Chapter 1. Anh

Chapter 2. Ninna

Chapter 3. The Rite of Hatching

Chapter 4. The Council

Chapter 5. The Sortie

Chapter 6. Ra

Chapter 7. Nin Ra

Chapter 8. Lil

Chapter 9. The Seer

Chapter 10. The Change

Chapter 11. The Census

Chapter 12. Adda

Chapter 13. The Trek

Chapter 14. The Aftermath

Chapter 15. The Plunge

Chapter 16. The Sentinel

Chapter 17. The Coming of Age

Chapter 18. The Firestone

Chapter 19. Ki

Chapter 20. The Prospecting

Chapter 21. The News

Chapter 22. The Return

Chapter 23. The Traitor

Chapter 24. The Young Seer

Chapter 25. Dys

Chapter 26. Gula

Chapter 27. The New Course

Hierarchy of The Ones

Cast of Characters

Glossary

The Universe exists for us:
It rhymes between the lines of poems,
It mingles tragedy with farce,
Flips probabilities like coins.

The Universe exists in me:
My life and soul in every atom.
To shining stars I bend my knee,
To miracles I cannot fathom.

The Universe exists in you,
Your radiance dissolves my sadness,
You are the only light I knew,
You are my compass through the madness.

You are my candle in the night!
Forever wading through the ether,
I seek your ever-burning light,
Without you, I’ll fade and wither.

Thick opaque darkness spilled its ink in all directions, its deep velvety curls swirling softly. Stark bolts of lightning stirred the seething void that sipped between the veins of warm vesiculous glow that used to be a star. A dying star it was, taking its last breath, its huge swollen body pulsating. Giant bubbles stretched and deformed its thin, frail surface, each new one larger than the last, threatening to turn it inside out. The shimmering tangle of fiery filaments was alive with timid anticipation. And then it happened. The star had shed its husk, and a giant red-orange peel receded ghostly in all directions, leaving behind a scourged, hapless seed.

The monstrous flayed core spun madly, crying, searching for what was already gone. The star was no more, its air swept away, its beauty ruined. A hungry Chaos crawled out of the void and eagerly consumed the fading corpse of the expanding nebula, mixing all of its elements in one primordial soup, claiming an eternal dominion over the form that once existed, erasing everything.

Yet nothing lasts forever, not even chaos. One day, chaos too would settle down and subside, acquiring a form, however shapeless and mishappen it might be, but a form nonetheless, a seed of meek waxing Order, fragmented and micellar, yet growing. Unstoppable. Unthwartable. Divinely preordained. Ying-yang of blossoming and withering, seeded in timeless perpetuity by the Designers themselves.

And so it came to be, and it did so much sooner than expected. The greedy chaos of the venous nebula had managed to concoct something that was neither intended nor anticipated, but was it a surprise? Hardly. By definition, chaos is replete with things strange and unintended. Some call it a miracle; others – destiny; the Designers call it Chance.

With its last cough, the dying star had spat out a chunk of molten iron. Red hot and boiling with blunt agony, it floated away through cosmic dust untethered from its host. It was a child, freed from the suffocating womb of its dead mother. It was alone. A cosmic orphan, a lamb, a seed, a wandering star, a maverick planet, a homeworld of the intelligent beings that called themselves the Ones.

For eons, the Homeworld floated through space and time in solemn solitude. Forlorn, it soared over the cosmic river like a hungry hawk looking for prey, searching. Dim and distant, it appeared to humans on Earth as a mere speck of light, one of many barely visible freckles of shine that animated the night sky. But there was one thing that set the Homeworld apart from all the other celestial wonders meandering through the undergrowth of the cosmic woods. That special thing was Purpose. Gravity alone did not determine the path the Homeworld took through space, no, it did not. Oftentimes, the Homeworld came perilously close to erupting stellar nurseries and chaotic asteroid fields, too frequently to be accounted for by chance alone. Make no mistake, the Homeworld obeyed the laws of gravity, and yet its winding trek was keenly determined by the unyielding will of its non-human inhabitants who charted their planet’s course with care and deliberation.

And so the orphan drifted, no longer a seed but an entire world, strange, unfamiliar, unbridled.

Time, as other worlds know it, never took root there. No sun ever climbed the sky to brand the hours; no night ever fell to forgive them. Instead, the Homeworld burned quietly from within, its iron heart still swollen with the memory of its birth, its pulse forever renewed by the celestial waves of space itself, their insatiable, perpetual hustle singing through every atom, making them alive with agony and longing. This pulse traveled through the planet’s core like some demonic choir and crushed upon the scorched, ragged surface, releasing a soft orange glow.

Continents of red mud heaved and sighed like living flesh. Rivers of flowing ooze crawled between them, slow as glaciers, thick as clotted blood. Where the ground cracked open in its endless fever, lakes of molten iron glimmered, their surfaces filmed over with scarlet glass that sang when the wind passed, although one could scarcely call their dreary song music. Hills stood up in rusted blades; mountains lay down like sleeping beasts whose spines had been flayed to the bone. Dunes wandered the lowlands in long, slow caravans, their backs humped and shining, leaving trails of oxide that looked, from far above, like the tracks of colossal slugs returning to the sea they’d never reach.

There was no dawn, no dusk, only the Eternal Glow deepening or thinning by moods no one could predict. Sometimes it flared until the air itself seemed to bleed; sometimes it sank to a sullen coal-glow, and the world held its breath in rust-colored twilight. Shadows were not absences of light but slower, heavier light, pooling in the folds of the land. To walk across the Homeworld was like wading through centuries; time treaded slowly and lightly in this place.

And yet life had kindled in the planet’s fevered womb. Not the green, impatient life of Earth, but something battered in a different kind of forge: fragile, yet unforgiving. Vast forests of metallic fiber drank the iron rain and sang back to it in faint metallic chimes. Creatures like blind glass eels tunneled through the mud, their bodies laced with filaments that turned the Eternal Glow into blue shimmer beneath their skin.

On the other side of the world, the One City nestled in a large crater, staring like a bleeding eye into the vast, ever-weeping shroud of the damp orange sky. Tall and deliberate, its inhabitants moved slowly against the backdrop of the Eternal Glow. Too heavy for haste, their footfalls rang on iron ground like mute bells tolling for a sun that would never answer.

The Ones had no word for yesterday, no measure of today, no dream of tomorrow: Only the long now, stretched thin and luminous as a heated wire. They measured age by molting of their hides; the steady interval they called a cycle.

And so, one cycle upon the next, the Wandering Star bore its own twilight deep in its heart — a death too stubborn to die, a dawn forever refusing to become true day, a world forever starved of sun.

In that perpetual ember-glow, neither night nor morning, the Ones dwelled. Patiened. Resigned. Their scaled faces turned upward, eyes half-lidded against the rust-orange haze, while they accepted whatever the Designers — in their boundless wisdom or careless, fleeting whim — might fling across the void to wander or to crash into the Homeworld’s lonely path.

It’s time for you to meet them.

Forever certain of the cause
That spins my wheels and cogs,
I never question nor resist
What’s written in my logs.

Alive with furnace-fire and zeal,
I breathe the dragon’s flame.
I bend this planet to my will,
I’m forged to guard and tame.

I claim the throne, forever locked
In spire tall and cold,
I govern this forsaken rock
Beneath a crown of gold.

A tall, imposing figure loomed from the balcony of the Apex of the Sixth Eye, bronze and somber as an ancient statue cast against the sky. How long he had lingered there, none could say. To the souls dwelling in the lower levels, he seemed less a living being than a fixed feature of the skyline itself—part of the city’s very bones. In such moments, Anh belonged wholly to the One City, a lynchpin at its heart, a vital organ within its vast, breathing organism. A vertebra, perhaps. A heart. A brain. Yet to himself, he felt only a cog, turning within a greater machine.

Below, the One City unfurled its fractal splendor, a living kaleidoscope whose patterns echoed endlessly in every direction, each repetition subtly transformed. Thick orange fog, rich as cream, drifted and coiled through the air, softening the gleam of golden domes and catching upon the sharp, raucous spires that thrust upward from gray stone walls. Ghostly bridges sprang like tender bamboo shoots from tower flanks, stitching the supple fabric of the metropolis together. They spread in every direction like neural filaments, weaving an unfathomable tangle that seemed to conceal its own hidden purpose.

Yet beneath the apparent chaos lay a subtle order, flowing like music upon a summer wind. Anh perceived its rhythm clearly. Chaos, he knew, was merely the shadow of a cluttered mind; his own was a model of perfection.

His pensive gaze rested upon the horizon, forever bathed in that same luminous orange. Beyond the Sacred Grove, the towers of lesser Ones stood humbled—dull and squat beside the soaring towers of the Council that ringed the Grove like gleaming, weary sentinels. Their terraced forms faded into the distance, edges gentled and flaws forgiven by the ever-present ochre veil.

The Homeworld stretched immense and devouring, yet the One City endured alone, a rusty sponge teeming with life, home of the Ones of every caste and rank. Only the few who tended the steering fields and moss patches lived beyond its embrace. Save for the dead—who had, as Seer liked to say, gone off-world—all Ones served the City.

The weightless robe clung to Anh like a whisper, leaving him forever feeling strangely naked. He often wondered why such a thin veil was worn at all, when it concealed nothing. Some mysteries, he had learned, were kinder when left unanswered.

Entrusted with the keeping of the Order of Things, Anh bore a duty far heavier than his massive frame. As the One in Command, he safeguarded the well-being of all Ones—ens and igs alike. Nothing mattered more than preserving that sacred Order. Nothing burdened him more.

