The silence on the bridge of the Sovereign was heavier than the battle had been.
Minutes ago, the space in front of them had been occupied by a city-sized engine of genocide. Now, there was only a drifting cloud of microscopic, gray dust, sparkling faintly in the starlight like diamond grit. The Severed, and the Void-Lord who commanded it, hadn't just been defeated. They had been subtracted from the equation of the universe.
Mali stood on the dais, his arms still wrapped around Anya's waist, supporting her as much as she was supporting him. The adrenaline, that golden fire that had fueled their Binary Star connection, was draining away, leaving behind a profound, leaden exhaustion. It felt as if they had just run a marathon while solving advanced calculus equations.
"Status," Mali croaked. His voice was a wreck, dry and cracking.
Admiral Vorlag turned from his console. The cold, pragmatic man looked... shaken. He stared at the empty space on the viewscreen, then back at Mali. He swallowed hard, a very un-Admiral-like gesture.
"Hostile fleet... routed, Your Majesty," Vorlag reported, his voice quiet. "The loss of the Void-Lord caused a cascading psionic collapse in their command structure. The remnants are... colliding with each other. The 1st and 3rd Legions are conducting clean-up operations. Imperial casualties are... minimal. Negligible."
He paused, then added, "We have won."
It wasn't the shout of victory Mali had expected. It was a whisper of disbelief.
Mali nodded, a microscopic motion. "Good. Recall the fighters. Set a course for Sanctum."
"As you command."
General Kaelen, who was still kneeling, finally stood up. His armor clanked loudly in the quiet bridge. He walked up to the dais, stopping three steps below them. He looked at Mali, then at Anya. He looked at their joined hands, glowing faintly with the residual energy of the bond.
"I served your father for thirty years," Kaelen said, his voice thick with emotion. "I saw him level mountains. I saw him drink oceans."
He looked at the dust cloud on the screen.
"But I never saw him do that."
Mali felt a flicker of pride, but it was immediately washed away by a wave of nausea. The System flashed a warning in his peripheral vision.
[WARNING: SOUL SYNCHRONIZATION CRITICAL]
[BINARY STAR LINK DISSIPATING]
[SIDE EFFECTS: SPIRITUAL VERTIGO, MIGRAINE, TEMPORARY MANIA]
"General," Anya said, her voice tight. She was pale, her 'Strategist' mask slipping to reveal the exhausted girl beneath. "We need to... retire. Now."
Kaelen's eyes widened. He understood instantly. "Medical team! Stretcher to the dais!"
"No," Mali said, straightening up. He grabbed the railing, forcing his legs to lock. "No stretchers. We walk."
"Mali," Anya whispered, "I can't feel my legs."
"I've got them," he whispered back, tapping into the dregs of his VIT. "I'll walk for both of us. Just keep my head from exploding."
"Deal."
They walked. It was a slow, agonizing procession. Every step sent a jolt of phantom lightning through Mali's spine. They moved off the bridge, past the rows of saluting officers who looked at them not with the polite respect of courtiers, but with the fanatical devotion of zealots. They had seen the god-king and his queen unmake a nightmare.
They made it to the transport tube. The doors slid shut, sealing them in privacy.
The moment the seal clicked, they both slumped against the wall, sliding down until they were a heap of tangled royal limbs on the floor.
"Ow," Mali groaned, holding his head.
"You pulled left," Anya mumbled, closing her eyes.
"I did not pull left," he shot back, though he was smiling through the pain. "You over-calculated the density of the hull plating."
"I calculated perfectly," she retorted, leaning her head on his shoulder. "You just wanted to show off and punch a hole through the throne."
"It worked, didn't it?"
"It worked," she agreed softly. She reached out, finding his hand blindly. "We're alive."
"We're alive," he repeated.
The tube whisked them away from the scene of their victory, carrying them back to the gilded cage that was slowly, terrifyingly, starting to feel like home.
The return to the Imperial Spire was a blur.
They bypassed the Grand Hall. Kaelen, showing a rare stroke of political genius, declared that the Emperor and Empress were entering "Deep Meditation" to cleanse the Void-taint from their souls, saving them from having to face the screaming crowds of nobles.
Instead, they were taken directly to the private landing pad of the Imperial Suite.
But there was one person waiting for them.
Jararu stood by the airlock, leaning casually against a pillar. He wasn't wearing a dress uniform. He was wearing his stained, gray training fatigues. He was chewing on a nutritious root-stick, looking unimpressed.
