The Hidden Monarch

The Orphan’s Eyes

Rain soaked the slum that night—thick, oily drops falling from a sky the color of ash. The narrow lanes of Sector Nine were flooded again, turning dirt into black rivers that swallowed broken toys, paper prayers, and empty promises. In the middle of that chaos, a boy sat under a bent tin roof, eyes wide and hollow as he watched the storm devour the world.

Aaric Vale—though he did not yet know his last name—had been abandoned the day he was born. The nuns said a cloaked man had left him at the church door wrapped in an expensive blanket, one too fine for this place. But even the church had burned later, leaving only ashes and whispers. Aaric grew up with nothing but that blanket, now torn, and a hunger that went deeper than his stomach.

At eight, he was already old.

He worked at the junkyard from dawn to dusk, sorting scrap metal and dreaming about machines that still worked. The sound of clanging steel was his lullaby; the smell of oil and smoke, his comfort. When hunger clawed at him, he would sneak to the mechanic’s shop nearby—where Master Lin, a gruff man with grease on his hands and sorrow in his eyes, sometimes let him sleep behind the engines.

“Keep your head low, boy,” Lin used to say. “The city doesn’t see us. That’s our advantage.”

But Aaric wanted to be seen.

Every night, when the power grids flickered and neon lights painted the sky, he climbed the old transmission tower to look at the glittering skyline beyond the slums. The great city shimmered like a dream—cars that flew, towers that touched the clouds, and people who walked like they belonged to the stars. He watched them through his cracked binoculars, and for a few moments, he imagined himself among them.

Then he would look down at his hands—scarred, small, trembling—and remember where he really was.

The gangs of Sector Nine were merciless. They took from the weak, traded food for obedience, and ruled with knives sharper than hope. Aaric learned quickly—never show fear, never trust smiles, never cry where others could see. His eyes became his weapon: silent, piercing, watching everything. People began calling him The Orphan with the Iron Eyes.

He stole, yes—but only to survive. He fought, but only when cornered. Once, when a gang leader tried to take his only blanket, Aaric broke a bottle and held it to the man’s throat until he backed away. From that night, nobody touched him again.

At twelve, Master Lin finally took him in as an apprentice. “You’ve got hands made for creation,” Lin muttered. “Not destruction.” Under Lin’s guidance, Aaric learned the language of engines—the hum of pistons, the rhythm of gears, the whisper of electricity. Machines, unlike people, made sense. They broke, but they could be fixed.

By fifteen, he could build a bike from scrap, wire a car without tools, and see through a broken circuit like others read a book. Lin would sometimes stare at him, puzzled. “You’re learning faster than I can teach. Where did you get this instinct?”

Aaric only shrugged. “I just… hear what the metal wants.”

But survival wasn’t just about skill. The city was changing. Corporations were buying everything—the air, the water, the future. Men like Lin were being pushed out, their shops bulldozed to make room for glittering malls. One evening, men in suits came with papers and guns. They called it “reconstruction.” Lin called it theft.

They burned his shop that night.

Aaric ran through the smoke, dragging Lin out as the roof collapsed. The old man didn’t make it. In his final moments, Lin pressed a small, rusted key into Aaric’s palm. “Don’t stop building… The world needs men who can rebuild it.”

Aaric buried him behind the ruins with a spanner as his marker.

After that, he worked wherever he could—carrying fuel, fixing old engines, patching circuits in broken drones. He lived in shadows, spoke little, and trusted no one. The hunger for survival turned into a hunger for meaning. Sometimes he would stare at the skyline again, wondering if someone up there knew his name.

On one such night, he saw her.

A convoy of luxury cars passed through the slums—an impossible sight. In the middle car, through tinted glass, he saw a glimpse of her face. Pale, flawless, glowing like light through water. She was the city’s famed beauty—Selene Ardyn, daughter of the Ardyn Conglomerate’s CEO. She was everything he wasn’t—rich, safe, unbroken.

For a second, their eyes met.

And for the first time, Aaric’s heart betrayed him.

The car vanished into the distance, but the image stayed burned into his mind. It wasn’t love yet—it was curiosity. Hope. A dangerous kind of dream.

Days passed, then weeks. He saw her again when her car broke down near the industrial border. Mechanics refused to approach, fearing her guards. Aaric stepped forward, wiped his hands on his shirt, and said quietly, “I can fix it.”

The guards laughed, but Selene smiled. “Let him try.”

Five minutes later, the engine purred like new. When she asked for his name, he hesitated. “Just… Aaric.”

“Then thank you, Aaric,” she said, her voice soft as rain. “You have the eyes of someone who’s seen too much.”

She left, but not before pressing a small card into his hand—a token with the Ardyn insignia.

From that day, something changed.

He worked harder, built better, saved every coin. He wanted to prove that even someone from the mud could rise. He fixed engines by day and studied circuits by night. His reputation grew quietly—“the miracle mechanic.”

But fate has a cruel sense of humor.

Months later, he saw Selene again—this time at a charity gala broadcast on every screen in the slums. She stood beside another man—handsome, rich, dressed in silver. The host introduced him as her fiancé.

Aaric turned off the screen and sat in silence. He felt foolish for believing the world would allow him to dream. But beneath the heartbreak, something else stirred—a spark that would one day ignite an empire.

He whispered to himself, “They will remember my name.”

That night, lightning struck the transmission tower he used to climb. The next morning, the slum children found him staring at the ruins, eyes cold and clear.

The boy who once only wanted to survive now wanted to rule.

And somewhere beyond the city lights, seven powerful women felt a sudden shift in the air—as if the world had just remembered someone it had tried to forget.