The banquet hall of Milennia glittered as if carved from the bones of dying stars. Columns of solid light spiraled upward, shifting gently between gold and violet, illuminating a long obsidian table laden with delicacies from all twelve worlds of Tripolis.
None of the food had been touched.
The planetary representatives sat in rigid formality, each one adorned according to their world's customs—vibrant silks, iridescent armor, inked skin, crystalline veils, living jewelry. Yet beneath the splendor lay tension thick enough to choke the air.
They had all been summoned by the Assigner.
And instead, they were greeted by his right hand.
Vectra stood at the head of the table, silver chains whispering at her wrists with every movement. The representatives respected her—feared her, even—but she was not the Assigner, and she had no right to marshal their armies.
Which was why their gazes stayed cold. Assessing. Defiant.
Vectra lifted her goblet in greeting, though she did not drink.
"Your Excellencies," she began, "Thank you for answering the call to convene."
Representative of Hunat, sat forward. His skin shimmered faintly like cooled magma, and his eyes—bright as twin comets—narrowed.
"We expected the Assigner," he said, each word dipped in suspicion. "Where is our sovereign?"
Vectra's smile did not reach her eyes. "He attends to other matters."
A murmur traveled the table.
Lady Arava of Kithros opened her mouth to speak. Vectra held a strong dislike for her, mainly because the gown she was wearing had been gifted to her by Theron.
"Then this council is ceremonial only. No binding decisions can be made without Him."
"No war can be declared," added General Kharos of Veyrus, tapping the hilt of the blade embedded in his forearm.
Declaring war upon Valorian was not merely unprecedented—it bordered on sacrilege. Vectra resented that Theron left to attend her to these pompous fools to play hide and seek with his brother, but …
Vectra folded her hands.
"The war had already been declared. By Valorian."
At that name, the room tightened. The Cradle Planet. The first world birthed from Neptune's blood and chaos.
"I did not assemble you for ceremony," she said evenly. "I assembled you for obedience."
A ripple of offense swept the table.
"You dare demand obedience?" Kharos barked. "In the Assigner's absence?"
"It is not your place," Arava agreed, voice cool but trembling.
Vectra's gaze sharpened, silver irises slitting for the barest moment.
"Do you believe the Assigner would call you here without purpose?" she asked softly.
She stepped away from the head of the table, gliding between planetary rulers like a blade sheathed in velvet.
"The Anchor has fled to Valorian. The Lord of Light as well," she said. "The Sensitives conspire. Tripolis fracturing is not a possibility—it is the present. And the bitch queen and her court sided with them. They have a dragon. As you know, the planets in this system are vulnerable to it. We will all burn unless we kill it in the cradle."
Hunat's representative slammed a fist against the table. "We do not go to war with the Cradle Planet."
Vectra stopped walking.
For a moment, everything in Milennia stilled.
"Perhaps," she said, "you do not understand who speaks to you."
Her silver chains tightened—not by hand, but by will—and the temperature in the room dropped as though the sun had been extinguished.
The leaders stiffened.
Vectra exhaled once, and the light crystals overhead dimmed.
"Sit," she said, though none had risen.
And then—
She opened her mouth to let out an inhuman shriek.
A sound older than ocean trenches and deeper than night.
The scream rippled outward like a shockwave, evaporating the banquet table's feast—skin, bone, marrow, fruit, liquid, spice—everything dissolved into air in an instant. Silver goblets shattered. Flowers turned to dust. The crystalline table cracked in perfect symmetrical lines.
Every representative fell to their knees.
Their skin blistered. Their eyes bled. The sound reached beneath their ribs and wrung the life from their organs, yet somehow—impossibly—they did not die.
Vectra closed her mouth.
The room fell into a suffocating silence.
Only then did they feel the faint shimmer over their bodies—the protective layer she had placed on them moments before the scream.
She had saved them.
She had almost killed them.
She had proven she could do either at will.
Arava collapsed fully to the floor, gasping, "Witch!"
Vectra's eyes glowed phosphorescent green. "No, not a witch," she corrected. "A Nereid. Kin of your lord."
