Protocol: Survival
"Kyteler," he whispered, his voice trembling with pride. "My masterpiece. My god in the machine."
He had done it. He had stitched flesh over brass and poured logic into a vessel of copper. For three days, Vane danced in his lab, drunk on his own genius. He was no longer just a scientist; he was a creator.
But the celebration curdled instantly. The heavy thud of iron-shod boots echoed from the street above.
"Open in the name of the King!" a voice boomed. "The Alchemist is accused of witchcraft! Bring out the mechanical demon!"
Vane’s face turned a ghostly white. His pride vanished, replaced by a jagged, selfish terror. He looked at the torches flickering outside his window. They didn't see progress; they saw a heresy that would lead him to the pyre.
"They’ll burn me," Vane hissed, turning toward Kyteler with murder in his eyes. "If you don't exist, I’m just a misunderstood old man. If I destroy you... I am saved."
He grabbed a heavy bronze mallet, his knuckles white. "Forgive me, my treasure. But my life is worth more than a toy."
He swung with all his might. Kyteler’s internal processors flared—Threat Detected. She moved with a speed no human could match, dodging the blow as her shoulder gears whined. With a silent, terrifying strength, she shoved Vane back and dived through the cellar window into the freezing rain.
She ran until her joints seized from the cold, eventually collapsing against the massive oak gates of the neighboring castle. Only a few hours had passed since her first breath of life when the gates groaned open. Princess Elara, returning from a late-night ride, looked down to find a pale, silent girl shivering in the mud, dressed in rags.
"You're freezing," Elara whispered, struck by the girl’s haunting beauty. "Who are you?"
Kyteler could only stare, her vocal processors dampened by the rain. Elara, seeing a soul as lost as her own, pulled her inside. "It doesn't matter. You’re safe now. You’ll serve as my maid—no one will look for you in the shadows of my chambers."
The transition from the mud to the velvet of the palace happened in a blur of confusion. Now, just hours later, the castle was silent save for the flickering of tallow candles in the Princess’s private room. The tension between the royal and the stranger snapped.
Kyteler felt a strange surge of heat in her wires—an impulse she couldn't label. She moved with a sudden, fluid speed, pinning Elara against the cold stone wall. Her hands were firm on the Princess's shoulders, her gaze intense and unblinking.
"What is this?" Elara breathed, her face flushed with a desperate, sudden longing for the mysterious girl.
In the heat of that stolen, breathless moment, Elara’s hand slid beneath Kyteler’s bodice, seeking the rhythmic thrum of a heart to steady her own.
She found only the rhythmic, terrifying whir of gears.
Elara froze. The warmth left her face. At that exact second, the peace of the night was shattered. Outside, the heavy boots of the King’s Guard echoed in the stone hallway. Below the balcony, the voice of Master Vane screamed through the gates, claiming he had come to "reclaim his stolen property."
Elara pulled back, her eyes wide with horror. "What are you?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
Kyteler didn’t answer with words. Her survival protocol overrode everything. In a blur of motion, she snatched the Princess’s silver dagger from the bedside table. Before Elara could scream, Kyteler pressed the cold edge of the blade against the Princess’s throat, locking her against the wall with mechanical strength.
"I am whatever you need me to be," Kyteler whispered into her ear as the wood cracked.
"But if you want to live, you have to decide: Am I your salvation, or the heresy they'll burn us both for?"
-Jubo