He maintained the precise numbers of ens according to their rank and station, while walking the razor’s edge with igs—never too many, never too few. The latter task was a torment, for the boundary shifted with every wind of circumstance. Too few, and hunger stalked the streets, breeding unrest. Too many, and emboldened thralls would raise a champion at the next Burning of the Hides, foolishly believing their numbers could overcome the superior strength of ens. Such challenges were rare, yet the mere threat sharpened the air. Excess idleness among the igs led only to brooding and secret plotting; better, then, to keep their ranks lean and their hands tied with toil. Yet, needless hardship brought its own peril—unhappy thralls were known to revolt.

Thus Anh stood, a bronze silhouette against the orange sky, balancing the delicate machinery of existence upon the edge of his will. Erring on the side of “too many” felt a safer wager. For ig champions were fated, by nature and nurture both, to fall before ens who towered greater in stature, strength, and blade-craft. Still, on rare and thunderous occasions, an ig might triumph against the odds. Eons past, Anh himself had done so when he challenged Abzu and spilled his blood upon the roots of the Father Tree.

He feared no challenger for his own high seat. None alive could match his colossal frame or the tempered fury of his blade. Yet many ens below him sat less securely. Perhaps, he mused, he should welcome a handful of bold upstarts. Let them sweep the ranks clean of the weak and the bloated, pruning ens and thus make the Order stronger.

This cycle had been a barren one. Anh had driven igs harder, their backs bent beneath a mountain of labor. Surely the extra toil left no breath for secret practice with arms—arms they were forbidden to touch, save in furtive dreams. Most would come armed only with the tools of their station: hammer, hoe, or spade. Poor, clumsy things against the firestone-edged blades of ens.

What worth is a challenger who cannot win, save for nourishing the Father Tree with his dying essence?

Perhaps next cycle, he would loosen the reins. The ens, after all, needed plucking. Too many had grown obtuse and heavy, slow with comfort and long life—an easy prey for a vigorous contender. Yet he doubted any had grown so soft that they would fall to a lowly ig swinging a smith’s hammer. Still, whispers drifted through the wind of certain ones secretly training with true weapons. There had always been such whispers…

When the Coming of Age arrived, crowned by the Burning of the Hides, all would unfold as it ever had. The rumors would prove hollow smoke, the challengers would bleed, and the Order would endure.

And yet… a quiet corner of Anh’s soul hoped otherwise. Sooner or later, the old must yield, their aged blood watering the Sacred Grove while their spent bodies feed the pyres. The young needed room to rise. What mercy lay in clinging to a feeble existence? Few ens, however, were feeble, thanks be to the Tree of Life. The Sacred Grove granted them their unnatural span, while endless toil kept igs subdued.

But what of the Tree itself?

There had been a time before its bloom, when the Sacred Grove was still barren waste, and the Father Tree had not yet taken root. In those dawn cycles, igs and ens were one people, and the name Ones still carried its ancient truth. They were not divided then—neither two, nor seven ranks, nor eight when the Light Ones were counted.

The change had come with the Tree.

The Elders taught that a cosmic storm once hurled a single seed across the void. It arrived sealed within a crystal heart, cradled inside a meteor that struck the world without flame—only a great shattering. The Ones had seen such gifts before and planted this one, curious. It took root. It rose. Magnificent and vast it grew, spreading limbs like thought itself.

When it bore fruit at last, only a few dared taste it. Those who did were transformed. At each molting, they shed their old skins and rose renewed, taller, stronger, younger in vigor. Those who never tasted it could only watch with hungry eyes. The Tree bore slowly, once per cycle, and the fortunate few who had changed guarded its gifts jealously. They claimed the Fruit, the Tree, and the future for themselves.

They named themselves ens—Those Who Command.

And those who remained beneath them, they called igs—Those Who Toil.

And so, the One became two.

Only the finest among igs were ever chosen to join ens when the Father Tree bore fruit in abundance. Mediocrity required no preservation; it multiplied effortlessly of its own accord. Before the Tree’s gift, all Ones had been one—equal in their shared mediocrity. Equality, it seemed, had survived only in death. With their final breath, all Ones became one again, as all dead taste the same to the smoldering pyre that would devour them…

Those who had tasted the Fruit became its devoted keepers. They protected the Tree, and in turn they cultivated the Sacred Grove by offering their own uneaten fruits as seeds and, when renewal failed them, their blood as water and their bodies as rich soil for the saplings. Nothing of worth is ever gained without sacrifice; this truth they had understood with crystalline clarity in the dawn cycles. Too few remembered it now.

Anh remembered. Yet no further sacrifice remained for him to offer. His duties were written into the Order itself: command ens, mind igs, and preserve the balance. The irony burned quietly within him. Of all the Ones, he—the One in Command—was perhaps the least free. His obedience to the sacred Order was the greatest sacrifice of all. He could add nothing more.

There was no ancient scroll of instructions for such a burden, but the Seer was always near, ready to give counsel when the path grew dim. And the Seer had been urging him of late to sprout an heir—an heir in name alone, never in station. Among ens, rank was not inherited. Some whispered they wished it were, yet how many had grown corrupt beneath that longing? Anh could not say.

Why raise an heir if all one passes on is a name? Still, they multiplied. Every en and ig had done so. The worthy would rise through valor, sharpness of mind, and—sometimes—through the quiet grace of chance. Ah, chance! Anh had tasted his in the Arena.

He closed his eyes, his mind flooding with memories like a city under siege.

…The Arena roared, demanding blood. The smell of looming carnage swirled in the air like a summer storm. Anh stumbled forward, his legs numb, his guts turning to water, yet his pulse was steady and sure: thump, thump, thump. The engine of his life seemed to crave for what was going to come next.

Abzu, twice his size, staggered towards him with a steady, low growl, dragging his enormous firestone-tipped blade behind him, the rough slag under his feet pecking tiny blue sparks from it, transformed into swirling red motes as they rose higher, defying the Homeworld’s gravity. In a whirlwind of sheer primal wrath, Abzu lunged, swinging his blade as a mad reaper would a scythe. His blade hungered to cleave Anh from head to toe, ending the spectacle. Yet Anh was nimbler, so he ran. Around and around the Arena he fled while Abzu charged after him, the great blade whistling past, closer and closer still, slicing scales and drawing bright blue blood that ran down Anh’s tail like a mountain brook.

Despite his monstrous size, Abzu seemed not to tire, but Anh did. When Abzu’s blade kissed deeper, Anh’s blood burst like a fountain of amethysts, shiny and pure, steaming, begging for mercy. Yet there was no mercy to be given in the Arena, for all fights were held to the death. This was the price a challenger was forced to pay to atone for his insolence, and this was the coin he had to extract from those he challenged. One life for the other, there was no other trade.

When, drunk on his mad fury, Abzu had stepped upon Anh’s twitching, bleeding tail, he slipped and tumbled, exposing an area on his neck where his scales had parted. That was enough: Anh’s arms moved without thought, his blade screamed as a banshee as Abzu’s head rolled free.

A gasp swept the Arena, then silence fell, thick and heavy as wax.

A life had ended, and another one was about to take its place. Chance kissed Anh, and Chaos took Abzu.

Anh had not prayed for Chance to favor him—only fools pray for such things. Yet something deeper than reason had moved him. The urge had risen like a tide he could not resist. To any sane mind, it had been suicide. To Anh, it had been fate.

In the Arena, he had not thought at all. His body danced, his eyes watched for the opening, and when it came, his arms struck. A roar erupted, deafening like mountain thunder. Then silence settled like ash falling from the sky.

…We hereby proclaim the Ascendant En Anu the En Most High and the One in Command of the Homeworld! The Council announced in unison, deflated and deprived of its former pride and arrogance. The youngest ever, a lowly ursag of not even three cycles earlier, Anh had claimed the title, a feat once deemed impossible. Til-la En Anh, the One in Command!

Everything is impossible… until it’s done.

Much to Anh’s quiet astonishment, no challenger stepped forward at the first Burning of the Hides of his command. Though many lesser ens loomed larger and stronger than he, none dared unseat the slayer of Abzu. Whether they were bewitched by the impossible victory or tamed by genuine reverence, Anh could not tell. Cycle after cycle, his rule grew steadier, his grip on the Homeworld stronger and unyielding.

Now, vast and heavy with years, he wondered whether any soul would prove foolish enough to try to unseat him. Perhaps he should bare his neck voluntarily, should a worthy One arise undaunted by the odds. The Order, after all, required a measure of chaos to remain alive—like light that needs shadow to know its existence. Without chaos, Order grows stale and brittle, like an old fruit that no mouth dared to touch. The last many cycles had been oppressively calm, and for that stillness, Anh had only himself to blame. His decrees had been forged iron, his mind a heavy smith’s hammer. Yet boredom gnawed at him now, and Ninna’s refusal to grant him an heir only deepened the ache.

Without an heir—however distant or uncertain—what purpose remained in shuffling from one cycle to the next? Soon, he would outgrow even these lofty chambers. He imagined himself a living monument, forced to dwell in the open courtyard of the Royal Spire, or worse, rooted beside the Father Tree in the Sacred Grove like some colossal, undying statue. Too immense to be housed. Too fearsome to be challenged. Too ancient to die, for even time itself seemed to fear him.

Anh could feel the weight of his age despite spectacular renewals. His body grew ever more powerful, yet his spirit carried something that refused to crumble into dust when eons bit into it, gnawing. Sometimes he wondered if the mere thought of an heir was what kept him breathing. A son, even if in name alone. A small life he would scarcely glimpse, and even if he did, it would be only in passing—unless Ninna schemed her way into placing him among his stewards. Anh knew that she would. Ninna always found a way. She would topple rivals, weave intricate chains of succession, and clear a place for her own blood with the cold grace of a blade unsheathed. That One could scheme like no one else.

