The Regent leaned back slightly, eyes half-lidded as another trade dispute played out between Ythrel and the Sub-Minister of Port Authority. His light-born hand flexed once—an almost imperceptible gesture—but Kaeryth noticed, and stilled.
Saryth finally spoke again."This council will reconvene in seven days to review the first phase of the Dorsh-Ka campaign. In the interim, the outer trade corridors will receive reinforcements, the coreworld development will proceed as outlined, and frontier surveillance will escalate without open declaration. We will not be caught unawares."
A murmur of assent circled the table.
"Next."
From the leftmost arc of the crescent, Councillor Iravex Dran, Minister of Sector Governance, rose with a smoothness that betrayed rehearsed control. His long, segmented robes swayed faintly, each layer patterned in glyphs denoting his decades of service.
"Matters of frontier stability." Iravex began, his voice carrying the deep resonance of someone who understood the chamber's acoustics intimately. "The recent escalation in the Nyras Drift threatens the transport lanes feeding Zarynth supply corridors.
Six convoys have been disrupted — three confirmed destroyed. Evidence points to combined action by defected warbands from the Outer Arcs, supplied through channels… yet to be identified."
Saryth's eyes — pale gold, like molten metal cooled but still dangerous to touch — fixed on him. "Casualties?"
"Three hundred and twenty-four confirmed dead. Seventy-three missing, presumed scattered or captured."
There was no ripple of shock. The loss of lives was weighed here in terms of strategic consequence, not grief.
From the right arc, Councillor Variss Thane, Chief Strategist of Outer Territories, inclined her head slightly. "Intercept patterns indicate the warbands are employing adaptive stealth systems beyond their usual capacity. If this technology spreads, securing the Drift will require…" She allowed the pause to hang like a suspended blade. "…expenditure."
Saryth did not blink. "Funds will be allocated. But if we allocate for this, the question becomes: from where?"
That was the cue. The chamber shifted. Councillor Zerath Kyne, Minister of Treasury, rose with the grace of someone who thrived in such moments. His attire was stark — black robes, thin silver chain at the throat — a deliberate contrast to the opulence around him.
"The Klythera Vault," he said smoothly. "We divert a fraction of the annual mineral levy from the Klythera worlds — it will not be noticed, and the Drift's pacification will restore trade flow within the quarter."
A murmur. Not dissent, exactly — the kind of sound predators make when deciding if a kill is worth the energy.
"Risky," came the low voice of Councillor Oris Valreth, Mistress of Resource Allocation. "The Klythera Governors already press against their quotas. If the shift is detected, we will face… administrative friction."
The Regent's head tilted slightly, an unspoken command for brevity.
"Friction becomes rebellion if left untempered," Oris finished.
A faint smile touched Saryth's lips — there, and gone. "Rebellion, Councillor Valreth, is the taxation of weak authority. We will ensure no such weakness is perceived or allowed to fester."
He let the words settle. In the Imperium, silence was a weapon. To fill it too quickly was to concede ground.
Councillor Drevos Carn, High Admiral of the Eastern Fleets, leaned forward slightly. His military attire — adorned with deep gunmetal lined with thin veins of faintly glowing crimson — clicked softly with the movement. "Permission to reassign Fleet Spearhead from the Vyrn Arc to the Nyras Drift, Regent."
"Denied," Saryth said, without hesitation.
Drevos stiffened. "Regent—"
"The Vyrn Arc remains unstable. To strip it now would invite the Dominion to test our hold. I will not trade one instability for another."
That was the closest thing to a rebuke the Admiral could receive without public humiliation. He bowed his head in the sharp, curt gesture of military submission, but his jaw was tight.
The discussion moved — to supply shortages in the mining colonies of Sector R-91, to a failed assimilation of a rogue research enclave in the upper rim, to the quiet but growing unrest in three client worlds whose tribute demands had doubled in the last cycle.
Every matter was a negotiation, every sentence a measured offering of position without revealing too much intent. Some Councillors spoke only to be seen speaking, to avoid the appearance of irrelevance. Others spoke rarely, but each word they placed was a stone in the construction of an unseen structure.
And Saryth… Saryth listened.
He was not merely hearing concerns — he was mapping them. Every hesitation, every too-quick answer, every glance exchanged between Councillors that thought themselves subtle. This was his craft. Not governance. Domination through understanding.
Two hours into the session, the rhythm of discourse shifted. Councillor Veylan Corth, Minister of Sector N-77 Affairs, rose. His robes were lighter than most — pale grey with embroidered lines of shifting black that seemed to ripple when viewed from the corner of the eye.
"Regent," Veylan began, voice quiet but perfectly pitched to carry. "We must address Tryllor."
