Andy sat at a cold metal table and stared at his hands as if they belonged to someone else. The harsh strip-light above him buzzed, flickering faintly, turning his scraped knuckles into pale ghosts on the steel surface. They were small marks—insignificant to anyone else—but to him they were evidence. Evidence of things he wasn’t supposed to speak about.
Evidence, he suspected, the city no longer wanted to see.
Commander Elias Voss and his brother—Mayor Kellen Voss—had made that much clear in their own, strained ways.
They needed him buried.
Tucked somewhere far from the public’s simmering outrage.
After the battle with the Talon and Vin, stories had poured through Aurelia’s districts faster than the Vanguard could sanitize them, they tried. Press releases. Redacted reports. Handpicked reconstruction photo ops. But the harder they scrubbed the narrative clean, the filthier it looked to the people.
Rumors bloomed like mold beneath damp stone.
Whispers spread through the markets and taverns:
The attack was staged.
A Northern District ploy.
A power grab by the mayor.
A false-flag operation engineered by the Vanguard to justify militarization.
It didn’t matter that none of it was true.
Facts were outdated currency now.
With a kernel of truth, Andy thought bitterly, people build whatever story they want.
And the Vanguard—his Vanguard—refused to offer anything but silence and sealed corridors. Wily, his grandfather, had ordered the throne sealed. Catacomb tunnels collapsed. Patrol routes altered. Watch posts reinforced.
Practical decisions… that looked like cover-ups.
Why so many guards at blocked tunnels?
Why fewer wasteland patrols?
Why were Vanguard caravans no longer returning with supplies?
Questions coiled, tangled, worsened. In the vacuum of answers, the city invented myths.
Elyra’s voice slid into his awareness—soft, crystalline, as if carried on light rather than sound.
The Temple of Light has been applying pressure as well. The story of a young Vanguard who reactivated dormant city systems is spreading. They believe you’ve been marked by the Seven.
Andy massaged his temples. “I know,” he whispered. “And so… here I am.”
His thoughts drifted back—two days earlier—to Commander Voss’s office, its tall cracked windows overlooking a skyline of smoke, scaffolding, and half-lit spires.
“Andy,” the commander said, voice gravelled by sleepless nights, “if Aurorak Point exists—and I believe it does—we need to show the people that we are growing. Moving forward.” He gestured toward the fractured horizon. “They’re restless. Every tremor feels like a threat now. It doesn’t matter how many reconstruction crews we send out… they don’t feel safe.”
He turned from the window.
“Have you figured out how to get through the Black Storms yet?”
Andy shook his head. “Wily and the research team are working nonstop. The Echochron is directly linked into the throne’s interface now, augmented by the best technicians we have—still no breakthrough.”
Voss pressed both palms to his face, elbows braced against a map buried under notes and sigils.
“Our resources are draining. The guard at the throne site is stretched too thin. The Temple of Light has a representative parked outside my office twenty-four hours a day. Asking the same questions. Demanding answers we don’t have.” He exhaled sharply. “I need to move you somewhere quiet. Somewhere you can focus on getting us through those storms.”
He paused.
“If Aurorak Point is still functional, they had some of the brightest minds we ever sent into the wastes. If they’re alive—by the seven, if they’re alive—they could reconnect the cities. Share supplies. Knowledge. People.”
A bitter laugh escaped him. “I sound like my brother.”
Andy kept his tone steady. “Sir… our chances are a long shot. Where can I even go? I’m a Vanguard soldier. Almost a knight.”
Voss met his gaze—stone-steady, unblinking.
“There’s one place in the Vanguard where I can make you disappear from the public eye.”
A beat.
“The Vanguard Ranger Reconnaissance Company. VRRC.”
Andy stared. “The Rangers? Sir, they don’t take—”
“They don’t take anyone your age,” Voss finished quietly. “And no, this won’t be exactly… by the book.” His posture said everything he couldn’t say out loud. It will break every unspoken rule we have.
“But if they choose you—and if you survive their training—you’ll have more freedom than any Vanguard soldier. Direct access to the city council. Full operational flexibility.”
