Part 1
The woman who entered was decidedly not what Philip had expected.
She moved through the doorway with the fluid grace of a predator—no, that wasn't quite right. Predators stalked. This woman commanded the very air molecules to part before her. Despite being in her sixties, she walked like someone who had personally led cavalry charges and expected the universe to salute. Her presence hit the room like a shockwave, making the opulent room suddenly feel small and inadequate, as if the walls themselves were considering whether they should bow.
Philip was stunned. This was supposed to be his frail, sickly grandmother who couldn't travel? The woman before him looked like she could arm-wrestle a bear and then run a marathon just to cool down. She wore what appeared to be a modified military dress uniform—but not the stiff, ceremonial kind. This was made from some advanced stretchable material that moved with her like a second skin, hugging curves that absolutely should not exist on someone who'd been alive when cavalry charges were still a thing… or at least a thing in this world.
Whoa, I guess this is what they meant by sixty is the new thirty! Philip thought.
The uniform was deep crimson with gold trim, cut to military precision but tailored to accommodate a figure that belonged in a fitness magazine's "Defying Age" special issue. Her shoulders were broad, her waist narrow, her legs... sculptural. At an age when most people struggled with stairs, this woman looked like she could sprint.
The System's voice chimed in his head with barely contained glee: "Oh my, you've been staring at grandma's body for seventeen whole seconds … what a curious boy you are. By the way, she has a face, just in case you forgot."
Philip's eyes snapped upward so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. The face that met his gaze was unmistakably the woman from the portrait—the same bone structure, the same flame-red hair now streaked with distinguished silver, the same eyes that seemed to hold a flame of passion. Nothing like the frightened girl in the bathtub he'd imagined from Celestica's story at their first meeting. Where the portrait showed a woman in her twenties, this face looked—forty at most. Fine lines at her eyes and mouth, yes, but the kind that suggested she'd smiled often rather than aged much.
Youth extension magic? Philip's mind raced. Is that a real thing in this world? Can people just... not age here?
A million possibilities cascaded through his thoughts. If aging could be slowed or reversed, then theoretically he could maintain his youth indefinitely. He could live forever! Centuries to build his fortune, to master this world's systems, to— Suddenly, images of the previous night with Natalia flooded his mind.
The System materialized on his shoulder as a six-inch-tall fairy, wearing nothing but a strategically placed leaf that barely covered the essentials, her translucent wings shimmering as they fluttered. She leaned against his ear, her tiny voice dripping with amusement.
"Oh, careful there, Philip! Don't go tumbling down the immortality rabbit hole that's swallowed more heroes than you can count. Trust me, I've watched entire civilizations crumble because someone got obsessed with not getting wrinkles. There was this one pharaoh who—"
"Grandmother?" Philip managed to croak out, cutting off the System's historical tangent.
The Duchess's face transformed with a smile that could have powered a small city. "Philip! My darling grandson!"
Before he had time to process, she was already closing the distance between them—three light, eager strides that ended with her wrapping herself around him like a soft, determined storm. The hug squeezed the breath right out of his lungs, yet he found himself melting into it, driven by muscle memory.
"Oh, my precious boy!" she exclaimed, pulling back just enough to cup his face in hands that were a wondrous mix of elegance and strength. "I'm so dreadfully sorry for the delay! I was having an important pool session with an important friend."
"Pool?" Philip wheezed, still recovering from the hug.
The Duchess—Margaret—looked at him with sudden concern, her eyes softening. "Oh, darling, I forgot you're still recovering from the amnesia. The indoor pool on the third floor? It used to be your absolute favorite when you visited as a child." A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. "Though we did have to implement rather strict chemical treatments after discovering your... special ingredients in the pool water. You were quite convinced that adding your own 'special water' made everyone swim faster."
Philip felt his face burst into flames. "I... what?"
"Oh yes," Margaret continued cheerfully, apparently delighted to share this embarrassing detail.
"You announced it quite proudly at your seventh birthday party. In front of the Duke of Eastmore and his entire family. While they were in the pool."
The System's tinkling laughter filled his head. "Oh, this is GOLD! Little Philip, the pool seasoner! Always love the family reunions!"
Philip desperately wanted to sink through the floor. Natalia, however, tilted her head with scientific interest. "Master, does urine actually increase swimming velocity? The ammonia content might theoretically—"
"No!" Philip said quickly. "No, it doesn't. Can we please never speak of this again?"