Yet there was still no heir to scheme for.

Every cycle, she laid an egg. Every cycle, it failed to quicken. Each one met the flames during the Burning of the Hides, and for Anh, it felt less like the burning of hides and more like the burning of self—each pyre consuming another hollow hope, feeding the void inside him. He could sense their emptiness before he ever touched them: the slight crooked tilt, the way they swayed too freely on their cushions when Ninna fussed over the nest. A fertile egg stood proud and steady. These leaned like reeds in the wind.

He never spoke of it. He let her pretend.

Pretending was Ninna’s greatest art. She played the role of Royal Consort as though it were a mask she could never quite settle upon her face. She played the devoted mother to her empty eggs, cradling shells that would soon crack open upon the pyre and reveal nothing but the hollow of her soul.

How had he ever bound himself to her? The memory had grown faint, blurred by the long march of cycles.

How many cycles had it been? Thirty-Six? Forty-Eight? Sixty? The numbers had long since dissolved into meaningless marks etched upon some forgotten tablet, blurred and indistinguishable.

He had taken Ninna for his consort and mate soon after they both emerged from the Nursery, young, foolish, full of hope. Anh had cleaved through his cycles as an ursag like a knife through butter and bit into the ranks of Ascendant Ens like an angry hornet. It was then that she noticed him.

She had been slender, willowy, and graceful, a rare beauty among the untaken nins, and not for the lack of suitors. The choice was just as much hers as it was theirs. She chose Anh, a lowly Ascendant En, awash with brazen promise. She saw him as an En Most High—one of the twelve trusted voices that whisper their counsel into the highest ear—when no one else did. As if she could read his fate, or write it in moss, and lichen, and blood-red tears of the One City.

That invisible radiance, that hunger veiled in humility, had drawn Ninna to him like a moth to glowing flame. And she had been beautiful—irresistibly, dangerously so.

Eager to please Ninna, Anh challenged lofty Abzu, an absurdity made real by his desire to make his station worthy of her beauty. He could remember the flicker in her eyes when he had broken the ranks of Ascendant Ens and stepped forward to roar his challenge. It happened during the rite of Coming of Age, eons ago. Oh, how Ninna’s eyes shone!  Free of fear, these big, yellow, gleaming whirlpools were laced with something sharper, hungrier…

Then came the transformation, swift and cold, like rushing mountain water, when his blade cleaved the giant’s head from his body, and the Council named him the One in Command. Ninna was no longer the same, and neither was he. Yet their new selves put on different robes. She craved the status, the golden scepter of position. He had simply answered a need he could not name.

Anh had wanted to defeat Abzu, yes—but the why had always remained veiled. It was not ambition for power, but a deep, wordless compulsion to serve, even if he might have served Ninna’s unspoken impulse of the moment, but served nonetheless. By becoming the ruler of the Homeworld, he believed he could serve the Ones more completely: issuing wise decrees, guiding prosperity. Yet after Abzu’s blue blood had watered the Father Tree, few things had truly changed. The world continued as it always had, with Anh perched on top of it as a useless idol.

Anh had ordered Abzu’s ashes scattered through the Sacred Grove. Beyond a few murmurs over whisperwine, the Homeworld scarcely noticed. Ens commanded. Igs toiled. No one cared that a new face wore the mantle. No one but Ninna.

She threw herself into the role of the Royal Consort with fierce devotion, pretending with every breath. She could not exist without the mask. How strange, Anh often thought, that feigning something could feel more real to her than simply being. The game remained the same, yet the soul inside it changed. One truth endured: nature could not be altered by title or throne. Even as the One in Command, Anh remained at heart the same Ascendant En obsessed with service. Ninna continued the subtle games she had played since her nursery cycles. Nothing had truly shifted—save the growing number of prominences upon his sagsu. Everything else stayed as it was. Only now he took his orders from the Seer instead of other ens.

Ah, the Seer.

How many times had Anh stood lost, the path ahead shrouded, and summoned the Old One? The gaunt elder would arrive in threadbare robes as old as time itself, his beard a shining silver river tumbling down his chest, wild and magnificent. The Seer never failed him. With time, Anh had grown to crave those audiences—the calm, measured voice professing clarity where his own mind faltered.

Perhaps he preferred it this way: still a servant, still obeying, serving… whom? The Ones, he had once believed. He served them by shepherding them into Order. But the edicts he issued were oft the wisp of the Seer’s words carried by the wind of Anh’s lungs. Did that make him the Light One’s instrument? The Light Ones were not to be questioned—not even by the One in Command.

Anh often wished for more fire in his blood, more certainty, more passion of his own. Instead, he felt hollow, and the Seer’s words flowed into that emptiness like sweet opium, granting peace. Half the time, he had no answers, and so he thanked the Order for the Seer who thought for him. All that was asked of Anh was to pose the right questions.

And the questions never ran dry. Life on the Homeworld swelled and surged—ens steering its affairs, ig numbers rising like a slow tide beneath them.

By now, Anh half-regretted his nigh-forgotten success in the Arena. Perhaps he had gone seeking death after all, choosing the most honorable blade—Abzu’s—to end his life. Maybe he had tried to kill himself, having already glimpsed Ninna for what she was: an actress upon a stage as wide as the Homeworld, with Anh cast unwittingly as her producer.

Yet fate, capricious and laughing, had crowned him victor instead. Salute the chance! That single twist had transformed a dull beginning into something far more sinister, a slow unfurling of dread. When one begins to fear the future, every prospect darkens.

At times, he wondered whether he had simply joined Ninna’s troupe. Now they performed together for the silent city—two mummers beneath the orange sky. His role was rigidly scripted; hers flowed with dangerous improvisation. Anh could not improvise. He stumbled predictably from scene to scene, each act heavy and without surprise. Ninna, meanwhile, danced through her part as though born to it, and the contrast only fed his brooding.

He watched the One City drown in twilight, its golden domes and spires melting into the thickening fog. Dark thoughts pressed upon him like stone. Ninna was overdue. For nine full cycles, her belly had bulged with the weight of two large eggs—an eternity even for one whose own cycles had grown beyond counting. Would these too prove empty shells? Why could she not give him an heir? Any offspring at all—a light one, a dark one, even a nin—would have sufficed.

He found no answer, yet the ache in his mind demanded one. She must lay soon, he told himself, eyes fixed on the burning horizon. Never in recorded memory had a royal consort carried her burden so long. Never had a ruling line remained heirless—not since the fable of the Moss Eater’s rebellion, a tale spoken only in hushed tones. Had it truly happened? The Elders spoke of chaos that devoured the world when the One in Command died without issue. The igs, inflamed by the reviled Moss Eater, had risen against a leaderless, corrupted caste of ens grown soft and powerless. A childless death, they said, was the first wound of a deeper rot. The Moss Eater had driven that spear straight through the heart of the Order.

Anh would not allow the same on his watch. He would have an heir. He would live forever if need be. He would outlive Ninna and take another consort if that was the price. Yet the thought that his barren nin might outlast him lingered like a shadow at the edge of vision.

He frowned, turned from the balcony, and returned to his throne. These worries erode my faith in the Order, he thought, lowering his massive frame into the seat and willing himself toward calm—false though it might be. The Order of Things will not fail me. Ninna will grant me an heir. What had become of the Order during the Moss Eater’s uprising, he refused to consider. That story had to be a lie, a fever-dream spun by some half-mad Elder and caught in the tangles of his beard. Yet lies were never spoken on the Homeworld. The fable was true. And he stood perilously close to dying childless.

Suddenly, the great round door to the throne room rolled open with a low, resonant groan. A young messenger peeked inside, meek, yet trembling with excitement.

“Your Radiance!!” He exclaimed, approaching, trying to catch his breath, and forgetting to bow, “I bring great tidings! Her Hollowness has laid!”

She laid… Small wonder. Ninna laid many times before. Yet little princelings never hatched from the white, gleaming jewels born out of her royal womb.

Anh’s excitement failed to materialize, dissolving like a lonely cloud amid midsummer’s sky.

“What do you think, an Ascendant One?” Anh asked the messenger. Oblivious to Anh’s concerns, he beamed with pride and joy, as if Ninna’s eggs were his own sacred doing. “Will they hatch?”

“Of course they will, Your Radiance,” he answered with the certainty of callow youth. “The Order commands it so.”

The same words. Always the same. Anh did not believe them. He could expect nothing else—only the soothing script demanded by the station. Irritation flickered across his features. With a curt gesture he dismissed him.

Alone in the great hall, he let the mask fall. Anh paced, restless as a caged lion, his heavy footfalls echoing off the stone. From the balcony he strode, then back into the hall, then to the balcony once more. Something felt different this time. Deeper. A tremor in the air itself. Could these eggs truly quicken? Could new life stir within those shells at last?

Joy hovered at the edge of thought, fragile as morning mist. Perhaps he should seek the Seer’s counsel. Yet finding the Light One was never simple. Summoning him required patience and no small measure of luck.

The Light Ones stood apart from the Order that bound ens so tightly. While Anh and his kind were forbidden to rise above their rank or linger too long below it, the Old One wandered where he willed—while the rest of the Light Ones were locked in their lofty realm, the Floating Rock. The Seer, however, was a law unto himself. He might be found anywhere, even among igs, drawn by some private fascination Anh could never fathom. Learning from toil? What wisdom could the hands that shovel mud offer someone as wise as the Seer? Yet such mysteries belonged to Light Ones. Anh, like all ens, concerned himself primarily with the Order.

Perplexed, conflicted, his heart swaying between dread and desperate hope, Anh summoned a messenger and sent him into the city’s tangled heights with urgent word:

Find the Seer.

