The leaves brushed against one another in the calm, eternal wind of imitation spring; when it met the palace walls, the breeze unraveled into a wandering eddy, leaving no mark save for a handful of swirling leaves, their soft song carried ever upward toward the palace crown.
The oval room glowed beneath the night sky's pale light. Thick walls enclosed it on all sides, apart from a towering, curved glass wall that rose from the vertex of the north wing and swept outward in an arch toward the room's two minor axes. At that vertex lay the highest point of the sloped ceiling, and there the glass stretched higher and longer than any other wall, visibly elongated, as though racing for the sky.
"I hate it when it does that."
"We could hack the trees down, if you wish it, Kenta."
The figure rose from his seat behind the table and crossed the room at an unhurried pace, his steps soft against the stone. At the balcony, he drew the glass door shut, sealing the wind and its restless clatter outside.
He doesn't even care to call me by my title—or my name, Kenta thought.
Perhaps it was late. Or perhaps the man simply dared.
Kenta let his gaze linger on the officer clad in deep purple, his uniform heavy with medals and insignia he had certainly not earned. They gleamed with a cost far greater than the man himself—worth more than his skin, more than his breath, both of which Kenta deemed cheaper still than the time it took to assess him.
If the officer addressed him without name or peerage, then he must have carried assurances—ironclad ones—granted only by entrenched gentry. Assurances bestowed by the sovereign himself: Darod Hesham Selementy Arsalan, Mir of Sindera, Hierarch of Midden Crog, and Supreme Executor of the Dictate.
Titles designed to crush lesser men in spirit, if not in bone.
Yet among his rebelling subordinates, the Executor had been granted a shorter name—one repeated more often with each passing day as those lesser men grew bolder with every utterance.
Grand Executioner.
The title worked wonders on the Executor's mind, diving him ever deeper into madness, down into a depth from which emergence was no longer expected—only vaguely imagined, a hollow hope clinging to the walls of a collapsing sanity.
"I suppose that will do the trick as well, hmm, Cleaver," the seated figure at the far end of the room said.
Kenta turned to examine him. The man's frame was short—far too short for a Rex. He wore a green uniform trimmed with rigid stripes of gold, the bronze crest of Revolvi Bank sewn proudly over his breast, its edges stitched in the same gilded thread that laced the tailcoat from collar to hem. The garment was immaculate, ostentatious in its precision—wealth displayed not in excess, but in the simplest of decorations: color.
Before him stood the permanent floor globe—its visuals exquisitely wrought. Lines of longitude and latitude were engraved in solid marble, their grooves precise and attentive. The surface was slick, nearly without elevation or depth, save for a few subtle ripples that broke its perfect smoothness. A single glowing white point hovered in strict orbit above the sphere, its light grazing the marble and scattering reflections across the room as the globe's pale plains returned the glow in muted echoes. Even at a glance, the standing globe declared its truth: the planet it depicted was no natural world, but a counterfeit—crafted deliberately by human hands, shaped entirely by design, with gravity itself reduced to nothing more than a tool.
"Rex," Kenta said evenly, "tell me—how did your discussion with Provost Baird proceed?"
"Very well, Lord Kenta," the seated man replied. "She denied any involvement in the recent affairs and dismissed them as solitary transgressions—distinct, isolated incidents, in her words."
Kenta turned back toward his desk after the short walk and paused as he prepared to sit. His gaze drifted once more to the man before him—Liam Rex. He was shorter than Kenta. Much shorter. And nothing at all like his ancestor, Charlos Rex, who had once forged the planet beneath their feet through sheer cruelty and unrelenting will.
Liam Rex was a figure that invited pity rather than fear.
Centuries had passed since a true Rex last ruled MelasOon—or Roxy.
Both worlds predated the Dictate; both had formed the backbone of its foundation. One a dungeon, the other its garrison—relics born in the heights of the Third Circlum, at the very moment of its imperial peak.
"What exactly did you converse about, Rex? Word for word," Kenta asked as he settled comfortably behind his oak-carved desk.