His grandmother chuckled, ruffling his hair with casual affection that completely ignored his desperate embarrassment. "You were such a confident little troublemaker."
Natalia, apparently immune to the social dynamics crackling through the room, tilted her head with innocent curiosity. "Your Grace, I thought you were ill?"
The temperature in the room plummeted.
Lydia went rigid, her face draining of color. Philip felt his mind go completely blank, as if someone had pulled the emergency brake on his thoughts. Even the fairy-System on his shoulder stopped her amused commentary.
The Duchess Margaret's warm expression flickered for just a moment—a shadow passing across her features so quickly Philip almost missed it. Then she smiled again, though this time it didn't quite reach her eyes.
"I was," she said simply. "Quite dreadfully so, in fact. I only started getting better after my friend's pool … therapies. But this is a secret, so please, not a word beyond these walls."
"Friend?" Philip echoed, his voice barely above a whisper.
His traitorous brain immediately conjured an image of a bunch of aristocratic grandmothers in old-fashioned bathing costumes with those ridiculous flower-covered swimming caps, splashing around in the pool doing water aerobics while discussing their grandchildren and complaining about their joints.
No. Stop. Abort. How do I delete a mental image? He desperately tried to think of literally anything else—tax forms, his dwindling bank account, that time he accidentally drank expired milk—anything to scrub the vision from his mind.
"Oh… yes… not sure if you remember her," Margaret said, her smile becoming slightly sheepish.
The double doors opened with a subtle shift in air pressure, as if the room itself was making space for what was about to enter.
Philip's brain, expecting perhaps another elderly friend of his grandmother's, completely short-circuited.
Empress Celestica stood in the doorway wearing a simple white two-piece bathing suit and nothing else except a towel draped carelessly over one shoulder—not even pretending to provide coverage. Water droplets clung to her skin like tiny diamonds, and her damp golden hair somehow looked deliberately styled rather than merely wet.
Philip forgot how to breathe.
She started forward with the casual confidence of someone who'd never experienced shame, then—thwap. One compressed wing caught the doorframe. She paused, reached back to unhook it with practiced patience, then tried again. Thwap. The other wing.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," she muttered.
The System fanned herself with a tiny hand. "Philip, darling, you're doing that thing again where you forget to blink. Also, you might want to close your mouth before something flies in."
Celestica finally cleared the doorway and moved into the room with fluid grace, each step causing the forgotten towel to slip further down her shoulder. She seemed utterly oblivious to how the afternoon light turned the water droplets on her skin into a constellation of stars, or how her casual movements revealed the toned lines of someone who could probably bench-press a small building.
Then, she paused and spread both wings to their full, magnificent span.
The room suddenly felt very small.
The System's voice squeaked in his ear: "Philip! You are saluting the wrong way. Use your hand, not your ... That is no way to greet your grandmother's bestie who also happens to be your sovereign liege. Protocol! Remember the protocol?!"
Lydia reacted instantly, dropping into a deep curtsy so quickly Philip heard her knees crack. "Your Imperial Majesty," she breathed, her voice carrying a reverence that bordered on religious.
Philip and Natalia suddenly remembered themselves and started to react, but Celestica waved a casual hand.
"Oh, none of that," she said, her voice carrying that particular tone of a parent's friend who knew exactly what mischief you'd been up to. "No need for such formality among... friends."
The way she said "friends" made Philip's stomach do uncomfortable flips. It was loaded with subtext, carrying the weight of unspoken knowledge and barely veiled amusement.
Then, Celestica turned to Lydia. "Oh, you flatter me. Please—up." The Empress lifted two fingers; the gesture was gentle, practiced. Power without pressure.
Only then did Lydia rise—smooth, composed, eyes down—but she positioned herself a half‑step behind Philip, precisely where protocol and protection met.
"Celestica has been absolutely wonderful," Margaret said, beaming at the Empress like they were old school chums rather than empress and subject. "Her pool healing sessions have done wonders for my constitution. But please keep the knowledge private."
Celestica adjusted her towel slightly, almost like a child gleefully receiving a compliment from someone they held in high regard. Yet she was oblivious to how the movement caused Philip's brain to short-circuit again. "Margaret is too kind. I simply did what I can." She turned those beautiful eyes on Natalia, and something flickered in their depths— recognition, calculation, the tiniest seam of concern stitched shut with kindness.
"And Natalia," the Empress said, gliding forward with steps that somehow made no sound despite her considerable... presence. "How good to see you again."
