The first week in space was the strangest of Ren's life.
Not because of the training that continued daily, his mother pushing him to extend his control, to hold his power for longer stretches, to reach for the energy that flowed through everything. Not because of the ship the Starfire was old but reliable, its systems humming with the same cosmic energy that pulsed in Ren's blood.
No, the strangest part was the silence.
On Elarion, there had always been sound. Wind through the cloud trees. Water falling from the floating islands. The calls of sky-birds at dawn and dusk. The murmur of the village, the laughter of children, Old Mira's voice calling out morning greetings.
Here, in the void between stars, there was nothing.
The ship's hull blocked out the vacuum, but it couldn't block out the awareness that grew in Ren day by day. The awareness of emptiness. Of cold. Of distances so vast that light itself took years to cross them.
He sat in the cockpit on the eighth day, staring at the viewscreen. Stars-streaked past as the Starfire traveled at speeds that would have seemed impossible just a few decades ago. But even at maximum warp, the universe was impossibly large.
"We're making good time," Sara said, settling into the seat beside him. She'd been sleeping more lately the stress of departure, of leaving the only home she'd known for seventeen years, was taking its toll. "At this rate, we'll reach the Andromeda border in about two months."
Ren nodded without speaking.
"Something on your mind?"
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Do you think they know yet?"
Sara's expression didn't change, but something flickered in her eyes. "The Lords? No. If they knew, we'd already be dead. Or running for our lives."
"Then what about the Five? The ones who killed Dad?"
"They're not omniscient, Ren. They're powerful incredibly powerful but they can't see everything. The universe is too big. That's why they have probes, scouts, agents. That's why your father hid us on Elarion in the first place." She paused. "Why do you ask?"
Ren turned from the viewscreen to look at her. In the dim light of the cockpit, his eyes glowed faintly blue a side effect of his power's growth that had become more noticeable in the past week.
"I dreamed about them last night," he said quietly. "All five of them. Standing in a circle, looking at something. Looking at me."
Sara's face paled. "Dreams aren't visions, Ren. Not all of them. Your mind is processing stress, fear, anticipation."
"They weren't normal dreams, Mom." He touched his chest, where his cosmic core pulsed beneath his ribs. "I felt them. Not like they were here, but like they were... aware. Searching. Like hunters casting nets into dark water."
Sara was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was careful. Controlled.
"Your father had dreams like that. Premonitions, he called them. Glimpses of events happening far away, or events yet to come." She reached out, taking his hand. "Did you see anything specific? Any details?"
Ren closed his eyes, trying to recapture the fading images. "They were in a throne room. Not the Twelve's throne room, something smaller. More personal. They were arguing about something. About a failure. One of them, the big one, Krydon, was angry. He kept saying they should have finished the job. Should have made sure."
"Made sure you were dead."
"Made sure the bloodline ended." Ren opened his eyes. "They don't know about me. Not yet. But they're starting to wonder. Starting to search."
Sara squeezed his hand. "Then we have to move faster. Find the fragments quicker. Get you stronger before they get closer."
"How? We're already at maximum warp. We can't go faster than light."
"No." Sara stood, walking to a panel on the far side of the cockpit. She pressed a sequence of symbols, and a hidden compartment slid open. Inside, nestled in padding that glowed faintly, was a crystal similar to the one in the ruins. "But this can help."
Ren stared at it. "Another memory crystal?"
"A navigation crystal. Your father's people used them to store routes paths through space that normal ships can't follow. Shortcuts through dimensional folds. Passageways that exist between the spaces that everyone else uses." She lifted it carefully, holding it up to the light. "This one contains a route to Xerath. A route that will cut our travel time from two months to three weeks."
"Three weeks?" Ren stood, approaching slowly. "Why didn't we use it from the beginning?"
