The offices of Rashu Daily were cramped and alive, nestled in the heart of Biru's bustling main street. The building was modest. Two stories of dark wooden beams and stone. In the colder months, its slanted roof sagged under the weight of snow. Lanterns swayed from the eaves, their flickering glow tracing the carved symbols along the entrance, marking it as a house of written knowledge.

Inside, the air buzzed with the scratch of pens against parchment, the scent of ink and paper thick in the warmth of the room. Stacks of newspapers lay bundled in the corners, waiting to be distributed by eager couriers. Editors and writers wove around each other, exchanging notes, debating headlines, calling out for fresh drafts. It was a small operation, but an efficient one. News never waited, even in a village so distant from the heart of Atlantis.

The latest computers were rare outside the big cities, especially in the South, where machines were met with distrust. The villagers of Biru, like most in the region, favored the old ways—ink, paper, and human hands shaping knowledge instead of cold circuits. Rashu Daily was one of the few places that used computers, though sparingly. One of them belonged to Ashur.

There was talk of a new technology spreading across the continent, a device called the tablet. But it had yet to reach the South. Here, rotary phones with heavy bases and coiled cords still reigned. Fingers spun their dials, the rhythmic clicks followed by sharp rings. Villagers dismissed tablets as another fleeting city trend. An unnecessary, intrusive tool that would only deepen humanity's reliance on machines.

The computers at Rashu Daily were primitive compared to what Ashur had at home. His system was state-of-the-art, hidden from prying eyes, far beyond anything in Biru. He also had several newly released tablets. His toys, in a way. He used them to code, test and refine himself.

His mother had warned him to keep his technology a secret. For his own safety. No one knew about them. And he intended to keep it that way.

At the office, he preferred to work alone. His desk sat at the far end of the room, tucked between the archive shelves and a window overlooking a narrow street. A junior writer's desk—small, unassuming, meant for quiet work. He had never minded. He liked the solitude, the space to think. A fresh article assignment lay before him, stamped with urgency: "Unrest in the Capital."

Another one.

Ashur sighed, picking it up. The floating islands were always in some form of turmoil, at least, according to the newspapers. The elites bickered, power shifted, and rumors of rebellion stirred like dust in the wind. He skimmed the report with little interest, his mind elsewhere.

On her.

Alia.

The way her eyes crinkled when she laughed. The way her lips formed each careful word. The softness in her voice. It unsettled him. This persistent presence of her in his thoughts, this strange pull toward something he did not fully understand.

He set the article down and reached for another, this one an older piece on the politics of the floating islands. He had read countless reports on the Atlantean elite, but none captured them the way his mother had described.

"They are not like the rest of us, Ashur," she had told him.

But then, he wasn't like the rest of humanity either.

"They believe they were made perfected by the hand of Ava Nori herself," she had explained, almost like a warning.

The Atlantean nobility were, in fact, a genetically enhanced race, the pinnacle of human evolution. According to the Gab Nori, the first of them had been crafted with divine precision, shaped by the Goddess' will to rule from above. That was why they lived apart, high on the floating islands of Atlantis, a capital suspended in the sky, beyond the reach of ordinary humans.

Many believed the nobility carried the DNA of the Ava Nori herself, granting them abilities beyond human comprehension. Some could move water with their minds, shaping waves and currents with a mere thought. Others wielded the earth, shifting stone and soil as if molding clay and lifting themselves from the ground, defying gravity itself as if the weight of the world did not apply to them. There were those who could summon the wind, bending it to their command.

And then, there were the Seers, the ones who glimpsed beyond the veil of time, into the past, the future, and the realms in between.

Among the poor common people across the continent, they had another name for them: sky gods. Often spoken with resentment, sometimes in whispers, sometimes with open defiance. A slur. One most of the elite despised.

The word carried the weight of generations. Bitterness, anger, the quiet fury of those who had lived and died beneath their rule. The sky gods watched from their floating palaces while the rest of the world toiled below. They were above suffering. Above hunger. Above the laws of nature itself.

Some believed that was their divine right. Others believed it was time to bring them down.

Ashur exhaled and set the article aside. The news of unrest did not interest him. But, alas, work was necessary. It was expected. A custom of human life.

