The crown never leaves the head. Not even in silence.
The city didn't sleep—because Aldrin didn't allow it to. Even in darkness, his empire pulsed with movement: digital trades whispered across satellites, contracts signed in different time zones, deals enforced not with guns, but with the quiet pressure of debt and dependency.
Aldrin sat beneath the dimmed lights of his upper office, sleeves rolled, collar undone. The boardroom was silent now, cleared of power plays and smiles sharpened like daggers. What remained was stillness—and the echo of control.
The bottle of whiskey was half full. He never drank to escape. Only to reflect. Only to remember.
Marek poured his own glass across the room, his presence a rare constant in a world built on shifting alliances. The two shared a quiet understood only by those who had once bled on the same floor.
"You built all of this," Marek said, eyes on the skyline. "And yet you still sit like you owe it something."
Aldrin didn't answer at first. He stood, tracing the edges of the city with his eyes— Aetherium Spire's rooftop helipads, Aurora Media's neon cathedral, and the sprawl of districts fed by his empire's unseen hand. They were all tied to his breath. Every heartbeat beneath those towers—his responsibility.
"I do owe it something," Aldrin said quietly. "I owe it the version of me I chose to become. The one I clawed into existence."
Marek leaned on the glass, watching his brother more than the city.
"You still dream of the old days?"
"No," Aldrin replied. "I dream of the fire. Of what or who I lost walking through it."
He walked to the massive sword mounted behind his desk. His fingers brushed the inscription etched into the steel:
To rise from the ashes, first you must burn.
"People think I wear a crown," Aldrin continued, voice low. "But this is no crown. This is armor. Every decision, every betrayal, every ghost—they're woven into it. I don't rule. I endure."
Marek took a long drink. "The council's growing restless. Not disloyal. Just… forgetful. They think peace is a promise, not a pause."
The council, a mix of old money and new ambition, didn't fear war—but they feared unpredictability. And Aldrin had built a myth of silence that thundered louder than any gun.
"They'll remember when blood hits marble again."
"They always do."
The silence settled like fog.
Then Marek added, "There's movement in the eastern sectors. Soft shifts. Resources thinning. Influence drifting. Feels like someone's setting the board."
"Name?"
"None. Could be ghosts."
Aldrin turned, cold calculation behind his stillness. "Then we'll move the mirror. Force their reflection."
"Any message?"
Aldrin shook his head. "Let the silence speak for us. It's heavier than anything I could say."
He returned to his chair, sitting not as a man, but as a throne made flesh.
His datapad blinked—another agenda for the morning. Aurora's creative lead interviews. Budgets for expansion into orbital med-tech. Syndicate negotiations pending.
One name among many: Iris Cael.
Aldrin didn't flinch this time. Just closed the tab.
"You ever feel tired?" Marek asked.
Aldrin's reply came like a closing door.
"I don't have that luxury."
The crown didn't sleep.