I scrub and scrub to banish filth
And wash it off my hands.
I dream of vibrant, blooming fields
And pray as hard as I can.

I scrub and scrub this dirty rag
I used to call my skin.
Corruption is my lowly flag,
I’m all corrupt within.

I pray to God and watch the flame
A candle casts through dark.
I call the Savior to tame
This beast that bears my mark.

Why can’t I be as pure as thee?
I scream in stark revolt…
I strike my head, I bend my knee
Yet wounds are thick with salt.

I cannot change… Forever beast
I roam these wild steppes.
My soul is dark and quick to twist,
Hyenas trail my steps.

Forgive me, Lord, I am so flawed!
A human cries within.
Perfection is a fickle word,
My only strength is sin.

I sin and fray, forever cursed
To roam this dying land.
I poison air, scorch the Earth
Yet long to have a friend.

Why can’t you make a better man
Of each of us today?
I know you see, I know you can,
I know, and I pray.

Two enormous eggs strained against each other inside the leathery vault of Ninna’s body, each jostling for dominion, their sharp ends gouging at the thin walls that held them. With every cautious step she took, they clashed like rival blades, threatening to split her supple hide and spill her blue blood and white bone across the cold stone in a glistening cascade.

She moved through the hushed vastness of the Apex of the Fifth Eye, claws whispering over polished walls that had never known daylight. Hidden deep within the Royal Spire’s heart, Ninna had never felt so utterly alone. Only Nin Ra remained at her side, a quiet shadow, while her heart ached for Anh—his heavy, overwhelming presence—more fiercely than she had ever known. What duty could possibly weigh heavier than her?

At last, she reached the low table. One clawed hand cradled the taut dome of her belly, seeking to soothe the stabbing beneath her scales. She could feel the cruel point of an egg pressing just beneath the surface, a constant, merciless thorn. Her hide, overstretched and fevered, throbbed with every heartbeat. When she brushed a loosened scale, she cried out; a bright bead of blue blood welled on her fingertip. The scales no longer lay neatly tiled across her skin—they jutted sharp and restless, like broken armor.

With a moan, Ninna sank toward the floor, only to be caught by Nin Ra, who slipped a tangled nest of soft braided pillows beneath her just in time.

“Bastet, darling,” Ninna breathed, still nursing her bleeding finger while the other hand pressed and shifted uselessly against her belly. Rearranging the eggs was as futile as trying to find comfort inside a noose, yet she could not stop. Exhausted, she listed sideways into the pillows. Dust, musk, and ancient mold rose around her, coaxing a wheezy sneeze. A thick glob of phlegm and silvery threads of snot landed on Nin Ra’s chest. The smaller creature wiped it away with patient tenderness and offered Ninna a fresh kerchief.

“I know what you need,” Nin Ra murmured. She reached into a shallow niche glowing with soft blue and crimson light. For a heartbeat, her small, clawed hand vanished inside that eerie radiance, veins glowing like rivers of fire beneath translucent skin. When it emerged, a pinch of firedust shimmered between her fingers.

“We are not allowed,” Ninna protested weakly, though her pale lips had already curved into a wicked smile, revealing rows of sharp, even teeth. “Anu forbade it.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do it!”

In one impossibly graceful motion, Nin Ra released the dust.

It burst into a swirling sphere of living light that completely embraced Ninna. The electrified grains clung to her scales, tugging gently yet insistently, lifting her swollen body from the floor until she floated weightless above the pillows. At times, when Nin Ra gave the puff too generously, Ninna felt a thousand invisible hands seize her skin—pulling, stretching, guiding—turning her into a leaf floating in the wind. In those moments, she could drift anywhere, untethered, though control was a distant dream. For now, she simply surrendered, cradled in golden fire and the fleeting relief it granted her.

Ninna laughed, a bright, nervous trill that echoed off the gilded dome. “I hope my head stays up this time!”

The floor fell away beneath her feet. A gentle tug bloomed at the center of her chest where a generous pinch of firedust had settled, glowing like a captured star. Warmth spread outward in slow, delicate waves. She felt her blood quicken—hot, electric—throbbing through her breasts and racing beneath the silver lattice of scales, every vein alight with strange, shimmering fire.

I wish I would float to the window, she thought, delight unfurling inside her like silk.

In her mind, she saw it: the tall, spear-sharp towers and golden domes piercing the thick orange fog, the One City awash in the Eternal Glow, a distant turquoise shimmer of the Sacred Grove. She ached to see the world. The forced seclusion of her pregnancy had become a slow suffocation. Too many cycles. Far too long.

Her body turned in a graceful, weightless spiral as the firedust carried her higher, drifting toward the domed ceiling of her gilded cage. For that was what the Apex of the Fifth Eye truly was—a beautiful prison. Still, she reminded herself, a gilded cage was kinder than any other.

Sometimes she wondered what it would feel like to be an ig: to labor barefoot among the moss patches from dawn till dusk, to mate shamelessly knee-deep in swamp mud with some rough, sweat-soaked farmer who smelled of straw and yak. The thought had always stirred her. It was exactly what she had imagined the night these eggs were conceived. She let her hand drift across the taut curve of her belly. With the pressure eased by weightlessness, the eggs rested at last, their endless war momentarily forgotten.

But will they hatch?

The doubt slithered in, dark and corrosive, a pool of acid deepening with every breath. All her previous clutches had been tainted by the void—her void, the emptiness she could neither touch nor name.

Ninna closed her eyes. Tears gathered at the corners of her slitted lids, yet her large yellow pupils still caught the growing blaze of the window above. The light swelled, brighter, closer. This time, the doling of the firedust had been too generous, and it carried Ninna straight to her longing.

The Window!

She opened her eyes fully, and the world flooded her in a rush of molten orange. Everything was upside down. She blinked, disoriented, until she understood—she was floating inverted, the vaulted ceiling now beneath her like a stone sky. Far below, Nin Ra’s petite figure stood on the mosaic floor, casting a trembling shadow across the rows of tiles, her face tilted upward in anxious wonder.

It was then that Ninna realized she was in trouble.

The firedust was fading quickly. She floated too high this time, a fragile ornament suspended beneath the dome.

Is this how it ends for me?

The thought had barely formed before gravity reclaimed her. Air roared past her scales as she plummeted. The next thing she knew, she crashed into the mound of tangled pillows with a breathless thud. Nin Ra was already there, clutching her hands, her expression a wild tangle of terror and relief.

Yet something was different.

Ninna lay still, heart hammering, tasting the strange new shift in the air like ozone after lightning.

Ninna’s breath caught. Only then did she realize the relentless pressure that had tormented her for nine long cycles had vanished. The deep, gnawing ache was simply… gone.

In a surge of panic, she pressed both hands to her belly. Where the heavy, straining dome had been, her fingers met only a limp fold of empty skin, soft and unfamiliar, like a sail left slack after a storm.

Dread seized her throat—until Nin Ra’s gentle hand squeezed her wrist. Her maid’s face glowed with quiet joy.

“It’s just a rag, Your Hollowness!”

Before Ninna could answer, a wild plume of orange fog slammed into them both. They tumbled together in a spinning knot of limbs and laughter, crashing against the far wall and toppling the firedust dispenser. A glittering storm of golden motes burst free, swirling into the thick fog like sparks meeting sunrise.

Too many motes. Far too many.

The orange haze drank what it could, but the rest refused to be tamed. In moments, Ninna and Nin Ra were cocooned inside a luminous, chaotic sphere—bouncing, rising, tumbling on crests of living mist. The chamber of the Fifth Eye spun around them in delirious circles.

Terror should have claimed her. Instead, Ninna laughed—bright, free, and unburdened for the first time in ages. Weightless, giddy, she watched the gilded walls whirl past, sweet chaos without a trace of nausea. She hoped it would never end.

At one point, she glimpsed Nin Ra hurtling by, arms flailing, her face a frozen mask of pure terror half-hidden beneath the golden swarm. Moments later, the poor creature went rigid as a stick and bounced awkwardly through the fog like a discarded doll. The sight of her made Ninna laugh even harder.

Eventually, the fog grew greedy. It swallowed every last mote until the air calmed and the two of them drifted down like autumn leaves. Ninna landed softly on the pillows. Nin Ra flopped beside her with a dull thud.

The instant her stiff body touched the floor, Nin Ra’s eyes snapped open. She sprang upright like a startled ninja, swaying on her feet, frantically wiping the lingering horror from her expression.

“Are you alright, Your Hollowness?” she asked, voice trembling as she fought for balance.

Your Hollowness.

The title echoed through Ninna’s mind, richer now than it had ever been. Once mere flattery, the words had taken on deeper truth. She was hollow—by design and by necessity. The Ones taught that the void was sacred: the mother of all becoming. Only emptiness could welcome new life. What was already full could accept nothing.

She had always known this. Yet the fear remained—that in the end she might be nothing but the void.

Ninna pushed the dark thought aside. She sat on the cool floor, body still trembling with leftover laughter. Nin Ra knelt beside her, reaching out, only to realize her royal mistress was shaking not with tears, but with mirth.

Bewildered for half a heartbeat, Nin Ra surrendered and began laughing too. The two nins collapsed against each other—hugging, kissing cheeks and foreheads, laughing until their sides ached—while the last of the orange fog swirled lazily around them, rising toward the dome in soft, tufted clouds freckled with lingering sparks of gold.

The thunder of splintering doors shattered the fragile peace. Guards burst into the Fifth Eye, blades gleaming, only to freeze at the sight before them.

