Chapter 6
Three weeks after Xerath, Ren still couldn't sleep.
He lay in his bunk on the Starfire, staring at the ceiling, feeling the hum of the engines through the walls. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw things. Flashes of his father's memories. Techniques he'd never learned. Faces of people he'd never met.
The courage fragment had changed him. That much was obvious. But what nobody had told him was that change hurt.
Not physically. His body felt fine. Better than fine, actually. Stronger. Faster. More alive.
But his mind felt like it was splitting apart.
"You're awake again."
His mother's voice came from the doorway. Ren didn't turn. He just kept staring at the ceiling.
"Can't sleep."
Sara walked in and sat on the edge of his bunk. In the dim light, she looked tired. Older than she had on Elarion. The stress of the past few weeks was written in every line of her face.
"Talk to me," she said softly.
Ren was quiet for a long moment. Then: "I keep seeing things. Dad's things. Places he fought. People he knew. Enemies he killed." He finally turned to look at her. "Mom, I saw him die. Not the way you described it. I actually saw it. The Five attacking all at once. The look on his face when he realized he couldn't win."
Sara's eyes glistened, but she didn't cry. She'd probably done all her crying years ago.
"That's the fragment," she said. "It's not just power. It's memory. Experience. Part of who he was." She reached out and took his hand. "It'll settle down eventually. Your father's memories will find their place alongside your own. But it takes time."
"How much time?"
"I don't know. Nobody's ever done this before. Reclaiming a fragmented soul... it's not exactly common."
Ren almost laughed at that. Almost.
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the ship's quiet hum. Somewhere ahead, the second fragment waited. According to the navigation crystal, it was on a moon called Vorn, in a system controlled by one of the lesser galactic powers. Not one of the Twelve directly, but allied with them. Close enough to be dangerous.
"We should reach Vorn in about two weeks," Sara said, as if reading his thoughts. "Plenty of time for you to get used to the new memories."
"And if I don't get used to them?"
"Then we deal with it. Like we've dealt with everything else." She squeezed his hand. "Together."
Ren looked at her. Really looked. Seventeen years she'd protected him. Seventeen years of secrets and fear and hope. All for a prophecy that might not even come true.
"I love you, Mom."
Sara's face softened. "I love you too, baby. Now try to sleep. You'll need your strength."
She stood and walked to the door. At the threshold, she paused.
"Ren? Your father would be so proud of you. I hope you know that."
Then she was gone, and Ren was alone with the hum of the engines and the ghosts in his head.
Two weeks passed.
Ren trained. He meditated. He learned to push the foreign memories aside when they threatened to overwhelm him. By the time Vorn appeared on the viewscreen, he could almost pretend he was normal.
Almost.
Vorn was beautiful in a harsh way. A silver-gray moon orbiting a gas giant the color of blood. Its surface was covered in craters and mountains, with thin ice at the poles and not much else.
"Livable?" Ren asked, studying the scans.
"Barely." Sara adjusted the sensors. "Thin atmosphere, low gravity, average temperature about twenty below. We'll need suits."
"Any signs of civilization?"
"Some. Small settlements near the equator. Mining operations, looks like. Probably extracting minerals for the local empire." She frowned at the readings. "But the fragment isn't near any of them. It's in the northern hemisphere, in a region that's completely uninhabited."
Ren nodded. "Dad liked remote places."
"Your father liked dramatic places. There's a difference." She smiled slightly. "Remember Xerath? The temple of trials in the middle of a desert? He probably chose this one because it looks like a frozen hell."
"Charming."
"He had his moments."
They descended toward the surface, the Starfire cutting through thin clouds of ice crystals. Below, the landscape grew clearer. Craters. Mountains. Frozen lakes that hadn't seen liquid water in millions of years.
And something else.
A structure.
It rose from the ice like a black needle, impossibly tall, impossibly thin. Ren spotted it from fifty kilometers away.
"That's it," he breathed. "That's where the fragment is."
Sara looked at the readings, then at the viewscreen, then back at the readings.
"Ren, that structure is massive. Easily five kilometers tall. How did your father build something like that without anyone noticing?"
"He didn't build it. He found it." Ren touched his chest, where the courage fragment pulsed in rhythm with his heart. "The memories are clearer now. This place is ancient. Older than the Twelve Galaxies. Older than human civilization. Dad found it during his travels and hid the fragment here because he knew nobody else could get inside."
"Can we get inside?"
Ren smiled. "I'm his son. Of course we can."
Landing on Vorn was trickier than expected.
The ice near the structure was unstable, cracking under the ship's weight. Sara had to set down almost a kilometer away, on a patch of solid rock that jutted from the frozen surface.
By the time they stepped out in their environment suits, the wind was already picking up.
"This place is miserable," Ren muttered, his voice crackling through the suit's comm.
"You should have seen some of the places your father took me." Sara checked her oxygen levels. "Once we spent three weeks on a planet made entirely of methane. It rained liquid natural gas."
"Romantic."
"He thought so."
They started walking toward the structure. The ice crunched beneath their boots, each step leaving a shallow imprint that quickly filled with wind-blown snow. In the distance, the black needle loomed, seeming to grow larger with every step.
Up close, it was even more impressive.
The surface was perfectly smooth, perfectly black, absorbing light instead of reflecting it. No seams. No doors. No windows. Just an unbroken surface that rose five kilometers into the purple sky.
"Now what?" Sara asked.
Ren placed his hand on the surface. It was cold. Colder than the ice around them. But beneath that cold, he felt something. A pulse. Familiar.
"Dad's here," he whispered. "I can feel him."
The surface rippled.
Not like stone. Like water. Like the black material suddenly became liquid, flowing around Ren's hand, up his arm, across his body.
"Ren!" Sara grabbed for him, but the material was too fast.
And then it pulled him through.
He emerged inside the structure.
The transition was instant. One moment he was on the frozen surface, his mother screaming his name. The next he was in a vast chamber, warm and silent, with walls that glowed faintly gold.
"Ren? Ren, can you hear me?"
His mother's voice came through the comm, thin and distorted.
"I'm okay, Mom. I'm inside. The structure let me in."
"Let you in? It swallowed you!"
"I think that's how it works." He looked around. The chamber was empty except for a single door on the far side. "I'm going to find the fragment. Wait for me at the ship."
"Ren, no. Don't go alone."
"I'm not alone. Dad's here. I can feel him." He started walking toward the door. "I'll be back. I promise."
The comm crackled, but his mother didn't respond. She knew better than to argue when he'd made up his mind.
The door led to a corridor. The corridor led to stairs. The stairs led down.
For what felt like hours, Ren descended into the heart of the ancient structure. The walls told stories. Carvings so detailed they seemed alive. Battles between beings that dwarfed planets. Civilizations rising and falling. Stars being born and dying.
And at the center of it all, a figure.
His father.
Not really. Just an image, repeated over and over. Kael Vortanis standing against impossible odds. Kael Vortanis refusing to yield. Kael Vortanis dying so his son could live.
The memories surged again, and this time Ren let them come.
He saw his father's childhood on Vortanis Prime. Training from dawn until dusk. Learning to control the cosmic fire that burned in his blood. Falling in love with a girl who died in one of the Lords' purges. Swearing revenge.
He saw the centuries of war. The victories. The losses. The friends who fell beside him.
He saw the day his father met Sara. A human scientist, studying MILTONS on a remote research station. She wasn't afraid of him. She looked at him like he was just a man, not a legend. And for the first time in three hundred years, Kael Vortanis felt something other than rage.
He saw their love. Their marriage. Their joy when Sara discovered she was pregnant.
And he saw the prophecy. The words that doomed them all.
A child born of cosmic and human blood will destroy the Lords of the Twelve Galaxies.
The news spread fast. The Lords couldn't allow that child to live. They sent the Five. And Kael, knowing he couldn't win, knowing he would never see his son grow up, did the only thing he could.
He bought them time.
Ren reached the bottom of the stairs.
Another chamber. Larger than the first. And at its center, floating in midair, the second fragment.
It pulsed with deep purple light. