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.

He hadn’t been keeping up with Custody announcements lately, but that name hit like a bag of bricks. Not because of Cyrena, specifically. But because of her father. Marveet had been in Mexico. Back when Amengual's trap caught him and Natalie. When his parents were killed. When he finally tasted revenge and left a pile of body bags in his wake.

Marveet was the only reason he and Natalie weren’t in two of them.

Jay exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing just a touch. He filed that away. Then came the second name. Volthstrom.

The Volthstroms were stories more than people. Oligarch ghosts. Wealth with a pulse. His brain skipped sideways to some old conversation about how they operated outside of lawful structures, how they had their fingers in places no fingers belonged. Jay had half-joked that they were probably aliens, or descended from them. He'd have to tell Natalie about this. Just in case it meant something.

But now here was one in a fucking hospital waiting room of all places, dressed like he’d stepped out of a monarchic fever dream. Jay's brow lifted slightly. Then he offered the hand that still worked, his left, ignoring the way his right throbbed in protest with every passing second.

“Jay Carpenter.”
No rank. No title. Just Jay.

If Carter was watching closely, he’d catch the glint of recognition in Jay’s eyes. Just enough to show he understood enough. But he didn’t gawk. Didn’t pry. Just locked eyes, steady, and added dryly: “Hell of a night.”

[[Continued from The Price of Questions]]

It was early hours by the time she admitted defeat. The shattered glass was swept clean, the pieces of broken furniture too big to bag but small enough to move piled together to one side. Natalie perched on the bare bones of the sofa and surveyed the desolation with no attachment beyond numbness. She wanted to shower but didn't want to undress. There was no real fear now, but a sense of vulnerability that wrapped tight in her chest when she went into the bathroom and immediately abandoned the idea. She washed her hands instead, sore with tiny slivers she couldn't see when she rubbed her palms under the stream.

Fatigue crept in but she had no desire to sleep. Nor anything to sleep on, actually. By now she imagined Jay had crashed out somewhere and wouldn't be back until morning. Maybe later than that if he was due early at the Garden. For the first time she considered that she really ought to have called someone, but asking for help had never actually occurred to her. Nor, even, had using the power to lighten the burden of clearing up.

The apartment felt as still as a graveyard, and just as soulless. She twisted the wallet in her hands and ended up searching for the closest hotel. If she told Jay where to meet her hopefully he wouldn't come back here, though if he did at least it looked less like a crime scene now. But she didn’t want to stay here, and now that the urge unfurled it felt vital. This place reminded her of her father. Of a life she didn’t want but tried to make herself fit into. Of a prison where Jay tried to stitch himself into the shape of a normal man because he thought it was what she needed to see. She’d never even wanted to be in Moscow.

Frustration spiralled when the closest hotel turned out to be the Radiance. Because the last thing she wanted to chance suffering tonight was Adrian Kane.

Then a message from Jay flashed on the screen in its place.

The guy I punched earlier? Going to get my hand checked. might be broken. I’ll send you the hospital info when I get there. In a car now.

It was probably the first sensible thing either of them had suggested all night. Natalie didn't wait for the coordinates to come through, just pulled on her coat and packed a bag. There was little of Jay’s to rescue from their life here. He was wearing the uniform and pin. Toiletries she’d stop to purchase en route. And honestly there was little of her own to take either, just spare clothes, her wallet, and Emily’s gift.

---

Medsi was an imposing construction of glass and chrome. The soft rattle of the public transport she took to get here had smoothed out the anger and frustration, let her compartmentalise the break-in with distance. She wasn’t trying to figure it out yet, how fucked they might be, but the frigid night air cleared her head some more. She told herself it was a blessing. Galvanised herself anew with stubborn resolution.

The doors swished open soundlessly ahead of her. God she hated that smell, astringent with antiseptic smothered in something moneyed. Like they didn’t all bleed the same. Wherever her thoughts had been, they funnelled back into her senses as she stepped into the hospital’s lobby. She saw him in her peripheral without trying to, a grim dark-clad figure in a distant waiting room chair. Hand cradled by a bag of icemelt. Worse for wear, but not as bad as he could have been – as far as she could see from here anyway. The face opposite was unexpected, though. Recognised at distance but ignored for now. What the fuck was Carter doing in Moscow? Let alone in a hospital waiting room in the early hours. Volthströms didn’t usually slum it to live like ordinary people.

The bag hung loose on Natalie’s shoulder, a tray with coffee and a muffin cradled in one arm – utterly pedestrian, and probably unwelcome judging by the polished lines and cleanliness of a clearly private facility. She was tired, mood a little frayed, so the sharpness in her pale gaze was not entirely feigned as she approached the desk.

