The First Age

Continued from The Long Way Home


The car dropped Jay off at the curb. Medsi hospital rose in modern lines of glass and chrome, its facade glowing with lighting that bled softly into the icy sleet. Not quite elite, but high enough up the ladder that you needed real clearance or money to walk through the doors without a sideways glance.

The lobby was quiet at this hour, a lull between the late-night accidents and the pre-dawn emergencies. A security drone floated overhead, trailing a soft green light as it scanned his face and credentials. Dominion crest visible on his coat again, now that he’d removed the over-layer, he stepped to the triage counter.

A woman in hospital blues looked up. Her eyes flicked to the swelling hand he kept cradled against his chest.

“Emergency?” she asked, almost automatically. “Do you have clearance or are you paying out of pocket?”
“Clearance.” Jay replied, voice rough from the cold. He reached into his coat, withdrew a slim card, and let her scan it.

Her expression shifted. Not friendlier. Just more efficient.

“Take a seat. Someone will see you shortly.”

Jay nodded and moved to the low row of waiting chairs along the far wall. He might have gone to the Facility, but the place still gave him the creeps, and getting in at this hour would be an even bigger pain in the ass than a quick dash into an actual hospital.

He sank into the seat and leaned back, wincing as the motion jostled his hand. He didn’t look at his wallet nor at any unread messages there. Instead, he closed his eyes and listened to the slow drip of water off his coat onto the clean tile floor, and tried to relax. It went horribly.

Once it became clear that Cyrena’s ankle was far more injured than she let on, Carter absolutely insisted that she see a doctor. He contacted a concierge service for convenience and privacy, but after a quick consultation, learned that she would need examinations that would require hospital technology. Rather than listen to him go on and on about it, Cyrena eventually assented, and they arrived at a private hospital about twenty minutes drive from the masquerade. Cyrena refused the indignity of a rolling chair, so he walked with her to the desk.

Her heels clicked against the glossy white floors in stubborn rhythm. One that should have projected elegance, not the determined limp of a woman whose ankle was screaming with every step. Cyrena gritted her teeth and bore the pain, not because she had anything to prove to Carter though his gentle hovering was both infuriating and oddly endearing, but because the thought of being wheeled into a public lobby like a fragile old matron was absolutely out of the question.

The hospital was not the sterile stench of a government-run facility, but the polished, almond-scented cleanness that came from an institution that expected its patients to arrive in town cars, not ambulances. The ceiling lights cast a soft white glow that reflected back off polished chrome and smoked glass, and even the uniformed staff wore sleek black instead of white like some hypermodern hotel masquerading as a clinic.

Her dress, slate silk, slit to the navel and backless, was slightly rumpled now, a casualty of the car ride and her stubborn insistence on walking. Beside her, Carter stood like a monolith in a tuxedo tailored so perfectly she might’ve thought it stitched to his skin. He had presence, she’d give him that. The kind that drew second glances from the nurse behind the desk, who couldn’t decide whether to address him as “sir” or just pass out entirely from swooning.

“Marveet,” Cyrena said evenly, knowing she was expected.

A blink. Then, almost like clockwork, the nurse’s posture shifted. There was a too-quick smile, an internal recalibration of tone. A whisper to someone just out of view.

“Right this way, Miss Marveet. We’ll have someone with you shortly.”

Cyrena didn’t smile. Just nodded and accepted the transition of control.

They were ushered into a quieter waiting area just past the main atrium washed aglow in soft lighting, modern art on the walls, and acoustic music humming gently through unseen speakers. A curtain of privacy without being overt. She allowed herself a seat on the edge of one of the sculpted couches, angling her body carefully so her ankle wouldn’t throb with every pulse. Carter lowered beside her without needing to be asked.

She didn’t notice him at first.

The man in the corner.

It was a slight flicker in her periphery. A shift in stillness. When she looked, his posture said everything: military or close enough, but washed in exhaustion. Coat, the chains, the symbols. One hand braced against his chest like it had betrayed him earlier tonight. He didn’t look up, not at first.

She might have let it go entirely. Her curiosity was long ago exhausted. But something familiar itched in the back of her mind. Not his face, but the presence. She had not been afforded one of the prized tickets to the Ascendancy’s ball where his little toy soldiers were paraded on display, but she recognized one when she saw him.

Carter noticed it too.

“That’s one of the Dominions. If you didn’t recognize the coat.” She said.

Their eyes met for just a second. His were a bright blue eyes beneath a furrowed brow, watchful. He assessed her. The same way she was assessing him. A flicker of recognition crossed his expression, but it wasn’t because he knew her name.

A pair of nurses appeared suddenly, one with a rolling chair. “Miss Marveet, everything is ready for you.”

She looked at the chair like it was a throne of snakes and climbed to her feet in defiance. When she stumbled, Carter caught her, and all but forced her to take the chair. She grumbled about it, but when it was apparent that her leg would not allow any more weight on it, she assented, and they rolled her away.

Jay sat hunched in the curved arm of a surprisingly comfortable chair, his coat pulled tight across his chest. The drugs had long worn off by now. His hand throbbed like a heartbeat caught in bone, and the swelling was worse now, pressing against the skin in angry shades of violet. The cold had made it stiff. Now the warmth made it ache.

The overhead lights were an expensive kind of softness, but still too bright for his eyes. His head pounded like it wanted to crawl out of his skull and walk away without him. The hospital smelled like antiseptic and flowers. A place this polished wasn’t treating coughs and broken fingers unless they were attached to someone with the right last name. The last name of the woman who just entered, for example.