Golden motes still danced wildly through the air, clinging to the shattered remnants of the door like mischievous fireflies. Larger fragments drifted lazily toward the ceiling, sparkling as they turned. One sentinel stepped forward and immediately slipped on a slick puddle of condensed fog—now a glistening red mud—and nearly toppled. His companion seized him by the back of the neck and hauled him to safety.

Seeing no enemy, only luminous chaos, the first ursag snatched a floating shard of wood and hurled it with precise, practiced force. It struck the window lever cleanly. The great pane slid shut, severing the orange waterfall. The last sheet of ethereal jelly oozed down the wall like melting amber and pooled upon the floor.

“Looks like this chamber is in need of cleaning, Your Hollowness,” the sentinel announced, voice steady. “Shall I summon igs?”

Ninna tried to wave him away, but a savage cramp seized her belly. She doubled forward with a sharp groan, claws diging into the heavy, shifting bulge at her waist.

“Your Hollowness?” Concern edged the guard’s tone, yet he dared not step closer.

“Send for Gula, you fool!” Nin Ra snapped, cradling Ninna’s shoulders, rocking her gently. “Go! Now!”

The guard vanished down the corridor. The second sentry remained at the broken doorway, spear planted, eyes fixed resolutely outward to guard the sanctity of the moment.

“Bastet…” Ninna’s voice was barely more than a breath, soft and worn thin as old silk. “The eggs… do you think they will be empty again? They are always empty…” Her laughter crumbled into raw, choking sobs. “Why are they always empty? What will I tell Anu? I should have crashed. I wish I’d died…”

Grief swallowed her whole—vast, perpetual, boundless. What greater shame existed than delivering yet another disappointment to the One in Command? To be the single flaw in his otherwise flawless existence. The Hallowed Void that could not give birth. A living threat to the perfect Order he had bled to create.

Am I to be his undoing?

The thought cut deeper than any blade. She clutched the moving bulge, feeling it sink lower, heavier, urgent now, pressing toward the birth canal.

There was no time.

“Bastet!” Ninna commanded, voice suddenly steel. “Help me to my feet. Quickly.”

“Is this wise, Your Hollowness?”

“There is no time! Help me to the nest.”

Nin Ra obeyed, though reluctance shadowed her face. She pulled her mistress upright, slipped a slender arm around her waist, and together they waddled toward the inner sanctum of the Apex. Behind them, unnoticed by the vigilant guard who kept his back turned, a glistening trail of blood and ooze followed like a dark, wet ribbon across the polished stone—silent witness to the royal birth already unfolding.

Back in the hushed sanctuary of her nest, a strange calm settled over Ninna like warm mist. She clung tightly to Nin Ra’s hand, claws gently pricking scaled skin.

“I feel them coming, Nin Ra,” she whispered. Then— “Ah!”

Not pain—the One’s birth was painless—but pure startled wonder. The first egg arrived without warning, sudden as fine china slipping from careless fingers. A slick rupture of warmth and wetness bloomed beneath her, blood and mucus mingling in a silky rush. The sensation crashed through her in a wild chorus: shock, release, disorientation. Though she had laid many times before, the strangeness of it never dulled.

No sooner had the first egg settled into the nest than the second wave seized her—an exquisite tension laced with deep, rippling pleasure. She shifted her weight, sweeping her long tail aside so the new arrival would not crush its sibling. A swarm of icy lightning raced up her spine, chased instantly by a golden flood of endorphins. The second egg slid free with a soft, solid thud, coming to rest beside the first.

Only then did Ninna realize she was still holding her robes bunched high above her slender legs, far higher than modesty required. Blue blood and glistening ooze painted her thighs in dark, shining streaks. She stood dazed, drunk on the afterglow of rupture, barely aware of the world around her.

A quiet entourage of maids had arrived with Gula—too late, as always. They moved in efficient silence, wiping her legs, cleaning her feet and tail, and tenderly bathing the two new eggs. Nin Ra remained at her side, arms wrapped gently around her shoulders.

“You may let go of your gown now, Your Hollowness,” she murmured. “You are clean. The eggs are here.” With a quiet gesture, she waved Gula’s assistants back toward the doorway, where they clustered, wide-eyed, staring at the two gleaming orbs nestled in the soft bedding.

“Will they hatch?” Ninna asked Gula, striving to keep the tremor of despair from her voice.

“Of course they will, Your Hollowness,” came the familiar, soothing reply—the same words spoken over every clutch. Gula’s gaze never left the eggs. They shimmered softly in the dim orange light, still moist, almost luminous. She stared as though trying to pierce the smooth white shells with her eyes alone. The smaller egg leaned at a worrying angle; the larger one stood proud and straight.

Then—the larger egg twitched.

Ninna gasped. Her grip on Nin Ra’s hand tightened until her claws sliced through delicate scales, drawing bright blue amethysts of blood. Nin Ra did not flinch, her eyes locked on the nest.

“Wait… is that… a crack?” Nin Ra breathed, pointing with her free hand. “Look—there!”

Ninna’s heart hammered against her ribs. She had to summon every fragment of courage to lift her gaze. A single hairline fracture, thin as black lightning, had appeared across the porcelain surface. It trembled, lengthened… then paused.

All three—Ninna, Nin Ra, and Gula—leaned forward as one. In the narrow crevice, gleaming with impossible life, they saw it: a tiny, shiny yellow pupil staring back at them from within the egg.

“I must tell Anu,” Ninna whispered, the words slipping from her lips like a prayer.

Still half-dazed, she stepped closer, bent low, and peered into the delicate fracture. Something living stirred within—slow, languid, unmistakably alive. She reached out, trembling, only for the Gula to catch her wrist with gentle stubbornness.

“Don’t,” Gula instructed. “It is forbidden.”

She drew Ninna back with tender firmness.

Together they watched, breathless, as the crown of the shell lifted a fraction, then settled again. Once more it rose… and fell. The newborn struggled, persistent and determined, until at last a small piece of shell chipped free and tumbled aside.

A gasp escaped Ninna’s throat.

A newborn! A living blood!

After so many cycles of barren, hollow clutches, the sight struck her like lightning. Even Nin Ra and Gula—though they had witnessed many true births—stood frozen in astonishment, as if they had never expected one from her.

Their reverent silence was shattered as heavy footsteps and voices surged through the corridor. Anh had arrived.

It had been ages since the One in Command had descended from the Sixth Stratum. The sentries looked as stunned as Ninna felt. Her heart thundered against her ribs; a wild, joyful breath rushed from her lungs.

“Anu!” she cried, too familiar, too raw for ceremony. Then she caught herself. Straightening, she drew on every shred of royal grace, lifted her chin, and spoke with solemn reverence:

“Your Radiance, behold your heir!”

She gestured toward the shattered egg, where a small, wet, glistening head now pushed through the opening, crowned in fragments of white shell.

Anh had to duck low to pass through the ruined doorway, his massive form filling the chamber like a living mountain. I forgot how big he was, Ninna thought, a pang of longing piercing her chest. It has been too long.

Nearly a full cycle had passed since he last visited her at the Fifth Eye. For many heartbeats, he had grown distant, almost ghostly, rarely leaving the Sixth Stratum. He summoned her only when the need for mating overpowered his solitude. The stupid, ironclad Order forbade her from ascending to him uninvited. She was Royal Consort, true, yet still a prisoner of station.

The last time she had dared question it, Anh had looked at her with flat, unreadable eyes and spoken as though to a hatchling:

“All Ones have their stations, Ninna. Such is the Order of Things. What becomes of the world if stations may be changed at will? Chaos. And chaos devours everything.”

“Give me an heir!” he had commanded.

She never could.

That failure had grown inside her like black mold, filling the sacred void where life should have taken root. With every empty clutch, her confidence withered. Lately, she could not meet his gaze; she stared only at her feet when summoned. During their matings, she remained silent, cold, and slipped away the moment he was finished.

How had it come to this?

Yet now, as the tiny heir wrigled free of its shell, something ancient and fragile inside her dared to hope that the long winter of shame might finally be over.

For the first time in countless cycles, Ninna met Anh’s gaze with steady pride. Courage and regal poise shone in her serene yellow eyes as she looked straight into the face of the Order itself.

“Your Radiance, come closer,” she said, voice warm with wonder. “Don’t be afraid—he won’t bite!” A nervous laugh escaped her, bright and fragile, betraying the storm of hope and fear beneath her composed mask. He. She had called the newborn he. The word had flown from her lips before thought could catch it, born of desperate eagerness to please him.

Anh moved forward slowly, each step measured and heavy. Regret flickered through Ninna as she realized her uninvited boast. She swallowed the sudden sting of tears, restored her serene expression, and stepped toward him. Taking his enormous hand, she could only wrap her slender fingers around one massive digit. His scales were like living obsidian, hard and cool; her own skin felt impossibly soft against them. The touch sent a shiver through her—strange, electric, almost like the very first time he had ever laid his hand upon her.

In that instant, the excitement of her youth flared back to life, vivid and intoxicating. She remembered the young, foolish pair they had once been, when the world still glittered with promise. So much had changed… Yet here, standing together over their living blood, hope rekindled like dawn breaking after endless night. She could give him more. She knew she could.

“Let’s celebrate!” she whispered, clutching his hand tighter.

Anh gently withdrew his massive fingers and pointed instead toward the second egg—the smaller one—still resting crooked and forgotten beside its larger sibling. It leaned at a precarious angle, clearly unbalanced.

The other!

Ninna’s joy faltered. Why must he always find a flaw? she thought, heat rising beneath her scales in a flush of blue. When joy is so rare, why does he have to dwell on imperfection? His precious Order demanded it, she knew. Yet this moment was hers. She would not let him tarnish it. Chaos take your Order, she nearly hissed aloud.

Before she could speak, the smaller egg gave a sudden bounce and rolled sideways. It struck its brother, tipping the larger shell and spilling the first youngling onto the soft nest in a tumble of dried moss and shell fragments.

Both Anh and Ninna froze, breathless.

Gula, too, stood speechless, golden scroll slipping from her grasp to clatter upon the floor.

Then the smaller egg cracked open as well. A tiny youngling emerged with surprising vigor, clambering free of the shards. It circled its empty shell once before darting forward to press its nose against its larger sibling, forked tongue flicking in tender greeting.

“He is a curious one!” Gula declared at last, her voice warm with awe.

He. The word rang through Ninna like bells of silver and gold. Joy surged through her veins until she felt the very ceiling of the chamber dissolve above her. She could have leaped into the air, soared through the window, and become one with the swirling orange glow and crimson fog beyond—weightless, boundless, and—finally!—triumphantly whole.

She clasped her delicate hand tightly around Anh’s massive clawed finger, tugging him gently forward as triumph sang through her voice.

“Your Radiance,” she declared, glowing and unyielding, “may I present to you Lil and Ki… your sons.”

She lingered on the word sons, letting it ring like a bell of victory through the chamber. After endless cycles of barren shame, of whispered humiliations and polite exclusion, the moment was finally, gloriously hers. She had given him not one heir but two—and both of them male. No one could diminish this. No one could take it from her. She would be celebrated at last.

Anh watched in silence as the two tiny younglings crawled free of their pearlescent shells. They tumbled onto the soft floor at their mother’s feet, small air pouches pulsing rhythmically beneath their chins. Slanted golden eyes blinked against the orange light. Six delicate toes tipped with jet-black claws flexed and curled. Patches of vivid blue scales shimmered along their slender necks—clear proof they were males.

“Wait!” Gula interjected, her voice sharp as a cracked blade. “You have a Light One.”

Her crooked finger, claw uneven and yellow, pointed straight at the smaller newborn—Ki.

The words crashed like stones through a mirror. Silence thickened. Anh and Ninna stared at the tiny creature in disbelief. After so many failed attempts, after so much longing, why must one of their two sons be born a Light One? Rare as stargifts, the Light Ones lived beyond the Order of Things. They could never inherit, never rule.

Yet Lil remained—a perfect Dark One, strong and rightful. Ninna clung fiercely to that truth. It did not matter. It could not matter. One true heir was enough. She would parade Lil during the Rite of Hatching, letting the One City rejoice. The arrival of a Light One was no more her fault than stargifts falling from the orange skies. She refused to let it tarnish her triumph.

Still, a stubborn wave of disquiet stirred deep inside her. There was no certainty that Lil would one day succeed Anh as the One in Command. She had worked too long, whispered too cleverly among the Ens Most High, planting seeds of ambition in every noble house. Many now had sons of their own—some still in the Nursery, others already placed in higher stations. Surely they all dreamed of their blood rising higher rather than fading into obscurity.

She had spoken to their nins. To her surprise, most had seemed reserved. Only she, the once-childless one, had burned with purpose. Now that her dream had taken shape and breathing form, she was determined to see it through. The Council would convene soon. She had massaged the idea so thoroughly into their docile minds that it must have traveled home to their ens. It must have.

But that was a battle for another cycle.

Now was the time to celebrate.

Ninna lifted her chin, squeezed Anh’s hand once more, and let joy—raw, hard-won, and luminous—flood her entire being. The long night of emptiness was over. At last, the void had given birth.

Ninna turned to Anh, choosing her words with delicate precision, though an edge of command shimmered beneath them like hidden steel.

“This moment is ours to cherish, Anu,” she said. “It is time to celebrate the hatching of your heir.” Despite her careful courtesy, the demand rang clear. “The One in Command… will you decree the Rite of Hatching?”

Her voice pulled Anh from his stunned silence. He straightened, vast shoulders rising like a mountain awakened.

“What? Yes, of course,” he boomed, authority rolling through the chamber like thunder. “I will command the celebration of the Rite of Hatching!” Then his gaze darkened. “But first… we must deal with this.”

He pointed at Ki.

Though the two younglings looked nearly identical at first glance, the difference was now unmistakable—even to the sentinels. Lil lay curled peacefully at his mother’s feet, air pouches pulsing in slow, steady rhythm, patient as stone. Ki, however, writhed with restless energy. His long black tongue flicked wildly, tasting the air. His head swiveled in every direction as he tried to circle his parents, only to be held back by his tail pinned beneath his larger brother. Tiny clawed feet scrabbled uselessly against the cool slate floor.

“So restless…” Nin Ra murmured, half to herself.

Ninna shot her a withering glare. The maid’s eyes dropped instantly.

“I beg your pardon, Your Hollowness, I only meant—”

“Be silent, nin!” Ninna snapped. “My sons are perfect. Go. Fetch the Keeper.”

“And the Seer,” Anh added gravely, his eyes fixed on Ki as the little one finally wrigled free and waddled straight toward his father’s massive feet. Anh recoiled, visibly unsettled. The sight of the mighty One in Command shrinking from a creature no larger than his palm almost drew a smile from Ninna. She fought it down.

Anh recovered, reached down, and gave Ki a gentle nudge back toward Lil. “Here,” he rumbled. “Go play with your brother while you can. You will not see him again for a long time… if ever.”

He knew what came next. The Seer would carry Ki to the Floating Rock, where the Light Ones dwelled free from the Order. Perhaps one day Ki might become a Seer himself and glimpse his brother from afar. But until then, he would vanish into the rocky heights above the city, unseen by ens below.

The Keeper arrived first. He moved through the corridors and stepped from the elevator with practiced ease, clearly no stranger to the Fifth Eye. Anh ig, as all Keepers were, he wore plain grey robes that covered most of his scales. In one hand, he carried a gilded cage; in the other, a basket lined with soft blue moss.

He set his burdens down, glanced at the two younglings, and addressed Ninna with the faintest trace of insolence bordering on accusation.

“I see there are two, Your Hollowness. I was not told.” His eyes flicked between Lil and Ki as he searched for an excuse. “Which one am I taking?”

Ninna’s jaw tightened at the Keeper’s audacity, but her face remained a mask of regal calm. Only her voice betrayed the flare of anger, sharp as a finely honed dagger.

“You are not here to collect my son, Keeper.” She spat the title like something distasteful, putting the lowly ig firmly in his place.

“You will have him after the Rite of Hatching,” Anh interjected, his deep voice brooking no argument. He ignored the unspoken question hovering in the Keeper’s eyes—which one?

“Fine,” the Keeper replied, unruffled. With a careless nudge of his foot, he slid the gilded cage and the basket of blue moss toward the younglings. “Here is the cage to keep him in, and moss for when he grows hungry.”

The sudden movement caught Ki’s restless gaze. The tiny creature waddled eagerly toward the basket, clamped his small jaws around a thick strand of moss, and yanked. Blue fibers spilled across the floor in a fragrant heap. Ki began munching noisily, utterly delighted.

If Anh had possessed eyebrows, he would have raised them. Instead, his heavy silence spoke volumes.

“A hungry one,” the Keeper observed, still unfazed. “I brought only enough moss for a single youngling. Shall I fetch more? And perhaps a second cage?”

“The Seer will see to him,” Anh rumbled, waving the ig away. “Go now. You will have the Dark One after the rite.” He stepped forward and pointed to Lil, who still lay curled peacefully at Ninna’s feet. Then, with surprising gentleness, Anh reached down and lifted Ki into the air.

Blue moss dangled from the youngling’s mouth as he chewed, tiny sharp teeth working busily. Anh brought the tiny face close to his own and stared into those bright, slanted eyes.

“Who are you?” he whispered, as though searching for some hidden destiny within them.

The Keeper bowed lightly and retreated through the shattered doorway. As he stepped into the corridor, he nearly collided with the Seer—an ancient Light One elder whose long, silvery beard shimmered like liquid moonlight. The Keeper made way, cast one last curious glance over his shoulder at Anh still holding Ki, then vanished toward the elevator.

The Seer’s arrival shifted the very air. A quiet, divine gravity filled the chamber, as though the room itself had drawn a reverent breath. Whether it was the flowing silver beard or the eerie depth of his unseeing eyes, his presence commanded silence. He was not blind, yet when he looked at you, he seemed to gaze through flesh and bone into something far beyond.

The Seer’s strange eyes swept across Ninna, Nin Ra, and Anh before settling on Ki. The little one had finished his moss and was squirming furiously in Anh’s grasp, desperate for another helping.

“I will take him, Your Radiance,” the Seer said, approaching with calm authority. “Bid your farewells to Ki now,” he added, turning to Ninna.

How does he know the name? she wondered, startled by how effortlessly the elder’s presence overshadowed even Anh’s immense stature.

The Seer reached out and took Ki into his arms. At once, the youngling grew still, mesmerized by the flowing silver beard. Tiny claws stretched upward, grasping at the ghostly strands as though they were living moonlight.

The Seer tilted his head, drawing his ancient gaze closer to Ki’s while keeping the flowing silver beard just beyond the reach of those eager, tiny claws.

“I believe I see who will succeed me,” he murmured, enigmatic and soft, never looking away from the youngling. For once, his eyes did not pierce through—they rested upon Ki with something almost like recognition.

A quiet wave of relief washed over Ninna. She let the Seer’s words settle inside her, turning them over like precious stones. Pride stirred, tentative but growing. Though the Seer stood outside the Order, Anh still sought his counsel. That carried weight. She would be proud of both: Lil, the rightful heir to the One in Command, and Ki, the future Seer. Certainty was a luxury she could not afford, but belief would be enough.

Her face softened into its most beautiful expression in many cycles, the long strain melting from the delicate lines of her neck and cheeks.