His gaze drifted to the far corner of the room's eastern wing, where a globe black as night stood half-submerged in shadow. Skylight failed to reach it. Along the seam where stone wall met the glass one, darkness pooled thick and absolute. Elsewhere the chamber lay fully illuminated beneath the cloudless sky, save for two narrow bands of shadow that began thin at the minor axes of the northern wall and broadened as they stretched inward, like stains slowly spreading.
That other globe was carved from charred rock. Even at a glance, its grotesque contours ensnared the eye, stirring a prickling unease—one that crept from the fingertips, crawled up the spine, and settled there.
"Yes. Word for word. We are very interested," the figure leaning against the left wall pressed.
"Not much," Liam replied, his voice calm, measured. "She spoke at length about her admiration for Roxy's art of synthetic planetary formation—and she denied any involvement in the debacle."
Kenta's expression did not change.
"Distinct. Isolated. Events," he repeated coolly. "Curious phrasing. For matters so distinct and so isolated, they have grown remarkably frequent."
He leaned back slightly.
"If MelasOon were a feast, I would not question the arrival of uninvited guests." His gaze sharpened. "What troubles me is the motive. Why would anyone in their right mind sneak into a cell?"
"She struck me as sincere," Liam said. "Or at least sincere in her ignorance—though some are too practiced to be read by the naked eye."
Kenta's fingers steepled.
"Then we know this much," he said calmly.
"They hold no aegis from Hellebron—assuming we credit this shriek at all. If she truly does not know, then they are confident enough to proceed without sanction, unwilling to retreat. And if she does know, and denies it regardless…"
He paused, letting a slow gust of air pass through his lungs.
"Then diplomacy ends where denial begins. What follows is no longer a matter of negotiation—but of timing, before the war arrives unannounced."
Kenta grabbed the paper knife and began cleaning his nails, slow and deliberate, one by one.
"By the way," he said without looking up, "why didn't you bring the girl? You know Mira is going to nag me all night about it."
His eyes remained fixed on the pale length of his nails as the blade scraped beneath them.
"I bought her a new book," Liam replied as he crossed the room toward Kenta's desk. "A secondhand tome from Hellebron. Vivian was utterly fixated on it—couldn't put it down. I've secured a copy for Mira as well."
He hugged the volume to his chest as he approached, a brick of a thing, as thick as the widest part of his arm.
"The book has taken the sector by storm," Liam added. "A kind of fever, a sensational one."
"Looks like a serious book," Kenta said, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "Smells like a library—suddenly, there's the scent of charred paper and aged leather."
He tossed the letter knife aside and rose, his movements deliberate and smooth. His gaze flicked briefly over the book in his hands, a flicker of admiration in his eyes before they shifted to Liam. Standing tall, Kenta's presence eclipsed the shorter man, and for a moment, he seemed to grow even taller in the space between them, his posture radiating a quiet pride.
Though Kenta wasn't exceptionally tall, next to Liam, his stature felt grand—almost as if he were the tallest man in the world. It was a sensation that fed his ego, one he relished. And if it wasn't for the fact that Liam was the only person he truly trusted here, Kenta thought he might have kept him around simply for that reason.
"How thoughtful of you. I'm not sure how to repay such kindness," Kenta said smoothly, extending his hand and feeling the heavy, weighty presence of the book settle into his palm.
"A book? A souvenir? Is that all you have for us from plouhging Hellebron?" Cleaver remarked, a faint smirk playing on his lips, the kind of smirk spoiled children wear when pleased with their own mischief. He was brimming with pride over his performance.
"As security manager, I've managed to snatch three dozen spies past moon, and fourteen this month alone."
Kenta observed him quietly, a spark of amusement in his eyes. Cleaver's ascendancy had been swift, almost too sudden, and it had fostered a certain arrogance in him. The man's growing sense of invincibility seemed to seep into his every gesture, and in some ways, he was right—no one could touch him. Not even Kenta, with all his influence, could easily remove, relocate, or demote the planetary security manager appointed by the Supreme Executor. That power was untouchable, and Cleaver knew it. Even a fief of two planets could not shake his position without a single raised eyebrow from the Executor's relentless eyes.