“Northbrook,” she said to the woman behind it. Clipped in tone, but low enough to promise she wouldn’t cause an immediate scene if she got what she wanted quickly. Private places like this scanned facial IDs on entrance even if the familial name did not hasten recognition. Honestly a certain manner did the rest. Act entitled and people rarely questioned the audacity. “I'm here to collect the Dominion, so why the fuck is he still waiting to be seen?”

Her brow rose. She didn’t pause to register the woman’s expression, or watch how fast she did or did not scurry. It was technically a lie, to let the staff believe there was some official sway behind the command. There was no satisfaction in the meanness. It was just more expedient.

At first she’d wondered if Carter was somehow the friend Jay had bumped into, however unlikely an acquaintance it seemed. But if the crisp tuxedo and stiffly elegant mannerisms didn’t disprove it, the stilted conversation she interrupted as she approached them in the waiting area did. The idea of Carter in the RLD brought a glint of amusement to her eye as she plucked the coffee from the tray and offered it to Jay in lieu of greeting. Perhaps she should have brought water instead. He didn’t look high. He did look like shit, though; hunched over that purple hand, damp in his coat and dripping a small puddle on the tiles beneath his chair. Natalie’s expression was inscrutable, but she seemed utterly unphased to be here, whatever the hour, or the surroundings. Including that ungodly drone of humdrum music, like they were all trapped in an upscale hotel elevator.

It felt like the beginning of a bad joke, and she wanted to laugh at the absurdity. But it’d probably be in bad taste.

She glanced across at Carter, then. She didn’t know if he’d even recognise her all these years later, and it didn’t bother her either way. Occasionally their families intersected at some function or other, owing to Edward’s close friendship with Carter’s father. But Carter was older, Isobel’s age, and Natalie had never really been in the same elite circles, especially after Alistair’s arrest, when all her self-destructive social efforts had gone into the kind of company which made her mother despair. As a teenager just the mention of Carter’s name had suffused her sister’s cheeks with warmth, though; that she did remember, because it had been a wealthy source of teasing back then. It wasn’t that Carter wasn’t handsome; he was, almost painfully so. But she’d never seen anything of substance to go with it. Just manners and chivalry. The only interesting one of the bunch was Guillaume.

The extra company was a little inconvenient, actually, but only because it meant she couldn’t say the things she wanted to. When Natalie was committed to confession she preferred to be blunt with it, and she wasn’t really sure how Jay would react. Instead they'd have to hobble through some small talk before she could speak to him properly. The bag hanging from her shoulder felt like a statement to invite curiosity in the meantime, though she supposed it’d be easy enough to brush off until she could explain everything fully. And they were both men. Unlikely either of them would even notice it was larger than the sort a woman normally carried in the first place. Not to mention the faint tension that accompanied the pair of them being busy sizing each other up. “So I take it this isn’t the old friend you ran into,” she said to Jay. Her tone was touched with amusement. “Not unless Gui has been leading him astray again, at any rate.”

“Has he, Carter?” Her tone was light and teasing, and perhaps a touch curious as she addressed him by name. Not because she wanted to know why he was here, but because she wanted to see if he'd squirm trying to place her.

Carter had just about reached the limit of his patience for faintly awkward small talk when the doors to the lobby whispered open again. He turned, intending to rise and inquire about Cyrena's status. He disliked not knowing things, but he paused when he saw the woman who entered.

She didn’t walk like hospital visitors usually did. She strode, sharp and poised. Bag slung over one shoulder, tray in hand like an afterthought. Her eyes cut to the desk and her tone snapped off commands with the kind of confidence that didn’t bother with explanation. It was the kind power that only came from recognizing it in another of like kind.

At first he thought she was simply a well-kept partner come to collect the sulking Jay. But then she approached him, coffee tray in hand, and for a moment he watched her in profile. Curious, she was vaguely familiar, and he tried to place her.

Her jaw was sharp and the eyes were intelligent. Beautiful beneath the veneer of dishevelment she put out. It was her bearing that tugged at something half-buried in memory. The kind of bearing girls had when they were raised at elbows of power, the daughters of monarchs and titans who knew when to shut up and when to speak sharp truths.

And then she said his name. He blinked once, slowly. Something about the way she said Gui twisted something into place.

And before he could help himself, he said: “Isobel?”

It was instinctive, the way he said it, brow lifted, trying to match her face with the one in his memory though this woman’s voice carried more bite, and her eyes were too cold.