The Seraph was not built for comfort. Elara sat strapped into the co-pilot's chair—a hard, utilitarian sling of carbon fiber—watching the star field streaking past the viewport. They were using a non-linear escape vector, slingshotting past a derelict asteroid field, which made the small spaceship shudder and groan in protest.
The cockpit was claustrophobic, amplifying the tension between them. Elara could smell the faint gunpowder residue on Rhys's uniform from the encounter with the drones, and the subtle, dangerous warmth of his presence was an unwelcome intrusion into her calculated shell of grief.
"Stop."
Rhys, who was wrestling with the navigational array, paused. "Stop what, Vess? I'm initiating the jump sequence. We have a five-minute window before the Federation recognizes that asset ejection wasn't a malfunction."
"Stop lying to me," Elara clarified, her voice dangerously quiet. She reached for the primary navigation screen, where the impossible, violet sigil from the Archives was begging to be channeled. "You want me to unlock the path to the Silent Zone. I need to channel my Astromancy magic through this console to feed it the right coordinates. I won't do it until you give me the real reason you joined the Concord—and what happened to Kael."
Rhys gripped the ship's yoke, his knuckles white against the black casing. The flickering blue light of the console cast harsh shadows across his already severe face.
"The truth won't change the mission," he bit out, his stormy amethyst eyes finally locking onto hers.
"The truth changes everything," Elara countered, the heartbreak she had carried for three years finally finding its voice. "You left Kael and me. You swore allegiance to the people who are systematically starving the Outer Colonies. And you think I'm going to use a nascent power I don't understand to help a Concord captain save a Concord flagship? You need to earn this, Rhys. Or you can sit here and be captured."
The threat hung heavy in the air, weighted by their shared, broken history.
The Broken Vows
Rhys slowly released the yoke. The Seraph drifted in neutral space, the star-trails slowing to pinpricks. He turned fully toward her, and in the low light, Elara saw the flicker of something she hadn't seen in years: raw, agonizing sadness.
"It wasn't a defection," Rhys said, his voice stripped bare. "It was a deep infiltration. Three years ago, Kael found data—proof that the Concord wasn't just hoarding resources. They were developing a weapon based on ancient Astromancer artifacts, centered around the flagship Crown of Dreams."
Elara frowned. "A weapon? What could a flagship possibly do?"
"It doesn't destroy worlds, Elara. It rewrites them. Kael called it a 'Reality Anchor.' The Concord's Grand Sovereign—the Empress—is trying to harness the primordial magic that binds the universe together, using it to permanently stabilize the borders of her Empire, making the Concord invincible and locking all others out of the higher planes of existence."
He paused, letting the scope of the conspiracy sink in.
"But the weapon required a piece of unique, living power—a key. Kael had a lead on a potential key, but he was too well-known by the Federation. He needed someone with a military profile and access to the highest echelons of the Concord command structure to get close to the Empress and track the weapon's development."
He looked at her, and the raw grief in his eyes was identical to the grief she carried. "He came to me, Elara. He didn't ask me to abandon you. He begged me to play the villain—to cut all ties, even the ones I cherished, to convince the Empress I was loyal. He knew the cost to my reputation, to his trust, to ourlove."
"He... he asked you?" The words tasted like ash. All the pain, all the bitterness she had nursed, had been a poison based on a lie.
"The last thing Kael ever told me," Rhys whispered, his voice cracking, "was that you and he had found a piece of Astromancy debris—the igneous rock. He theorized it could be an amplifier. I was supposed to find you, after the fact, when the mission was complete. But the storm… the storm took him before I could complete my objective."
Rhys reached into his uniform pocket and pulled out a small, metallic object: a data-slate no bigger than her thumb. He held it out to her.
"This is Kael's final transmission. It was sent to me hours before the Artemis was destroyed. It's encrypted with his biometrics. You are the only other person who knows his full security sequence."
The Astromancer Rises
Elara took the slate, her hands trembling. It felt cold, heavy—a final testament to the man she loved, handed to her by the man who broke her heart. Her fingers curled around Kael's igneous rock in her pocket. The sadness of loss was now mixed with the sudden, terrible realization that her anger had been misdirected, that Kael's last act was a sacrifice Rhys had had to live with.
"The coordinates you saw," Rhys continued urgently, leaning forward, "they're not a physical location. They're an arcane anchor—the only place in the Silent Zone where the Crown of Dreams is vulnerable. We have to breach the core before the Empress completes the weapon. But the Seraph's nav-system can't parse the magic."
He extended his hand toward the console. "You need to channel the Astromancy power, Vess. The real map isn't on the screen; it's inside you. I need you to trust me now, not as the man who betrayed you, but as the one who never left the mission Kael started. Do this, and we save the galaxy. Fail, and it's heartbreak for the entire universe."
Elara looked from Rhys's desperate eyes to the inert console. The chance to vindicate Kael, to honor his final mission, was an overwhelming compulsion.
She placed her hand flat against the primary screen. The igneous rock in her pocket grew scalding hot.
This time, she didn't resist. She let the magic flow out—a pure, cold, silver-violet light that enveloped her hand and spread across the console. The geometric sigil exploded across the screen, impossibly complex, folding space into a single, navigable path.
"Done," she breathed, the power leaving her spent but exhilarated.
Rhys Malakor watched her, not as a target, but as a source of terrifying, beautiful power. A flicker of something akin to awe, and something unmistakably like love, crossed his face.
"Strap in, Elara," he ordered, his voice thick with unvoiced emotion. "We're going to the Silent Zone."
He slammed the switch. The small spaceship lurched violently, and the universe outside dissolved into a kaleidoscope of impossible light, beginning their perilous journey toward the crippled Crown of Dreams.