His voice lowered to a near-whisper.
“That’s what it will take… if you want a real chance of reaching Aurorak Point.”
Now, sitting alone in a cold forgotten building, Andy exhaled slowly.
Elyra hummed in the back of his mind, colored with dry amusement.
And that’s how we ended up here. Sitting in the dark, waiting for something to happen…
Andy scanned the shadowed room. Concrete walls. A humming light fixture. A single closed door.
“Waiting,” he muttered, “for someone to come talk to us… I guess.”
Hours slithered by.
He tried to center his thoughts—an impossible task now. Stillness had never been his strength, not before the throne… and definitely not after what it did to him.
He thought of Terra, now a full Knight. Her oath fresh, her armor gleaming with the faint red tint earned only through front line service. She wrote often—brief messages laced with pride, with worry she tried to hide.
He thought of Lana, a soon to be squire now. How the other scrubs had gaped when she arrived on day one in the plain gray uniform—except for the medal pinned over her heart. Defender of the City. She’d fought in some of the fiercest hallways during the final push—almost in the throne chamber itself.
Almost where Andy died.
If Lorelai hadn’t intervened—if that alien, divine surge hadn’t torn through his failing body—he’d be a smear of ash on cracked stone. His cells had been overloading, replicating energy faster than his flesh could contain, a side effect of the impossible Old World relic he’d wielded to drive off the rogue AI.
The hum of that moment—the hunger, the light—still trembled beneath his skin.
For my benefit… or his?
He didn’t know.
He replayed as much of the divine encounter as memory allowed. Lorelai’s voice—gentle, cryptic, unsettlingly calm. A warning? A calling? A manipulation?
Mortals never got the full rules of the gods’ games.
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Speculation filled the empty hours. Kept him upright. Kept him sane.
In the pocket of quiet that settled, Andy slid a hand to his belt and pulled out his VIM.
Vanguard Interface Messenger
A slab of matte-black glass and metal no bigger than his palm—one of the earliest and most controversial outcomes of his work with the throne’s systems. The device hummed faintly in his grip, its core running on Old World subroutines no one fully understood. Not even Wily. Not even Andy.
It had started as a harmless experiment—an interface Andy tampered with during long nights in the catacombs. He’d discovered a buried network protocol threaded through the throne’s architecture, a kind of dormant digital hallway connecting systems long thought dead. The Vanguard had seized on it immediately. Now prototypes of the VIM were being field-tested across the city.
Its range was limited—contained within Aurelia’s walls—but its potential was undeniable.
Guard rosters synchronized in real-time. Patrol alerts and threat pings were shared instantly. A crude chat interface allowed squads to communicate across districts. You could call, send messages, transfer location markers. Information that once took runners, radio traffic, or sheer luck now traveled faster than rumors.
They had no idea what half the code did.
But the half they understood was already changing the city.
Andy thumbed the screen, scrolling through the flood of notifications.
NEW MESSAGE flashed at the top.
A group chat—Tobin, Jorin, and Andy.
He tapped it open.
Tobin: Hey, wanna hit a food stand or something later?
I need something else. Mess hall food is killing me.
A small smile tugged at Andy’s lip. The normalcy of it—mundane, almost innocent—felt like a memory from another lifetime. He locked the message without replying.
Later, he told himself.
He scrolled past maintenance updates and Vanguard announcements until he reached the names he truly searched for.
Lana – Unavailable
Terra – Unavailable
Both messages gray and silent.
Last received three days ago.
He opened Lana’s thread first.
Lana: Made it to the first big hurdle!. I didn’t trip. That’s gotta be a sign of divine favor, right?
A second message:
Lana: When I get back, promise me we’ll go watch the lights over the south ridge again. I liked that. Even if the wind tried to steal my scarf—and you laughed.
And then, shyly.
Lana: Stay safe for me. Okay?
A warmth settled in Andy’s chest.
He switched to Terra’s messages.
Terra: They finally pulled me for something real. Try not to get jealous.