Why did humans spend so much time doing things they didn't want to? It couldn't be just for money. Maybe it was something deeper. A need to belong. To move with the rhythm with the world, even when that rhythm felt unbearable. To endure the mundane, the meaningless, because it tethered them to something greater than themselves. Maybe suffering together was what made them real to each other.

He was still lost in thought when he noticed movement from the front of the office.

Mangi, who usually manned the front desk, was weaving through the rows of desks, heading straight for him. His movements were deliberate, yet oddly casual. Too casual. As if he was trying not to draw attention.

That made Ashur uneasy.

Mangi pulled up a chair and sat down beside him, leaning in slightly. His eyes flickering toward the other writers in the office. Then, almost conspiratorially, he glanced over Ashur's shoulder.

Ashur frowned.

Odd.

"So," Mangi said, lowering his voice, "how was last night?"

Ashur blinked. "Last night?"

"With Alia Sitallu."

Alia.

He did not like the way Mangi said her name, stretched out like something worth savoring.

"It went well," Ashur replied, unsure what Mangi was implying.

Mangi smirked. "She's a pretty one, huh? How did you manage a date with her?"

Ashur tilted his head, his confusion deepening. "It wasn't a date."

Mangi raised his brows, chuckling under his breath. "Oh, okay." His voice was laced with disbelief.

"We just met. We were having some dinner." Ashur said, confused.

Mangi leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "So you don't know that she's the heiress of Sitallu Family Holdings?"

Ashur frowned. "The Heiress?"

Mangi nodded. "Her father used to own the largest saffron trade business in the region. The biggest supplier in all of Southern Atlantis. They say he was one of the wealthiest men this side of the mountains."

Ashur considered this. He knew little about Alia beyond what she had told him. That she cared for her mother. That she wanted to be a doctor. That she avoided speaking of her stepfather.

Mangi leaned in, lowering his voice further. "Her father died seven years ago. After that, her mother took a young lover. Married him too." He shook his head. "That guy's a piece of work. A real bastard. As soon as he married into all that money, he became a monster. Took over the business, and treats everyone like dirt. People are afraid to even go near that family because he's... well, a nutcase."

Ashur's mind whirred, absorbing the information. "What do you mean by 'nutcase'?"

Mangi made a vague gesture with his hands. "Just that he's bad news. You look at him the wrong way, and he makes your life miserable. You work for him, you regret it. You cross him? Well..." He hesitated, then smirked. "It's bad news."

Ashur stilled.

"That's her stepfather?" Ashur ask.

"Yeah. Haddin Ishmu."

Haddin Ishmu.

"Some merchant from Bahyan City. Charmed his way into their lives, promised to take care of them. And then, a year later, her mother got sick. Strange cancer. Came out of nowhere."

Cancer.

That's why Alia was reading about cancer cures.

Mangi's voice dropped lower. "But some people say she doesn't have cancer at all. They say Haddin has been poisoning her, keeping her weak so she can't take back control of the business."

Ashur's thoughts stilled. His fingers tightened around his pen.

Mangi let out a humorless chuckle. "Well, people say once the mother's gone, he plans to marry Alia himself."

Something shifted inside Ashur. A new emotion. One he had not programmed. Not grief. Not longing. Not curiosity.

Repulsion. Then, disgust.

Ah. So that's why his programming had failed before.

Disgust was not just an emotion, it was a boundary. A rejection. The body's way of saying this is wrong, this does not belong. Humans developed it to avoid rot, disease, decay. But here, it was something else. A moral instinct. A reaction not to poison, but to violation. He had tried to code it before, but disgust could not be simulated. It had to be felt. And now, in this moment, he did.

"Disgusting, right?" Mangi muttered, noticing Ashur's expression.

"Yes," Ashur said flatly.

Mangi leaned in slightly. "There are rumors..."

Ashur met his gaze. "What rumors?"

Mangi snorted. "You ever hear about that guy Zaved Xi? He tried to court Alia once. Then he disappeared. People say Haddin had him killed."

He wasn't lying exactly. But he wasn't telling the truth either.

Strange.

Ashur studied him carefully. "Do you believe that?"

Mangi shrugged. "I don't know. But no one would dare get close enough to find out." He gave Ashur a knowing look. "If I were you, I'd be careful. You wouldn't want to be the next rumor, would you?"

Ashur did not answer.

His mind had been on Alia before.

Now, it was consumed.