Mascious now understood what the Whydits truly were. The realization filled him with anger. They were no different from those cursed old races; they might appear human, but they were bound by the same laws as those people, he thought.

Lady Varessi struggled to give birth. Everyone present knew why: birthing the child of a High Ranker was no easy task. Impatience began to wear on the two guards standing watch.

Not that it mattered much anymore. There was a sense of defeat etched into the routine of those helping Varessi, a calmness that contrasted sharply with the chaos at the start of the process.

Suddenly, an object disrupted the wind coming through the solitary window. A long shadow stretched across the brightly lit floor. When Mascious and the guards looked, they saw that it wasn’t an object blocking the window, but a person.

The figure was shaped like a woman, but her identity was concealed by armor made of sleek black metal. There was only one kind of armor made of that oily black metal: Alidora.

The entire room tensed as the figure dropped to the ground, forming a makeshift barricade around Varessi. Mascious and the guards assumed the woman was from one of the branch families’ search parties. More politics, he thought. This assumption was challenged when one of the guards demanded, “State your name and purpose.”

Everyone present felt a sense of danger, but they also believed that the stranger would not harm Varessi and her unborn child since they were sought after.

The woman cocked her head at the question, then raised it and pointed a finger through the makeshift barricade, directly at Varessi. It happened quickly: one guard, Surtrell, drew his needle, Mascious unsheathed his blade in haste, and the other guard, who was as suspicious of Mascious as he was of the woman, drew his needle and pointed it at Mascious.

Mascious and Heltrell's weapons clashed, sending shockwaves across the room. Mascious had not expected to meet resistance, and in his surprise and anger, he asked Heltrell why he was blocking him.

Heltrell was about to answer when a violent clash erupted behind him.

Surtrell had attempted to strike the woman with a needle whose blade had been chilled to a temperature so low it could freeze anything upon contact. But the woman caught the blade, halting its momentum. Using it as leverage, she pulled Surtrell forward, grabbed him by his tunic, and flung him into the entangled drive in the corner of the room.

This caused the needles inserted into Varessi to slip, and the excruciating pain of childbirth flooded back.

At this, the Feydaks screamed and hid in a corner. The engineer pulled out a lightning blade in a desperate attempt at self-defense, while Mascious and Heltrell quickly brokered a truce to face the woman together.

Heltrell adopted the Threadweaver stance, expertly weaving his needle through the space where she stood. However, the woman moved like slippery silk, effortlessly dodging the needle’s strikes.

Mascious's attacks were equally ineffective; she blocked, dodged, and countered as if she were toying with a child. Considering she wore Alidora armor, she hadn’t even unleashed her full power yet. It was clear she was merely playing with them.

While they fought, Varessi's anguished screams added to the chaos that engulfed the room. The engineer, standing directly in front of her, inadvertently glanced between her legs. Upon seeing the baby’s head protruding, he fainted.

The fighting stopped abruptly as everyone turned to see what had happened to the engineer. Mascious even thought someone else had sneaked in.

Then they realized why he had fainted—the baby’s head was visible, protruding and retracting from the birth canal.

The sight spurred the Feydaks back into action. They resumed monitoring Varessi's vitals, managing her heart rate and blood pressure.

"You," one of the Feydaks ordered a guard, "fetch a towel and a bowl of warm water."

The guard scowled. "I'm not taking orders from a Fey."

"Then go screw yourself elsewhere," she snapped back.

The other Feydak propped up the bed behind Varessi, raising her into a sitting position to help her push the baby downward. The motion made Varessi dizzy, and she vomited on the ground. When the guard returned with the bowl and towel, the Feydak snatched them from his hands.

She gently tipped the bowl to Varessi's mouth, letting her drink, then soaked the towel in the water and placed it on her forehead. She whispered to Varessi, "Remember, don’t push. The baby is already fighting its way out. Just breathe" Varessi nodded weakly.

They gathered around Varessi, forming a rough crescent shape. The engineer, who had just regained consciousness, looked over, and the first thing he saw was the baby’s head, covered in slime and blood, resting in one of the Feydaks' hands. He fainted again.

All had fought battles of their own that night, but Varessi’s struggle was the hardest. Birthing a lord’s child demanded a level of soul essence she did not possess. Yet she persisted, and soon enough, the weight slipped from her. Her child was born.

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The baby first fell into the hands of the armored stranger. In their focus on the birth, everyone had forgotten that the woman who had entered earlier to kill Varessi and her child was now holding the infant.

Realization gripped the room, and everyone held their breath. The armored woman cradled the newborn and brought it close to her sealed face. The baby nestled comfortably in her hard hands, unfazed by the iron claws protruding from the sides. It was as if the child felt at home there.

Pepin, one of the Feydaks who had taken charge during the chaotic delivery, made a gesture toward the armored woman.

Noticing this, the armored woman handed the baby to Pepin, who formed a makeshift cradle with her arms to nestle the newborn. She gazed at the child with tenderness, admiring the sparse turquoise hair clinging to the small forehead.

Pepin passed the baby to the other Feydak, who then handed the child to the twin guards. The guards looked at the child and instantly recognized their bloodline.

They then passed the child to the engineer, who awkwardly held it at arm's length, as if it were a rag doll, much to everyone’s dismay.