Mali and Anya, supported by two Scion Guards, stumbled out of the transport.
Jararu looked them up and down. He looked at Mali's pale face. He looked at the way Anya was leaning on him. He looked at the sheer exhaustion radiating off them.
"Sloppy," the old man said.
The Scion Guards stiffened, ready to reprimand the instructor for disrespecting the Void-Slayers.
Mali just laughed. It was a weak, wheezing sound. "I missed the reactor, didn't I?"
Jararu smirked. "By three meters. You hit the captain's chair. Flashy. Dramatic. Inefficient."
He pushed off the pillar and walked over. He didn't bow. He reached out and grabbed Mali's wrist, his rough fingers pressing against the pulse point. He checked Anya's next.
"Soul strain is at 40%," Jararu diagnosed instantly. "Manageable. You didn't burn out. That's... an improvement."
He looked Mali in the eye. "You used the Needle. Who taught you that?"
"We made it up," Mali said.
"We?" Jararu looked at Anya.
"I did the math," Anya said, managing a tired smirk. "He did the squeezing."
Jararu stared at them for a long moment. Then, he gave a single, curt nod. "Good. You're learning to improvise. The Void doesn't follow a textbook, so neither can you."
He stepped back. "Go. Eat. Sleep. Do not engage in any... strenuous activity. Your spiritual matrices are soft right now. If you try to bond again tonight, you'll fuse your nervous systems and spend the next week sharing the same headache."
"Understood," Mali said.
"Oh, and Your Highness?" Jararu called out as they limped toward the suite doors.
Mali turned.
"The 'Sovereign's Mantle'," Jararu said, his eyes gleaming. "Next time... try not to use it to terrify my logistics officer. He's still hiding in a supply closet."
Mali blinked. He hadn't realized. "I... I'll try."
Jararu chuckled and walked away, whistling a discordant tune.
The Imperial Suite was quiet. The view of the Thronecycle outside was calm, the golden lights of the rings spinning lazily against the stars.
Anya dismissed the drones. She dismissed the attendants.
"I want real food," she declared, kicking off her shoes. "I want carbohydrates. I want grease. If I see a nutrient paste packet, I will dissolve it."
"I think I can arrange that," Mali said.
Ten minutes later, they were sitting on the floor of the grand balcony, a platter of "traditional" roasted fowl and tubers between them—a dish Kaelen had personally sourced from the kitchens, knowing Mali's preferences for "real" food.
They ate in a ravenous silence, tearing into the food with their bare hands, ignoring the priceless silverware. They were primal creatures refuelling after a hunt.
When the edge was off their hunger, they leaned back against the railing, staring up at the artificial sun.
"It's weird," Mali said, wiping his mouth with a silk napkin. "My head is quiet."
"The Imposter Syndrome?" Anya asked.
"It's... dormant," he said, checking his System. "It says 'Status: Dormant.' It's not gone. I can feel it, lurking in the basement. But it's not screaming anymore."
"Because you proved it wrong," Anya said. She was hugging her knees to her chest, looking out at the fleet. "You saved the ship, Mali. You saved the fleet. A fraud couldn't do that."
"We saved it," he corrected. "I couldn't have done it without the 'Needle.' And I couldn't have made the Needle without your CTL. You aimed me."
He looked at her. The 'Binary Star' link was inactive, but he could still feel the ghost of it. The intimacy of having another mind inside his own. It was terrifying, but it was also... addictive.
"What did it feel like?" he asked quietly. "For you? To have... my power?"
Anya closed her eyes, remembering. "It felt... like being the ocean," she whispered. "It felt endless. For my whole life, I've lived in a world of constraints. Finite resources. Finite probabilities. Math. But you... you don't have constraints. You just are. It was the most terrifying, liberating thing I've ever felt."
She opened her eyes and looked at him. "And you? What was it like to have... my mind?"
Mali laughed softly. "It was loud. You think so fast, Anya. It was like standing in a room with a thousand people all solving puzzles at the same time. But... it was safe. It felt like there was an answer for everything. I've never felt safe before."
They sat in silence, the bond between them no longer just political, or magical, but deeply personal. They had shared souls.
"My parents," Mali said suddenly. "Do you think... do you think they felt like that?"
Anya nodded slowly. "They must have. The records say they were inseparable. The 'Sword and the Mind.' They figured it out, Mali. They found the answer."