Another:
Terra: If I come back and you’re still stuck doing inventory checks, I’m dragging you out by your ear.
And the last, sent with irritating confidence.
Terra: Don’t get soft while I’m gone. I expect a sparring rematch—and this time, don’t blame the door.
Andy snorted despite himself.
Lana had begun her wasteland rite—her trial by sand and storm. Terra had left on a classified mission, the kind knights returned from changed—or didn’t return from at all.
Andy stared at the muted icons—two friends now farther away than the abandoned districts around him.
He closed the VIM.
Silence returned.
But this time, it settled differently.
A reminder that people were moving—growing—becoming more than what they were, while he walked a path with no clear end.
And the strangest part?
Andy wasn’t sure which direction he truly wanted to follow anymore.
Then—finally—after a lifetime condensed into a few stale breaths, the door hissed open.
A silhouette stepped inside.
He moved with the silence of a storm rolling over dunes—tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in dust-black armor whose plates caught the light like shards of obsidian. His skin was dark, grit-stained, wind-burned, like a man who lived more in the wastes than in the city. His hair was cropped close. His eyes were pits of pure onyx, absorbing the room in a single sweep.
Andy’s breath hitched.
This armor… he’d never seen anything like it.
Old World plating blended seamlessly with modern Vanguard mesh.
Segmented shock-greaves.
A collar-mounted shield dampener pulsing in a dull blue rhythm.
And sleek jet attachments along the boots and hips—silent, predatory, meant for impossible movement.
Can he launch himself with those? Move faster than any soldier should?
Andy’s thoughts tripped over themselves as the man crossed the room without making a sound.
Then—
SLAM.
A thick stack of paperwork hit the table with the force of a hammer. The sound cracked through the small room like a pistol shot, rattling dust from the ceiling.
Andy straightened instinctively.
The man didn’t introduce himself.
Didn’t offer a handshake.
Didn’t blink.
He simply stared at Andy with an expression carved from iron and said—voice low, gravelly, edged like a blade drawn in shadow.
“Before we begin, Vanguard Rowan, there’s something you need to understand.”
“I don’t care for authority,” the man said.
Not loudly. Not angrily. Just truthfully—like he was reciting a law carved into his bones.
“Of any kind.”
He paced around the table slowly, boots whispering across the concrete floor. The room felt smaller with every step he took. His voice carried the weight of wind-carved stone and wasteland grit, shaped by years of isolation and survival.
“Our work is too precious,” he continued. “Too important. If it weren’t for people who brave the wastes, who find the scraps and relics this city needs to survive—you all would’ve starved, burned, or collapsed generations ago.”
He stopped behind Andy’s chair.
“And without us?”
A beat.
“This city would’ve died a long damn time ago.”
His words weren’t accusations—they were statements of fact. Brutal. Unvarnished. Unapologetic.
“So I don’t care,” he said, stepping back around to face Andy, “if the mayor wants you here. I don’t care if Commander Voss thinks you’ll be the next great hope. I don’t care about prophecies or temples or what whispers cling to your name.”
His onyx eyes locked onto Andy’s.
“In my eyes? You haven’t done anything worth noticing.”
The words struck harder than a fist.
“Sure, you survived some battles,” the man went on. “A lot of people survive battles. Some people get lucky. Some hide behind better fighters. Some stumble into victory through sheer chaos. But surviving isn’t enough. Not out there.”
He jerked his chin toward the distant window—toward the wasteland beyond.
“We need more than that,” he growled. “We need impossible. We need relentless. We need people who don’t break when the storms bite down and the ground beneath them tries to swallow them whole.”
A faint sneer touched his lip.
“And I don’t think you have it.”
Silence folded over the room.
Andy didn’t flinch. Didn’t speak. There was nothing to say in a moment like this. Words wouldn’t change the man’s mind. There were no speeches, no arguments, no explanations that mattered.
Either you had what the Rangers demanded…
or you didn’t.
The man held Andy’s stare for a long, unbroken moment. Testing. Measuring. Trying to see past flesh to whatever lay underneath.
