The Hidden Monarch

Chapter 4 – City of Gold, Heart of Dust

The city never slept. Its towers stabbed at the clouds, windows glowing like molten gold against the dusk. From the bridge where Aaric stood, the skyline seemed to stretch forever — a painting of success framed by lies. Cars streamed below him, a current of speed and greed, and in their mirrors he saw reflections of people who never looked back.

He adjusted his torn jacket. The fabric still smelled faintly of motor oil and rust. His hands — scarred from years in the garage — tightened around the railing. Down there, beneath those bright towers, he belonged to the invisible class: the ones who fixed, carried, cleaned, and built the world but never owned a piece of it.

Yet tonight, something inside him stirred — a flicker that refused to die.

The “City of Gold,” they called it. But for Aaric, every step was through dust.

The garage was nearly empty when he returned, the air thick with heat and the metallic scent of grease. Sparks flew from under a half-dismantled engine as his friend Dev tapped at a wrench.

“You’re late again,” Dev muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. “Boss nearly docked your pay.”

Aaric dropped his bag and crouched beside the car. “If he wants perfection, he can pay more.”

Dev snorted. “Careful, philosopher. The last guy who said that got replaced by a robot.”

Aaric smiled faintly and reached into the engine. Machines listened when people didn’t. Each bolt, each hum of a cylinder, was a language he could understand. “Robots don’t dream,” he said quietly.

“Dreams don’t fill your stomach,” Dev shot back, standing to stretch. “You coming tonight? There’s a fight on the east pier.”

“Maybe.”

Dev gave him a curious glance. “You’ve been different lately. Thinking of leaving the city?”

Aaric didn’t answer. He couldn’t explain it — the whisper that called him beyond the skyline, the weight in his chest when he stared at the stars. It wasn’t just ambition. It was something older, deeper… as if his blood remembered a life before this one.

That night, the city lights burned hotter than usual. He walked through crowded streets where perfume mingled with exhaust fumes, where laughter came from people who never had to worry about hunger. Glass towers shimmered above slums patched with tin and cloth.

He stopped outside a luxury dealership, his reflection caught between shadows and silver. Behind the glass, a woman in a crimson dress stepped into a car worth more than his lifetime’s earnings. The guard bowed, the photographers flashed, and for a moment her eyes met his through the glass.

Aaric’s breath hitched.

Her face was calm — beautiful in a way that made the world fall silent. Not just wealth, but command. Power. The kind that bent others’ wills without a word. He didn’t know her name then, but later, he would learn it. Selena Ardent. The city’s brightest star.

And the beginning of his ruin.

He turned away before the car rolled past. The reflection of her gold heels lingered in his eyes as he stepped back into the night. Somewhere above the noise, a voice whispered: You were not born to bow.

But the city didn’t care about whispers. It cared about survival.

Aaric stopped at the edge of the district, staring up at the skyline again — the towers pulsing like living things. “One day,” he murmured, “I’ll reach that light.”

Dev’s words echoed faintly in his head: Dreams don’t fill your stomach.

He smiled without humor. “No,” he said. “But they keep you alive long enough to fight for more.”

A week later, life resumed its rhythm — grease, sweat, and survival. But beneath it all, change brewed like a storm. A rich man’s car came into the garage, sleek and silent. Its emblem — a black serpent coiled around a crown — caught Aaric’s eye. Something about it froze him mid-step.

The driver tossed the keys on the counter. “Don’t scratch it. This car’s worth more than your life.”

Aaric said nothing. He only ran his hand over the hood. The engine purred under his touch — responsive, almost alive. Inside the trunk, he noticed faint markings — an insignia he couldn’t recognize.

It wasn’t a brand. It was a symbol. One he had seen before.

But where?

That night, when the garage emptied and silence filled the air, he sat alone, tracing the lines of the emblem under the dim light. The serpent and crown… it called to him, awakening a memory he didn’t have.

He didn’t know it yet, but that symbol was the key to his past — and to a destiny buried beneath layers of dust and deceit.

Outside, the neon billboards shimmered with slogans about success and wealth. The world above the slums glittered, blind to the pain beneath. Aaric stood at the door of the garage, staring out at the endless night.

The city of gold stretched before him — beautiful, untouchable, and cruel.

He closed his eyes and whispered to himself:

“Someday, I’ll own this city. Not for its gold… but to show them what they threw away.”

In the hum of the distant lights, the orphan’s vow took root.

And though he didn’t know it yet, somewhere in that same skyline, seven powerful women looked down upon the world — waiting for the brother they had lost the night he was born.