"But they still died," Mali said, the old shadow returning. "They had the power. They had the strategy. And the Void still got them."
"They didn't have us," Anya said fiercely. "They were the first generation. The prototype. We are the refinement. And we know what's coming."
She reached out and took his hand. "We won't make their mistakes."
Mali squeezed her hand. He wanted to believe her.
Just then, a chime rang out. Not from the room. From his head.
It wasn't the quest complete chime. It was deeper, resonant, like the tolling of a great bell buried deep underground.
Anya jumped. "Did you hear that?"
"I... I felt it," Mali said. He rubbed his temples.
A massive, gold-bordered window appeared in his vision. It wasn't a normal notification. It was etched with the crest of House Alkahest—a sun being eclipsed by a crown.
[SYSTEM ALERT: LEVEL 5 THRESHOLD REACHED]
[CONDITION MET: VOID-LORD ELIMINATED]
[BLOODLINE MEMORY UNLOCKED]
"Bloodline memory?" Mali whispered.
"What is it?" Anya moved closer, trying to see what he was seeing, but this was internal. "Mali, your eyes... they're glowing gold."
"I... there's a file," he stammered. "It's decrypting."
[DECRYPTING... SOURCE: IMPERIAL ARCHIVE ALPHA]
[AUTHOR: VALERIUS ALKAHEST]
[RECIPIENT: MY SON]
Mali's breath stopped.
"It's... it's him," he choked out. "My father."
"Open it," Anya whispered, gripping his arm.
Mali focused on the prompt. [PLAY MESSAGE].
The world around him—the balcony, the Spire, Anya—faded away. He was standing in a white void.
And standing in front of him was a man.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing the same white-and-gold 'Wedlock' armor Mali had worn earlier. He had Mali's black hair, but his eyes were a piercing, electric blue. He looked tired. He looked powerful. He looked like a god who was running out of time.
"Mali," the man said. His voice was deep, warm, and heartbreakingly familiar, though Mali had never heard it before.
"If you are seeing this, then I am dead. And you have survived long enough to reach the First Threshold. You have tasted the Void, and you have eaten."
The image of the Emperor walked closer.
"I have left you a broken kingdom, my son. A debt of blood and chaos. For that, I am sorry. I tried to build a wall, but the Void... it does not just attack from without."
The Emperor's face darkened.
"Listen to me closely. The Void Lords like Malakor... they are merely the symptoms. They are the rot. But the disease... the disease is older."
He leaned in, his electric blue eyes boring into Mali's.
"There is a reason we hid you on Toten. There is a reason I locked your True Name. It wasn't just to hide you from the Void."
The Emperor paused, looking over his shoulder as if he were being watched, even in the recording.
"It was to hide you from the Regent."
Mali's blood ran cold. The Regent Protocol. The hidden line in his Status screen.
"The System," his father continued, his voice hurried now. "The Legacy System. It is our greatest weapon. But it has been... compromised. There is a backdoor. A protocol buried deep in the code of the universe itself. 'The Omega Sanction'."
"Do not trust the Council. Do not trust the Fleet. Trust only the Weaver."
The image began to flicker, static eating at the edges.
"Find the Primordial Anvil. It is the only place where the System can be rewritten. It is the only place where you can unlock your True Name without alerting Him."
"Who?" Mali shouted into the white void. "Alert who?"
"The Regent," his father's voice echoed, fading. "The one who sits on the Throne of Nothing. The one who is eating the stars."
"Mali... become the Unmaker. Unmake the chains. I love y—"
The message cut out.
Mali slammed back into his body. He was gasping for air, clutching his chest.
"Mali!" Anya was shaking him. "Mali, breathe! What happened? What did you see?"
Mali stared at her, his eyes wide with a new, terrifying understanding.
The war with Malakor... that was just a skirmish. The Junk-Barons... they were distractions.
He looked at his Status screen. He looked at the line that had always been there, ignored.
[HIDDEN PROTOCOL: THE OMEGA SANCTION]
[STATUS: ACTIVE - LISTENING...]
"We have to go," Mali whispered, grabbing Anya's shoulders. "We're not safe here. The Spire... the System... it's listening."
"What?" Anya asked, her strategist mind racing to catch up. "Who is listening?"
Mali looked up at the artificial sun of the Thronecycle, a machine built by his ancestors. A machine that suddenly looked less like a home, and more like a cage.
"The Regent," he said. "And he's eating the stars."