I witnessed it.
Every second. Every word. Every tremor in the voice that came through the loudspeaker.
The call from Tellus. From Hammond. To Adler.
And I — I who had long trained myself to read situations, to read expressions, to read what lay hidden behind words — could only stand frozen. My eyes wide, my body rigid, as though space and time had stopped alongside the three words that struck us all:
"Tellus has fallen."
The world we had left behind. The home we had defended. The heart of the Imperium that for twenty millennia had beaten without pause — now only a name in the historical record that would be rewritten by the victors.
And when I finally came free of that frozen state, when I drew the first breath after what had felt like centuries, I noticed something missing.
My hand.
Empty.
The warmth that had been holding my fingers — the warmth that had made me believe that as long as it was there, we would not fall alone — was gone.
Adler had released his grip.
And for the first time since this battle began, I felt a cold that was genuine. Not the cold of the bridge's steel. Not the cold of the void beyond the observation dome. But the cold of absence. The cold of being left behind — even by only a hand's breadth.
I turned.
And my heart… my heart broke at what I saw before me.
Adler's face.
Not the commander's face that always wore its composed facade. Not the cynical, cold face of the prince. Not even the face of Adler who sometimes let warmth through — warmth he usually kept so carefully buried.
This was a face that had shattered.
Frustration carved clearly into every line, but deeper than that — a vacancy. A hollowness yawning behind his eyes, as though something most precious had been torn by force from his soul, leaving behind an empty space that would never be filled again.
I wanted to run to him. I wanted to take his hand back. I wanted to whisper that I was here, that we were here, that there was still a reason to hold on.
But he moved first.
With slow, slightly unsteady steps, he walked toward Admiral Carl Aarden — my father. Like a machine that had lost its operator yet kept moving by habit. Like a ship that had already lost its commander yet continued forward by inertia.
And that was when, for the first time in this chaos, I looked away from him.
Toward my sister.
Gladianna.
She had fallen.
Sitting on the cold steel floor, her face drained of color, her eyes vacant, staring toward somewhere I could not see. Her hands covered her mouth, as though holding something back — perhaps a scream, perhaps sobs, perhaps words she had never once spoken in her entire life.
"Tellus… has fallen," she whispered, her voice so quiet, so fragile, so unlike the Gladianna I knew. "Then… what about us, Ele?"
I moved toward her. I knelt beside her. And without thinking, I pulled her into an embrace.
She was trembling. Gladianna Von Aarden, the prince's guard who was steady as steel, who had never shown weakness before anyone, who was always ready to draw a sword to protect those she loved — now trembling in my arms like a child witnessing a storm for the very first time.
"Be calm," I whispered, forcing my voice gentle even as my own heart was being torn apart. "We still have each other, Anna. We still have one another. We will find a way through this. Together."
She gave a small nod. Only a small one. But it was enough.
When I looked up, searching for Adler again, I saw he had finished speaking with Father. Then, without looking back, without looking at us even once, he walked away.
Leaving the bridge.
Leaving the command.
Leaving us.
His steps were slow. Unsteady. Like someone who had just lost half their soul and had not yet learned how to walk with what remained.
I stroked Gladianna's hair once more, then whispered, "I will be back soon. I have to go to him."
She did not answer. Only nodded. That was enough.
I stood. And I ran.
The corridors of the Magnus II that were usually bright were now lit only by the red alarm lights blinking without pause. Long shadows danced along the steel walls, creating the illusion that I was being chased by something — or that I was chasing something I might never be able to reach.
My footsteps rang through the silent corridor, accompanied only by the distant wail of the alarms and my own heart, beating harder than it had beaten before.
Wait, Adler.
Do not go too far.
Do not give up.
We can find a way out of this.
You are not alone.
I am here.
We are here.
Wait for me.
I kept running.
Corridor after corridor. Shadow after shadow. The red alarm lights blinked without pause, creating the illusion that these steel walls were breathing — or perhaps dying, as we were. The sound of cannon fire from the battle outside still reached me, rumbling in the distance like a death drum that never tired of its rhythm.
Ahead, a figure walked unsteadily. Adler.
"Adler!" I called, my voice nearly swallowed by the alarm's roar. "Adler, wait!"
He did not turn. Did not respond. As though I were only wind whispering in an empty corridor.
I pushed harder. My breath came in gasps. My heart pounded, not from exhaustion, but from fear — fear that he would truly disappear, fear that the distance between us would widen into a gulf I could never cross.
"Adler…"
The distance was closing. I was nearly close enough to reach the hem of his coat as it shifted with each step.
My hand extended. My fingers nearly touched the edge of the fabric—
CRACK.
The world shook.
