Ash didn't need loyalty.He needed alignment.
That's what most rulers got wrong. They surrounded themselves with followers, not thinkers. Soldiers who obeyed without asking why. But blind loyalty was fragile. One whisper in the wrong ear and the whole house of cards would collapse.
No—he wasn't building a house.He was building a fortress.
And it started with Nova.
She followed him out of the club without hesitation, through dark alleys slick with oil and into an abandoned freight station no one had entered in years. Vines choked the steel beams. Rust hung in the air like mold. But to Ash, it was perfect.
"This is it?" Nova asked, looking around.
"No," Ash said. "This is the blueprint."
He walked to the center of the ruined station and crouched. His finger traced a symbol in the dirt—ancient, curved, symmetrical. Not human in origin. Nova didn't recognize it, but she felt it. Like something pulling at her spine.
"Ever see this before?" he asked without looking up.
"No."
"You will," he said. "Soon."
He was testing her. Her fear. Her awareness. Her ability to learn. And she passed—because she stayed quiet. Observing. Calculating. Not pretending she understood. That, to Ash, was the first sign of someone useful.
"I'm not recruiting thugs," Ash said, standing. "Or believers. Or anyone who thinks blood alone makes them powerful. That system collapsed. It deserved to."
"So what are you building?" she asked.
He turned. Eyes like dying stars."An empire."
Nova swallowed hard.
"And you want me… part of that?"
"I already made that decision before I walked into the club," he replied. "You just haven't made yours yet."
He stepped past her, toward the freight elevator at the far end of the station—long dead, rusted over. But he pressed his palm against the wall beside it, and the panel flickered to life. Red light. No electricity should be running here.
Nova blinked. "How—"
"Don't ask questions you'll understand too late," Ash said calmly. "Ask questions no one else would dare."
The elevator doors groaned open. Inside was not a lift, but a staircase—spiraling downward, cold and silent.
He descended first. She followed.
Level one.
Stone walls. Generator hums. A wide circular chamber filled with crates, old weapons, racks of documents. Data sticks. Books in languages long extinct. Nova paused, spinning slowly.
"This is your base?"
"This is the first seed," Ash replied. "And I don't plan to water it with guesswork."
She raised an eyebrow. "So what do you want from me?"
Ash didn't answer. He stepped to one of the crates and pulled out a folder. Tossed it onto the table. Paper exploded across the surface—photos, names, surveillance logs, blood DNA records.
Five faces. All different. All dangerous.
"You're not the only one," he said. "I've been watching. Choosing."
Nova's eyes darted across the faces.
"Who are they?"
"The next founders," Ash said. "Each one fits a role. One's a strategist. One's a hacker. One runs a black market network beneath the corporate grid. And one…"He tapped the corner of the fifth photo."...is a killer with no identity and no known past. He's the wild card. I like wild cards."
Nova picked up the photo. "And you want me to… recruit them?"
Ash smiled. "No. I want you to test them. Push them. Break them, if you have to. The wrong ones will show cracks. The right ones? They'll come looking for me."
Nova's lips curled slightly. "You're playing a long game."
Ash met her gaze. "No, Nova. Everyone else is playing checkers. I'm playing a game only I know exists."
She laughed under her breath. "And what if one of them turns on you?"
Ash didn't blink. "Then I'll remind them they were never outside my plan."
Lightning cracked somewhere above the city.
Ash looked up, eyes gleaming red in the darkness.
"It's begun."