He saw her before she even made it to the desk. Hell, everyone with a heartbeat saw her. The dress was a deep, storm-colored silk that glimmered like wet slate under the lights. The neckline was cut like a weapon. Her walk was confident and elegant even with a badly swollen ankle turning purple beneath it all. She should’ve been hobbling. But she glided. As best as one could.

Beside her, some man in a tuxedo tracked her movements, princely and polished, straight out of a movie. Jay blinked slowly. The guy even had the collar just slightly open, like he knew he looked better when he wasn’t trying too hard.

Jay watched with a flicker of dry amusement as the receptionist straightened, perked, and within two minutes, she was ushered away. Private wing. No waiting. No questions. His lips pressed together in something like a smirk.

“Of course,” he muttered, shifting the ice pack on his hand. He wasn’t even sure if it was still cold.

Whoever she was, she didn’t look like she belonged in an ER waiting room. Neither did the guy, for that matter. They looked like they’d stepped out of a movie and accidentally wandered into someone else’s bad dream.

Jay rubbed his jaw with the back of his good hand and sank deeper into his seat. He was used to waiting. Maybe they’d fix his hand before dawn.

Carter sat quietly, hands folded over his knee, posture perfect despite the ungodly hour. His own reflection in the polished window glass flickered beneath the gentle hum of LED lighting—tuxedoed, composed, and faintly out of place. Like a portrait hanging crooked in the wrong gallery.

To be honest, this was his first experience at a hospital. The family paid for private care his entire life, medical teams that came to you, not the other way around. But Cyrena’s injury required advanced technology that couldn’t be brought to her, so they had to come here. Still, it wasn’t her condition that currently pulled his focus. It was the man seated just across from him.

After Cyrena pointed him out, he couldn’t help but notice him. The government-issued overcoat partially concealed the insignia on his sleeve, but not enough. He’d caught a brief, gleaming flash of it when the man adjusted his position, and curiosity had pricked Carter like a burr under the skin. He wasn’t above doing a quick search. Just a glance, a name, a rank. The symbol belonged to one of the Nine Rods. Dominions. The mysterious personal soldiers of the Ascendancy. Not one of the faceless guards that lined convoys and stood outside city gates, but one of the elite. The enforcers. The chosen.

Carter wasn’t easily impressed. But the presence of such a man sitting in a hospital ER, quietly nursing what looked like a broken hand, sent his mind spinning. What could bring someone like him here, unguarded and alone? And why did he look so… spent?

The man’s posture was taut but restrained. His coat clung to him like a shield, the collar still damp from the weather. His face had the rough, sleepless quality of someone who’d lost more than a fight. Someone losing pieces of himself by degrees. Carter watched the way the man flexed his injured hand, the brief tension in his jaw when it throbbed, the flicker of annoyance when someone else’s name was called before his. There was no outrage, just resignation. The kind that spoke volumes. He hadn’t been looked after. He wasn’t used to being looked after.

Carter’s eyes moved back toward the hallway Cyrena had disappeared down. She was likely receiving top-tier care already. She always would. He could only imagine how it looked. Some silk-draped heiress hobbling in and bypassing every protocol like royalty at a gala.
Because, in a way, she was. Technically, so was he, but he knew how it must look to the average person.

He couldn’t put his finger on what made this man different. There was no air of arrogance. No hungry thirst for power. Only weariness. And something feral, barely restrained, behind the calm surface. It unsettled him in the same way it fascinated him. Carter settled back, quietly taking him in. No movement now. No conversation. Just a slow simmering curiosity.

That’s when the man mumbled.

Carter replied. “Sorry about that. She’s not the kind of person you want to jump ahead of in line.”

A glance in the direction the girl had gone tugged a response, almost in afterthought. “Yeah," he muttered finally, voice low and gravel-rough. "I can see that.”

Neither one of the couple looked like they belonged in an ER at midnight. The guy looked like a prince walking out of a cartoon, and she looked like she might flay the skin of her prey with her fingernails. "She someone important?”

Jay leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, dragging his coat tighter around his shoulders, the pain in his hand pulsing like a slow drumbeat. The night’s memories was swirling through his head, but now they were mixed up with flashes of the present. The tux. The silk dress. The perfect jawlines. The whole thing felt like a fever dream bleeding into his night.

He exhaled and waited to see what the prince would say.

Carter followed Jay’s glance, lips curving faintly. His posture was impeccable even here, the hospital’s sterile lighting somehow unable to diminish the sharp lines of his tuxedo or the cultivated composure he wore like a second skin.

“Her name is Cyrena Marveet,” he said evenly, voice low so it didn’t carry. “Daughter of the Custody’s newest Privilege. Ascendancy himself made the announcement tonight.” He adjusted the cuff of his sleeve as if brushing off an invisible speck of lint. “Which explains our attire. It was a ball in honor of some high ranking Custody somebodies.”

His gaze flicked briefly toward the hallway where Cyrena had disappeared, then back to Jay. “Unfortunately, Miss Marveet turned an ankle before the night was through. Hence the detour.”

After a pause, Carter straightened and extended a hand, the gesture polished from a lifetime of introductions, though he checked himself at the last moment, eyeing Jay’s injured one. The hesitation was brief, replaced by a small nod of acknowledgment.

“Carter Volthström,” he said at last, letting the name hang between them. His expression didn’t change, but he waited, watching Jay closely for the flicker of recognition that usually followed.