Adler had struck the corridor wall with his fist. Not a common blow — this was a blow born from despair so profound, from a fury that had nowhere to go. The steel dented. The echo reverberated through the length of the corridor, mixing with the alarm still wailing.
I froze.
My body trembled. Not from the cold of the corridor, but from what I had just witnessed.
I had known Adler Telluris since we were both children. I knew his mouth could be sharp, I knew his cynicism could wound, I knew his cold facade could push people away. But I had never — not once — seen him do violence like this. Not to an enemy. Not to a wall. Not to anything.
This was not the Adler I knew.
How deep is his wound? I thought, my heart breaking. How utterly shattered is he, that he has to hurt himself against this wall?
He turned.
And I stepped back.
His eyes. God, his eyes. Not the cold expression he usually wore as a shield. This was a gaze that was truly empty — and at the same moment, full of something terrible. A dark abyss yawning behind his eyes, ready to swallow anyone who dared draw near.
"Ele…" his voice came out lower than a whisper, sharper than a blade. "Could you be quiet? Stop calling my name?"
Those words.
Not their content. Not their tone. But the fact that those words came from his mouth, directed at me — the one person he had always allowed beside him, always let inside his circle.
That struck me harder than his fist had struck the wall.
And for the first time in my life, I felt something moving down my cheek.
Tears.
One drop. Then another. Then, unable to stop them, they flowed, soaking the face I had been forcing to stay composed.
Not because I was afraid of him. Not because his harsh words had wounded me. But because I was watching him shatter, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Adler went still.
His ice-cold expression… shifted. Slightly. Only slightly. Like light trying to penetrate thick fog. There was something there — something that resembled regret, something that resembled the awareness that he had wounded someone who did not deserve wounding.
But before I could let myself hope, he turned away.
"I am sorry, Ele," he whispered, in a voice barely audible. "Please… leave me alone for now."
And he was gone.
His steps receded, leaving me in the menacing red corridor, with only alarm sounds and the rumble of battle as company.
My hand was still extended, reaching for his shadow fading at the end of the corridor. My fingers trembled, grasping at emptiness.
"A—Adler…"
His name came out, but only the air heard it.
My knees gave. I fell.
Sitting on the cold steel floor, in the corridor lit by blinking red lights, I let the tears flow. There was no longer anything to hide. Nothing left that needed to be kept strong.
How weak I am, I thought bitterly. How powerless.
If only I were stronger. If only my words could be an anchor strong enough to hold him. If only my embrace could be a shield thick enough to protect him from his own world's collapse.
But I was only myself. Elegantia. An advisor. A woman who had fallen in love with a prince who did not even understand the meaning of love.
In this cold corridor, in the middle of a war still raging, I wept.
Not for the Imperium that had fallen.
Not for Tellus that had been lost.
But for Adler.
For a man who kept running away from everyone who loved him.
For a man who would perhaps never know that in the emptiness he left behind, someone was still sitting on this steel floor, weeping, and still hoping that one day he would stop running.
And turn around.
I was still sitting on the cold steel floor.
Head bowed, tears flowing beyond my power to stop. Behind wet eyelids, the red alarm lights blinked dimly — the same light that had lit his departure, which now stood as mute witness to my fragility.
How weak am I? I thought bitterly. How insignificant, that even his words alone could shatter me like this?
Between suppressed sobs, between the distant rumble of battle still echoing, I heard something.
Footsteps.
A reflex. Without thinking. My head lifted, my wet eyes searching toward the end of the corridor, looking for a silhouette I knew.
"Adler!" I called, half in hope, half in prayer.
But it was not him who came.
Gladianna.
She stood at the corridor's mouth, lit by blinking red light. Her eyes — usually sharp and full of confidence — were now swollen. Red. Wet. Traces of tears she had forced herself to dry.
"Sister," she called softly. A voice so unlike the Gladianna I knew. Gentle. Fragile. Like a child who had lost their way.
I lowered my head for a moment. Ashamed. Ashamed that my sister saw me like this — sitting weakly on the floor, soaked with tears, broken by a man.
How shameful, I thought. I who should be her support have collapsed first.
"Are you all right?" she asked, drawing closer.
Without waiting for an answer, she put her arms around me.
That embrace was warm. Warmer than the steel of this corridor. Warmer than the alarm lights still wailing without pause. And within that warmth, something I had been holding back — something I had forced myself to keep strong — finally broke apart entirely.
I wept.
Not suppressed sobs. Not silent tears. But real tears. Tears that came from the deepest place, carrying with them all the fear, all the despair, all the doubt I had kept hidden behind my soft smile.
