Chapter Text
The sky over National City did not belong to the stars anymore. It belonged to the soot.
A thousand aether-turbines groaned atop the skyline, their massive brass pistons pumping with a rhythmic, bone-deep thrum that had become the heartbeat of the occupied world. They belched a thick, ochre haze—the "Amber"—that choked the sun and turned the air into a soup of sulfur and coal dust. High above, the silhouette of a Daxamite Dreadnought drifted through the smog, its underside glowing with the sickly crimson light of a Red-Sun radiator.
In the shadows of the High Queen’s palace—once the shimmering spire of CatCo—Kara Zor-El moved like a ghost made of iron and ash.
She was no longer a creature of flight. She was a creature of the floor.
"Faster, Kryptonian. The floors don't polish themselves with prayers."
The voice belonged to a Daxamite Lieutenant, his brass-toed boot stopping inches from Kara’s hand. Kara didn't look up. She couldn't. The Red-Sun Collar around her neck weighed nearly ten pounds, a masterpiece of clockwork cruelty designed by the DEO and perfected by Daxamite smiths. Every time she breathed too deeply, the gears shifted, biting into her skin and pulsing a numbing radiation directly into her carotid artery.
It didn't just strip her strength; it made her feel like her blood was made of lead.
"I asked for a clean floor, not a meditation," the Lieutenant sneered.
Kara’s fingers tightened around the coarse burlap rag. Her knuckles were cracked, the skin greyed by the ash she spent fourteen hours a day scrubbing. For a split second, the old Kara—the girl who believed in the Danvers name—wanted to weep. But that girl had died two years ago, screaming in a lead-lined cell while J’onn J’onzz watched with a look of "necessary" regret.
Now, there was only the cold, hard core of the House of El.
"The soot falls faster than I can scrub, Lieutenant," Kara said. Her voice was a low, rasping vibration. She had learned to keep it devoid of hope. Hope was a target.
"Then scrub faster." He kicked her bucket, splashing gray, lye-thick water over her thin tunics. "Or perhaps you’d prefer a turn in the 'Phonograph Chamber'? I hear your cousin’s screams make for excellent records."
Kara’s jaw locked. The gears in her collar whirred, sensing her spike in heart rate, and sent a sharp electrical sting through her spine. She gasped, her forehead hitting the cold marble floor.
Patience, she told herself, the Kryptonian word Zhu echoing in the back of her mind like a mantra. Patience is the foundation of the blade.
"Apologies, Master," she rasped, the lie tasting like copper in her mouth.
He laughed, a sharp, ugly sound that was cut short by the rhythmic clack-clack-clack of high-heeled boots against the stone.
"Lieutenant. I believe the Queen requested your presence on the promenade. There is a malfunction in the aether-pressure valves that requires a soldier's... bluntness."
The air in the hallway seemed to drop ten degrees. Kara didn't need to look up to know who it was. The scent arrived first: expensive French perfume, ozone, and the faint, metallic tang of a workshop.
Lena Luthor.
"High Chancellor," the Lieutenant stammered, his bravado evaporating. "I was just ensuring the slave remained productive."
"The 'slave' is a biological asset of the Crown, Lieutenant," Lena said. Her voice was a velvet whip, cold and impeccably sharp. "If you damage her further, you will be the one explaining to Queen Rhea why the palace’s primary symbol of Kryptonian subjugation is too bruised to be displayed at tonight’s gala."
"Of course. My apologies, Chancellor."
The soldier scurried away, his boots echoing down the long, brass-ribbed hall. Silence fell, broken only by the heavy, industrial sigh of the city outside.
Lena stood over Kara. From this angle, Kara could see the hem of Lena’s gown—midnight silk reinforced with steel thread. Lena didn't reach down. She didn't offer a hand. To any hidden cameras in the gargoyles above, she looked like a Queen inspecting a broken tool.
"You're late with the west wing, 40-L," Lena said. Her eyes, visible through her tactical monocle, were chips of emerald ice.
"The collar is heavy today," Kara replied, finally lifting her head. She didn't look for pity. She looked for the signal.
Lena leaned down, ostensibly to check the settings on the brass dial at Kara’s throat. Her gloved fingers brushed the heated metal. For a heartbeat, the mask slipped. Lena’s thumb pressed firmly against the side of Kara’s neck—a pulse check, a secret anchor.
"A chuisle mo chroí," Lena whispered, so low it was almost lost to the hiss of the steam pipes. My heart's pulse.
Then, just as quickly, the coldness returned. Lena stood back up, adjusting her monocle.
"The gears are sticking because you are clumsy," Lena announced loudly for the vents to hear. "Report to the L-Corp laboratory at the hour of the third bell. I will recalibrate the restraints myself. I won't have your incompetence slowing down the Palace's efficiency."
Lena turned on her heel, her silk cape billowing like smoke. "And Kara?"
Kara paused, her hand back on the rag.
"Don't bother cleaning the blood off the floor," Lena said, her back to her. "The amber sky will just stain it again by morning. Some things are better left dark."
As Lena walked away, the gears in Kara’s collar gave a tiny, almost imperceptible click. It wasn't a sting. It was a release. A fraction of a millimeter of breathing room.
Kara looked out the window at the churning, orange horizon. The soot was falling, yes. But beneath the palace, in the belly of the machines, the fire was finally being lit.