POV: Sera
The doomsday device never fires.
What happens instead is worse—or better, depending on your perspective. The moment the 8-minute countdown reaches zero, the ancient palace beneath the Crimson Waste fully awakens. It erupts from the earth in a pillar of golden light so bright it illuminates the entire region. The awakening releases a wave of power that neutralizes every weapon in the area—human and mutant alike.
Including the doomsday device.
The weapon simply... stops working. All of them do. Every piece of advanced technology within a hundred-mile radius goes dead. Your father's soldiers stand confused as their armor powers down. The weapon site goes dark.
And in that moment of disruption, mutant soldiers overwhelm the human forces.
It's not a slaughter—Kael'thor made specific orders to capture rather than kill. But it is total victory. Your father escapes in the chaos. Lyanna is rescued, traumatized but alive. And the ancient palace's awakening triggers something in me—a pulse of connection so strong it nearly brings me to my knees.
The bond. It's almost complete.
Now, hours later, I stand outside Kael'thor's private chambers, trying to convince my hands to stop shaking.
A guard—midnight-blue skinned, polite—escorts me through the King's personal corridors. They're quieter than the rest of the Citadel, more intimate somehow. We stop before a door carved from mother-of-pearl, and the guard bows and leaves.
I knock.
"Enter," Kael'thor's voice comes from inside.
I step through.
His chambers are surprisingly simple. Not the lavish throne room I expected, but something almost... personal. Books line one wall—hundreds of them, in multiple languages. Maps cover another surface, showing Earth and other worlds I don't recognize. A window dominates the far wall, revealing three moons hanging in an alien sky.
Kael'thor stands at that window, silhouetted against the starlight. His four eyes are closed, and his body is covered in those bioluminescent markings—the ancient Xar'ethian script that represents his lineage, his power, his grief.
He doesn't look at me.
"You're learning fast," he says quietly. "Draeven is impressed. That's rare."
"Is that why you summoned me?" I ask, trying to keep my voice steady. "To discuss my training progress?"
Now he turns.
His four eyes open, and they find mine with an intensity that makes breathing difficult. "No."
He moves toward me slowly, deliberately, and with each step, my heart races faster. This isn't the Dread King. This isn't the ruler who commands armies. This is someone vulnerable, someone struggling with something that has nothing to do with politics or war.
"Why do you care?" I ask him, because I need to understand. "I'm just a human. A temporary inconvenience. A means to an end for the treaty."
Kael'thor stops inches away from me. "You are not just anything, Sera."
His massive frame towers over me, and this close, I can see the details of his obsidian skin—the silver veins pulsing with his heartbeat, the way his markings shift and flow like a language written in light.
"You're not just a human," he continues. "You're not just a Catalyst. You're not just a political necessity."
He moves closer until I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. His lower hands come up carefully, reverently, framing my face.
"You're becoming everything to me," he whispers. "And I need to know if this is real, or if it's just the bond calling to itself."
I understand what he's asking. Is this connection between us genuine? Or is it just ancient magic recognizing ancient magic?
"Use your power," he commands, but there's a plea beneath the command. "Look into me. Tell me what I want right now. Tell me if what I feel is real."
My golden light flares to life, covering my skin in those bronze symbols. My hands glow where they touch his face, and I activate my power fully.
I see him.
Not just his surface desires—his deepest self. I see two hundred years of loneliness. I see a prince who never wanted to be king, forced into leadership by circumstances and death. I see someone who's learned to be ruthless because ruthlessness was necessary for survival. I see a being who's forgotten what it feels like to be truly known.
And I see what he wants more than anything in this moment:
Me. Close. Choosing to stay not because of destiny or bond or political necessity, but because I want to.
"You want me to want to be here," I whisper, reading his desire so clearly it's like looking into his soul.
"Yes," Kael'thor breathes, and his four eyes burn brighter. "Do you?"
"I don't know," I admit, because it's the truth. "This is complicated. You're complicated. I'm—"
"You're becoming important to me," he interrupts softly. "That's what matters. Not the why. Not the bond. Just the fact that you're here, and I want you to stay, and I would burn the world to protect you."
He pulls me closer, and suddenly I'm pressed against his massive frame. One of his lower hands comes to rest at my waist while his upper hands cradle my face with surprising gentleness.
"Tell me," he says, "what you see when you look at me."