"Forgive me… forgive me, Anna," I sobbed between tears. "I should have… I should have been stronger…"
Gladianna held me tighter. And in that embrace, I felt something wet against my shoulder.
She was weeping too.
"It is all right, Sister," she whispered, her voice unsteady yet trying to be calm. "We are together. We are still together. It is all right to fall. It is all right to be weak. Because we will rise together."
Her words.
Simple. Sincere. And precisely because of that, they drove straight into the heart.
We sat on the cold corridor floor, holding each other like two small children who had lost their home in the middle of a storm. The red lights kept blinking around us. The alarm kept wailing in the distance. The battle still raged outside.
But in this small circle, where two twin sisters wept in each other's embrace, there was a different silence.
A silence that said: We are not alone.
A silence that whispered: There is still something remaining.
A silence that reminded: Love is not always about the man who runs away. Sometimes, love is a sister who sits on the cold floor, weeps with you, without needing to ask anything at all.
After some time — I could not say how long, time had gone blurry in this corridor lit only by red blinks — I forced myself to draw a breath.
Deep.
My hand rose, wiping the tears that still soaked my cheek. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, drying them by force even though it stung, leaving red marks that could not be hidden. I knew I still looked shattered. But at least I was no longer drowning.
"Anna," I called, my voice still hoarse, but with something different in it. Something beginning to harden. "We are not the only ones who are broken."
Gladianna looked at me, her swollen eyes carrying a question.
"Adler," I continued. "He… he is more shattered than we are. Far more shattered." I paused a moment, feeling the weight of what I was about to say. "He needs us, Anna. Perhaps he will not admit it. Perhaps he will drive us away again. But he still needs us."
I took her hand, holding it tightly.
"Let us go after him."
Gladianna looked at me for a long moment. Then the corner of her mouth rose slightly — not quite a smile, but a kind of silent acknowledgment that can only pass between twin sisters.
"You are right, Sister," she whispered. "He needs us. Even if he does not know it. Even if he does not want it."
We stood together.
My knees were still weak, but I forced them straight. Anna took my arm — not to support me, but to remind me that we were doing this together. Then, without another word, we ran.
The same corridor. The same red lights blinking without pause, dancing along the steel walls, casting shadows that ran alongside us. The alarm was still wailing in the distance, faithful companion to every step. And from outside, cannon fire could still be heard — a battle not yet finished, though for us, the real war was happening in this very corridor.
I ran.
My breath labored. My heart pounded. But this time, not from fear or despair. This time, because I had a purpose: to chase the man I might never be able to reach, but whom I could not let simply disappear.
Beside me, Anna ran in the same rhythm. I could feel her presence — the same warmth that moments ago had held me on the cold floor, now transformed into an energy pushing me forward.
Adler, I said to myself, you may run. You may be angry. You may be shattered. But I will not stop. We will not stop.
Because that is what it means to love someone, even when you do not understand how.
Not about waiting for them to turn around.
But about running after them, until they are exhausted, until they realize, until they stop — and see that behind them, we are always there.
That red corridor seemed to have no end. But we did not care.
We kept running.
For Adler.
For Anna.
For those of us who remained.
We kept running.
Our hands still tightly clasped — a small anchor in the storm shaking this ship. A clasp reminding us that we were not alone, that whatever happened, at least we were still together.
Then the world shook.
Not the usual tremor we had felt from cannon fire. This was different. Deeper. Harder. As though the Magnus II itself was groaning in pain, its steel bones screaming beneath a blow it could not bear.
I fell.
My knees struck the steel floor with a dull, painful impact. My hands caught the fall by reflex, but my body still trembled — not from the pain, but from fear.
True fear.
What if this was the moment? What if the next blow shattered this corridor, shattered us, before we could reach him?
"Sister!" Gladianna's voice cut through my thoughts, her hand seizing my arm. "Are you all right?"
I looked up. Her face was pale under the blinking red lights, her eyes wide, holding back the same fear I felt.
I wanted to say "I am fine." But that would be a lie.
I was not fine.
My body was trembling. My knees were weak. My heart was pounding so hard it nearly came out of my chest. And behind all of that, there was one fear deepest of all: that this ship might truly break apart, that we might die here, before we could see him one more time.
But I forced myself to stand.
Slowly. With hands that were still trembling. With knees that felt like water. I stood.
"I… I am all right, Anna," I answered, my voice forced into steadiness though its tremor still came through. I looked at her, and I saw the same fear reflected in her eyes. She was afraid too. She was trembling too. But she was still here, still holding my hand, still ready to run with me.
We were both afraid. But we did not stop.
"Anna," I whispered, gripping her hand more tightly. "A little further. We are almost there. We can catch him."
She nodded. Without needing more words.
And we ran again.