"We should congratulate Liam. A toast, yes! A toast to Liam for doing something right—walking straight into the lion's mouth and jumping right back out. And a toast to you, Cleaver, for your newly sprouted balls. Only if you had them on you at the time of your parley with the Supreme Executor, and had actually asked to delay the upcoming prisoner offload as I had instructed you to. God knows it's teeming with spies." Kenta added, his voice sharp, as he poured three glasses of wine: one for himself, one for Liam, and another for Alimet Cleaver, a man of little distinction other than sucking the Supreme Executor's balls dry.
"I've done my job right," Cleaver said, leaping forward, eager to defend himself. "I've caught numerous spies."
"And evidently so," Kenta responded with a smirk. "The problem isn't the numerous impersonators we've caught. The problem lies in the many hidden daggers in the sleeves of those we haven't found. The old man had a saying: for every cockroach you see, ten are roaming unseen, out of sight. And unpleasantly, these cockroaches are smarter than our heel."
Kenta's gaze flicked toward Rex, subtly drawing his attention to Cleaver, whose features were now twisted with barely contained anguish. Despite all his discourtesy, Cleaver hadn't expected Kenta to strike back—if not in action, but in words.
Kenta drank the red wine, savoring the warmth as it slipped down his throat. Liam followed suit, pleased that Cleaver's mouth remained shut, the only sound emanating from him the faint squeak of his clenched teeth grinding hard. Alimet Cleaver, when he reached for the cup, didn't drink from it. He had a peculiar habit of drinking only from his own goblet—a simple wooden chalice, one that would have been dismissed as cheap were it not for the intricate carvings adorning it. They depicted the Battle of Gordsi, a moment frozen in time when Herclion had finally defeated the Third Circlum. The carvings, with their fine detail, almost seemed divine.
Cleaver had come into possession of that cup at the same time he had earned his long, deep red scar—a brutal mark that stretched from the crown of his skull down to his chin, cutting through the middle of his left eye. The eye itself had rotted within its socket, and the stench it carried—the stench of decaying flesh—pervaded every room he entered. The girls could hardly bear it, their stomachs turning, vomiting at the very scent of him. It wasn't the sight of the ruined eye that repulsed them, but the smell—a revolting, inescapable reminder of the death that lingered wherever he went.
Cleaver poured the red wine into his goblet, his fingers lingering on the wooden edge before he lifted it to his lips. In one swift gulp, he downed the wine, as though the ritual of drinking from his own goblet was some strange, private rite.
"You should poke out your bad eye; it smells like a dead rat," Kenta said, pinching his nostrils shut. The stench, unbearable at this distance, turned even his stomach.
"What smell? I can't smell anything," Cleaver replied, pretending to sniff the air before shrugging.
"Then you must have cut off your nose for good measure," Kenta snapped. "Perhaps the rot from your eye has finally reached your mind."
With a flick of his wrist, Kenta flung the remaining wine from his cup, red droplets staining the floor in tightly separated crimson dots, then smashed the goblet against the table. Glass burst beneath his grip, shards skittering across the surface. Only the base remained, standing like a stump—the last remnant of what had once been a pristine, spectacular wine goblet. It was not some cheap product from the soulless factories scattered across the many worlds that Industrum had under its greasy thumb, but a piece meticulously envisioned by master craftsmen of Gordsi, a vessel of real worth.
Kenta scarcely noticed its destruction. He could replace it easily. And even if a shard had pricked his palm, it would have been no more than a tingling scratch, not even enough to draw blood.
Rex set his own cup aside, almost casually.
"It seems you've grown accustomed to the stench," Liam said dryly. "Perhaps even fond of it."
"And what mighty beast gave you this prized battle scar you so wilfully insist on parading?" Kenta asked, sneering as his eyes flicked to the ugly blotch marring Cleaver's face. "Was it the infamous Wolven Guards?"