Anh, too, seemed unburdened. He turned to Nin Ra. “Put Lil in the cage and give him moss. Do not just stand there.”

Nin Ra obeyed at once. Lil crawled willingly into the gilded confines and began sniffing delicately at the offering.

“And summon Ra,” Anh added. “Tell him to meet me at the Apex of the Sixth Eye.”

The command was unnecessary. Ra materialized in the doorway, radiant with excitement, his sagsu helm gleaming upon his large, conical head—five elegant golden horns twisting upward like living flames.

“You sent for me, Your Radiance?” he asked, perfectly poised.

Anh noted the helmet with quiet approval. He thought of it! Few ens understood the Order so instinctively. Ra would make a worthy successor one day, when the time came. Whenever that might be.

“Prepare for the Rite of Hatching, the Second in Command,” Anh proclaimed, his voice rolling like deep ocean waves. “We ride in one shar.”

“One shar?” Ninna interjected, indignation flashing. “So soon?”

“It has always been one shar, Ninna,” Anh replied, irritation carefully veiled. “The—”

“—Order of Things demands it!” Ninna finished, sharper than she intended.

Ra chose to ignore the exchange. “On my way, Your Radiance.” He offered a flawless bow—deep enough for respect, yet not excessive—and withdrew.

“One shar!” Ninna hissed the moment Ra had gone, wheeling on Anh. “I have waited countless cycles for this moment, and you grant me only three thousand and six hundred heartbeats?”

Anh consulted his pulsekeeper. “Three thousand five hundred and ninety-eight now,” He corrected her, unmoved. “Best not waste any more, or the celebration will be very short indeed.”

Speechless, Ninna turned away in a storm of silk and wounded pride. Her long gown brushed against Anh’s feet like an accusation as she swept from the chamber, leaving only the faint scent of orange mist and simmering resentment behind.

Everything changes so swiftly, she thought, and just as swiftly slips away. The bright thread of happiness twisted in her hands and darkened into heavy foreboding. Why does my heart not sing? I have done what I was born to do. I have given Anu his heir. Is it the Light One who haunts me still? She tried to summon pride in little Ki, to imagine him grown tall and wise, the next Seer whispering counsel into Lil’s ear. Would that not be a glory worth every ache? Yet something vast and ponderous gnawed behind her ribs, a shadow that would not be named.

Why is happiness so fleeting?

She summoned her maid. Nin Ra drew a gown of translucent silk over Ninna’s scales like moonlight poured across still water, then crowned her with a helm of rainbow gold whose five elegant horns curved upward on each side like petals reaching for the sun. The outfit mirrored Anh’s in every line, save that his helm bore six horns—taller, heavier, crowned with the weight of rule.

Together they descended in the whispering elevator and stepped into the cool air of the Sacred Grove. Anh waited beside the royal litter, his great frame so vast the gilded ark seemed almost too small to hold him. Soon he will need a new one, Ninna thought, watching igs in protective overalls hurriedly spreading a fresh layer of glowing blue firestone along the litter’s keel. With each glistening stroke the vessel rose, lighter than breath, until it hovered a foot above the muddy ground.

Anh unfolded the steps with stiff courtesy and offered her his hand. Ever gallant. Ever cold. She climbed inside; he followed. Burdened by their weight, the litter sank precariously yet managed to remain aloft, soft mud beneath it rippling in concentric circles.

Nin Ra approached, carrying a gilded cage. Inside, little Lil squirmed, his slitted eyes wide and luminous with newborn wonder. The maid placed the cage gently in Ninna’s lap and bowed low. “Enjoy the Rite, Your Hollowness,” she breathed, then withdrew like a shadow at sunrise.

Anh waited until the steps were folded away, then lifted his massive hand. The Grove fell silent. He gave the honor to Ra.

Tall and radiant, though not as immense as Anh, Ra stood gleaming beneath his five-horned helm. Orange mist swirled around him like living flame. “On behalf of the One in Command,” he declared, voice rich and solemn, “I hereby announce the Rite of Hatching. Let the celebration begin!”

He patted the litter’s side. The porters stirred.

It was little more than a gilded box adorned with intricate fractal patterns that caught the light like frozen music. Two long steering poles jutted from its sides. The litter floated on firestone, yet needed souls to move it. Three scrawny igs took each pole—six before, six behind. Though they bore no true weight, Anh’s colossal presence gave the vessel such inertia that all twelve had to strain together, muscles trembling, before the great ark glided forward.

From her seat, Ninna saw only the heads and straining shoulders of her carriers. And in that moment, the hidden truth of their labor revealed itself to her, sharp as a blade of starlight:

It is always igs who carry the load of ens.

Over long ages, the burden has grown lighter, yet it remains a burden still.

The Sacred Grove lay drowned in thick orange mist, the Father Tree visible only as a vast, brooding shadow against the city’s eternal glow. Along the causeway, the royal procession followed, servant igs waited with firedust dispensers. As the litter approached, they opened them in unison. A storm of golden motes burst forth, devouring the fog, lifting its heavy curtains high above the path like silken veils drawn aside by invisible hands. The royal couple shone, revealed.

So many… Ninna thought, gazing at the sea of unfamiliar faces—ens and nins pressed shoulder to shoulder along the route. The One City, which had seemed empty and silent beneath the mist, now brimmed with life. So many Ones…

An endless wall of faces flanked the causeway. The silence was strained yet reverent, broken only by occasional murmurs and the pointing of fingers toward the gilded cage resting on her knees. Should I raise it higher? she wondered. She glanced at Anh, ever reserved, ever watchful. Why risk his disapproval? Her hand rested lightly atop the cage, but in the end she simply turned her head and offered the crowd a gentle, luminous smile.

Anh rode beside her in perfect stillness, staring straight ahead, aloof and distant. Does anything stir him? she wondered. Does he even remember what happiness feels like? She was no longer certain she remembered either—until this moment. Tiny bubbles of joy began rising within her, soft at first, then brighter, faster, until they could no longer be contained.

She rose to her feet, lifted the gilded cage high above her head, and cried out with all the strength in her voice:

“Til-la Lil! The long-awaited heir of the One in Command! Til-la Lil!”

Her words rippled outward like a stone cast into still water. The murmur spread, swelled, bounced from wall to wall, building into a mighty roar that shook the very air of the One City:

“Til-la Lil! Til-la Lil! Til-la Lil!”

For the first time in eons, Ninna saw Anh come alive. At first, he reached for her in alarm, lips tightening with silent reprimand. Then something shifted. Golden sparks kindled in his eyes as he watched the crowd chant his son’s name. A faint smile—rare as stargift—touched his face. Amused. Perhaps even proud.

Ninna kept the cage raised high, her own voice soaring with the thunderous chant as the litter glided onward. Even some of the igs pulling the poles joined in, their small voices threading bravely through the roar. Anh’s eyes widened in genuine astonishment. Participation without command! Now that is true Order.

Ninna watched him, heart soaring. Pride for Lil? For her? Or only for himself? She could not tell. Yet to have drawn even a flicker of warmth from Anh’s cold heart felt like victory enough. Elation lifted her higher than any mist or golden dust. In this shining moment, the city, the chant, the roaring joy—all of it belonged to her.

As the royal procession glided onward, the proud towers of the inner city dwindled, sinking lower and lower until they vanished entirely into the glowing orange haze. The causeway stretched before them like a river lost in fog—neither beginning nor end visible, only the endless tunnel of mist. Ninna’s arms burned from holding the gilded cage aloft, yet she refused to yield. She swept the pain aside like cobwebs and kept chanting, her voice bright and restless: “Til-la Lil!” Each time a fresh wave of roar crashed over the litter, she smiled wider, feeding the fire.

Golden motes swirled above them in luminous spirals, turning the air into living starlight. Even Anh had softened. He sat relaxed now, nodding in quiet approval. Finally, Ninna thought, joy blooming inside her chest. At last, we can both feel. This is happiness. This is it. She tried to carve every shimmering detail into her soul so she might carry it forever.

But fate, ever cruel, never lets light linger.

As they neared the city’s edge, the graceful spires and stout towers of ens gave way to the crooked shacks and mud-choked hovels of igs, huddled together in chaotic clusters like broken shells washed ashore by restless waves. Red mud squelched greedily beneath the porters’ feet, sucking at their toes with wet, resentful sounds. Crowds of igs pressed close on either side—small, sullen figures bunched in ragged packs. Their faces told stories of hardship: some streaked with red clay, others scarred by blue pockmarks, eyes swollen half-shut, teeth or claws missing.

“You should return to your seat, Ninna,” Anh commanded, his voice tight with unmasked concern. “These ones do not partake of the Tree of Life. They cannot share our joy as fully. The Order knows I have tried to ease their burden, but there are so many… and the Sacred Grove is too small for every soul. Not all can be ens, Ninna.” He spoke almost to himself, then added softly, “Please sit.”

She obeyed. Relief flooded her trembling arms as she lowered the cage, muscles screaming in protest. The mist had grown heavy, condensing into drifting droplets that lingered in the air like hesitant tears, neither rising nor falling. Then came the sounds—loud splashes behind the litter, closer each time, mud hurled in anger.

Ninna glanced back. The royal guard followed close—twelve sentinels with bronze firestone-tipped spears, their bluish glow cutting through the fog. One of them was dragging something heavy off the causeway, a dark shape she could not quite name.

Beyond the hovels, endless moss fields stretched into the orange void, dark figures swarming around hulking machines. Not all igs had abandoned their labor to watch the royals pass. Here, the air felt heavier, its glow dimmer, swallowed by the eternal dusk.

“Best we turn back now,” Anh commanded the porters.