Our steps were perhaps not as swift as before. Our bodies perhaps still trembled with what remained of fear. But we ran. Together. Onward.
In my chest, a thought arose — not as a complete sentence, but as a tremor deeper than words:
Let this ship break. Let this battle consume us all. But before that, let us find him. Let us hold him one more time. Let us whisper in his ear that he is not alone. That even if the Imperium falls, even if Tellus is lost, even if everything is gone — we are still here. Still two people foolish enough to be willing to die just to make him smile.
And if we must die, let us die together.
Not in this silent corridor, separated by distance and steel walls.
But beside him. With him. In one last embrace.
I kept running.
Anna's grip on my hand tightened, as though she could read my thoughts, as though she were saying: Me too, Sister. Me too.
That red corridor seemed to have no end. But we did not care.
We kept running.
For Adler.
For ourselves.
For the last chance that might never come again.
Step after step. Breath after breath. We kept running, tracing the red corridor that seemed to have no end, until finally — at the very end of the quietest corridor — we arrived.
The door to Adler's private quarters.
That heavy iron was sealed shut, the indicator light beside it glowing red, marking that inside was someone who had chosen to lock themselves away from the world. From us.
But before that door stood a figure.
Vincent.
Adler's personal head attendant. The man I had always seen moving silently behind his master, like a faithful shadow. Amid this chaos, amid wailing alarms and the ship still trembling, he stood with a strange composure. As though this were precisely his place, and no battle or destruction could move him from it.
"Vincent," I said, trying to steady my still-labored breath. "I am asking you. Let us in. I have to see Adler."
Vincent looked at me with deep eyes — eyes that had seen too much, knew too much, yet chose silence.
"I beg your pardon, Lady Elegantia," he replied, gently, yet firmly. A wall dressed in silk. "Master Adler… His Highness… has given a command. No one is permitted to enter his chambers."
Those words.
Simple. Clear. Without flaw.
And precisely because of that, they struck me like a hammer blow.
No one.
Including me.
Including Anna.
Including those closest to him.
Adler, I thought, the voice breaking inside my own chest. How shattered are you, to close your door to me? To us? To have to station your own personal attendant as sentry, just to ensure that I — I who have always been at your side — cannot approach?
But I refused to give up.
"Vincent," I said, forcing my voice into composure though my heart was being torn apart. "You know him. You know who he truly is behind all the facades. You know that right now… he is shattered. Alone. And I…"
My voice wavered.
"I cannot leave him alone. Not at a time like this."
I drew a deep breath.
"Vincent, please. You must feel the same. You must want what is best for him. Let me in. Let me calm him. I… I will take responsibility for everything."
Vincent held my gaze for a long moment. In those calm eyes, for a moment, I saw hesitation. Something struggling within. He was human too. He cared too.
But in the end, he shook his head slowly.
"Forgive me, Lady. I understand. Truly, I understand. Your feelings, your wish, your worry — they are all the same as what I feel. But…"
He paused, as though searching for the right words.
"His command is absolute to me. Not because I do not care. But because in obeying it, I show that I respect him. That I trust him to make decisions — even when those decisions are painful."
Vincent's words. Gentle. Sincere. And without mercy.
My legs went weak.
I fell.
Sitting on the cold corridor floor, in front of the locked door, in the presence of a man faithful to his master's orders. Anna was at my side, her hand immediately reaching for my shoulder, supporting me before I truly collapsed.
What should I do now? I thought, in the hollowness yawning in my chest. What else can I do?
I had run this far. I had wept this deeply. I had pleaded, had coaxed, had implored.
And all of it stopped before this steel door. Before a man named Vincent who was only doing his duty.
In there, Adler was alone.
Out here, I was alone too — even though Anna was at my side, even though her hand was still on my shoulder.
Because without him, without being able to reach him, without being able to see his face one more time… I felt as though half of me was locked inside that door.
Adler.
Please.
Open this door.
Or at least give me a sign that you are still in there.
That you are still alive.
That you still want to live.
But only the alarm answered. And the red light still blinking.
And the silence from behind the steel door that would not open.
――――――――――――――――――――
Ele.
Her labored breath after running. Her words desperate with pleading to Vincent. I could picture her face — pale, soaked with tears, yet her eyes still burning with a stubbornness I had never been able to understand.
She is quick, I thought bitterly. She is always quick. Chasing. Never giving up.
I pulled off the ceremonial jacket still hanging from my shoulders. The heavy cloth embroidered with gold thread — symbol of status, symbol of burden, symbol of all that had now been destroyed — I threw it toward the bunk. It fell with a sound barely audible.
Then I stood in the middle of the room. Alone. Truly alone.
