Adrian Vale stepped off the train with a battered suitcase in one hand and a stack of notebooks pressed tightly beneath his arm. The station was a cavern of smoke and steel, filled with the hiss of pistons and the clamor of voices from every corner of New Albion. Men in bowler hats barked orders, porters wheeled carts stacked with luggage, and the air reeked of coal and ambition.
He felt as though the world had widened all at once, the horizon broken open. His small coastal hometown, where salt winds gnawed the paint off every house and hunger was as common as rain, felt like a dream he had shed with the rags he'd worn there. The capital was louder, faster, hungrier than anything he'd ever known — yet he had been hungrier still, and he meant to devour it whole.
Adrian pushed through the crowd with a determined gait, ignoring the wary glances at his frayed coat and unpolished shoes. He carried himself with the bearing of a man who expected to be seen, and that was enough to turn suspicion into curiosity. He spotted the city's daily broadsheets pinned to a kiosk, headlines about political debates, strikes in the factories, and foreign powers circling like wolves. His pulse quickened. Here was the battlefield of ideas, and he had brought his weapons of ink and fire.
"First time in the capital?"
The voice came from a lanky man leaning against a lamppost, cigarette dangling from his lips. Marcus Vale — no relation by blood, only by bond. They had grown up together, survived scraps and schemes, and when Adrian announced he was leaving for the city, Marcus had followed without a thought.
"First time," Adrian admitted, his eyes still scanning the streets as if memorizing them for future conquest.
Marcus grinned. "Well, it stinks like piss and coal smoke, but I reckon it's better than rotting in that town. You really think they'll listen to you here?"
"I have a lot to say and more people here who can hear it" Adrian said. He tapped his notebook. "Words can force open doors iron bars cannot."
Marcus laughed, not unkindly. "Just don't get yourself shot before I've had a proper drink. Come on, I heard there's a tavern where half the politician's lackeys drink themselves stupid. Seems a fine place to start."
The tavern was indeed full of smoke, noise, and possibility. Young men with too much money and too little restraint argued politics over cheap gin, while waitresses in worn dresses carried trays with weary efficiency. Adrian soaked in every conversation, every gesture, the currents of power disguised as laughter and mockery. He scribbled notes furiously, each phrase a spark to be kindled later into fire.
That was when he saw her.
She sat at a corner table with her sister, their heads bent close in conversation. The younger one, Emily, laughed with reckless ease, her smile sharp as broken glass. The elder, Evelyn, was quieter, though the way she carried herself commanded more attention than all the noisy men combined. Her dress was modest, her expression thoughtful, and when she glanced up from her glass of wine, Adrian felt as though she had measured him in a single heartbeat.
"Don't stare," Marcus muttered, elbowing him. "You'll look like a farmhand sniffing at a rose."
But Adrian was already moving. He crossed the room with the certainty of someone who refused to accept rejection as a possibility. At their table, he inclined his head, his voice smooth despite the racing of his heart.
"Ladies," he said. "Forgive the intrusion, but I fear the room is too small to ignore a light burning as bright as yours."
Emily laughed first, delighted by the audacity. Evelyn, however, raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.
"And what flame do you bring to match it, sir?" she asked.
Adrian smiled. "Not flame, but words. They last longer than fire."
It was a gamble, one of many he would make, and though Evelyn did not smile, she did not dismiss him either. For Adrian Vale, that was enough.
---
The following weeks blurred into a whirlwind. Adrian secured work as a clerk for a minor councilman, a position beneath his talents, but close enough to the halls of power that he could taste the air. At night, he wrote —pamphlets, essays, furious tracts against corruption and cowardice. He signed them only with the initials A.V., letting the words carry their own weight.
The city responded. Some cursed him, some praised him, but all began to speak his name. He moved through the taverns and lecture halls with growing confidence, always with Marcus at his side, always seeking Evelyn's eyes in every gathering. She listened, though she rarely agreed, and Adrian lived for the challenge in her gaze.
But not everyone was amused.
One evening, at a rally in a crowded hall, Adrian was interrupted mid-speech by a man with a voice as smooth as polished marble. Sebastian Crowne, scion of one of the city's oldest families, stepped forward in a tailored suit that seemed to sneer at Adrian's patched coat. His words were like honey laced with venom, mocking Adrian's lack of heritage, his reckless idealism, his presumption to speak among men who had ruled for generations.
The crowd laughed, some uneasily, others with relish. Marcus bristled, but Adrian raised a hand to still him. He answered Crowne not with anger but with wit, turning each insult into a blade to cut back twice as sharp. By the end, it was Crowne's smile that faltered, and Adrian's voice that carried.
That night, walking home beneath the gas lamps, Marcus shook his head in awe.
"You're either going to be running this city or buried in its dirt within the year."
Adrian only smiled, his eyes fixed on the horizon of dark rooftops and smoke.
"Either way," he said softly, "they'll remember my name."