Alan pressed the call button on his desk. Alia opened the door and stepped inside, took a few careful paces forward and bowed deeply. "I'm sorry, Prime Minister. I couldn't stop him."
When she lifted her head, Alan gave her a brief, reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Alia. He did have some urgent news, so think nothing of it."
"Thank you, Prime Minister. Should I escort him out?"
Alan turned back toward the window. "There's no need. He's already gone."
His words confused her, and stranger still, the young soldier was nowhere to be seen, as though he had simply vanished into thin air. A faint unease crept over her — a feeling she had never had in that office before.
"Arrange a meeting with the Emperor," Alan went on. "There are some things he needs to hear."
"Of course, sir." Alia hesitated for half a heartbeat at the door, as if there were a question she wanted to ask, and then thought better of it. She left quickly and went back to her desk. That same unsettled feeling stayed lodged in her chest for the rest of the day.
Inside the office, Alan rose, and the air in front of him rippled like water. He stepped into the distortion, and as he did, his form shifted once more, back into the golden-haired figure beneath the disguise.
On the other side lay a world without void — no dark expanse between the stars at all. Instead, the sky above was a vast, reflective sea of silver stretching away forever. Its light did not twinkle the way stars do or flicker with the fire of distant suns; it was steady, soft, ethereal, casting a cool glow over the land below, and the sky itself seemed almost alive, its surface glowing with a mysterious radiance that shimmered back from everything beneath it. The mountains that dominated that world were unlike any others. They rose in towering spirals of stone that twisted upward in endless, graceful arcs, as though born from some ancient forgotten design, their jagged peaks curving and winding in impossible patterns as they climbed toward the glowing heavens, streaked with veins of silver that pulsed with a quiet energy. From far away they looked like shimmering pillars reaching into the heart of the sky, and from close up they were something more — vast ancient spires carved by time and forces beyond understanding. The air was cool, crisp and perfectly still, and yet there was always a current beneath it, an invisible hum running through the land, and a gentle wind danced in slow spirals around the peaks, carrying a faint scent of something metallic and something sweet. It felt like a world suspended outside of time.
The golden-haired man hovered in front of one of those mountains and slowly began to ascend.
The castle rose from the mountain like a luminous titan — an entire civilization sculpted into spiraling tiers of stone and gold, its colossal terraces curving outward in vast concentric rings, each one lined with towering columns that gave the whole structure an ancient, almost divine grandeur. Thousands of golden lights flickered across it, along its walkways, beneath its archways, inside countless chambers stacked like jewels up the mountainside. Warm light spilled through its tall colonnades onto snow-dusted ledges and into the mist below. Its highest tier rose into a crowned summit, a radiant citadel above all the others, its parapets and domes shining like molten gold against the eternal sky. Every pathway spiraled gracefully around the mountain in luminous ribbons connecting hall to hall and shrine to tower, flowing upward like rivers of gold in perfect harmony with the mountain's curves, until the whole fortress looked like a living, breathing thing — part fortress, part temple, part dream. Far below, its foundations vanished into swirling fog, so that it seemed to rest not on stone at all, but on the sky itself.
Inside, he walked through halls flooded with light from towering stained-glass windows in soft golds and rose, the light falling in long, gentle beams across marble floors inlaid with mosaics that seemed to glow from within. Slender columns crowned with gold leaf lined the hall in stately rows, and above them the stone arched up into impossibly high vaults, ribbed and branching like the limbs of ancient trees turned to marble, unfolding between the arches into gilded patterns and frescoes of celestial scenes and sacred emblems, so that the whole hall felt like the inside of a grand, sanctified dream.
At its end stood two enormous silver doors, flanked by two knights. Their armor was a masterpiece of polished steel shaped in sharp angles and flowing curves, elegant and lethal at once, gold tracing every joint and edge like captured sunlight. Their helmets were the most striking of all — tall, sweeping horns of gold framing a narrow, ominous visor that revealed nothing of the faces beneath. White cloth wrapped their shoulders, and a deep blue cloak trailed behind each of them over dark plating etched with geometric patterns.
The great doors opened slowly onto a sweeping circle of polished stone, its intricate inlays spiraling toward the center like a map of the heavens, and every step within it echoed with quiet authority. Colossal pillars of pale marble veined like frozen lightning ringed the chamber, and between them stood statues of beings and sages and warriors. Along its curved wall, twelve golden thrones climbed toward the highest seat, each one crowned with sharp crestwork and unmistakable grandeur — but the greatest throne of all stood alone at the summit, raised above the rest and blazing with ornate filigree and towering spires of gilded metal, and its presence dominated the room.
The golden-haired man walked to the center of the chamber and clapped his hands once. Particles of light came drifting down onto the thrones and gathered there into twelve luminous beings in radiant cloaks, seated in their places.
The figure on the highest throne rose.
"To what do we owe this summons, Saint-Germain?"