Erythra Prime - 22 Years Before the Present
The world that bore Altair died screaming.
One moment, the planet Erythra Prime stood as a beacon of civilization, its skyscrapers piercing the sky like the fingers of gods. The next, it was engulfed in fire, swallowed whole by the merciless void. The child entered the world with a scream. Thin, piercing, and alive. But the woman who bore him had no strength left to hold him. She barely had the strength to breathe.
Shackled to the birthing slab, her arms trembled as she reached forward, her fingers aching to touch the infant. The chamber was cold, carved from stone, bathed in the pale glow of artificial lights embedded in the ceiling. The air smelled of incense, damp rock, and blood.
A robed figure lifted the newborn, cradling him in arms wrapped in ceremonial cloth. His face was hidden behind an ivory mask etched with the spirals of the Harmonic Order. Others stood behind him, silent, watching. They had been waiting for this moment.
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"Please" The mother's voice was raw, barely a whisper. "Please give him to me."
The figure in the mask turned his head slightly, as if considering her words, then looked down at the child. His tiny chest rose and fell, unaware of the fate carved for him before his first breath.
"He is not yours."
The words were spoken with no malice, no triumph, only certainty. He stepped back, and the others moved with him, their formation like a closing cage.
The mother let out a sob, her body wracked with exhaustion and pain. "He's just a baby! Please!"
The robed figures did not stop. The doors at the end of the chamber groaned open, revealing a passageway stretching into darkness. The child did not cry anymore. He lay still in the priest's arms, as if already resigned to his fate.
"You should feel honored," the priest said, pausing at the threshold. "Your bloodline has served its purpose. He will be greater than you could ever imagine."
Her scream followed them long after they had left the chamber.
The doors shut. The birthing slab was empty, save for the mother trembling, broken form. She would not be allowed to live.
And somewhere beyond the cold stone walls of the temple, under a sky choked with the light of distant nebulae, a child was carried toward a future he would never have chosen.
He had no name yet.
But one day, the galaxy would know him as Altaur Serapis.