I meet his four eyes and let my power flow completely. "I see someone who's tired of being alone. I see someone who's been carrying too much for too long. I see someone worthy of being loved, not just feared."
Something cracks in his expression.
"Sera," he says, and her name sounds like a prayer in his voice. "When the bond completes—"
An alarm sounds.
Not a warning alarm. A death alarm.
Kael'thor's entire body goes rigid. He moves away from me instantly, his protective instincts overriding everything else, and summons guards with a single command. Vexen appears in the chamber doorway almost immediately, and his three silver eyes are blazing with urgency.
"We have a problem," Vexen says rapidly. "Your father escaped capture, and he's activated something else. Something we didn't see on the initial scans."
"What?" Kael'thor demands.
"A communication device," Vexen explains. "He's broadcasting a message to every human settlement on the planet. And Kael, you need to hear what he's saying."
Vexen activates a device, and my father's voice fills the chambers.
"People of Earth," his voice rings out, cold and calculated. "I am Cornelius Ashford, speaking to you from the ruins of human civilization. The King of monsters is trying to enslave us through a binding magical contract. They are using my daughter—a traitor to humanity—as the instrument of our subjugation."
My blood turns to ice.
"But I am offering you a choice," my father continues. "Join me, and together we will destroy the bond before it completes. We will kill the Catalyst before she becomes a weapon against us. And we will reclaim Earth as a human world."
"He's declaring full war," Vexen says grimly. "Every human settlement is now receiving his message. He's calling for a unified human resistance."
"The bond won't complete if he kills her," Draeven says, appearing in the doorway alongside Vexen. "He's right about that. If Sera dies before—"
"I'm aware," Kael'thor cuts him off harshly.
But then the message shifts, and what comes next makes everything worse.
"And if there are any of you who doubt my commitment to humanity's future," my father's voice turns almost intimate, "I want you to know that I would kill my own child to preserve our species. That is the level of sacrifice I'm willing to make."
The broadcast shows footage. Footage of my father raising a weapon toward... toward Lyanna.
Toward my sister.
"I had her captured during the battle," my father announces. "As insurance. As proof of my dedication. And in exactly one hour, I will execute her on live broadcast—a human execution to show our commitment to human dominance. If the Catalyst tries to save her, she reveals herself to every settlement in the world. If she doesn't, she proves she's abandoned humanity for the monsters."
The broadcast ends.
The silence that follows is absolute.
"He's forcing your hand," Vexen says quietly. "If you go to save your sister, the bond breaks. The ancient magic doesn't complete. The world doesn't change. Humanity stays divided and broken, and eventually, centuries of war destroy everything anyway."
"If you don't go," Draeven continues, "he executes Lyanna, proving to every human that you've chosen mutants over your own family. The war starts now, with every human settlement united against us."
Kael'thor looks at me, and I can see the weight of the impossible choice crushing down on him.
"What do you want to do?" he asks, and there's something almost broken in his voice.
Before I can answer, another figure appears in the doorway.
It's Nova. And her expression is grim.
"We have another problem," she says. "While your father was making his broadcast, he sent a secondary team to the ancient palace. They're planting explosives. If the palace is destroyed before the bond completes—"
"The awakening process reverses," Zhal'kara's voice comes through a communication device. "The magic goes dormant again. Everything returns to how it was. Except now there's no hope of peace. No chance of a new world order. Just infinite war."
Kael'thor turns to the window overlooking the Crimson Waste.
The ancient palace glows in the distance, beautiful and terrifying. And as I watch, I see new lights appear around it—red lights. Explosives being detonated.
The palace shudders.
"How much time before the explosives go critical?" Kael'thor demands.
"Forty minutes," Zhal'kara responds. "But Sera... if you're not there to complete the bond, it won't matter. The palace needs the Catalyst's presence to maintain the awakening."
Kael'thor turns back to me, and his four eyes are absolute devastation.
"You have to choose, Sera," he says quietly. "Save your sister and lose the world. Save the palace and lose your family. Or—"
He pauses, and something shifts in his expression.
"Or you become the queen you were meant to be."
He extends his hand, and his eyes burn with something like hope, something like terror.
"Complete the bond with me. Right now. Not in ceremony, not with witnesses. Just... us. Complete it, and I will save both your sister and the palace. I will move mountains to protect everyone you love. But you have to choose me, Sera. You have to choose us."
The ancient palace shakes again.
Another detonation.
Thirty-five minutes until everything collapses.
And Kael'thor waits for my answer.