Drowning.
That was Ciro's first sensation. He was drowning in cold, blue fire.
He gasped, his lungs spasming, but instead of air, he inhaled thick, viscous liquid. Panic, sharp and familiar, spiked in his chest. His assassin instincts kicked in despite the sedation.
Kick. Thrash. Draw blade.
But there was no blade. And his limbs felt heavy, like they were moving through drying concrete.
"SUBJECT CONSCIOUSNESS DETECTED," a cold, synthetic voice boomed through the fluid. "STASIS PROTOCOL COMPLETE. DRAINING BIO-TANK."
Whoosh.
The liquid around him receded rapidly, sucked down into floor drains with a loud gurgle. Gravity returned with a vengeance, slamming him down onto the cold metal grate of the tank floor.
Ciro coughed violently, expelling the blue fluid from his lungs. He wiped his eyes, shivering uncontrollably. He was naked, wet, and alone in a glass tube.
"Easy, Wolf. Breathe."
The voice was soft. Familiar. But it held a new weight—a tone of authority that hadn't been there before.
The glass wall of the tank hissed and slid open.
Ciro stumbled out, collapsing onto his hands and knees. He waited for the pain. He waited for the agony of his shattered ribs to tear through him. He braced himself for the wheezing breath of a punctured lung.
It never came.
He touched his chest. The skin was smooth. Pink. New. Not even a scar remained where the wrench had crushed him.
"My ribs..." Ciro whispered, staring at his own hands. They were steady. The tremors of blood loss were gone. In fact, he felt strange—buzzing with energy, yet starving. "What did you do to me?"
"I fixed you," Elara said.
Ciro looked up.
She was sitting on the edge of the central console, watching him. She had cleaned the dirt from her face, though she still wore the ruined, bloodstained wedding dress—a stark contrast to the sterile perfection of the room.
But something had changed.
Her eyes.
They were glowing with a faint, geometric pattern of blue light—the sign of a high-level neural interface active in her visual cortex. Behind her, the massive holographic face of AURA watched him with digital indifference.
"VITALS: 100%," AURA announced. "MUSCLE DENSITY: INCREASED BY 5%. METABOLIC RATE: ELEVATED. SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE: EXTREME HUNGER AND AGGRESSION. YOU ARE WELCOME, HUMAN."
"A talking wall," Ciro muttered, accepting the thick towel Elara threw at him. He wrapped it around his waist, his brain struggling to process the reality. "And a glowing Princess. I must be dead. This is a very strange hell."
"It's not hell, Ciro," Elara said, standing up. She walked toward him, the Hand of A.R.E.S. on her right hand humming softly. "It's our Kingdom."
She pointed to the massive screen behind the throne.
"Look."
It showed a replay.
Ciro watched in silence as the footage played: The Tesla Towers charging up. The blinding blue light turning the night into day. The vaporization of Warlord Krog's vanguard. The sheer, overwhelming power that had turned an army into ash in seconds.
Ciro's jaw tightened. He knew violence. He was a master of knives and poison. But this? This was god-like power.
He looked at the devastation on the screen, then back at Elara.
"You did that?" he asked quietly.
"I had to," Elara replied, her voice steady, though her hands trembled slightly. "They were going to breach the gate. If they got in... they would have killed you."
Ciro looked at her. Really looked at her.
The girl who had trembled at the altar was gone. The girl who had cried in the trash canyon was gone. Standing before him was a woman who had just committed mass slaughter to protect what was hers, and she didn't look terrified. She looked resolved.
A strange feeling swelled in Ciro's chest. It wasn't fear. It was... awe.
"I told you to run," Ciro said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "I told you to hide."
"And I told you," Elara stepped closer, looking up into his eyes, "that a Queen does not hide."
She reached out, her human hand (not the gauntlet) touching his cheek. Her skin was warm.
"I need you, Ciro. I have the city. I have the guns. I have the ghost of a god in the machine. But I don't have a general. I don't have someone who knows how the dark world works."
She gestured to the empty, pristine lobby.
"This city is a target now. That lightning beacon? It was a dinner bell. Krog will come back with his full army. The other Warlords will hear about it. Even my Father might send the Sky Fleet."
Elara paused, her glowing blue eyes searching his dark ones.
"I can rule this place. But I cannot defend it alone. Will you stand with me? Not as a Jester. Not as a servant. But as my Commander?"
Ciro looked at the hologram of the massacre. He looked at Ghost, who was sleeping by the elevator, belly full of drone parts. He looked at the Ash Queen.
For the first time in his life, Ciro realized he wasn't just following orders to survive. He was choosing a destiny.
He dropped to one knee. He didn't do it with the mocking flourish of a court fool. He did it with the rigid, solemn grace of a knight.
"The Jester died in the fall, Your Majesty," Ciro said, his voice deep and serious. "My blade is yours. From the Ashlands to the Sky. Until the last star burns out."
Elara smiled. It was a genuine, tired smile that reached her eyes.
"Good," she said. "Stand up, Commander. We have a problem."
Ciro stood, instantly shifting back into business mode, ignoring his hunger. "The Warlord? Are they returning?"
"No," Elara sighed. She tapped the console.
A red warning window popped up, blaring silently.
[RESOURCE ALERT][FOOD STORES: 0%][ORGANIC MATTER: DECAYED][WATER PURIFICATION: OFFLINE][ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL STARVATION: 3 DAYS]
"We have lightning cannons that can melt tanks," Elara said dryly. "We have an indestructible wolf. We have a super-computer."
She looked at Ciro, her stomach letting out a traitorous growl.
"But we don't have a single crumb of bread. If we don't get the Hydro-Farms on Level 10 working by tomorrow, or find a way to trade, we're going to starve to death in the most advanced city in history."
Ciro blinked. Then he laughed. It was a good, loud laugh that echoed in the empty cathedral of technology.
"Starvation," Ciro said, cracking his neck. "Now that is a threat I know how to handle. Give me some pants, Your Majesty."
He walked toward the elevator, his eyes gleaming with a new purpose.
"It's time to go farming."
[END OF VOLUME 1]