Sally's office, in the real world, was the antithesis of the chaos she orchestrated. It was a sanctuary of minimalism and control, perched on the eightieth floor of a glass-and-steel tower that pierced the clouds over Tokyo. The air was purified, the floor a slab of polished black marble reflecting the city skyline like a nocturnal lake. A single white orchid—perfect, solitary—was the only concession to nature. It was a space that admitted neither disorder nor emotion.
And yet, in that moment, the sanctuary was being profaned by a silent storm.
Sally stood before her holo-projector, its cold light washing her face in a bluish glow. On the screen, Alexandre's two words looped in silence.
I regret it.
She should have been analyzing. As Ninsun, the strategist, she should have been dissecting the tactical implications. Was it a trap laid by Ishtar? An attempt by Alexandre to play both sides? A moment of weakness to be exploited? Her mind, trained to see the world as a system of levers and gears, formed the right questions.
But it wasn't Ninsun in control.
It was Sally.
And Sally felt the insult like a physical cut.
I regret it.
What did he regret? The power? The wealth? The glory she had given him? Or did he regret leaving Helen's shadow behind? The implication was intolerable. It suggested that some part of him still belonged to her. That the masterpiece Sally had sculpted from the clay of Lex's ambition still carried a flaw—a fracture that remembered its original maker.
Her hand clenched at her side, nails biting into her palm. The calm that was her armor began to crack. She had surpassed Helen in every regard. She was smarter, richer, more powerful. She had anticipated every move Ishtar would make, built an empire while the other wallowed in vengeance. Alexandre was supposed to be her trophy—the living, breathing proof of her total victory.
And now that trophy was whispering apologies to her ghost.
Her vanity—deep, immovable, absolute—had been wounded. And the wound bled fury. For the first time since the beginning of her campaign, Sally's cold logic was overrun by raw, human emotion. She needed to punish him. To remind him who owned him. To reassert control—not just over his actions, but over his thoughts, over his very regret.
Her hand rose, trembling, and for a moment she almost crushed the projector, almost shattered the glass wall separating her from the world. But she stopped herself. Physical violence was crude, uncontrolled. Her vengeance would be, as always, elegant, precise, and disguised as strategy.
With swift, exact movements, she accessed her private command terminal. Her mind, now sharpened by anger, formed a plan.
A mistake.
Her first real mistake.
A mistake born not of logic—but of wounded pride.
She would not confront him. Would not punish him openly. That would mean admitting he had affected her. Instead, she would isolate him. She would strip away the symbol of his power—the manifestation of his importance: his escort. The massive fleet surrounding him was not just protection; it was a testament to his status as supreme commander. It was his shield—and his crown.
And she would take it away.
With a composure that belied the fury beneath it, Ninsun opened a direct communication channel to the admiral commanding the Berserker Horde's escort fleet—one of the forces guarding Alexandre's flank.
"Admiral Bor," Ninsun said, her voice perfectly calm. "A new high-priority directive. A Pariah threat has been detected in the Typhon system. A risk to our primary supply line. Move your fleet to intercept and eliminate. Immediately."
The Horde admiral, a man who valued battle above all else, did not hesitate. "Understood, Commander. Moving out."
Next, she contacted the Blackwood escort commander. The pretext was different.
"Commander Vale, we have a window of opportunity to secure mining rights in the Silver Ring. The Council has approved a rapid-response operation. Your fleet has the required expertise. Move now."
One by one, she contacted the leaders of the support fleets forming the security perimeter around the Hand of Fate. Each received a different excuse—a critical mission, an urgent threat, a fleeting opportunity. All plausible. All wrapped in the language of strategy and necessity. None mentioned Alexandre. None were questioned.
She was clipping his wings, feather by feather.
Leaving him vulnerable—not to enemy attack, but to his own insignificance.
He wanted to regret?
Good.
Let him regret alone, in the dark—a king in an empty castle.
Aboard the Hand of Fate, the hours dragged in torturous silence. Alexandre had sent his message—and the universe had answered with nothing. Each passing minute without a reply from Helen was a grain of sand falling through an hourglass, marking the death of his last hope.
He tried to convince himself the silence was good. Maybe she was thinking. Maybe she was considering.
But deep down, he knew the woman Helen had become. The new Ishtar did not deliberate endlessly. She was decisive. Relentless. Silence was not consideration.
It was an answer.
That was when his communications officer turned, brow furrowed.
"Sir, we're receiving a transmission from Admiral Bor. The Horde fleet is withdrawing from the sector. They've received new orders… directly from Commander Ninsun."
A chill ran down Alexandre's spine. Directly from Ninsun? Why hadn't she gone through him—the fleet commander?
"What are his orders?"
"He says they're classified, sir. High-priority operation."
Before Alexandre could process it, another report came in.
"Sir, the Blackwood fleet is also jumping out. Orders from the Commander."
Then another.
And another.
Like stars blinking out, the icons representing his escort fleet on the tactical map began to vanish one by one. The wall of shields—the web of security surrounding him—was unraveling. The space around the Hand of Fate was becoming dangerously empty.
Paranoia, cold and creeping, flooded his veins.
This wasn't coincidence.
It was systematic.
Deliberate.
Two possibilities—both terrible—warred in his mind.
The first was the cruelest.
Helen had received his message. And instead of replying—of forgiving, of condemning, of even acknowledging his pain—she had used it. With the precision of a surgeon excising a tumor, she had taken his moment of vulnerability and forwarded it straight to Ninsun. This was her revenge. Not a strike of lasers—but a political dagger, meant to destroy him from the inside out.
She hadn't rejected him.
She had thrown him into the fire.
The second possibility was just as terrifying.
Ninsun had discovered it on her own. Her surveillance was so absolute, her control so complete, that his pathetic attempt at secrecy had been detected the instant it was sent. And this—this was his punishment. Not execution, but exile. Tactical isolation. A reminder that he was a piece on her board—and pieces that moved on their own were removed from play.
He looked at the tactical screen—at the solitary icon of his magnificent flagship, now bare and exposed in the void.
And he understood the terrible truth.
It didn't matter which possibility was real.
It didn't matter whether it was Helen's rejection or Ninsun's discovery.
The result was the same.
In reaching back toward the past, he had set his present on fire.
His bridge to the family he had betrayed lay in ruins.
His place in the empire he had helped build had become a prison.
Alexandre—the man who had become Enlil, Lord of the Wind—was utterly alone, adrift in the silence between two wars, between two women he had lost forever.
He no longer had a home on either side of the war.