In truth, Kenta wasn't interested in the scar's origin—it was the way Cleaver wore it, as if it were a badge of honor, that he found most ridiculous. The very thought of its source was something he couldn't help but mock.
"I hear it was a child—a little girl—who painted that mark," Rex said, his voice tinged with curiosity. Alimet frowned at the notion, then quickly drained the remnants of Liam's wine in a single, swift gulp.
"Speaking of girls, how is your girl? Have I ever told you what I think of her?" Cleaver said, his grip tightening around Liam's shoulders. Liam's fingers curled into a fist so hard his knuckles popped, the sound drowning out the stench of Cleaver's rot.
"When I look into Vivian's perfect green eyes, I see your eyes. Have I ever mentioned how much you two look alike?" Cleaver's voice was sickeningly sweet. "Little Vivian—she isn't so little anymore. She's outgrown you, Liam. She's almost a woman now…"
Liam glared up at Cleaver, his stomach turning as he saw the sickening gleam in Cleaver's one good eye, floating with lust. The other, the rotting one, burned with anger—a mix of madness and sadness. The water dripping from Cleaver's gob stained Rex's green tunic, soaking the fine fabric. The color of wealth, now tainted, clung to the breast, right near the golden sigil—a coin forged with a pristine apple in white gold and platinum. The edges were etched with the motto: In Reciprocity Is Prosperity, the words that Revolvi Bank sold to anyone gullible enough to buy them.
Kenta was quick on his feet, stepping between Liam and Cleaver, his hand outstretched, separating them just as Rex's fist swung, futile as it was. Liam's punch never reached its mark.
"Liam, tell the girl to visit more often. Mira misses her, you know—she's her best friend," Kenta said, guiding him toward the door. With a casual gesture, he swung it open to reveal the circular stairs that spiraled downward, descending the height of the tall palace tower.
"Would you be so kind as to leave us, my friend? Cleaver and I have matters to attend to," Kenta said, giving Liam a firm pat on the shoulder.
"Of course, Lord Kenta, as you command," Liam replied, his voice calm and composed. He exhaled a cold breath, before turning and exiting through the door, the soft click of the handle echoing in the hall.
"And Liam," Kenta added as he turned to close the iron door, "thanks for the souvenirs. They're quite nice." The door groaned shut with a heavy finality, leaving Rex no chance to respond.
"What was that?" Kenta snapped, his voice fused with anger as he turned to face Cleaver's sickly, unblinking stare.
"What now? Are you two the only ones allowed to mock?" Cleaver shrugged dismissively, casually pouring himself another glass of red wine into his wooden cup.
"I am the master of this planet—both of them—and he," Kenta hissed, pointing toward Cleaver, "is kin to four planetary fiefs, and tied to even more. Who do you think you are, speaking to him like that? And about his daughter, no less?"
Kenta's voice rose, thick with fury, as he stalked closer to the old, balding man—Cleaver, the one-eyed figure whose sickly presence plagued the room thoroughly.
"I'm the one who keeps you both in check," Cleaver mocked, his unsettling smile stretched wide. "You don't own this planet, or that one. You're just a fief—a title easily come by. Have you grown soft on Rex? Are you inclined to him now?" Cleaver sipped his third sup of wine.
"He's a Rex," Kenta shot back, his voice tight. "They built this world—the very planet you stand on and drink from so comfortably."
Kenta reached for the glass door leading to the balcony, a secluded space at the vertex of the northern wall, just wide enough to host one or two figures—perhaps only children, or childlike frames. He tugged the door open, allowing the cool air to rush in, as his thoughts churned.
"I can tell that from his green eyes," Cleaver muttered with a weary sigh.
"So, is he backstabbing us or not?" Cleaver questioned.
"That is your job to find out, isn't it?" Kenta shot a judgmental glance at Cleaver, his eyes briefly sweeping over the older man's appearance. He noticed how Cleaver's hairline had receded further back, leaving only a few thin strands remaining on his skull, focused around the temporal regions. Long white streaks of hair cascaded just behind the curvature of his ear's helix, contrasting sharply with the rest of his thinning hairline.
