Born for silk

Chapter One

Rome

Aged Eighteen

Vows of a king:

To be a king is to master one's passions and rule with the sole purpose of uniting The Cradle. Each new citizen needs the opportunity to have a Meaningful Purpose.

A Common Community.

That’s the first one I have ever seen.

Pressing my eye to the periscope in the king’s military tank, I watch as the fractured abbey emerges like a wraith through the red haze.

Nature throws her fierce body around the looming old-world compound, but it withstands the Redwind and sand.

It is indestructible.

Just like me.

We plough across the Red Decline toward the isolated community, tank tracks chewing the unsealed road, machinery humming, gu

My pulse hammers.

Hundreds of tiny Common men and women flock to the tower edges, arms shielding their eyes from the wind that lashes like exploding glass.

The gate to their desert community opens, dragging along sand and debris.

The tank presses in through twin stone walls, and I wait for collision, but the driver is masterful at his Trade.

We pass through unscathed.

“Rome.” Turin’s voice booms in my ears with even his whispers.

I lift my head, painfully aware of my thunderous pulse, and align myself with the clarity inside this metal fortress. My eyes meet Turin; attention is my response.

“Not a word,” is all he says.

I clench my teeth, caging hundreds of objections. Words won’t make him treat me like his heir, like a man. Like a king.

As he moves toward the front of the vehicle, his bulk brushes the metal edges. Our container is cramped, but he is enormous. Thick across the shoulders, long arms, and hands the size of a Common human’s head.

He is a monster.

And I will be, too.

Soon.

I am not a child.

My Guardian, Kong, watches me with amusement as my mind reels, the words hanging on my tongue but flaring in my eyes.

I crack my neck from side to side. I want to make decisions. I am ready. Ready to be the successor in The Cradle.

What I was born for, built for.

“I know that look. You’re only eighteen. What would you have to say to the Common anyway?” Kong asks, reading me.

I look at him. “Eighteen is a man.”

“No.” He shakes his head against a single laugh. “Your father is ninety-three and still has the appearance of a fifty-year-old. That’s pure Xin De genetics. You are no man. That is a man.”

Disdain climbs into my voice. “I know his age.”

He nods toward Turin—my father. “Look at him, boy.”

Boy… My lips curl into a snarl. He is the only being I can stand calling me that.

“Why?” I argue. He is also the only one I argue with because our respect is mutual.

Despite my age, he listens to me.

“Because”—he moves closer, care for my wellbeing unhidden in his frustration— “it’s my damn job to keep you alive. And it’s not the fucking Common or Endigos that will get you killed. It’ll be at the hands of your own father if you let that slip through your mouth.”

I lift a brow. “Let what through?”

“What you’re thinking. I would die for you, boy. I would fight your father for you. Have him rip my head straight off my shoulders. Don’t put me in that position. Your father might be one of the last pure Xin De before The Trade introduced The Revive. Your mother was only half. You won’t be as massive as him.”

I frown at Kong. “I’ll be bigger than him.”

“Do you have the prince?” A Guard calls from the front where four others prepare—pulling on leather armour and loading their automatic rifles—to exit through the hatches as the vehicle chews along the dirt floor, slowing and easing into place.

“My mother is two-thirds Xin De,” I whisper as the Guards bustle ahead of us, heated conversations and readiness in the air. “Turin saw to it. He told me he wouldn’t allow The Trade to mix my blood too much.”

Kong folds his thick arms over his chest. “Still not pure, boy.”

Fucker.

Sneering, I look through the scope.

The Common duck from the giant tank tracks. Murmuring their awe, they circle the two colossal military vehicles, creating a crowd around them. They gape, their eyes the size of saucers set into semi-translucent flesh, blue veins snaking beneath pale skin.

Common men and women have always reminded me of fish. I wonder what their skin feels like. Soft? Hot or cold? Or both? So fragile the world dictates the temperature?

Nothing like mine; my skin is always warm, engineered for the world. A thick sheath with compact molecules to combat the wind, endure the heat, deter the cold, block the sand—survive. My skin is designed to survive.

I glance at Kong. He grins at me, before fisting my leather chest plates, reminding me I need them even with my engineered genes. People want me dead, and a bullet will still pierce my skin.

“Do I?” he asks. “Do I have the prince?”

I relent. “My mouth is sealed.”

“Will you keep it that way?”

“Ready,” a Guard calls, and the rest hustle through the hatches. They quickly create a protective ring around Turin as he climbs into view.