"Hammond…"
His name came without my intending it. Like a reflex. Like a prayer.
"What should I do now?"
I waited for an answer. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
No one answered.
Of course no one answered. Hammond was gone. His warm voice, his comforting laugh, his words that could always make me smile even when I pretended to be annoyed — all of it had vanished, swallowed by the explosion I heard through the loudspeaker.
But I kept talking. To the wall. To the emptiness. To the shadow of my brother that existed only in memory.
"Hammond… do you know? I am angry." My voice broke. "I am angry at them. At the rebels. At the Council. At this foolish Imperium."
I paced back and forth, my steps uneven.
"I want revenge, Hammond. I want them all to die. One by one. I want to watch them burn, to feel what I feel."
I stopped.
"I am frustrated. Because I do not know how. Because I have nothing left."
I resumed walking.
"And I am confused. I am so confused, Hammond. All this time I knew what had to be done. Fight. Lead. Protect. That was all. That was always all."
I stopped again, this time before the small window looking out at the blackness of outer space.
"But now… now you are gone. Tellus has fallen. The Imperium has collapsed. And I… I no longer know what I should be."
That was when I felt it.
My cheeks wet.
I raised my hand, touching my face. Wet. Damp. Tears.
Tears?
I stared at my reflection in the dark glass of the window. There, dimly reflected, was a man with red eyes, with wet cheeks, with an expression I had never seen before.
A shattered face.
I walked to the corner of the room, moving away from the window, as though by moving away I could escape that reflection. But the reflection was in my head. In my heart. In every corner of this silent room.
I sank into the corner of the room, letting my body slide down, sitting on the floor with my back against the cold steel wall.
"Hammond…" I whispered, a voice that came out only halfway. "Why… why did you leave me?"
The tears flowed heavily. I could not stop them. I did not want to stop them.
"You were the only family I had. The only one who could make me smile without pretending. The only one…"
A sob cut through the sentence.
"Why? Why did you have to go?"
His last memory circled in my head. His voice warm even amid the gunfire. His words: "I love you. I am proud to be your brother." The explosion that severed everything.
"What should I do now, Hammond?" I asked the shadow of him in my memory. "I… I am at an impasse. I do not know which direction to step. I do not know what to be. I…"
My head fell between my knees.
"…I am afraid."
That admission came out. Finally. After all this time building walls, building facades, building a steel fortress around my heart — finally I admitted it.
I was afraid.
Not afraid of dying. That had long since become routine.
But afraid of living. Living without purpose. Living without meaning. Living without him.
Outside, Ele's voice could still be heard faintly. She was still there. Still trying. Still chasing.
But I… I was not ready yet.
Not ready to open the door.
Not ready to show this face — this face that was weeping, this face that was shattered, this face that was not a commander, not a prince, not Adler Telluris.
But only Adler.
Adler who had lost his brother.
Adler who did not know what to be.
Adler who was afraid.
And in this corner of the room, with tears that kept flowing, I could only whisper to Hammond's shadow that would never answer:
"Give me a sign, Hammond. Anything. I do not know where to go."
Silence answered.
And outside, Ele's voice kept calling.
――――――――――――――――――――
The silence.
Not ordinary silence. This was a silence with weight — pressing from every direction, seeping in through every pore, sitting on my chest and refusing to leave. Outside, Ele's voice had been faintly audible, like a song from a world I could no longer reach.
I was still sitting in the corner of the room, back against the cold wall, head between my knees. Tears still flowed, though I had long forgotten when they began.
Then the watch on my wrist lit up.
Not from a call. Not from a notification. Perhaps because of an accidental brush of movement. Perhaps because the universe wanted to torture me once more.
An image floated out in AR projection — hovering before my eyes, so real, so close, as though I could reach out and touch it.
A family photograph.
The Imperial Family.
Father. Mother. Grandfather. Hammond. And myself.
I was still small in that photograph — perhaps eight years old. Still innocent. Still believing the world was fair, that family would always remain whole, that happiness was something that could be held and kept forever.
We were all smiling.
Even I — young Adler, not yet contaminated by war, by cynicism, by the facade — was smiling broadly in that photograph. A smile I never wore again afterward.
My trembling hand reached for the projection. My fingers passed through the light, unable to grasp anything.
Mother…
She was the first to go. When I was nine years old. An illness no technology could cure. I still remembered how her cold hand gripped mine on her last day, whispering, "Be a strong child, Adler. Take care of your brother."
Father…
Followed a year later. I was at the military academy when the news came. He fell in a great battle against the rebels. They said he fought like a lion. They said he died with courage and honor. But all I remembered was that I never got to say goodbye.