Shaking his head in disappointment, the engineer said, "You people are unbelievable. A newborn needs to be sanitized and medicated before being touched by others."

He retrieved a compartment from the fallen machine in the corner, pulling out needles, patches, and tablets. He administered the medicines to the baby, who did not cry once. “There,” he said when he finished. “Now it's healthy enough to be touched by even the dirtiest beggar.”

The engineer moved to hand the child to Varessi, but the armored woman gestured toward Mascious instead. Mascious took the baby from the engineer’s hands. He held the child close, noticing that, despite the Whydits’ hair, the baby looked very much like Varessi.

The baby had the same light ebony skin as her mother, and her eyes were tightly pursed, just as Varessi’s often were. Though there were other subtle similarities that might become more apparent with age, Mascious was certain this was his Lady's child.

He handed the baby to her mother.

The moment the child was transferred from Mascious's arms to Varessi's, she began to let out little gasps of breath, which soon turned into a soft cry. Varessi was initially startled, looking around anxiously, unsure how to respond to the baby's sudden mood change. But moments later, the baby began to laugh, her tiny, stubby hands reaching for her mother's face.

Varessi looked down at her newborn daughter.

“I will love you, child,” she whispered. “Against thy curse, I will love thee.”

The Whydit guards exchanged solemn glances. No one in the room knew it at the time, but they had decided silently that Varessi was to keep the child. Perhaps then, they could avoid their own uncertain fates.

But love would not be enough to save this child. No sooner had she entered the world than the light in her eyes dimmed and flickered out.

To an untrained eye, it appeared as if she had fallen into a peaceful sleep. But a mother knows better. Varessi searched frantically for the bright light that had shone in her child’s eyes moments earlier, but found nothing to soothe her worries.

“My baby!” she screamed. “Where has she gone? I never got to name her! I never gave her a name, my Heletta!”

The group surrounding her exchanged worried looks as Varessi descended into a frantic fit of crying. Mascious took the newborn from her hands and felt that the body was cold.

His heart raced as he placed the child back on her mother’s chest—perhaps a bit too roughly, revealing the darker side of his personality.

Then, new sobs were heard from the newborn. Varessi hastily grabbed the child and watched as its eyes opened. Relief swept through the group, who had begun to fear the worst.

The engineer’s wrist receiver beeped. He excused himself from the chaos, hoping the message would give him an excuse to leave, as the scene had exhausted him.

As Varessi looked into the baby’s eyes, a shocking, twisted truth dawned on her. She let out a visceral scream, claiming that this was not her child—that a malignant entity had taken over the body of her newborn. She insisted that her child was dead and something unnatural was inhabiting its corpse.

She flung the baby to the ground, but one of the guards swiftly caught it. Holding the child securely in his arms, he glared angrily at Varessi, but she had been consumed by madness.

Mascious rushed to her side, tears in his eyes, pleading to take some of her burden upon himself. To the guards, it was a pathetic sight, but they couldn’t help but pity the child caught between two people who seemed to care for each other deeply.

The engineer turned off his receiver, his face bearing a grave expression of confusion and anger. “He’s dead,” he said, but no one heard him at first. He shouted again, “He’s dead! Koleson Whydit, Lord of the Kerrasuk regions, hero of the Voidborne Wars—he died.”

For a moment, there was silence in the room. Lord Koleson had not only been a lord but also a hero of the Voidborne Wars, for which he was awarded a great needle. But he was more than that; he was a custodian of a great family, the patriarch of an ancient culture, and the ultimate symbol of the empire’s great uncertainty.

Before Koleson, it was easy to believe that only the strong and powerful could claim the bloodline of the gods. But what of a child who had just washed ashore, with no family, no ties to land or origin, yet wielding power mightier than a Lancer?

What claim did he have to power? Why did he carry the symbol of a dead god? Why had he refused a seat as one of the Fifty Great Lords in the Radstadt? Was it an act of subservience or quiet rebellion?

A powerful enigma, assumed by many to be eternal, had died peacefully in his sleep, mere minutes ago, according to the engineer.

A heavy feeling washed over the room, passing from the Feydaks and the engineer, over the armored woman to Mascious, and even Varessi, who seemed unaware of the new predicament but appeared to embody its essence.

The only three who stood apart from this shift but were still integral to it were the two guards and the child held between them.

Disgust filled the crew as they realized they had been part of some kind of profane ritual. One of the Feydaks shuddered and whispered to the other, “And they call us heretics with sullied blood. The audacity.”

Though she spoke to her companion, her quick glance toward the guards made it clear whom her words were meant for.

“I never should have come here,” the engineer muttered. “I knew something was wrong when that shady man sent me here. This is why he was expelled from the classroom.” He seemed almost entranced in his delirium before snapping out of it and declaring, “I’m leaving. I was never involved.”

“So are we,” the Feydak said. They, too, left. There was nothing the guards could say to make them stay.

The first guard tried to reason with Mascious, but Mascious spat back, “Keep that serpentine abomination away from my mistress.” There was nothing they could do for him or Varessi.

The armored woman had disappeared.

The Whydits—all three of them—were now alone. They looked at the child and were struck by its innocence. If love could not save her from her fate, they wondered, then nothing could.

They took the child and fled.

Prologue End.