PROLOGUE

Planet: Alrennan, Neutral World

Star System: Silent Tranquility

Date: Dawn of the Third Age, one day after the end of the Celestial War

A RED GIANT BATHES CRIMSON LIGHT OVER A DRY, UNMOVING BLACK ORB, ONE half a burnt husk, the other half dry-frozen. A narrow strip of land runs the circumference of the entire planet, perfectly between the ever-burning and eternally dark hemispheres. On the strip between the burning and the black, the intense sunlight diffuses into a pale red horizon under a cloudless sky. Alrennan’s endless, jagged surface is interrupted by a single foreign object:

A smooth, bone white craft, shaped more like a giant ivory pipe organ than a spacefaring vessel, sits on the crusty soil. Amber light flares within its gaps and grooves, almost musically in tune with the gentle hum of its Immaculis Drive.

Duriah let a bitter chuckle slip as he felt the murmur of the ship behind him. The older looking man examines the world around him, tall and rigid like a weathered tree against the dry wind, watches it whip his blue cloak about, as if the planet rebuked him for making his zero-waste starship engine sing it a lullaby — his promise of what the universe could be, while he stood on this dry little rock that couldn’t even rotate. Or sustain life.

The hubris he presided over was never clearer to him than right now, at the end of a war spanning two Celestial Ages. Entire planets formed and crumbled over the course of this conflict, and all that Arleth, the Realm Everlasting had to show for it was a pristine royal starship, powered by clean energy…idling on a dead planet.

What grandeur the High Astral King carries with him, he thought spitefully. What light the God of Fire brings.

The Astral King pulls out of his bitter musing as his wife descends the ramp of their ship beside him. High Astral Queen Av’Ondra glides down the smooth metal, as though her feet never touched the ground beneath her billowing white and blue robe. Her poise and grace held even as Duriah saw it betrayed in her eyes: impossible sapphire irises dimmed by the glassy red of fresh tears. Her arms coil tighter around the baby swaddled in her bosom as she moves onto the surface.

The wind that moved his cloak could not upset hers. Her attire remains fixed, as if the wind weren’t even there. The power of the Goddess of Moons superseded the wills of terrestrial wind and gravity.

Much as he wanted to comfort her, Duriah knew better than to try to talk to her. Instead, the Astral King’s gaze drifted to the baby in his wife’s arms. He reached with a slow hand, Av’Ondra allowed it, and he ran a gentle finger across his daughter’s hair. His soft gold eyes met hers — grateful she instead had her mother’s crackling sky blue. He opened his mouth to give some parting affections, but his wife’s gaze snapped ahead, pulling his focus upward.

A dark speck pierces the barren, empty sky.

As it closed in, its engine made itself known, unlike his own ship’s Immaculis Drive: the gargling shred of a rockslide and the roar of a blazing fire. This was the scream of an Inferni Drive, a war machine of the blackened, hellish world of Cindreth.

“Entrophs,” Av’Ondra finally spoke to no one in particular, “Of all things else, they’re always so loud.”

Duriah sighed quietly at her mention of the Astrals’ ancient enemy, not out of resentment or bitterness as he felt within her, but a hint of pity, and a larger serving of shame. Yes, the Entrophs of planet Cindreth were avowed gods of conquest, plunder and subjugation…but to defeat them, the Astrals sunk to much the same lows.

Guilt sat heavy in the Astral King as the Entroph War Rig descended, its dark gray, jagged plate metal formed a disc-like body and five thick spires ran along its rim, like a thorny crown. In the center, a towering pillar of fire propelled it downward through a curtain of toxic exhaust. It clamped to a stop on the planet’s surface, its landing gear and docking ramp pierced the ground like a spider’s pincers.

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Duriah stepped closer to his wife as two figures in splendid maroon robes emerged from the dust and smoke, one of them carrying another swaddled infant. The pair wafted over to the King and Queen and drew back their hoods.

Ur’Kova, Goddess of Bargains, bowed low. Her venomous eyes and honey smile locked on the pair, while Mar’Vanna, Goddess of Bloodsport, glanced between the two with a quiet scoff, holding the infant in her arms. Like most Cindreth, they were humanoid, but their flesh was discolored and ragged, ranged from gray-white to dull yellow, lips blackened and eyes sunken.

“High King Ahl-Ibn’Duriah,” Ur’Kova hissed through her needly grin, “War has aged you.”

Duriah raised an eyebrow apprehensively. “There are worse things to become, Ur’Kova. I trust your master won’t be attending?”

