The ink stained his fingers black, the taste of it thick in the back of his throat. Adrian sat hunched over the printing press, feeding pages through with quick, precise movements. The press was ancient, its iron frame scarred from decades of use, but it was the only one he could afford to rent by the hour. Beside him, Marcus grumbled as he stacked the damp pages onto a growing pile.
"You're killing me, Vale," Marcus muttered, flexing his cramped fingers. "If I wanted to smell like ink and sweat, I'd have stayed back home gutting fish."
Adrian didn't look up. "If you'd stayed, you'd be gutting fish for pennies until your back broke. Here, every page we press is a volley in a war."
Marcus snorted. "A war fought with paper cuts."
Adrian ignored him. The words mattered—the essays, the manifestos, the sharp-edged arguments he honed late into the night. They struck where fists could not, spread where swords could not reach. His first pamphlets had already stirred murmurs in the cafés and taverns: questions of fairness, of opportunity, of who deserved a voice in the council chambers. The established order dismissed him as a rabble-rouser, but they underestimated how hungry the people were for change.
By dawn, they had three hundred copies of his latest tract, *The Machinery of Power*. Adrian held one up, the words still damp, and felt a thrill run through him.
"They'll read this," he whispered. "And they won't be able to look away."
---
That evening, he carried a bundle of pamphlets into the heart of the city. Gas lamps burned along the boulevards, casting pale halos against the fog. Hawkers cried their wares, carriages rattled over cobblestones, and in the air was the electric sense of a nation straining against its own skin.
At a café favored by students and journalists, Adrian scattered his pamphlets across the tables. A heated debate erupted almost immediately—some mocking, others defending, all unable to resist reading aloud his words. Adrian lingered in the corner, watching with quiet satisfaction.
It was there Evelyn Hartwell found him.
"You court trouble," she said, sliding into the chair opposite him. Her gloved hands brushed over one of his pamphlets. "These words will not endear you to the council."
"They weren't meant to," Adrian said, meeting her gaze. "They were meant to remind people the council serves them—not the other way around."
Evelyn studied him, her eyes calm but searching. "And when the council calls you a dangerous radical?"
"Then I will remind them that every state has called its founders dangerous once."
A flicker of amusement touched her lips, but it faded quickly. "You burn too fast, Mr. Vale. Fire lights the way, but it also consumes."
Before Adrian could answer, Emily swept in, all laughter and energy, and claimed the chair beside her sister. She plucked a pamphlet off the table and waved it like a fan.
"Adrian, you've made yourself famous already," she said. "Half the city is gossiping about this mysterious A.V. The other half is trying to guess whether you're a prophet or a lunatic."
"Why not both?" Adrian replied, and Emily grinned. Evelyn did not.
---
The duel came weeks later, though no pistols were drawn.
It was a public debate, staged in one of the grand halls of the university, with the air thick with anticipation. Adrian had been invited—or rather, baited—by none other than Sebastian Crowne.
The hall glittered with chandeliers, packed with students, merchants, politicians, and ladies in feathered hats. Adrian stood on one side of the podium in his best coat—still frayed at the cuffs but brushed clean. Crowne stood opposite, immaculate as ever, his smile sharp and easy.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Crowne began, his voice smooth as oil, "we are gathered here to amuse ourselves with the ravings of a young man who mistakes ink for authority. Let us hope he proves at least entertaining."
Laughter rippled through the audience.
Adrian waited for it to fade, then stepped forward. "I thank Mr. Crowne for confirming what we already know—that the old families of this city find the people's voice amusing, and nothing more. But I assure you, sir, there is nothing amusing about hunger, about factories that maim children, about the soldiers who bled to build this nation only to be cast aside as beggars. If you find those things laughable, then you mock not me, but the people themselves."
The laughter died. Murmurs spread like fire through dry grass. Adrian pressed on, his voice steady, his words sharp. He spoke of fairness, of opportunity, of the machinery of power grinding down those it was meant to serve.
Crowne parried with wit and scorn, each line dripping with polished cruelty. But for every jeer, Adrian had a retort. For every barb, a sharper blade. The duel of words stretched long into the night, until the crowd was no longer laughing but listening—truly listening.
When it ended, applause shook the hall. Adrian did not smile, though inside he burned with triumph. Crowne bowed gracefully, his expression unchanged, but in his eyes was a glint of something new: hatred sharpened by fear.
---
Later, Marcus clapped Adrian on the back so hard he nearly staggered. "You've done it! You've rattled the prince in his palace."
But Evelyn's voice echoed more loudly in his thoughts, calm and warning: Fire lights the way, but it also consumes.
Standing in the gaslit street, a pamphlet still clutched in his hand, Adrian whispered to himself the words that had become his creed.
"I'll rise, I'll do it."
And in the shadows, unseen, Sebastian Crowne murmured something else—though with a promise of his own.
"They'll remember you. And I'll be the one who writes your epitaph."