Grandfather…
Hero of the Imperium. Magnus the Great. He lasted the longest. He taught me everything about war, about leadership, about what it meant to be a Telluris. When I was fifteen, he was gone too. Fighting a rebel fleet at impossible odds — and winning, before finally yielding to his wounds. They called him a legend. But what I saw was an empty chair at the dinner table.
And now… Hammond.
Hammond. My brother. The last one remaining. The only reason I kept going, kept fighting, kept hoping that after all this chaos there would still be someone I could hold, someone I could watch grow, someone who would inherit our mother's smile and our father's steadiness.
But he was gone too.
In my twenty-first year of life.
Three years after this photograph was taken, they had left me one by one. Like stars going out one by one in the night sky, leaving me in a darkness growing denser with every loss.
I was alone.
Alone.
"Look, Hammond," I whispered to the photograph, a voice that only emptiness could hear. "Look at how our family… how we… were."
My fingers traced the shadow of young Hammond in the image — his innocent face, his bright eyes, his warm smile.
"I made you a promise then. At Father's funeral. I promised I would protect you. I promised you would never lose anyone again."
Tears fell, wetting the projection that could not truly be wet.
"And look now. I failed. I failed to protect you. I failed to be a good brother. I…"
My voice broke.
"I did not even get to say goodbye."
The photograph kept floating before my eyes. My family. Whole. Happy. Eternal in the form of light and data.
But they were gone. All of them.
Mother, to illness. Father, to war. Grandfather, to a courage that slowly killed him. Hammond, to…
To what?
Because I was not fast enough? Because I was not strong enough? Because I prioritized the wrong things?
I did not know.
All I knew was that I was sitting here, in this corner of the room, with tears that would not stop, accompanied by an AR projection of a past that would never return.
What is the point of any of this?
The question appeared on its own, without invitation, without permission.
What is the point of my fighting? What is the point of my leading? What is the point of my living?
For Hammond? He is gone.
For the Imperium? It has collapsed.
For Tellus? Lost to the enemy.
For myself?
I no longer even knew who I was. Adler Telluris? Crown prince without a crown. Heir without an inheritance. Commander without an army. Brother without a brother.
I was empty titles clinging to a body still breathing.
Outside, Ele's voice could still be heard. Faint. Desperate. But never stopping.
She was still there.
Still chasing.
Still believing I was worth chasing.
But how? How could anyone look at a man sitting in this dark corner, weeping like a child, shattered like glass fallen from the highest tower — and still think him worthy of love?
"What is the point of my life, Hammond?" I whispered to the photograph that was already flickering, signaling it would soon go dark. "Tell me. Because I… I no longer know."
The projection went dark.
Back to darkness.
And outside, Ele's voice kept calling.
――――――――――――――――――――
Time.
I had lost count. Perhaps hours. Perhaps days. Perhaps weeks. In this room, inside my chaotic head, time flowed like water in a broken pipe — inconsistent, unmeasurable, leaving only a damp trace that slowly pooled into a swamp.
I was still here.
Sitting on the edge of the bunk. Wrapped in the same blanket, now damp from sweat and tears that had never truly dried. My back against the same wall, its cold memorized down to the bone.
Ele's voice outside — gone for a long time now. Perhaps she had given up. Perhaps she had left. Perhaps she was still out there, sitting in the same corridor, waiting with the foolish patience that only belongs to people who love too deeply.
I did not know. I did not want to know.
Occasionally, other sounds reached me faintly. Footsteps. Murmuring. Perhaps Anna. Perhaps Vincent. Perhaps others. But my ears refused to recognize them. My mind refused to care.
Whoever they were. It did not matter.
The cannon fire that had once been so loud it shook the walls — now gone. Or perhaps my ears had gone numb to the noise inside my own head.
Had Admiral Aarden succeeded? Had we retreated? Was the Magnus II still in one piece?
The questions surfaced, but like soap bubbles — floating for a moment, then bursting without a trace.
Geo… what about Geo? Had he survived? And Silver? Was "Rust and Steel" still whole, or had it become more wreckage orbiting some star?
Geo's image passed through my mind. His face that was always joking. His voice full of sarcasm. His question: "It seems like you're very ready to die today, isn't that right, old friend?"
I had answered, "I'm not certain."
Now I knew the answer.
I was ready. More than ready.
And Ed… how would he receive the news? That his friend Geo might be gone? That Adler — the prince he had admired — was now only a lump of flesh in this room, indifferent to everything?
Those questions surfaced. But left again. Like uninvited guests I refused to let in.
I had no energy to care.
I had nothing left of will to care for anyone.
All that remained was one question. Only one. Circling in my head like a damaged recording, scraping, repeating, driving:
What… is the meaning… of this life of mine?