Just in time. A massive shadow weaved out of the mist ahead—an abandoned harvester, looming like a forgotten giant. The porters strained against the litter’s inertia, muscles taut, turning the gilded vessel in a slow, sweeping arc, narrowly avoiding the collision. Huffing and puffing with effort, the royal procession reversed course, retreating from the outer fringes back toward the heart of the city.

The eternal glow grew strangely dim here, as though even the sky had turned its face away. Ninna thought she glimpsed movement in the haze—fleeting, uncertain—but the thickening orange condensation blurred every shape. It clung to their bodies like heavy sap, turning translucent gowns into sodden second skins. Large auburn droplets rolled across Lil’s tiny head; his narrow black tongue flicked out again and again, tasting the strange rain.

Shouts erupted behind them. Sentinels rushed toward the abandoned harvester, spears flashing. A body fell. Another was speared and dragged into the mist. Anh refused to look, his profile carved from stone. “Chaos is the friend of igs,” he muttered. Then, sharper: “Faster!”

Ninna had never heard him raise his voice like that. The command lashed like a whip. She needed no warning—distant screams and the clash of combat told her everything. They were alone now, accompanied only by twelve porters who were themselves igs. Fear uncoiled inside her, sleek and predatory. She clutched the gilded cage until her knuckles ached. “Faster!” she cried, but the red mud clutched greedily at every footfall.

One porter slipped. Another tumbled after him. Both vanished into the swirling fog with nothing but a few choked grunts. Then silence—save for the wet, rhythmic squelch of those still running.

A new shadow lunged out of the mist ahead: not a harvester this time, but a massive moss-filled wagon deliberately toppled across the causeway. Too late to stop. The front porters veered desperately, yet the litter’s momentum was merciless. It slammed sideways into the wagon with a bone-shaking crash. One steering pole snapped like a dry bone. A jagged splinter whistled past Ninna’s face. Another ricocheted off Anh’s armored scales, shredding his wet robe but drawing no blood.

The violent halt hurled them both forward. Ninna’s fingers flew open. The cage tumbled from her grasp and sank into the red mud. Lil squeaked in terror.

“Lil!” she gasped in desperation, trying to steady herself.

Before Anh could rise from the wreckage, something heavy and round struck his golden helm with a dull, resounding thud, denting the metal just below a curving horn. He roared—a volcano of rage—and erupted from the litter, flinging debris in every direction.

Ninna crawled through the sucking mud, eyes burning, reaching for the cage. The fog licked at her like a hungry lover, clotting her vision with sticky amber tears. “Lil!” she called again.

“Stay down!” a voice shouted—whose, she could not tell.

Anh’s roar split the air once more. She turned to see swarms of small dark figures launching themselves at his colossal form. They looked like rats—frenzied, desperate rats. He thrashed and spun, his massive tail whipping like a war-mace, smashing them aside in waves. Yet more kept coming, leaping from the mist. Too many. For one heartbeat, she forgot even Lil, mesmerized by the terrible beauty of his fury. His size and thick scales gave him savage advantage; scores of attackers already lay broken in pools of steaming purple blood.

Thank the Order, igs are forbidden weapons, she thought—until terror for her son flooded back.

“Lil!” She staggered upright. A hand touched her shoulder. Ninna whirled to find an old, scrawny ig nin standing behind her, drenched in red mud, holding the cage in her trembling arms. Inside, Lil squeaked frantically; a raw, bleeding patch marred his small back where the fall had torn him.

The crone pressed the cage into Ninna’s hands without a word, then melted back into the fog like a ghost.

“Long life to you!” Ninna cried after her.

Only the swirling mist answered.

Suddenly, the sky cracked open with light. Searchlights speared down through the orange murk, and the low, guttural hum of flyers stitched the air. Reinforcements had come. Igs scattered like startled insects as ens descended in gleaming armor, forming a living wall around Ninna and Anh.

Bodies lay everywhere, half-submerged in red slush. So much for the celebration, Ninna thought bitterly. She sank into the mud and laughed—high, wild, uncontrollable—still clutching the gilded cage as though it were the last solid thing in the world.

No one noticed her until Ra came sprinting through the chaos. He seized her arm and pulled her upright with surprising strength. “Come with me, Your Hollowness,” he said, voice steady and warm. His charming smile never faltered, even here. “His Radiance will join us later. He has a battle to command.” With gentle insistence, he guided her toward the nearest flyer and helped her inside.

As they rose, Ninna pressed her face to the viewport. Far below, a single powerful searchlight pinned Anh in its brilliant circle. Towering and majestic, he stood amid the carnage, issuing orders to sentinels. Ursags darted across the site like golden sparks. The scene shrank, blurred, and finally vanished as the flyer carried them toward the Royal Spire.

I am safe. Anu is safe. Lil is safe.

She looked down at the cage. Lil still squeaked faintly, tiny claws scraping against the muddy bars. She held him tighter. She would never let go. Not ever. Yet she knew she must speak with Anh about keeping their son closer. The chances he would listen were thin as starlight… but she had to try.

She remembered nothing of the journey to the Apex of the Fifth Eye. One moment, the world was chaos and mud; the next, Nin Ra was gently stripping the ruined gown from her body, wiping red filth from her scales with trembling hands. The maid’s face was pale, etched with worry.

“I am glad you are unharmed, Your Hollowness,” Nin Ra whispered. “You need a proper bath. I will prepare—”

“No bath,” Ninna cut in. “Where is Lil?”

“With the Keeper.”

“So soon?” Ninna’s voice rose in protest. “It is not time yet!”

Nin Ra offered a soft, reassuring smile. “The Keeper is still here. He will not descend to the Nursery without Anh’s leave.”

Relief washed through Ninna like warm rain. Then the world tilted, and she fainted, slipping silently into the nest. A single sharp fragment of eggshell pressed cruelly into her side, unnoticed.

When she woke, Anh stood before her.

He looked transformed—more alive than she had ever seen him. His eyes burned with golden fire. His air pouches pulsed rapidly beneath the sleek black combat suit that clung to his powerful frame like liquid night. A firestone-tipped dagger hung at his belt, deadly and beautiful. For the first time in memory, Anh looked… happy.

The Keeper waited beside him, relaxed and insolent as ever.

“It is time,” Anh said quietly. “Bid your farewell to Lil before the Keeper takes him to the Nursery.”

Ninna’s heart plummeted. “Anh—Your Radiance,” she pleaded, voice breaking. “I beg you, let us speak of this!”

But his gaze was already distant, immovable. He stepped closer and helped her to her feet with surprising tenderness. “We have spoken of this many times, Ninna. My answer remains the same…”

“The Order of Things demands it!” Ninna finished for him, her voice sharp as shattered crystal, flung straight into his face. “Chaos take your precious Order! Is it more important to you than me? Than Lil? Your own flesh and blood?”

Anh raised his massive hand. Invisible power flowed from it, gentle yet absolute, silencing her trembling words. “You saw the chaos by the harvester, Ninna,” he said, his tone more sorrowful than scolding. “You witnessed it with your own eyes. Do you truly wish us to live like… like igs?” He stepped close, so close, and cupped her face between his enormous hands with surprising tenderness. Tilting his head, he looked deep into her gleaming yellow eyes, his voice softening to a whisper. “The Order of Things is the only wall between them and us. You know this, Ninna. You know it in your bones. The moment we forget, chaos will devour everything, and you will beg for Order once more—only then it will be too late. Lil must go to the Nursery.”

“But—”

Her protest died as her body sagged, strengthless, into his arms. He lowered her gently back into the nest.

“With any luck,” Anh continued, “we will have him back in a few cycles…”

We. The single word pierced her like starlight. He had said we. Something had shifted inside him. Deep beneath that armored heart, he cared. Stubborn as the Father Tree itself, he cared for their son. Lil would be his heir. He must be.

“…if he survives,” he added, almost absently.

The words struck her like a fresh blow. All the terror, exhaustion, and grief of the day crashed over her at once. She broke—sobbing wildly, uncontrollably, her body shaking as though the abandoned harvester had risen again from the fog to crush her.

For once, shame flickered across Anh’s face. He reached out, awkward but sincere. “I know he will survive. The Keeper will see to it.” He shot the ig a heavy, warning glance.

The Keeper’s expression remained flat, unmoved. He had witnessed countless such farewells, countless mothers’ tears. His hide was thick, and he was only an ig.

“As Your Radiance commands,” he replied tonelessly. He stepped forward to claim the cage. Lil was clean now, the wound on his small shoulder neatly patched.

“Wait!” Ninna cried. She rose, steadier than before, and knelt before the cage. Slipping one claw through the bars, she stroked the tiny head, rubbing gently between his eyes. “I will see you again, my darling,” she whispered. “Show them who you are—the future En Most High, my One in Command!”

Lil murmured something soft and secret, circling her finger with his small body as if in promise.

The Keeper cleared his throat, then lifted the cage and vanished down the shadowed corridor without another word, carrying her heart toward the elevator and the Nursery far below.

Ninna turned to Anh. She seized his massive hand and pressed it fiercely to her chest. “Promise me one thing.”

A flicker of confusion crossed his face. “Promise you what?”

“That during this cycle’s council, you will speak of the matters of succession.”

“Ninna!” Anh rolled his eyes, exasperation flaring. “Not this again. Enough—I have said enough!” He stormed from the chamber, his battle gear shimmering deep violet in the low light, like thunder given form.

Yet as his heavy footsteps faded, Ninna found herself smiling through fresh tears.

Beneath the harsh words and the storming exit, she had seen the crack in his armor. This time… this time he might truly listen.His ghastly exit left Ninna smiling. She knew that despite the harsh facade and fierce act, he actually might listen to her this time.