The leaders of twelve planets bowed—not to the Assigner, but to the monster he had placed upon the throne.
Vectra smiled. Finally some good news.
***
The false lake shimmered overhead, a sheet of gathered water held in place by Salacia's will. Above it, muffled and distant, the roar of the mob bled through the earth like a heartbeat we all shared.
We sat in a loose circle around the small fire. Its light bounced off the cave walls, painting our faces in fractured amber. Even Bonnie the dragon curled tighter against Ari's boots, as if afraid the truth might bite.
"The Assigner," she said softly, correcting a name none of us had dared speak aloud. "He loathes that name, by the way, believes himself merciful. Pragmatic."
Ari sat down hard, as if someone had kicked his knees out from under him.
"And the Vajda?" he asked, voice thin. "He cursed us?"
Salacia nodded once.
"He wanted Milada for himself. When she chose you instead, he supplicated your father. Begged for reprisal. Then he summoned my husband's baby brother and asked a favor."
"He wondered what he could make out of you if he rewrote the story. Maybe he just wanted to mess with balance here on Valorian. Any news reported to Neptune about his brother's spirit resurfacing to grant boons where he was no longer welcome …"
Ari's throat worked violently.
Salacia continued, voice even:
"He fed you his blood, I imagine. Who knows how he made you gods, his methods of witchery had been abhorred long before he was banished from here. I imagine he thought that mortals would make more obedient guardians than his old brood of celestial children. He had to wipe them out regularly in the cycle of the Diamond Storm for their wilfulness and disobedience. Gods and their progeny have always been arrogant, but mortals have obedience sewn into them."
My hands went numb. My mouth moved without permission.
"But he told us—he told us we were made of the same stardust. That we were his."
Ari let out a humorless sound that barely qualified as a laugh.
"He said a lot of things."
And still, the memory struck me. the Pools of Conception, the mirror-like surface shivering as he showed us our supposed origins—stardust woven into human shape. The awe I'd felt. The belonging.
It curdled now into sickness. Rhona said so, and yet I held onto a belief that it was a misunderstanding, that the origin of my divinity would sooner or later come to surface.
I was a mortal. A Vlachy witch.
Ari's fists tightened on his knees.
"And he thought we'd be… grateful for this?"
The fire cracked. Bonnie squeaked and pressed closer to Ari. Salacia remained utterly still, the shawl I'd forced her to wear slipping from one shoulder.
"We loved each other," I said quietly. "Before Tripolis. Before we were rewritten."
Ari's jaw flexed. The look he gave me - like his grief suddenly put on an armor.
"And now?"
I had no answer. Just the ache of something ancient trying to remember itself. We were free to love one another, there was no perverse sickness in us. So why did I feel more distant from him?
"You once asked me why I hate him," she said. "It's not because he's cruel. Cruelty I understand. It's because he believes he is justified."
I stared at her, surprised by the nakedness of her voice.
She looked into the fire—not at us, not at the illusion of water overhead, but at something impossibly far away.
"He promised me many things, too," she said softly. "In the end, he gave me none of them."
Then she looked directly at Edward. "I regretted killing Neppie ten times over. Especially because it was his demon brother who used me to execute his revenge."
Her fingers drifted to the edge of the shawl. For a heartbeat, she looked almost human.
"Fuck him, I say," she whispered.
The fire hissed, as if in agreement.
***
The earth trembled before we ever saw them.
The shuffling of tired feet. The murmured prayers. The muffled crying of children too exhausted to sob properly.
Then, through the trees, the Vlachy emerged—what was left of them.
Fifty souls.
Two women limped at the front, two of the older men supporting them. Behind her trailed mothers clutching little ones, the eldest girls hauling bundles of salvaged belongings, faces streaked with ash and grief. A few men carried makeshift weapons—branches, broken pots, sharpened bone—useless against the kind of danger stalking the continent now.
At the illusion of a shimmering lake where the Rotunda should have been.
Someone whispered, terrified:
"The gods drowned it."
And I stepped out from the shadows.
"It's a veil," I put my hands to my mouth and shouted. "A protection. We're below it. You're safe now—if you come inside."
So many eyes looked at me.