I listen. Even from in here, I swear I hear the entire community gasp. Kong is right—Turin is a single-man army. Designed for battle. A warlord.

Twenty bullets already float deep within his tissue, and he is twenty-five percent metal after several wars and surgical enhancements.

I begin climbing from the tank, watching the interaction outside as I go.

“Bless you.” A tiny Common man steps forward to shake Turin’s hand, finding his own disappear into the massive mitt. He tries to steel himself, but Turin of The Strait shadows him.

He visibly trembles, dried blood on his forehead cutting through caked dirt and sweat.

The pulse in my throat builds to a beat between my ears. Is it excitement?

No. As my feet hit the dirt and all eyes land on the prince for the first time, it becomes clear-as fucking crown-light that my charged heart has nothing to do with excitement.

I am nervous to disappoint him.

Him. My father—Turin.

The man is basically a stranger, and until a few days ago, I wasn’t even certain I was his heir… Though, I had my suspicions. I am bigger than the others born from his Collective. I am stronger, and the eagles like me more. I felt his blood inside me but had to wait. Anonymity is sacred until the heir turns eighteen. Old enough to defend himself—myself. Then, the great reveal. That is now—this day, this campaign.

I walk to stand beside him, and Kong halts at my left flank—my shadow and shield.

The wind is trapped outside the abbey fortress, but it creeps the perimeter walls, whistling and warning us. It is still there.

“We are indebted that you came,” the Common man says, stepping backward once, craning his neck to peer up at his towering Xin De King. “I am Colt.”

“We do what we can,” Turin states, apathetic, his voice a thundering note capable of trembling rocks below his feet.

I envy him.

He is without emotion.

Will I ever be like that?

As if to answer me, the vision of my sweet sister flashes in my mind, and I feel everything.

Cairo, The Trade Master, approaches from the rear vehicle—never sit the king and The Trade Master in the same tank. At least one must survive an attack. I know this from my studies.

He takes his position at my father’s right hand. “How many Endigos came through?” he asks, dropping his cloak to his shoulders, displaying flawless, unscathed features. A manicured beard and neat, short, dark hair—the man is pretty.

Too pretty.

I glare at him.

It’s almost an insult to a war-stricken land. He’s never seen a battlefield, but spurs hundreds of men onto them. He must be in his thirties but appears only slightly older than me—his Xin De Genus is strong.

But so is mine.

Colt takes a large breath. “Fifty. Maybe.”

“Armed?” Cairo asks.

Colt nods stiffly, a sad memory glossing his eyes. “Yes. They scaled the walls. Opened the gates from the inside. We lost men and women—” He swallows over a lump. “My wife. That is, the mother of my children.”

“We know what a wife is,” Cairo offers. “We are not ignorant of the old-world traditions.”

“Marriage is part of our religion,” Colt says, then presses on. “They took supplies. They stayed all night. They raped our women. Made us watch. They gutted our priest and cooked his intestines on that fire.” His voice breaks. “They feasted on him.”

Turning his gaze to the compound surroundings, Turin seems to analyse the raid.

I follow his line of sight.

To the right, a smoking fire hisses of the ca

The men and women look exhausted.

Dirty and bloody.

My mind reaches and imagines—women and men being dragged from their homes last night. Raped. Murdered. Their screams touched the walls, the haunting energy still clawing at the brickwork as we stand here.

A growl sits in my chest.

I’m not sure how I feel at this moment. Not remorse for Common I don’t know. The only truth that flows like molten steel through me is Tuscany, my sister, will never leave The Estate. I will lock her in my wing when I’m The Cradle’s Monarch and Protector if it means sheltering her from all this… This Common savagery.

“They destroyed the mill.” Colt’s voice cuts into my thoughts. Clearing his throat, he appears on the brink of tears.

He wipes his face.

Tries to stifle his emotions.

“That was the only one we had,” he manages to say. “It powered the entire community.”

“You operate outside The Trade,” Cairo points out. “You know this is a choice. Your lifestyle here is your choice. The isolation is your choice.”

“Freedom is our choice,” a man from the community calls from inside the sea of small, exhausted Common.

In The Estate, that is treason.

Darting my eyes between the crowd and Turin, I wait for his reaction. For retribution. I want to see how Turin manages The Greater Cradle.

But no consequence comes.

He is unmoved—almost robotic.

“Yes,” Cairo finally addresses the phantom voice. “And this is what you get for your freedom. Lucky for you, we are not so selfish.”

“He understands,” Turin states, back to business. “What else should we know? Can you describe the Endigos?”