"Because dimensional folding is dangerous. Unstable. If something goes wrong mid-jump, we could be scattered across a thousand light-years. Or trapped in a pocket dimension forever. Or simply cease to exist." Sara looked at the crystal, then at Ren. "I was hoping we wouldn't need to take the risk. But if the Five are starting to search..."
"We don't have a choice."
"No. We don't."
The dimensional jump was scheduled for the next day.
Ren spent the intervening hours preparing in the only way he knew how: training. He sat in the ship's small cargo hold, surrounded by boxes of supplies, and pushed his power to its limits.
Three seconds of full awareness became four. Four became five. Five became seven.
Sweat poured down his face. His muscles trembled. But he held on, feeling the energy flow through him, through the ship, through the void outside.
When he finally released it, collapsing onto the cold metal floor, he was gasping but smiling.
"Seven seconds," he whispered. "Dad trained for fifty years to hold three. I've trained for a year, and I'm already at seven."
But even as the thought formed, another voice whispered in the back of his mind.
Dad trained without a prophecy hanging over his head. Dad trained without killers hunting him. Dad trained in peace, with teachers and allies and time.
You don't have any of that.
Ren pushed the thought away and began his breathing exercises again.
The jump came without warning.
One moment, they were cruising through normal space, stars streaking past in the familiar warp tunnel. The next, Sara activated the crystal, and everything went wrong.
The viewscreen didn't just change, it screamed.
Colors Ren had never seen flooded the cockpit. Shapes that couldn't exist twisted and folded in on themselves. The ship shuddered violently, metal groaning in protest.
"Hold on!" Sara shouted over the noise, her hands fighting the controls.
Ren grabbed his seat, but it didn't matter. The forces tearing at the ship weren't physical; they were dimensional. They pulled at his body, his mind, his very existence.
And then something tore.
Not the ship. Something inside Ren.
His cosmic core, which had been growing steadily since awakening, suddenly exploded outward. Energy flooded every cell, every fiber, every atom of his being. He screamed or tried to but there was no sound in the chaos.
For a moment, he saw everything.
The dimensional corridor they were traveling through a tube of folded space that connected distant points in the universe. The layers of reality stacked around them dimensions upon dimensions, infinite and eternal. Beings that existed in those dimensions, vast and incomprehensible, turning their attention toward the tiny ship that had dared to trespass.
And at the end of the corridor, a point of light.
The first fragment.
It burned in his awareness like a miniature sun, calling to him, reaching for him across the impossible distances. And in that moment of connection, Ren understood something he hadn't before.
The fragments weren't just pieces of his father's power.
They were pieces of his father's soul.
And they were waiting for him.
The vision shattered as the ship burst out of the dimensional corridor and into normal space. The shuddering stopped. The colors faded. The viewscreen showed a normal starfield, peaceful and quiet.
Ren collapsed in his seat, gasping.
"Ren!" Sara was at his side instantly, her hands checking him for injuries. "Ren, talk to me!"
"I'm okay." His voice was hoarse, weak. "I'm okay. I just... I saw it. The fragment. I saw where we're going."
Sara stared at him. "You saw it? Through the dimensional jump?"
"I don't know how. But yes. I saw it." He met her eyes, and she flinched at what she saw there. His irises weren't just glowing now they were bright, like twin blue stars. "It's on Xerath. In a temple beneath the surface. Protected by something. Something dangerous."
Sara was quiet for a long moment. Then she stood, checking the ship's systems.
"The jump worked. We're in the Andromeda system. Xerath is approximately three days away at sunlight speed." She turned back to him, her expression unreadable. "Your eyes, Ren."
"I know." He could feel them, the power leaking out in ways he couldn't control. "It's getting harder to hold it in."
"Then we need to find you a teacher. Someone who can help you control what's waking up inside you." She sat down heavily, suddenly looking every one of her years. "Your father had mentors. Trainers. An entire civilization of warriors who understood cosmic power. We have... me. And I don't know enough."