As if I were already their Vajda and they had simply been waiting for the moment.
I swallowed and turned to the Queen.
"Lower it," I told Salacia. "Let them in."
Her answer was a cold, delighted smile.
"No."
Heads snapped toward her.
A ripple of fear moved through the Vlachy ranks.
"This is the perfect opportunity," Salacia purred, stretching her new legs like a cat luxuriating in cruelty. "Let them die. Then Valorian returns to me, and Neptune's legacy is restored."
Edward stepped between her and me before I could move.
"Neptune would never slaughter innocent people," he growled.
Salacia laughed—a terrible, musical sound that made the hair rise on my arms.
"Oh, pirate. You knew his body. You never knew his heart."
Edward lunged, but Nestor grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back.
"Enough," Nestor barked. "Lower the veil, Salacia."
Her eyes went razor-sharp with hatred.
"You do not give me orders."
Before anyone could react, she swept her trident upward.
A streak of oceanic force shot out, slamming into Nestor's shoulder.
He flew like a rag doll into a boulder, crumpling with a sickening thud.
"Nestor!" Edward bolted toward him, slipping down the slope, screaming curses at the Queen that burned even the moss underfoot.
Salacia twirled the trident once, admiring her handiwork.
"Stay out of my way," she said.
Ari stepped forward.
Something changed in him—something so subtle it almost wasn't there…until it suddenly was. I knew that something was terribly wrong.
Bonnie whimpered and hid behind him.
"I don't want a war with you," Ari said quietly. "But if you do not lower that veil…"
He raised his hands. Light kindled beneath his skin. "…I will show no mercy."
Salacia's smile widened.
"Oooh. The kitten shows claws. When did that happen? I thought you were just your mistress's sidekick."
"Just now," he said.
He moved.
No warning. No buildup. Just a blinding eruption of white radiance as his hands struck the center of her sternum—not harming flesh but diving straight for her core.
Salacia screamed.
A real, primal, siren-wail of agony as the white fire surged through her, evaporating a chunk of her divine center—leaving her staggering, eyes wide with disbelief.
"You—" she gasped
Ari lowered his smoking hands. The veil ruptured.
Water crashed down in a roaring cascade, sweeping over us, lifting us upward, spitting us into the open air like driftwood. The Vlachy screamed; children clung to strangers; the Queen collapsed to her knees, clutching her hollowed core.
When the water settled into mist, silence ruled the crater rim.
He took her divinity from her. Burned it to ash. This man who never hurt a soul, who would rather perish than risk a life of a living creature, scorched the Queen's divinity. Her Trident crumpled to ash, dissolving in the water she summoned from the earth.
Everyone stared at Ari. He didn't look at them. He looked at me.
"Mila," he said gently, "take them. All of them. Lead them to safety. You're their Vajda now."
Fear clawed up my throat.
His answer was a fierce kiss.A promise that made the fire inside me roar to life.
He pulled back, breath unsteady against my lips.
"Trust me."
I always did. Even though it terrified me now.
***
The light found them before Ari consciously decided to look for it.
Not a beam, not a calling, not anything as theatrical as revelation. It was subtler than that, and far more damning: a distortion, a slight warping of the world where Valorian resisted what did not belong to it. Emotion pressed too hard against the land left residue, and Cleo and Lasicus had been pressing for days. Ari felt it the way he felt pressure changes before storms, the way he had always felt things before he allowed himself to think about them.
He followed the refraction west, where the ground broke into cliff and the sea stretched open and indifferent below.
They were exactly where the light said they would be.
Cleo stood near the edge, rigid with fury, her power flaring uselessly against a planet that did not recognize her authority. Leaves at her feet curled and blackened, then fell still. Valorian was draining her with every breath she took. Lasicus sat several paces behind her, Tenebris coiled across his lap, no longer sword but something softer, pliant, glowing faintly blue beneath his shaking hands as he stroked it for comfort.
Ari registered, distantly, that Lasicus looked wrong. Pale. Drawn. His breathing shallow, his focus fractured. For the first time since Ari could remember, the most emotionally attuned being in existence was struggling to hold himself together.
The thought should have horrified him. Instead, it brought certainty.