Kenta's gaze narrowed. He couldn't ignore the resemblance Cleaver now bore to the Supreme Executor. The hair was almost an exact replica—straight, grayish strands now mimicking the Executor's own. And the eye, the rotted, useless eye, had turned white—no longer just a symbol of decay, but a mark of the Selementy lineage. The white pupil emerged in a pale iris, separated by a thin, onyx circle from the sclera,marking the eye in a devilish hue, it gleamed with an unnatural infernal light.
They could barely see through those ill-fitted eyes, yet of them, the Selementy were so proud. A token of their origins—an inheritance from Toder, the homeworld capital, the very epicenter of the Third Circlum's long-dissected political might.
Kenta's focus shifted to Cleaver's face, honing in on the similarity to the Selementy.Whoreson, borne of pleasure houses on Sindera, the same seed, for sure, the same stock. Cleaver didn't break the silence, letting Kenta's words settle, dissipating into the air like dust.
"No, at least not yet, as far as I know. That smell of yours is strangely familiar, but I can't place it," Kenta replied, standing at the edge of the balcony, he sensed the cold wind sweeping in, thinning out the stench.
"Maybe we should request more enforcers," Cleaver suggested as Kenta stepped onto the balcony.
"More enforcers means more spies in places more prone to spawning greater predicaments. Are you really that dense?" Kenta shot back, inhaling the fresh air at the edge of the balcony.
"We should still employ more enforcers," Cleaver said.
"More enforcers for what? To scatter when Karina's scum start cutting us down?" Kenta replied, clearly annoyed.
"So what do you suggest we do?" Cleaver demanded.
"Well, I must converse with the Supreme Executor. No point in sending you again—you get partly deaf and completely mute in his presence," Kenta said, his eyes drifting toward the terrace below where his daughter stood, gazing at the lemon gardens and the distant black planet in the background.
"What about Rex?" Cleaver queried, stepping closer to the balcony.
"Don't come any closer. That stench moves faster than you," Kenta replied, pinching his nostrils to shield himself from the worst of the odor, keeping it from reaching the sensitive receptors at the back of his nose.
"I either take him with me or leave him here with you; for that matter, I have yet to decide," Kenta added, moving toward the iron door. He swung it wide open, darting his gaze to Cleaver and pointing with a finger toward the empty stairwell.
"What should I do now?" Cleaver asked, annoyed.
"There's an open door, and we are inside the room. It should be obvious, don't you think?" Kenta replied with a smirk, pausing at the doorway.
Cleaver shambled toward the door, his steps sluggish and unsteady, reaching out a hand to Kenta. But Kenta declined the offer, preferring to use his hand to shield his nose from the overwhelming stench. Though his senses had dulled with age, the smell was too potent to ignore.
He closed the door and waited for the drunken man to stumble down the stairs. Kenta wouldn't dare to pass through them with that foul stench hanging in the air, swirling in the wind of the staircase hall. I wish I had gone first, he thought to himself. After a moment of hesitation, he quickly opened the iron door, allowing the fresh wind to sweep into the stairwell, hoping it could clear away the lingering odor.
As he moved to reclaim his seat, waiting for the rotting stench to thin and disperse, Kenta's gaze caught his reflection in the silver mirror Liam had brought from distant worlds. Time had hollowed him like a blighted tree.
The sleek, sharp-featured First Son of Volikant of Askoval was gone—eroded by decades of smelter smoke and betrayal. His body, once corded with the lean strength of a spacer, had settled into the stiff rigidity of a man who ruled by wit rather than muscle. Some mornings, when he rose from his wood-framed bed, his joints crackled like cooling slag.
He scarcely remembered Askoval. He could no longer recall his given name, nor the name of his father, nor even that of his grandfather, Denn—the once-proud Arsalans, now spoken with mockery. It was said the line ended with him, Volikant's final son, the last stain upon a name he still carried. The shame he had brought upon it was so complete that his father would not have claimed him as a son, even in memory.