“My truest apologies, High Astral,” Ur’Kova opined, ever the wordsmith as Cindreth’s propaganda minister, “But our Dreadlord bears many responsibilities, I—”

“I was not asking for Axios,” Duriah interrupted, half-grimacing at the mention of his seditious nephew. “Your real master.”

Ur’Kova hesitated, then recovered her thin smile and rolled her sapped eyes over to Av’Ondra. “High Queen Av’Ondra, radiant as always,” she drew out. When Av’Ondra only glared back at her, Ur’Kova tilted her head. “You seem…unsettled, Your Grace.”

“Enough,” Duriah took a short step between Ur’Kova and his wife.

“Understandable,” Ur’Kova nodded, “It’s not every day a Queen is commanded to relinquish her very own—”

“Enough, I said,” Duriah repeated, his eyes flaring and voice reverberating with a fiery growl that drowned that of the Inferni Drive. Both infants rustled uncomfortably at the noise, and even Ur’Kova flinched slightly.

“Or what, decrepit?” Mar’Vanna’s deeper, raspy tone challenged, unflinching in the face of his obvious celestial might. Duriah’s brightening eyes locked with hers. “You’ll break your precious, flaccid treaty with us? So much the better. Keep your little worm and open fire, we welcome it!”

Av’Ondra finally swept forward. “Your master has agreed to our terms, has he not? Here you are, trading his son on his behalf, no?”

Mar’Vanna gave a half-grin, showing a mouthful of thicker, serrated teeth as she spat back “He has other children — can you say the same, Av’Ondra?”

“Yet he doesn’t come himself,” Av’Ondra redirected.

“This affair is beneath him.”

“Or perhaps bending to a truce in person is too arduous for the pride of the great Maladact.”

“You dare speak his name?” Mar’Vanna snarled, hunched forward like a coiled predator.

Duriah stepped forward swiftly, halting the wind in his stride. The planet holds silent as he looms down at Mar’Vanna. Despite the hate in her eyes, Mar’Vanna drew back.

“My husband and I reached this decision together,” Av’Ondra held her head high. “Your bile will not sway me.”

Reluctantly, Mar’Vanna backs up to Ur’Kova’s side. Duriah took a breath, stole a look at his wife, then stood tall. “The people of Arleth have consented to the terms. A child for a child, and a universe at peace. A trying sacrifice for all. But after today, the engines of war halt.”

Ur’Kova nodded insincerely, then waved Mar’Vanna forward. The Entroph crept forward to Av’Ondra, and the pair slowly exchanged the infants in their arms. Silence held, Duriah not yet permitting the wind to return.

“…It’s done, then,” Duriah nodded sternly. “Return to your dark crevice. Tell your master our affairs are no more.”

The Astral King and Queen turn swiftly for their ship. Av’Ondra doesn’t look at the infant in her arms, quickly handing him off to Duriah.

“Today,” Ur’Kova called after them. Duriah turned back slightly, while Av’Ondra stayed on the path to the ship. “For today, High King. But one so long-lived must not take solace in a peace for today. I come with a parting message from the Great Maladact.”

Duriah shot a glance at his wife, who did not turn, but slowed to a stop. Grief was tempered by instinct. He turned fully back to the two Entrophs, eyes lingering on his daughter in their arms, then focused on Ur’Kova.

“The Entrophs of Cindreth shall not tread in the space of the Astrals of Arleth. But your world is but a small fire. No matter how bright, a flame can only burn for so long, and the dark is patient. Know that for every moment of peace you’ve bought, your flesh and blood will learn to inflict and relish the greatest agonies,” she strokes the child’s head as Duriah did, “And the day will come, guided by the Maladact’s hand, when she and the Dreadlord will march upon your crystal spires, and tear them down!”

Duriah’s face remains fixed. He grunts with pity, then steps forward. “And his blood will be there. To tell his father ‘No further.’”

He turns and joins his wife. Ur’Kova glowers as she and Mar’Vanna return to their ship.

Once their hellish War Rig screamed back to life and burned out of atmosphere, Duriah focuses back on his wife as tears now flow down her cheeks. He cradles the baby in one arm and puts a hand on his wife’s shoulder with the other, but she shakes him off and storms up the ramp, never once acknowledging the baby, nor her husband.

Duriah sighs slowly, his head falls. He rocks the baby gently as he finally meets its gaze. The eyes are black orbs, surrounded by red veins. But Duriah’s ember eyes flare a bit as he smiles, holding the infant’s curious gaze…and the black dissipate like clouds. White orbs and sea green irises greet him in return.