――――――――――――――――――――
Vincent.
I knew he came in. Multiple times. I heard the door open slowly, the careful sound of his footsteps, then the sound of a plate or bowl set on the table.
Food.
For me.
I could not say how many times now. Yet another meal I never touched. Bread gone hard. Soup gone cold. Fruit going limp.
I was not hungry. Or perhaps I was, but hunger had been defeated by something greater: revulsion. Revulsion at myself. Revulsion at the world. Revulsion at everything that still demanded I live, still demanded I eat, still demanded I endure.
I only sat here. Wrapped in the same blanket. Staring at the same wall. Breathing at the same rhythm.
Occasionally, without warning, without cause, something moved down my cheek.
Tears.
I no longer knew when they had begun. Or why. Or for whom. Perhaps for Hammond. Perhaps for Mother, Father, Grandfather. Perhaps for myself. Perhaps for everything that had been lost, everything shattered, everything that would never return.
Cheek wet. Damp. Cold.
Then dry. Then wet again.
A cycle without end.
――――――――――――――――――――
Everything was over.
The thought arrived not as a shout. Not as a conclusion reached after long debate inside one's own head. It was simply there — suddenly already present, like something that had long been waiting in the corner of the room and had only just now decided to sit beside you.
The Imperium has fallen. Tellus is gone. Hammond is dead.
Those were no longer things I was processing. They had been repeated so many times inside my head that they had lost their texture — words without weight, sentences without meaning, only sounds that kept circling because they had nowhere else to go.
I was sitting on the edge of the bunk.
I did not know how long.
Time in this room did not move in the normal way. It pooled — like water with nowhere to flow, filling the space and staying there, and you were in it and could not tell whether an hour had passed or three days.
Outside the door, perhaps there were still sounds. Perhaps footsteps. Perhaps a plate set quietly on the floor. I was no longer paying attention. Not because I chose not to — but because the part of me that usually attended to things like that had gone dark.
The question came in a way I did not expect.
Not from despair erupting. Not from a crisis point you could point to and say: here is where everything broke. It came like an ordinary question. Like asking whether the soup had gone cold, or whether the weather outside would be good tomorrow.
Should I simply choose to die?
I sat with that question.
Not refusing it. Not accepting it. Simply letting it exist — in a way that, if I thought about it later, might be the most frightening thing of all: how calm I was in facing that question. How there was no panic. How it felt like something that was… reasonable to ask.
Like an option that was available.
I looked at my hands.
Hands that had once gripped the hilt of a sword. That had once indicated coordinates on a holomap. That had once held Ele's hand in the midst of wailing alarms — warm, and I had not understood at the time why that feeling seemed like something important.
Now those hands lay on my thighs, doing nothing. Having nothing to do.
Hands that had failed to protect even one of all the things they should have protected.
――――――――――――――――――――
I did not search for it dramatically.
There was no single moment in which I decided. Only my body rising — stiff knees, heavy head — and beginning to move because some part of me had already made a decision before my mind could follow.
Cabinet. Drawer. The dark corners of the room.
I moved through the shadows of this room with great calm. Not hurrying. Not with trembling hands. Only calm — and it was that very calm that should have frightened me, but did not.
Anything. That was all I needed.
Then —
"Are you looking for this?"
Vincent.
He was standing at the open doorway — I had not heard him enter, or perhaps I had heard but had not registered it — with a small fruit knife in his hand. The blade gleamed faintly. He raised it slightly, like someone offering something you had been looking for.
I stopped.
Standing in the middle of the dark room, looking at him.
Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. Only two people standing in the same room, with one small gleaming object between them, and air that felt too heavy to fill with words.
"Is Your Highness serious?" he asked. Not with a tone of surprise. Not with a tone of panic. With exactly the same tone he usually used when asking whether I wanted tea or coffee — calm, even, like a question that required an honest answer and he was ready for that answer, whatever it might be.
I did not answer.
"Does Your Highness truly wish to end this?"
Those words — not their content, but the way he spoke them, with a tone that did not judge and did not plead and did not try to persuade me of anything — made something inside me shift.
Not a sudden awakening. Not suddenly seeing light.
Only a shift. Like something that had stood in one position for too long finally moving one centimeter.
Vincent stepped inside. One step. Then he sat in the chair near the door — not facing me, simply there — and set the knife on the table with a small sound that was almost inaudible.
Not offering it. Not taking it away. Only setting it down.
"I will not take it," he said. "That is Your Highness's decision."
He paused a moment.
"But if I may ask one thing."
I said nothing. He continued regardless.
"Is Your Highness finished? Not with living — with the question itself. Does Your Highness already know that no more reasons remain, or is Your Highness only exhausted from searching?"