The name did not provoke the usual flood of interjections. Instead, the chamber seemed to tighten, as many went silent.
"Reports indicate an increase in non-native traffic within the Orionic Verge," Veylan continued. "Pirate vessels. Unmarked freighters. Some of these… bearing trace energy signatures of Dominion fabrication. While I do not suggest official involvement, the implication is clear: the balance of the Selyth Accords is… thinning."
Saryth's gaze sharpened. "And your recommendation?"
"We increase observation. Quietly. Deploy operatives under non-Imperium cover to monitor off-world interactions. If the Accords fracture, we must be positioned to—"
"To what?" Councillor Oris Valreth's voice cut like ice. "Invade? Annex? Risk the joint retaliation of the Confluence and the Dominion? You know as well as I that the mineral wealth of Tryllor cannot be seized without total war."
Veylan did not flinch. "I know that minerals which power empires should not be left to the neutrality of a pacifist world forever."
A long silence followed.
Saryth did not answer immediately. His gaze traveled the crescent, weighing each seated figure.
"This council," he said at last, "is not yet prepared to discuss the occupation of Tryllor. But nor will we be blind to its changing state. Veylan's recommendation is approved. Quiet observation. No banners. No official orders that can be traced. If you are discovered… you are not Tzaryth."
A ripple of assent. Not agreement, but acceptance.
The dais slowed its rotation. Saryth raised his hand once more. "The ledger of concerns is closed. May the Imperium endure." Walking out of the obsidian chamber.
The gong sounded again, low and deep, resonating in bone. The session dissolved into carefully choreographed departures — no one rose before those more senior, and no one turned their back to the Regent until they reached the chamber's edge.
Two silent Sentinels in lacquered black armor escorted Saryth through a labyrinth of private corridors, each lit by guttering white-blue lumen-strips embedded in the ceiling, their light refracting like cold fire across the Regent's ceremonial breastplate.
They passed the last of the vaulted passageways and entered the Regent's private sanctum. The Regent's quarters were not lavish in the way most imagined power. No overindulgent ornamentation, no sprawling windows to give the illusion of openness. The space was deliberate — austere walls of shadowed obsidian, a floor of muted crystalline panels that drank light rather than reflected it. The illumination came from narrow vertical slits in the walls, each emitting a dim, warm glow calibrated to the Regent's preferred wavelengths.
It was a chamber designed to eliminate distraction. A mind here had nowhere to wander but inward.
Saryth entered in silence, the doors sealing behind him with a soundless shift of interlocking plates. He crossed to the center dais — a shallow circular depression in the floor where the drav-wave transceiver sat, its smooth, black surface inert but humming faintly.
A single gesture activated it.
The air above the device rippled, folding inward as though reality had been pinched, then flaring outward into the jagged shimmer of a drav-wave hologram. It was not the clean, sterile projection of lesser comms — this was the living resonance of a drav-wave link, the subject rendered with unnerving clarity, every detail sharpened to the point of discomfort.
The figure that took shape was tall, lean, and draped in the layered crimson silks of the Dominion's High Chancellery. His face was long and angular, every line sharpened by age and the kind of intellect that survived it. His eyes — pale silver, the Dominion's mark of the highborn — regarded Saryth with an unblinking steadiness.
"Regent," the Chancellor said, inclining his head the precise degree required to acknowledge power without conceding deference.
"Chancellor Varine," Saryth replied, his voice even, unhurried. "The Dominion's reach extends far to make a call across the Verge at this hour."
Varine's lips curved faintly — not into warmth, but into the suggestion of amusement. "Distance is nothing when the subject is worth it."
"And what subject is worth it?"
"The same one your Council ended its session circling without touching." Varine's gaze flicked, almost imperceptibly, to measure Saryth's reaction. "Tryllor."
Saryth said nothing at first. Instead, he stepped down into the dais' hollow, his form haloed by the faint energy bleed of the drav-wave field. "Tryllor is… neutral."
Varine's silver eyes glinted. "Neutrality is not permanence. The Orionic Verge is shifting. The pirates are a symptom. The Accords are fraying. You know it as well as I."
"Fraying does not mean snapping," Saryth replied. "And snapping does not always mean opportunity."
"It does when you hold the other end of the thread," Varine countered smoothly. "And we, Regent, could hold it together. For ourselves. Not for the Confluence, not for the Selyth."
Saryth's expression remained unreadable. "An interesting metaphor for someone proposing to strangle a pacifist world."
"I propose no strangulation," Varine said, tone softening — too much to be genuine. "I propose custodianship. Joint oversight. The planet's resources administered by both Imperium and Dominion. Two hands on the scales instead of four."
