The city awoke to whispers of fire and thunder.
By dawn, smoke still curled from the skylights of Adrian's workshop, a faint gray smear against the brass-and-iron skyline of Aerodyne. Neighbors lingered in the alleys, murmuring about screams in the night, about masked men dragged bleeding into the shadows, about flashes of lightning that split the fog.
Inside, the air was heavy with the smell of scorched oil and blood. Adrian knelt among the ruins of his life's work, hands blackened from soot and dried crimson. His workshop—once a cathedral of invention—was now a graveyard of twisted gears, shattered glass, and splintered oak.
Elara stood silent near the broken window, her face turned toward the awakening city. Sunlight caught on the brass filigree at her temple, outlining her in gold. To a passerby she might have looked like a saint carved from light and shadow. But Adrian, watching her, felt the weight of something far less divine.
---
He rose slowly, clutching his bandaged arm. The wound burned, but pain was easier to bear than silence.
"Elara," he said, his voice hoarse.
She turned her head, her movements unnervingly precise. For a moment he thought she might not answer.
"Yes?"
The word carried no inflection, no warmth.
Adrian's chest tightened. "We can't stay here. The Guild will come again. Stronger."
Her gaze lingered on the skyline, on the smog-choked towers and spinning airship docks. "Let them," she murmured. "I will tear them down."
He stepped closer, his voice rising despite the ache in his throat. "That isn't you speaking. You're not—" He faltered, unable to finish. Not human? Not Elara? Not mine?
She finally faced him. Her eyes—once soft hazel—gleamed with an unnatural clarity, pupils contracting like camera shutters. Yet beneath that mechanical sheen, there was still a flicker, a glint of the woman who used to smile at his fumbling jokes over tea.
"I am what you made me," she said.
The words landed like a hammer.
---
Adrian staggered back, lowering himself into a chair that creaked under his weight. He buried his face in his palms, but the image of her tearing through men like parchment would not fade.
He had sworn he would save her. But had he? Or had he only preserved a shell, filling it with cogs and copper until it moved, spoke, obeyed—but no longer lived?
"Elara…" His voice trembled. "Do you remember the orchard? The one outside the city walls, where you used to pick the last apples of autumn?"
Her head tilted, gears whirring faintly. "I recall… images. Fragments. A hand in mine. Laughter among leaves. But it is distant. Like a dream told to me by someone else."
His throat closed. He wanted to reach for her, to pull her against him and pretend, just for a heartbeat, that she was whole. But her words carved too deep. Distant. A dream.
---
The silence stretched until a low hum broke it. Aether lines—those great pipes that carried luminous energy across Aerodyne—ran beneath the workshop. Normally their thrum was steady, almost comforting. But now it pulsed unevenly, as if something vast stirred within the veins of the city.
Elara's head snapped toward the sound. "They are moving," she whispered.
Adrian frowned. "Who?"
"The Guild." Her voice dropped, almost mechanical. "I can hear the aether currents. They draw upon them. Gathering power. Preparing weapons."
Adrian felt the blood drain from his face. The Guild controlled the city's aetherworks—factories, shipyards, the very lifeblood of Aerodyne. If they turned that power against him, against her…
"We have to leave," he said. "Now. Before they rally."
But Elara's expression hardened, steel over flesh. "No. If we run, they will hunt us. If we fight, they will fear us. Fear will keep us alive."
Her words cut like a blade. Adrian's stomach twisted. He remembered when she had feared storms, when she had clung to him during thunder and laughed at her own cowardice after. Now she stood unflinching, lightning in her veins, daring the storm to strike.
---
Hours passed. Adrian worked feverishly, packing what tools and schematics he could salvage. His mind raced with plans—escape routes through the lower tunnels, contacts among smugglers, half-forgotten maps of the old city. Yet each time he looked up, Elara was watching him. Silent. Still. Her presence filled the room more than any machine.
When night fell again, they set out. Cloaked in smoke-stained coats, they slipped through alleys and over rusted catwalks, the city's neon aether lamps casting ghostly light on the cobblestones.
But the city was not asleep.
Posters already plastered walls—hastily printed broadsheets stamped with the Guild's sigil. WANTED: ADRIAN ROOK. FOR THEFT OF PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGY. DANGEROUS. A sketch of his face, eyes hollow, mouth grim.
And beside it: a silhouette of a woman with gears where her heart should be.
Elara tore one down, staring at it as if she were gazing into a mirror she did not recognize.
"Property," she muttered.
Adrian reached for her hand. This time, she let him touch her. Her skin was cool, metallic under the faint warmth of the night.
"You're not property," he said fiercely. "You're Elara. My Elara."
For a moment—just a moment—her eyes softened. "Am I?" she asked, voice breaking like a hairline crack in glass.
He had no answer.
---
They reached the old viaduct at the city's edge, where derelict airships rotted in silence. Adrian knew a smuggler there—a friend from the days before love had consumed his every waking hour. He hoped, prayed, that this man might still be alive, still willing to help.
But as they approached, a sound rose from the city behind them.
The thrum of the aether lines grew into a roar. Towers lit up one by one, pulsing with blue fire. Steam billowed from hidden vents.
Then came the bells. Low, booming, metallic—tolling across Aerodyne like the voice of a waking giant.
Elara's grip tightened on his hand. For the first time since the battle, he felt her fingers tremble.
"They are coming," she whispered.
And for the first time, he could not tell whether the tremor was fear—or anticipation.