The laws of physics demanded their deaths.
Elara remembered the wind tearing at her skin, the screaming descent into the grey fog, and the terrified beat of her own heart. She remembered Ciro pulling the pin on the blue device at his belt.
There was no soft landing.
The Gravity-Dampener detonated with a concussive blast of reverse force. It slammed into them like a solid wall of compressed air, arresting their terminal velocity just twenty feet from the ground.
It saved their lives, but it felt like being hit by a carriage.
Then, darkness.
...
"Wake up, Princess. Unless you plan to sleep through the apocalypse."
Elara gasped, her eyes snapping open.
Pain flared in every muscle. Her lungs burned as she inhaled air that tasted of sulfur, rust, and old blood. She wasn't on the marble floors of the palace anymore. She was lying on a mountain of jagged scrap metal and industrial waste.
"Ciro?" she croaked, sitting up. Her wedding dress was now a rag of grey dust and oil stains.
The Jester was sitting a few feet away, leaning against the husk of a destroyed tank. His colorful motley was shredded, revealing black tactical armor underneath. His porcelain comedy mask was cracked down the middle, half of it missing.
For the first time, Elara saw his face.
He wasn't the grotesque monster court rumors suggested. He was sharp-featured, with a jawline that could cut glass and a faded scar running from his left cheek to his jaw. But he looked tired. Pale.
"You're alive," Elara whispered. She looked at her hands. They were scraped and bloody, but whole. "How?"
Ciro tossed the device he had used—now a burnt-out lump of fused metal—into the trash.
"Old Tech. A Gravity-Dampener. Stolen from the Royal Museum," Ciro grunted. He tried to stand but winced, his hand clutching his side. Fresh blood seeped between his fingers. "One-time use. Cost me three years of salary."
"You're hurt." Elara scrambled over the debris toward him, ignoring the sharp metal digging into her palms.
"Broken rib. Maybe two. Punctured lung is a possibility," Ciro said clinically, waving her away. "Focus, Elara. Look around. Do you know where we are?"
Elara looked.
The sky above was no longer blue. It was a choking, swirling ceiling of grey smog that blocked out the sun. They were in a canyon, but the walls weren't made of rock.
They were made of machines.
Colossal skeletons of iron giants, skyscrapers of crushed cars, and mountains of discarded tech stretched as far as the eye could see. It was a graveyard of metal.
"The Waste Sector," Elara realized, a chill running down her spine. "The garbage dump of the floating city."
"Correct," Ciro said, scanning the horizon with paranoid eyes. "And we are the freshest meat in the pile. The Scavengers will smell the blood soon."
He pulled a small, compressed energy bar wrapper from his pocket and threw it at her. "Eat. We move in five minutes."
"Move where? We have no water, no weapons, and you can barely walk!" Elara's panic began to rise. The adrenaline of the wedding was fading, replaced by the crushing reality of survival.
"I have a knife," Ciro said calmly. "And we find shelter. Or we die. Simple."
He tried to take a step, but his leg buckled. He fell to one knee, groaning.
"Ciro!" Elara rushed to help him, but her foot snagged on something half-buried in the rubble.
She stumbled, her hand landing on a smooth, cold object sticking out of the trash.
It didn't feel like rusted iron. It felt like... ceramic.
Elara brushed the dirt away. It was a white sphere, pristine and gleaming, untouched by the decay around it.
As soon as her skin touched it, the sphere hummed.
HUMMM.
A low vibration resonated through her bones. The blue gemstone embedded in the center of the sphere flared to life.
"What is that?" Ciro hissed, his hand tightening on his dagger. "Elara, don't touch it. It's active."
"I... I can't let go," Elara gasped.
She didn't mean to hold it. It was holding her.
CLICK-HISS.
The sphere suddenly split open. Mechanical plates unfolded like the petals of a carnivorous flower. It wasn't a ball; it was a collapsed piece of armor.
Before Elara could pull away, the machine lunged. It wrapped around her right forearm, metal plates sliding over her skin, resizing instantly to fit her slender wrist.
"Get it off!" Ciro shouted, lunging forward despite his injury.
"No, wait!" Elara gasped.
It didn't hurt. It felt... right. Like a missing limb returning to the body. It clamped around her hand with a soft hiss of escaping air, forming a sleek, white armored gauntlet.
A transparent blue screen materialized in the air before her eyes.
[SYSTEM REBOOTING...][GENETIC MARKER DETECTED: HOUSE MORVATH.][ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME, ADMINISTRATOR.]
"Administrator?" Elara read the floating text, stunned.
[DEVICE: THE GAUNTLET OF A.R.E.S.][Automated Resource & Excavation System][STATUS: CRITICAL POWER. 5% CHARGE.][DIRECTIVE: REBUILD.]
Ciro stopped, staring at the hologram floating in front of her face. The cynical assassin looked genuinely shocked.
"A Holo-Interface," Ciro breathed. "That's Old King technology. Pre-War. Elara... that thing on your hand is worth more than the entire kingdom."
Elara looked at her hand. The white gauntlet looked sleek, deadly, and beautiful against the backdrop of filth.
[ALERT: HOSTILE LIFEFORMS DETECTED.][DIRECTION: NORTH-EAST. DISTANCE: 50 METERS.]
The red warning flashed on her screen, blinking urgently.
"Ciro," Elara said, her voice trembling. "The thing... the System says something is coming."
Ciro didn't question her. He spun around, raising his serrated dagger.
From the toxic fog, shadows emerged.
They were human, but barely. Their skin was covered in weeping sores from the radiation. They wore armor made of old tires and stop signs. They held rusty spears and chains.
Scavengers. Six of them.
The leader, a massive man with half his face melted off, grinned, revealing rotten teeth. He looked at Elara's clean white dress. Then he looked at the gleaming gauntlet.
"Fresh bird fell from the sky, boys," the leader rasped, licking his lips. "And she brought us a shiny toy."
Ciro stepped in front of Elara. He swayed slightly, his broken ribs screaming, but his knife hand was steady.
"Stay behind me, Princess," Ciro growled low in his throat. "Close your eyes."
"No," Elara said.
She looked at the Scavengers. She felt the fear, yes. But beneath the fear, the Gauntlet hummed. It wasn't just a tool. It was a weapon waiting for a command.
She stepped up beside Ciro. She raised her right hand, pointing the white armored palm at the Scavengers.
"I am not a bird," Elara said, her green eyes glowing with the reflection of the blue interface.
[COMBAT MODE: ENGAGED.][TARGET LOCKED.]