The spires, the perfumed politics, the constant downpour—even the sting of his father's disapproval—had all dissolved into the ever-present haze of MelasOon's shifting glow. Sometimes, when passing a polished bulkhead or the black glass of a command screen, he would pause, arrested by the face staring back at him. A stranger's face—webbed with scars, skin leathered by acidic winds. Only the beard remained, trimmed with knife-edge precision, a small testament to vanity amid all that had been lost.
He was never meant to be an Arsalan. His father had always preferred his brothers—they were sharper than him, stronger, faster. And yet he had outlived them all. Every one of Volikant's superior sons.
He glimpsed deeper into the mirror. What stared back was a hollowed phantom, no son of Volikant—no face that belonged to anyone imposing or important. The mirror did not lie. It showed him exactly what he was.
And the boy he had been?
That face was ash.
But his girl was untouched by that ruin—fresh, nothing like her father. She was the exact image of her mother. When he looked at her, memory rose unbidden, dragging him back to a time when he had been a simple sword—young, strong—and loved a woman with pitch-black eyes and short black hair.
He remembered dancing with her through the night, the world weightless, whole—images that always ended the same way. His arms around her, lifting her shattered frame from the waist as blood poured from her chest, spilling onto the black dust below. He felt her draw her final breath in his trembling hands, his fingers slick with grime and blood, sinking deeper and deeper into the cinder-flecked wound, into that endless pit.
He looked into her eyes—eyes that held pity, eyes that still held love, and something else besides: disgust. He lost himself in that darkness, the same darkness as her eyes, until everything went black.
Black like the velvet of night.
After that, all of life was black for Kenta—
all of it,
save for a single beam of enchanting blue light.
He hauled himself up from the chair and turned toward the spiraling descent that led to his child. Before leaving, he cast one last glance at the mirror and cursed—he could not break it. Silver was easier to bend than to shatter, and the truth it reflected refused to shift to his liking.
He entered the stairwell, and despite every trick he'd tried, the air still reeked of death.
Ah. I remember now, he thought. A dead dog—rotted in the rain. That's the smell.
He grimaced. "Gods, I hate the rain," Kenta muttered to himself, quickening his pace.
By the time he reached the lower level, the air had grown so thick he could barely breathe.
"My lord…"
Kenta relinquished his gasp as the voice bled out of the shadows, rising from a dark corner of the terrace's edge, so close to the entrance he'd just entered that it sent a chill through his spine.
"Damn it, Rex—you nearly made me jump," Kenta said, turning just in time to catch the man's slight profile in the half-light.
"My apologies," Rex answered calmly. "The stairwell smells like a finely aged cadaver. I took refuge here—with Mira."
"So—you did manage to visit your other destination," Kenta said.
"Precisely, my lord," Rex replied. "And I am the harbinger of great news."
Kenta glanced at him, catching the flicker of excitement glittering in those green eyes. How great could this news be, he wondered, in times so choked with grime?
"First, they wish us to know them as partners," Rex said. "Second, they insist—persistently—that our arrangement remain hush-hush. And third, beyond what we initially sought, they offer something far more valuable: protection."
He paused, then added"Protection for our dear sovereign refuses to provide."
Rex placed a silvery data drive in Kenta's hand, no larger than his thumb.
"Another souvenir?"
"One you would truly like," Rex said. "Though our newly found partners insist you inspect it outside the palace perimeter."
"Why is that?"
"For one, they are… meticulous about discretion—and they expect us to meet the same standard. They consider secrecy a value unto itself."
He paused, then added, more plainly,
"And for another: we have a castle, my lord. Castles have rats. Rats have ears. And, regrettably, mouths."
"I see. I see," Kenta murmured. "It seems our partners can see—far better than we do."
He rested a hand on Rex's shoulder, the touch gentle, almost affectionate.
"Thank you, Liam. You are a true friend.And… I regret what transpired in there with Cleaver."
"Ah—no need to mention him. Or even think about that scum. A little confrontation won't harm us; if anything, it only deepens our secrecy."
