chill that raises the hairs on my arms. Veyra has not left the Spire. She is standing at the edge of the terminal’s halo, perfectly still, watching my hand hover over the brass dial. "A true name is a fragile architecture," Veyra…-
9.8 K • Completed
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The brass cylinder sits on the iron table, catching the faint, flickering light of the observation deck. The exit code. A way out of the Spire, a way out of the storm, a guaranteed retreat into the nameless oblivion I have crawled through for a decade. Outside the reinforced glass, the ash-storm screams into the abyss, a violent gray void that swallows everything. I stare at the cylinder. I have spent years cultivating my own erasure. Every time I burned a syllable of my true name, I let the world forget…
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9.8 K • Completed
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My palm rests flat against the cold brass of the master kill-switch. Veyra’s hand covers mine, the heat of her skin burning through the thin leather of her glove, pressing my fingers down. Turn it. The invitation is a total surrender, a terrifying relinquishing of power from the tyrant who controls the world. I wrap my fingers around the heavy brass grip. I pull downward. The lever refuses to yield. Instead of the satisfying heavy clack of a mechanical disconnect, a violent shudder tears through the…
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9.8 K • Completed
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The recording of my own voice fades, swallowed by the roaring alarms of the starving engine. I look at my hands. The grease and soot ground into my knuckles suddenly look exactly like dried blood. I have spent ten years hiding in the absolute grime of the under-wastes, believing the world cruelly refused to see me. I suffered the cold, hollow ache of being a ghost, shrinking into the background noise every time I burned a fraction of my magic, convinced my invisibility was a curse inflicted upon me. But I…
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9.8 K • Completed
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The scream of the iron wheels dies. It does not wind down gradually. The massive kinetic reversal locks the braking mechanisms all at once, snapping the forward momentum with a violence that throws me to the floorboards. The deafening, perpetual roar that has defined the Last Meridian for a decade—the grinding of steel against the crater's lip, the hungry groan of the furnace—simply ceases. The silence that rushes in to fill the vacuum is heavier than the noise. I push myself up from the shattered…
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9.8 K • Completed
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The Undercarriage Market The boy's name is Orren until the auctioneer strikes the brass rail. After that, he is only Lot Seventeen. He stands barefoot on a sheet of star-metal while the Last Meridian screams along its circular track. The undercarriage market shudders beneath the city, suspended between wheels taller than houses. Ash lashes the iron grates outside. Every few seconds, the entire chamber tilts toward the crater and two hundred buyers lean together as if bowing to the end of the…
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9.8 K • Completed
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The metal deck of the freight car pitches sideways, throwing my weight against the reinforced glass. Sparks shower from the ceiling grate, raining hot and bright over the crates of unrefined star-metal. My boots scramble for purchase on the vibrating floorboards. The Last Meridian never slows, its massive iron wheels grinding a perpetual, screaming circle around the lip of the crater, outrunning the ash-storm that batters the exterior hull. My partner, Kaelen, is pinned under a fallen steel beam, blood…
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9.8 K • Completed
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The heavy doors of the Sunken Throne scream open, the sound of grinding iron echoing high into the vaulted ceiling. The Praetorian guards hurl me forward. My knees strike the polished obsidian floor, the impact vibrating straight up my spine. I keep my head down, letting the messy curtain of my hair obscure my face, but the weight of the room presses down on me from all sides. The court of the Last Meridian is assembled in full force. Hundreds of aristocrats, generals, and memory-brokers line the tiered…
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9.8 K • Completed
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