Ren reached out, taking her hand. "You know enough, Mom. You've kept me alive for seventeen years. You've kept me hidden. You've trained me as much as anyone could." He squeezed gently. "We'll find help. The fragments they contain Dad's memories, right? His knowledge? Maybe they can teach me."
Sara nodded slowly. "Maybe. But we have to survive long enough to find them."
She stood, moving to the navigation console.
"Three days to Xerath. Rest while you can. Something tells me we're going to need all the strength we have."
The three days passed in tense preparation.
Ren trained constantly, pushing his control to its limits. By the second day, he could hold his full awareness for twelve seconds. By the third, for fifteen. But each time he released it, the energy took longer to settle back into his core. Each time, it left more of itself behind in his cells, his blood, his eyes.
His mother watched with a mixture of pride and fear that she couldn't quite hide.
On the third day, Xerath appeared on the viewscreen.
It was a harsh world orange and brown, with swirling dust storms covering most of its surface. No oceans. No visible vegetation. Just rock and sand and wind.
"That's it?" Ren asked. "The fragment is there?"
"According to your father's navigation crystal." Sara brought up scans on her console. "The atmosphere is thin but breathable. Surface temperature averages forty degrees Celsius during the day, dropping to near freezing at night. And there's something else..."
She frowned at the readings.
"What?"
"Energy signatures. Multiple sources, all beneath the surface. Some are consistent with your father's power. Others..." She shook her head. "Others are different. Alien. Possibly defensive systems."
"The temple," Ren said. "The one I saw in my vision."
"You saw a temple?"
"Not clearly. Just impressions. Stone corridors. Traps. And at the center, light." He touched his chest. "The fragment."
Sara was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded.
"We'll land at dusk. The temperature will be more manageable, and the darkness might help us avoid detection if anything's watching."
"And if something's waiting for us?"
Sara looked at him. Really looked at him. At the son who wasn't a child anymore. At the heir whose power was growing faster than either of them had anticipated.
"Then we fight. Or we run. Whatever keeps you alive."
The Starfire descended through Xerath's thin atmosphere as the sun set on the horizon. Dust swirled around the ship, reducing visibility to almost nothing. But Sara's instruments were good, and the ship's ancient systems seemed to know this world.
They landed in the shadow of a rock formation, the ship's hull already cooling as the temperature dropped.
Ren stood at the airlock, wearing a simple environment suit his mother had packed. It was light, flexible, designed for exactly this kind of world. At his belt, his father's energy blade hung dormant awake now, aware of its surroundings.
"Ready?" Sara asked, joining him.
"You're coming?"
"I'm not letting you go alone."
"Mom, if something happens"
"Then it happens to both of us." She met his eyes, and there was steel in her gaze. "I've spent seventeen years protecting you, Ren. I'm not stopping now."
He wanted to argue. Wanted to tell her to stay safe on the ship while he faced whatever waited below. But he knew that look. He'd seen it his whole life, every time she'd stood between him and danger.
"Okay," he said. "Together."
The airlock hissed open.
Xerath's wind hit them immediately hot, dry, carrying fine dust that stung exposed skin. The sky was purple-black, the first stars appearing as the sun finished its descent. In the distance, barely visible through the swirling dust, rose a structure.
The temple.
It was massive easily the size of the central spire on Elarion, but built differently. Squatter. Older. Made of stone so dark it seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. And at its base, a single entrance: an archway carved with symbols Ren couldn't read but somehow understood.
Enter, they seemed to say. If you dare.
"Your father really knew how to pick hiding spots," Sara muttered.
Ren almost laughed. Almost.
Together, they walked toward the temple, the wind tearing at their suits, the dust obscuring everything but the path ahead.
Behind them, the Starfire waited.
Above them, the stars of Andromeda glittered cold and indifferent.
And beneath them, deep in the earth, the first fragment of Kael Vortanis' s soul pulsed with light, waiting for his son to claim it.
END OF CHAPTER 4