"And secrecy," he added quietly, "is exactly what we want."
"Indeed," came the reply. "These are testing times—and what greater test is there than keeping our mouths shut?"
Kenta glanced toward Mira, who stood at a distance, watching them in silence. Her blue dress caught what little light there was, set against the absolute velvet of the sky—glittering with stars and the vast black abyss beyond, where bands of onyx light shimmered and a thin ring revolved endlessly in its distant orbit.
"If you'll excuse me, my lord—it's been a long night."
"Oh… yes. Yes. And again—thank you, Liam. Sincerely," Kenta replied.
He patted Rex's shoulder once more. Rex stepped back a few paces, inclined his head in a gentle bow, then whirled and departed through the entrance.
Kenta lingered only a moment before trotting toward his daughter.
The terrace was immense—an expanse in direct opposition to the narrow ledge outside his office, which barely allowed room for one. Here, a hundred men could dine and never brush shoulders, never share warmth, each isolated despite the crowd.
"You're still awake, Mira?" Kenta asked softly.
"I couldn't sleep," she said. "The night is colorful." She hesitated, searching for the right word. "It's real. I like the night—it isn't fake like the day." She opened her arms and stepped into him, embracing her father.
"Maybe we should sleep by day and wake by night," Kenta said lightly, "like vampires."
He drew her close and pressed a warm, affectionate kiss to her forehead.
Mira recoiled at once. "Eww—you smell awful! What is that?"
Kenta laughed, the sound genuine, relieved. "Do I? Ah—then the stench must be contagious."
"Speaking of scents," Kenta added, glancing down at her, "you don't smell all that pleasant yourself. You should drink less. Find another hobby."
"There isn't much to do here except drink," Mira said with a shrug. Her eyes drifted back to the lemon trees, then farther still—to the planet hanging beyond them.
"You could spend more time with your friends," Kenta suggested, resting his forearms on the balcony rail.
Mira didn't look at him. "What do you think I do when I fraternize with my friends?" she replied, her gaze still fixed on the distant world.
"What did you and Uncle Liam talk about?"
"Nothing new," Kenta said. "Just old business."
"He told me he brought me a souvenir."
Kenta smiled and leaned against the stone railing of the balcony. "Yes. It's in my office. Feel free to check it out."
Mira shrugged, offering little response.
"You look a bit grumpier than usual," Kenta added, slowly patting her hair. "Where's the cat—has it got your tongue?"
"Mr. Whiskers—he's down in the garden, chasing a rat or something," Mira said, pointing toward the dark canopy of the lemon grove.
There, among the shadows, a shape moved within shadow itself. It growled softly, then mimicked the sound of a bird—or perhaps a squirrel. Kenta could just make it out as the cat, if only because of its eyes, which glittered in the absolute dark, and because its black fur was deeper than night.
Kenta glanced toward the garden of tall lemon trees—the tallest he had ever seen, apart from the god-trees of Epiphany. Compared to those, these seemed like weeds affixed to toothpicks, yellow dots glued clumsily onto green limbs. If they were any closer to the palace walls, one could have plucked the fruit straight from the terrace. Sadly, they were a few hands' breadth away—close enough to enjoy their scent, but not their touch.
The role these plump lemons played was mostly decorative—only decorative, in fact. They existed to add color to a world that would otherwise be unbearably bleak.
Kenta peered upward, as Mira did, past the trees and their fruit, toward the sky beyond.
"Come on," Kenta said softly. "Spill it. What's been bothering you?"
"I want to see something new. I want to see MelasOon." Mira looked up at her father with her pitch-black eyes, blinking not at all.
"Can't you see it from here?" Kenta replied, a tremor of fear nested deep in his voice. "It's pretty visible."
"Not like this," Mira said, her head tilting slightly. "I want to walk on it. To feel its wind. To breathe its air."
Kenta took a step towards her and touched her cheek as if she was still a child.
"Let me tell you a story," Kenta said to the girl.
"When I was your age, I knew a boy. He wanted to travel the stars. His father would never have allowed it. It is beneath a Denn to chase a bone, he would say. A Denn is no dog.