"You're persistent," Cleo said without turning. "I'll give you that. But you should go back to your witch and your borrowed life before you embarrass yourself further."Ari stepped closer, boots quiet against stone.
"This isn't Tripolis," he said, and his voice surprised him with how even it sounded. "You feel it, don't you? How every thought costs you energy. How the planet refuses to cooperate."
Lasicus lifted his head, eyes unfocused. "We don't need—" He stopped, swallowing hard, as if the effort of speaking had suddenly become too much. "We don't need your concern."
"That was not concern," Ari replied gently, almost kindly.
Cleo turned then, eyes blazing. "Get away from him."
He didn't move.
Something inside him loosened. Not snapped. Not broke. Slid free, like a restraint unbuckling after centuries of pressure. The sensation was terrifying in its quietness.
"All my life," Ari said, "I was told what I was. Light. Mercy. Balance. I was taught that my purpose was to soften the world so it wouldn't tear itself apart."
He smiled, and hated how familiar the shape of it felt.
"I learned how to apologize before stepping around insects. I learned how to speak gently even when I was afraid. I learned how to swallow pain so no one else had to hear it. I learned how to be good."
Cleo faltered, just slightly.
"I didn't dare harm a fly," Ari continued, his gaze drifting briefly to the sea. "Not because I couldn't. Because I was terrified of what it would mean if I did."
He looked back at them, and the weight of the truth settled fully into place.
"And now I know why," he said softly. "Because the lie needed me harmless."
One moment Lasicus was sitting, fingers trembling against Tenebris's glow, and the next Ari's hand was at his throat, closing with precise, unforgiving certainty. The air left Lasicus in a sharp, broken sound, his body jerking in shock rather than resistance.
Cleo screamed his name and lunged—
—and stopped.
Ari's other hand had already found the base of Lasicus's skull, fingers pressing with intimate knowledge, thumb angled just enough to interrupt the delicate flow that allowed thought to become command. Ari felt it when it happened, felt the exact moment the current broke.
"Tsk tsk," he said quietly to Cleo, wagging a finger once.
Lasicus's eyes went wide with dawning horror.
"You don't create emotions," Ari told him, leaning close enough that Lasicus could feel his breath. "You amplify what already exists. You lower thresholds. You open gates. But all of that requires pathways."
He pressed harder.
The resistance vanished.
"Spinal interruption," Ari said. "No fluid. No distribution. No magic."
Lasicus went still, his body locked in a silence more terrifying than screaming.
Cleo staggered backward. "Let him go."
Ari did not look at her.
"Imagine," he said instead, his voice almost tender, "being kept at arm's length from the person you love your entire life, Cleopatra. Imagine being told that wanting was corruption, that desire was sin, that love was a flaw to be corrected."
Her breath caught.
"Now imagine discovering the sin never existed," he continued, tightening his grip. "That the only crime was the lie."
Cleo shook her head violently, dropping to her knees. "Las—Las, it's all right, I'm here—"
Lasicus could not answer her.
"I asked you once if you were disgusted," Ari said, remembering with strange clarity. "You said that wasn't the word."
He looked at Cleo then, finally.
"What was the word, Cleo?"
Her voice shattered. "I swear to all things holy, Areilycus—if you don't let him go, I will kill you."
Ari considered this. Truly did.
"I'm done letting flies buzz in my ear."
Then he drove his fist backward, through flesh and bone alike.
The sound was wet and catastrophic. Lasicus's scream tore through the air, raw and unfiltered, the last thing he would ever control.
"Paralyzed from the waist down," Ari said calmly.
Cleo screamed his name.
Ari reached inside Lasicus's body with terrible gentleness and found what he was looking for: the luminous filament that anchored him to influence and control, the thin blue thread that made him indispensable. He pinched it between two fingers and pulled.
The light snapped free.
Lasicus went limp.
"And dead," Ari said, releasing him.
The body fell into Cleo's arms. She collapsed around it, sobbing, Tenebris clattering uselessly to the stone beside her, its glow dimming as if in mourning.
Ari stepped back, chest rising and falling now, finally.
"Go back to Father. Prepare for war."