Natalia, for the first time since Philip had known her, looked genuinely uncertain. She executed a curtsy that was technically perfect but somehow seemed inadequate in the face of the Empire's ultimate weapon wrapped in a beach towel.
"Your... Your Imperial Majesty," Natalia managed, her usual confidence wavering.
Celestica smiled—an expression that seemed to melt the stress in the room instantly.
"Please, call me Celestica. After all," she turned that knowing gaze back to Philip, and he felt his knees threatening to buckle, "we're practically family now. We all share … certain secrets ..."
The Duchess cleared her throat. "Perhaps we should all sit? Harrison will be bringing tea momentarily, and I'm sure everyone has questions."
As they moved toward the seating area, Philip's mind raced. His grandmother, supposedly sick, was now in peak physical condition. The Empress of the Empire was apparently her spa buddy and was currently dripping pool water onto a priceless rug while wearing barely more than strategic fabric. And everyone was acting like this was perfectly normal.
The System, still perched on his shoulder in fairy form, whispered, "You know, in all my eons of existence, I've seen some weird family dynamics, but this? This is definitely top ten material."
But the only thing is Philip's mind is that… this is going to be a long conversation.
Part 2
The door whispered shut behind her.
"I will come back in a few days, all right?" she had chimed, bright as glass in sunlight. "Rest well. I'll bring those books you like." Her wave had been small and practiced, the kind you give children and terminally ill patients. Then the latch clicked, and the smile peeled away as if it had been painted on too thin.
For a heartbeat she stood very still, palms resting on the wood, as if the shape of her hands might keep him from drifting farther. The antiseptic-sweet scent of the wing clung to her clothes; beneath it, the faint metallic tang of mana instruments, the low thrum in the walls that said these windows were not just windows—crystallized barriers shaped to hold out anything short of a Realm Guardian. Even the fountains in the courtyards hid their second purpose, and the roses in the planters had thorns no silk could forgive. The hospital's beauty had always been a mask; today it felt like a lie.
She turned down the corridor.
Nurses moved with courteous perfection, all soft faces and careful hands—lovely, curated, a balm designed to convince families that pain could be arranged tastefully. Elora gave them the smile she'd trained for finishing schools and funerals, nodding at a server whose posture was as graceful as a dancer's. The Empire collected beautiful things, even here. Especially here.
She kept walking.
The observatory's glass dome waited at the corridor's end, its treated panes capable of turning opaque with a thought. This hour they were clear; the last slant of afternoon poured over the countryside, making the lawns look like something from a painting and not a place where people learned the timetable of hope. Beyond, the front gardens glowed with an almost cruel vitality: delphiniums in soldierly ranks, roses perfuming the air, lavender hedges humming with bees that did not care who lived or died.
Elora pressed through the revolving door and stepped into the courtyard's heat.
The breath she'd been stacking in even counts broke. One tear slipped, then another, quick and bright, splashing the silk at her collar. She pinched the bridge of her nose the way the etiquette books said, because that trick could stop tears. It did not.
She reached the fountain, and her knees simply failed. Stone met bone. The sound was small, but it traveled up her spine like a bell. She folded in on herself, palms braced on the coping, shoulders shaking as the first sob tore free. Then the next. And the next. The lavender hummed on; the roses looked exquisitely indifferent.
It wasn't the damage she'd seen that undid her—it was the absences. The lack of recognition in his eyes. They were strangers now. Her dear brother was now as clean as a slate. "Adapting," the specialists had said. "Stabilizing." Such elegant words for a man who was struggling to remember even the smallest details about himself.
She pressed her forehead to the cool rim and tried to breathe the way Kendrick had taught her before exams, before duels, before anything that made her hands shake: in for four, hold for four, out for six. On the second cycle she failed; on the third she was already keening, a thin sound that startled a bird from the willow and made a guard at the portico glance over, then politely away.
Someone approached—the rustle of a uniform, the hint of expensive cologne. "My lady—"
She shook her head without looking up. The word that came out was hoarse. "No. Thank you."
They withdrew. In this place, privacy was another luxury on offer.
Elora wiped her face with trembling fingers and only then realized how hard she was crying—wailing, not the pretty crying of salon tragedies but the raw animal sound that rips from the heart when it finally believes what the mind refuses to name. She clutched the edge of the fountain until her knuckles blanched and whispered into the spray, "Why! Why!"