"That is your way of saying two hands on the throat instead of four," Saryth replied. "And the Selyth would call it conquest."
"They will call it what we tell them to call it. And they will have no choice but to live with it."
A silence stretched between them — not the dead air of hesitation, but the silence of calculation.
"You imagine," Saryth said finally, "that we could hold Tryllor together without the Confluence striking."
"I don't imagine it," Varine corrected. "I calculate it. The Confluence cannot act openly without revealing their own covert trafficking through the Verge. They will posture. They will send fleets to dance at the borders. But they will not break the dance to strike."
"And if they do?"
"Then we remind them the Imperium and Dominion at war is not a two-sided field — it is a vacuum that swallows everything near it."
Saryth's gaze narrowed by a fraction. "You speak as if you've already moved pieces."
"I speak as if pieces are always moving. The pirates in the Verge? Some are ours. Some, I suspect, are yours. Let's not waste time pretending otherwise."
"Perhaps," Saryth said lightly, "but even if what you say were true, piracy is not a siege. And a siege is not an occupation. And an occupation is not… stability."
"Then we make it stability," Varine replied, each word deliberate. "We approach Tryllor under the pretense of protecting the Selyth from escalating raids. We offer them a garrison — half Dominion, half Imperium. They refuse. We apply pressure. The raids grow. The Accords strain. They accept. And when they do, the garrison becomes administration. Administration becomes governance. Governance becomes ownership."
Saryth tilted his head slightly. "Your half of the garrison will not leave, I presume."
"Nor will yours."
The Regent let the weight of the statement hang. "And the resources?"
"Split. Evenly. Processing shared, distribution managed through a joint board. Quotas matched, transit secured. You know the calculus as well as I — with our fleets interlocked over Tryllor, no third faction could wrest it from us without fighting both. And neither of us wants the other as an enemy… not while the Confluence watches."
"You assume much," Saryth said. "Including my interest in binding the Imperium to your fortunes."
"I assume nothing," Varine said, with a faint smile. "But I observe everything. You wouldn't have approved covert observation of Tryllor if you weren't weighing options. This is your best one."
Saryth's eyes were quiet fire. "Or my most dangerous."
"The two," Varine said, "are often the same."
Saryth let the words settle in the space between them. He did not move, but the faint flex of his light-born hand — the one resting against the dais rail — was the only sign that his mind had turned sharply inward.
"And yet," Saryth replied at last, "one is a choice. The other is inevitability. I prefer not to confuse them."
Varine's mouth twitched into something that might have been a smile if it had not been so precise. "You speak as though inevitability is not also a choice, Regent. Given enough preparation, inevitability is the art of making your decision before anyone else realizes they had one."
"That art," Saryth said, "comes at a cost. And cost is the only measure worth respecting."
Varine tilted his head. "So let us measure. We both know the Selyth will resist any encroachment beyond trade. They believe their isolation is armor. But armor cracks. The pirates are a first hammer stroke. The next will be… humanitarian concern."
Saryth's tone was flat. "You mean coercion."
"I mean inevitability," Varine countered. "We create a sequence they cannot avoid. A chain of events that forces their consent, while giving the appearance of choice."
"You speak as if the Selyth's consent matters."
"In the eyes of the galaxy, it does. Appearances, Regent. Even we must occasionally wear them."
Saryth regarded him for a long moment. "Consent is not the same as compliance."
"No," Varine agreed. "But once we are there, compliance can be… nurtured."
The way he said it was deliberate — too soft, almost gentle. A mask over something sharper.
Saryth caught it instantly. "Define nurtured."
Varine did not blink. "The Selyth number approximately 13.2 billion. Their surface cities account for 80% of the population. If a… controlled percentage of that population were to be displaced, or removed, the remainder would be far more malleable."
Saryth's voice cooled by a degree. "Removed."
"An unfortunate necessity," Varine said, as though discussing the pruning of overgrowth. "Twenty percent at a minimum. Ideally 40%. No more that 50%. Targeted. Those most likely to resist."
"You're proposing a genocide." Saryth said bluntly.
"Labels, Regent. Call it a pacification campaign if you will. Population Adjustment. Cultural Reassignment. Demographic Realignment. Take your pick, the end result is the same. The loss would create shock — a void that only stability can fill. Our stability."
"That would provoke immediate Confluence propaganda," Saryth observed.
"Unless it is done under the guise of a joint anti-piracy operation gone… tragically wrong. Collateral damage. Regrettable. And completely unprovable."
Saryth's eyes narrowed. "And who holds the knife in that tragedy?"
Varine's smile thinned. "Whichever hand can cut cleanest."