CASSIAN
The marble was cold and unforgiving.
I ran a hand over the half-finished sculpture, a life-sized phoenix rising from a block of raw Carrara. Its wings were unfurled, its head thrown back in a silent scream of rebirth. It was technically perfect. Every feather was carved with anatomical precision, every muscle tense with sculpted agony. But it was dead. It held no fire, no soul. Just cold, white stone.
My father, Kenan Vance, circled it like a predator sizing up its prey. His tailored suit was the color of blood, a stark contrast to the sterile white of our private gallery. He didn't speak for a long time, the only sound the soft tap of his polished Italian shoes on the marble floor.
"It lacks ferocity, Cassian," he said finally, his voice a low rumble of disappointment. He ran a disdainful finger along a pristine marble feather. "Where is the rage? The pain of the fire? You've captured the form, but you have missed the feeling entirely. It's a pretty bird, not a symbol of immortal power."
I kept my expression neutral, my hands shoved deep into the pockets of my jeans. The familiar lecture was coming. I had heard it a thousand times before.
"Artifice is emotion made manifest," he recited, the words a hollow, practiced creed. "Our blood, our power, comes from the heart. To imbue, one must feel. You are a Vance. Your magic is a torrent, a storm. Why do you insist on carving it into such… controlled, passionless little shapes?"
Because passion is a weapon, I thought, and I am tired of being armed. Because the last time someone in this family truly felt, it burned them to ash.
My gaze drifted to the empty space on the far wall of the gallery. It used to be occupied by one of my mother's paintings—a whirlwind of soft blues and silver that she had imbued with a calming magic, an enchantment of pure peace. After her "accident," my father had taken it down. He couldn't stand the silence it brought. He preferred the storm.
"Your mother," he said, as if reading my mind, "she understood. She was a Scriptorium rat, a Corbeau, but she learned our ways. She learned that replication is a parlor trick. True art, true power, lies in creation."
A bitter, coppery taste filled my mouth. He spoke of her as if she were a prize he had won, a student he had successfully converted. He never spoke of her love for him, only her adoption of his power. It was the only part of her he seemed to value.
"The gala is in three days," he continued, changing the subject with a dismissive wave of his hand. "The entire Chromatic Court will be there. Our allies, our rivals. You will be at my side. I want them to see the strength of our heir."
"I'll be there," I said, my voice flat. I hated the gala. It was an ostentatious display of power, a peacock parade where the city's elite came to grovel and scheme. My father thrived on it. I endured it.
"And for God's sake, wear a proper suit. Not one of your funereal black ones," he said, his eyes flicking over my simple black t-shirt and jeans. "We are celebrating our legacy, not mourning it."
He turned and strode out of the gallery without another word, leaving me alone with my beautiful, lifeless bird. As soon as he was gone, the tension in my shoulders eased. I picked up a chisel, the metal cool and heavy in my palm. My father was wrong. I did feel. I just channeled my emotions differently. My artifice wasn't a storm; it was ice. Cold, precise, and contained.
A low thrum of energy, cool and blue, began to glow at my fingertips. This was my magic, my inheritance. I let it flow down my arm, through the chisel, and into the stone. The marble under my touch didn't just chip; it yielded, softening like clay. This was where I was different. This was my true gift, the part of my artifice that I kept secret from my father. I didn't just carve. I molded. I could make the stone itself bend to my will.
I worked in silence for hours, the phoenix slowly transforming under my touch. Its eyes, once blank, now held a deep, ancient sorrow. Its beak, once open in a scream, was now closed, a silent testament to a pain too deep to voice. This was my ferocity—a quiet, enduring grief. It was my mother's legacy, not his.
The faint scent of old paper and rain suddenly tickled my senses, a strange, out-of-place aroma in the sterile gallery. My head snapped up, my senses on high alert. The scent was fleeting, a ghost of a whisper, but it was real. And it didn't belong here. It was the scent of Scriptorium ink, the kind used for the most refined replications. A forger.
My hand tightened around my chisel, the blue light of my artifice intensifying. They wouldn't dare. To infiltrate the Vance Tower itself, the heart of the Chromatic Court… it was a brazen, suicidal act of aggression.
I stalked out of the gallery, my footsteps silent on the marble floors. I followed the ghost-scent down the hallway, past my father's office, toward the East Wing where the wards were strongest. My body was a tightly coiled spring, my magic a humming, contained energy at my core. Every enchanted tattoo on my skin seemed to awaken, their latent power prickling against my skin. The serpent on my left arm, which could spit paralytic venom. The shield on my right, capable of deflecting magical attacks. They were weapons I hated, but weapons I knew how to use.
The scent grew stronger as I approached my mother's old studio. The door was closed. I pressed my palm against the wood and felt a faint, alien thrum on the other side. A Scriptorium ward, a temporary illusion designed to hide what was happening within. Pathetic. A parlor trick.
My own artifice surged, a wave of cold blue energy that shattered their illusion like a pane of glass. I pushed the door open.
She was standing with her back to me, a small, slender figure dressed in a simple, dark dress. She was so focused on the object in her hands that she hadn't even sensed my approach. In her hands was my mother's silver locket, the one I thought had been lost in the fire.
Rage, pure and glacial, washed over me. It was a cold, sharp fury that turned the air in the room frigid. How dare they. How dare she. To break into this room, my mother's sanctuary, and touch her things…
"That doesn't belong to you," I said, and my voice was as cold and sharp as splintered ice.
She jumped, spinning around, her eyes wide with shock. For a split second, I saw past the thief. I saw a girl. A girl with eyes the color of a stormy sky, a face of sharp, delicate angles, and a defiance in her posture that was immediate and total. She didn't cower. She didn't run. She met my gaze, and in her gray eyes, I saw my own fury reflected back at me.
Then my gaze fell to the raven tattoo peeking out from the collar of her dress. It was just simple black ink, but the lines were too perfect, the form too alive. It wasn't a mundane tattoo. It pulsed with a subtle, familiar energy. The same energy I'd found in the pages of my mother's journals. The lost artifice of the Corbeau matriarchs.
This wasn't just any forger. This was the Ghost. Lyra Corbeau. Eloise's granddaughter.
And in that moment of recognition, a deeper, more primal part of my magic awakened. A dormant power tied not to my anger or grief, but to something else entirely, something ancient and unnamed. It surged from a place deep in my chest, a white-hot spark.
It wasn't a storm. It wasn't ice.
It was lightning. And it was about to strike.