The boy wanted to be a captain—or at least a navigator—but his father told him a Denn is no servant. A Denn serves himself, his family, his name. He was ordered never to leave his world, not so long as his father lived.
But the boy's world was bleak. Not like yours—bleak in a different way."
Kenta paused, then asked quietly, "Do you know what the boy did?"
"I know what you did," Mira said at once. "You've told me this a thousand times."
"There are lessons to be learned in repetition," Kenta replied mildly. "Now—where was I? Yes. The boy ran. At first, he pretended to be a Pather—a believer in the wooden gods who travel the stars from world to world, throwing themselves upon any great branch they can find, pleading worship and passage alike. That act didn't hold for long, so he enlisted as an officer in the Dictate…"
"Do you want to tell all of that in one go?" Mira cut in, tilting her head.
Kenta frowned faintly. "I don't see why it shouldn't be told from the beginning."
"It's a very long tale," she said, glancing at the sky, "and we don't have all night."
"If you're that tired, I'll cut to the end," Kenta said.
"The boy craved many things. He wanted freedom—from the shackles of solitude he himself had learned to cultivate. He liked to foster a sense of being special, a worth that felt earned. He craved glory, fame, wealth, power—everything, all at once.
He left his home not only for what he wanted to become, but for what he refused to remain. He would not live as his father's shadow. He hated the shade more than anything—hated the relentless downpour of his home—so he traded it for a far drier life."
Kenta lifted his hand and pointed toward the black planet hanging in the distance.
"There is no water there. No rain. What little moisture exists sinks back into the ground as slow, steady dew at night, only to leap skyward again with the first light of daybreak. There are no animals either—only lawless prisoners and the rattle of their chains.
The air smells of smoke. Always. Smolder-bright particles hang motionless in the wind, clouding the sight. While they hover, there is calm. But when they begin to whirl—when they lose that absolute stillness—the wind comes. A wind that peels muscle from bone. That cuts straight into the heart.
Do you want to see that world so badly?"
He looked at her then.
"An actual world," he whispered, "comes with actual downsides."
"Is it so horrible," Mira asked, "to actualize my dream—my only dream?"
Kenta did not answer at once. He drew in a slow breath.
"Do you know what happened to the boy?" he voiced.
"He never allowed his daughter to leave a cage shaped like a palace," Mira replied, a sad, disdainful smirk tugging at her lips.
"No. He came to regret all of it. All of it—except one thing. A girl. A drunk girl," Kenta said, a faintly fatherly smile creasing his old, seamed lips.
"I have to travel somewhere," he added after a moment. "But when I return, we'll go there together."
They stood in silence, gazing out over the lemon trees below, their leaves rattling in the wind as though they were dancing—or quietly singing to the night.
"What was that blue burst this evening? It was so close to MelasOon," Mira asked as Kenta drew her closer, his right arm tightening around her.
"A stranded ship," Kenta replied evenly. "Gone astray. Caught in a dormant astral rift."
His eyes drifted to his daughter's. Not only were they the same color—pitch-black, like her mother's—but they carried a familiar spark as well. One he knew too well.
Who do you think was navigating it?
Another spy, he thought. A sharper one. One who didn't bother disguising themselves as an enforcer or a prisoner—or anything at all. One who simply came as he was.
"A smuggler," Kenta said aloud at last. "Or a poor trader fleeing pirates. A deserter from some faraway war. Or just a malfunctioning machine."
Kenta's eyes twitched as he spoke the lie. He turned away, letting his gaze drift back to the lemon trees and the black shape hanging in the sky beyond them. Something brushed against his boot. He felt it rub along his ankle, heard it purr at his feet. The damn cat. He didn't care.
His eyes remained fixed on the black rock past the trees.
If they were this blatant, then they weren't hitchhiking anymore. They were coming in their own ships now—pouring through cracks he didn't even know existed, like a flood.
The tension broke all at once. Calm washed over him, sudden and complete. Kenta closed his eyes and imagined the velvet of night.