09-05-2026, 10:56 PM
The sprawling, matte-black smart desk had been hauled into what was once a private sitting room. Its seamless glass surface was currently alive with hovering holographic blueprints, fluid architectural schematics, and shifting data-streams of quarterly expenditure reports.
Outside, the sprawling silhouette of Belizna brooded against the deepening dusk. Adrian did not look at the view. His eyes were fixed on a row of numbers outlining the cost of high-tensile structural steel against the staggering price of heritage stone preservation.
To call Belizna a building was an insult to its architecture. It was a sprawling, calcified monument to elite survival. A fortress disguised as a manor to all but the untrained eye, now designed to cradle the daughters of the wealthy and powerful away from the dangers of their new world.
And Adrian was funding its resurrection. Every square foot of its vast interior was being gutted and retrofitted with modern smart-grids, high-security conduits, and heavy-duty seismic bracing. It was an ambitious, obscenely expensive gamble to turn an obsolete relic into an impenetrable nexus of modern power.
On paper, the margins were terrible, but Adrian was banking on more than just a return on investment. There were easier ways to make money. It was something else entirely that convinced him to invest.
But by now his temples were throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache. Not from the numbers. He didn’t mind the work, but from a persistent, phantom friction behind his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, the cushions creaking softly in the otherwise quiet room, and brought his right hand up over the decorative, unlit candle sitting on the corner of his desk.
It was a pathetic ritual. A habit born of a quiet, humiliating curiosity that he would never admit to anyone.
He focused his eyes and reached outward, searching for the mechanism. In theory, it was simple enough: an intensity of focus, a redirection of ambient kinetic or thermal energy, a spark of the extraordinary. He felt the familiar, frustrating resistance instead swell up, like the thick, glass-like wall of his own meticulous, over-engineered consciousness refused to yield. He was a man who built his empire on the principle absolute control, precise forecasting, and complete discipline. Every thought he had was cataloged, hedged, and managed.
And that was precisely why he was choking the life out of whatever raw throughput was trying to surface.
He pushed harder, his jaw tightening, his internal will slamming against the invisible barrier he’d erected around himself. For a fraction of a second, the air temperature in the room dropped sharply.
Snap.
A tiny, pale flame flickered into existence on the wick of the candle, casting a brief, pitiful halo against the dark wood of the desk. It was microscopic. A parlor trick. The sort of combustion a novice could manage without breaking a sweat, let alone a man whose internal capacity should have been able to melt the brass holder down to slag.
Adrian stared at the pathetic little flame with a cold, dead look in his eyes.
He didn't curse. He didn't slam his fist on the desk. He simply withdrew his hand, letting the vacuum of his attention starve the wick until the flame died out, leaving a thin wisp of gray smoke curling into the chill air.
It was insulting, This systemic failure of his own biology.
He glanced at a clock. Exactly 11:00 PM. Precision was a religion, and sleep was a necessary maintenance cost he refused to skip, no matter how much his mind hummed with restless, unspent static.
Adrian stood, smoothing the front of his vest with automatic, immaculate care. He closed the remaining files and powered down the desk, and was soon in bed.
Outside, the sprawling silhouette of Belizna brooded against the deepening dusk. Adrian did not look at the view. His eyes were fixed on a row of numbers outlining the cost of high-tensile structural steel against the staggering price of heritage stone preservation.
To call Belizna a building was an insult to its architecture. It was a sprawling, calcified monument to elite survival. A fortress disguised as a manor to all but the untrained eye, now designed to cradle the daughters of the wealthy and powerful away from the dangers of their new world.
And Adrian was funding its resurrection. Every square foot of its vast interior was being gutted and retrofitted with modern smart-grids, high-security conduits, and heavy-duty seismic bracing. It was an ambitious, obscenely expensive gamble to turn an obsolete relic into an impenetrable nexus of modern power.
On paper, the margins were terrible, but Adrian was banking on more than just a return on investment. There were easier ways to make money. It was something else entirely that convinced him to invest.
But by now his temples were throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache. Not from the numbers. He didn’t mind the work, but from a persistent, phantom friction behind his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, the cushions creaking softly in the otherwise quiet room, and brought his right hand up over the decorative, unlit candle sitting on the corner of his desk.
It was a pathetic ritual. A habit born of a quiet, humiliating curiosity that he would never admit to anyone.
He focused his eyes and reached outward, searching for the mechanism. In theory, it was simple enough: an intensity of focus, a redirection of ambient kinetic or thermal energy, a spark of the extraordinary. He felt the familiar, frustrating resistance instead swell up, like the thick, glass-like wall of his own meticulous, over-engineered consciousness refused to yield. He was a man who built his empire on the principle absolute control, precise forecasting, and complete discipline. Every thought he had was cataloged, hedged, and managed.
And that was precisely why he was choking the life out of whatever raw throughput was trying to surface.
He pushed harder, his jaw tightening, his internal will slamming against the invisible barrier he’d erected around himself. For a fraction of a second, the air temperature in the room dropped sharply.
Snap.
A tiny, pale flame flickered into existence on the wick of the candle, casting a brief, pitiful halo against the dark wood of the desk. It was microscopic. A parlor trick. The sort of combustion a novice could manage without breaking a sweat, let alone a man whose internal capacity should have been able to melt the brass holder down to slag.
Adrian stared at the pathetic little flame with a cold, dead look in his eyes.
He didn't curse. He didn't slam his fist on the desk. He simply withdrew his hand, letting the vacuum of his attention starve the wick until the flame died out, leaving a thin wisp of gray smoke curling into the chill air.
It was insulting, This systemic failure of his own biology.
He glanced at a clock. Exactly 11:00 PM. Precision was a religion, and sleep was a necessary maintenance cost he refused to skip, no matter how much his mind hummed with restless, unspent static.
Adrian stood, smoothing the front of his vest with automatic, immaculate care. He closed the remaining files and powered down the desk, and was soon in bed.