Finally, he exhaled through his nose. A short, sharp breath.
“That’s not for me to figure out anyway.”
He jabbed a scarred finger at the stack of paperwork he’d slammed onto the table.
“Let’s see what Voss thinks makes you so special.”
He flipped the first page. His eyes flicked across the lines with remarkable speed.
“Worked at Wily’s repair shop,” he read flatly. “Joined as a scrub. Nothing notable there.”
Another page.
“Awarded a medal for saving Tobin and Jorin in the catacombs.”
A faint grunt.
“Wasteland and catacomb runs. Routine.”
He turned the page again—slower this time.
“Found a bio-mutant production facility…”
His voice trailed off.
“—and shut it down.”
He looked up. Really looked at Andy this time.
Andy didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure he could speak even if he wanted to.
The man returned to the papers, flipping again.
“Fought against the Talon and bio-mutants. Listed wounded in action. Also listed as having killed Vin.”
His eyes lifted again. Longer, heavier.
“And…”
He tapped the page.
“…‘seized the throne.’”
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Silence swelled, thick and electric.
The man lowered the paper and studied Andy with a new kind of weight. As if the boy sitting across from him was suddenly more dangerous… or more unpredictable… than he’d assumed.
The man’s expression didn’t shift at first—just the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Then, unexpectedly.
He laughed.
A dry, humorless bark, like gravel sliding down metal.
“Well,” he said, reaching inside his armor, “that’s fun.”
Andy barely had time to register the movement before a heavy pistol appeared in the man’s hand—sleek, matte-black, but vibrating faintly with restrained power. Without warning, he slammed it onto the table between them. The weapon hit with a metallic crack that echoed through the small room.
“Let’s see how you do on a real mission.”
Andy’s pulse spiked.
The man stepped back, jerking his chin toward the door behind him.
“Gear up, kid. We’re heading out. A few days, maybe more.”
Andy reached for the pistol. It felt wrong in his hand—too heavy, too hungry. He thumbed the release, checked the chamber, studied the settings. His chest tightened.
It was overclocked.
Not standard-issue. Not field-rated. Not even remotely safe.
If a regular human fired it, their bones would shatter. A Vanguard soldier with enhanced tactile interfaces and reinforced musculature might last a few shots before their hands went numb… or before the pistol ruptured from heat stress and misaligned coils.
Andy ran a finger along the vented slide. It was warm already.
“This thing’s… unstable,” he murmured.
“Yeah,” the man said. “So is the world.”
He crossed his arms as Andy finished the safety check. His gaze was sharp, evaluative—watching not the weapon, but Andy’s hands. His focus. His calm.
When Andy finally holstered the gun, he looked up.
“Where are we going, sir?”
The man’s lip curled.
“I told you,” he said, voice low. “I don’t care about authority.”
He said—not in greeting, but in declaration.
“Call me Lance.”
Andy blinked. Rangers rarely used names. Even within their own ranks.
Lance continued, the edge of a grin tugging at his mouth.
“We’re going for a scenic drive,” he said.
A pause.
A smile that held danger at its edges.
“To Bastion.”
Andy’s breath caught.
Bastion.
“You’ve heard of it?” Lance asked casually, like he was offering a vacation.
Andy swallowed.
“Perfect,” Lance said, clapping him on the shoulder with a force that almost staggered him.
He turned toward the door, boots echoing.
“Move out, Vanguard Rowan. Your evaluation already started.”
Elyra’s voice fluttered against Andy’s awareness—concerned, startled, almost breathless.
Andy… you’re going back to where you grew up?
Andy rose from the table, the overclocked pistol heavy at his hip.
“Good,” he whispered.
And followed Lance into the unknown.
Book 2.
Thorns of the Brass City, which launches on Royal Road December 8th. If you’ve enjoyed this story, I’d love for you to check that one out too — it’s fantasy, built with everything I’ve learned during this past year of writing, editing and releasing Echoes.
Echoes of Aurelia will continue on January 5th.