The wind lifted the scent of roses. She hated them for their complacency, hated the perfect hedges and the balanced vistas and the way beauty was used here to soften the edges of horror. In her pocket, her hand found the damp square of linen she'd held while she sat beside him and told cheerful lies about the weather and the garden and a future that might never come.
After a long moment, her breath began to obey again. She pulled herself upright, smoothed her skirt, and practiced the smile in the water's reflection until it looked like something a person could wear. It was not a very good smile. But it would do for walking back through doors that turned transparent or opaque on command and for passing staff who had learned not to ask.
She lifted her chin and started for the gate. Only I can save him now.
Part 3
Two thousand miles southeast of Albecaster, where the ancient rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates carved their paths through history, the desert held its breath.
The location had been chosen with meticulous care—a hidden valley in the Zagros foothills, where weathered stone formations created natural walls against prying eyes. Cedar trees, descendants of those that once graced the ancient palaces of the Near East, provided a canopy of green against the harsh landscape. A spring-fed oasis at the valley's heart had sustained travelers for millennia, though few knew of its existence in this modern age.
Today, it had been transformed into something else entirely.
The perimeter extended for three kilometers in every direction, secured by men who moved like ghosts through the rocky terrain. They wore no uniforms, carried no obvious weapons, yet their presence was absolute. Shepherds had been politely redirected days ago. Satellite trajectories had been calculated and compensated for. Even the birds seemed to understand that this space, for these few hours, belonged to powers beyond ordinary comprehension.
At the valley's heart, a single man stood beside a helicopter landing pad that had been assembled overnight and would vanish by dawn. Rashid Pasha—at least, that was the name known by the imperial court of the Asarian Empire—cut an impressive figure against the desert backdrop. His suit was perfection adapted for the climate, the fabric so fine it seemed to repel the dust that swirled around him. His beard was trimmed in that careful balance between religious observance and cosmopolitan style that marked the modern Middle Eastern elite who navigated between local tradition and imperial expectations.
He was breathtakingly handsome with olive skin that seemed to glow with inner fire, eyes the color of ancient amber, features that belonged on museum friezes depicting legendary kings. The kind of man who could walk into any boardroom from Rybai to Albecaster and command instant attention, respect, and not a small amount of desire.
Behind him, at a respectful distance of precisely one hundred meters, waited a convoy that would make dukes weep with envy. Their chrome gleamed despite the dust. All arranged in a perfect semicircle, engines running, ready to move at a moment's notice.
The sound came first—not the crude chopping of military helicopters, but something smoother, more refined. A whisper of rotors that suggested technology beyond what any aerospace company publicly admitted to possessing. The aircraft that descended from the cloudless sky was matte black, its surface seeming to absorb light rather than reflect it. No registration numbers, no identifying marks. It touched down with barely a whisper, rotor wash somehow contained to avoid stirring the ancient dust.
Rashid dropped to one knee with fluid grace. His head bowed, right fist pressed to the earth in a gesture from the very dawn of civilization itself.
The helicopter's door opened with a soft hiss.
First came the leg.
It emerged from the darkness of the cabin like moonlight piercing clouds—pale, perfect, endless. A stiletto heel that cost more than most people's yearly salary touched the landing pad with deliberate precision. Then the rest of her emerged, and the desert itself seemed to shiver.
Her garments were an open defiance of the land around her: sheer crimson linen layered with panels of deep indigo wool, a gown that clung to her voluptuous form as though the fabric itself were in love with her. It was cut daringly, baring curves and skin in ways that would have made priests stammer and kings forget their vows. Around her hips, a girdle of hammered gold rosettes shifted with each step, chiming softly like laughter in the silence.
Her hair, silver as a river under starlight, fell in waves that caught the late sun and scattered it as though each strand had been spun from divine metal. Upon her brow sat a diadem of lapis and carnelian, its seven-pointed star glinting with ancient promise. Her eyes were red as pomegranate seeds crushed in ritual, but as the light shifted they burned honey-gold, like the molten gaze of a goddess deciding whether to bless or to destroy.
She moved with the confidence of one who had walked the earth before Europe even had a name. Each step was deliberate, measured, a predator's grace wrapped in haute couture. The desert wind played with her hair and dress as if it too wanted to worship her.
She was devastation in sacred raiment. She was every prayer whispered in darkness, every temptation that had ever toppled kings.
"My beloved Sargon," she said, and her voice carried the weight of millennia, sweet as honey, sharp as bronze. "Still as handsome as the day we first met. Did you miss me?"
"Each and every day, my goddess."