A long silence.
That question did not feel like a rhetorical question. It did not feel like a tactic. It felt like someone who truly wanted to know the answer — and was willing to wait for as long as it took.
I did not know the answer.
And it was that not-knowing — not Ele's face, not Hammond's voice, not a speech about responsibility or legacy or the great things that are supposed to be reasons for a person to live — that finally made me sit back down on the edge of the bunk.
Vincent left not long after. The door closed quietly.
The knife was still on the table.
I did not take it. But I did not remove it either. Letting it be there felt like an agreement I had not formulated with anyone — or perhaps with myself: we will see tomorrow.
I lay down. Staring at the dark ceiling.
Faces surfaced — not in order, not with explanation. Ele. Anna. The sound of Geo joking about something I could no longer recall. Ed drinking without saying much. Flashes that came and went before they could become something complete.
I was too tired to hold them back. Too tired also to follow them.
Only lying there. Letting everything flow past.
――――――――――――――――――――
Vincent came back the following day — or perhaps the day after, I had stopped counting — with the same plate, with the same steps. Setting down the plate. Taking the one from the day before.
No comment about what had gone untouched.
"Your Highness," he said before turning away, "the rebels broadcast something last night. I believe Your Highness should know."
He placed a small device on the table. Beside the knife that was still there. Then he left.
I looked at the device for a long time. Did not touch it. Then touched it — not because I wanted to, but because there was no other reason strong enough not to.
The broadcast was not dramatic. That was what made it worse.
Not fiery propaganda. Not a shout of victory. Only a shaky recording taken with a handheld camera in the central plaza of Tellus that I had once visited with Hammond when we were children — the same granite stone, the same fountain at its center that now was not running with water but something a darker color.
A line of people.
Men, women, some too young to call them anything other than children. Kneeling on that granite with bound hands. Loyalist uniforms in tatters. Faces I did not know but postures I knew: the posture of people who had stopped looking for a way out.
I turned it off before it finished.
Sat.
Breathed.
They did this because the Imperium could not protect them.
Because I could not protect them.
That thought did not come as an accusation from outside. It came from within — with the same cold tone as how I read a ship damage report or force ratios on a holomap. Only a fact. Only a number. Only the consequence of a chain of decisions that were all tactically correct and all ended here: in a plaza with granite stone and something darker than water.
I looked at my hands again.
The hands that had nearly taken that knife yesterday. That now only lay in my lap, useless, not knowing what to do.
Then I played the recording again.
Until the part that was worse than the massacre itself: what came after. Another line of people walking into sealed vehicles with heads bowed. Old. Young. A woman carrying a child too quiet. Labor camps. I had already read the reports. Now I was seeing the faces.
I turned it off again.
Sitting in the darkness I had created myself, because I did not have the energy to turn the lights on.
And in that darkness — in the midst of everything that had been lost and everything that would never return and the question that still had no answer about what all of this meant — there was one thing that began to feel like something. Not hope. Not resolve. Not something that would sound right if spoken aloud.
Only anger.
Dirty anger. Tired anger. Late anger — the anger of someone who had lost and knew they had lost and could not stop being angry because there was nothing else left to hold onto. Anger at the rebels who burned Tellus and called it liberation. At the Council that did nothing. At myself, who had stood on the bridge of the Magnus II and believed that there were things that could not be defeated by the simple mathematics of who had more.
Anger that, if honest, felt more like exhaustion than hatred.
But it was there. And that — for tonight, for this moment — felt like the only thing inside me that was still burning.
I stood up.
Not because I was ready. Not because I knew where to go. Only because sitting here changed nothing, and sometimes that was already reason enough.
I took the knife from the table.
Placed it in the drawer.
Closed it.
In the narrow mirror in the corner of the room, a man stared back at me. Red eyes. Pale skin. Shoulders that had forgotten what standing straight felt like.
Adler Telluris.
Crown prince of an empire that no longer existed. Heir to ash and debt and a name that now meant too much and too little at once.
I looked at him for a long time — the man in the mirror — without looking for the commander's facade, without checking whether the right expression was properly in place. Simply looking.
Someone too angry to die, but not yet whole enough to call that living.
Someone who, someday, would have to decide whether the name he carried was a burden that would bury him or the last weapon remaining.
But not tonight.
Tonight, it was enough to stand.
Enough to face the mirror without looking away.
"I do not know what I will do, Hammond." I said to him — to his shadow somewhere I could not reach. "I do not know whether I am capable of doing anything meaningful."
But I am still here.
For tonight, that is already a victory.
Perhaps tomorrow there will be a differe
nt victory.
Perhaps not.
But we will see.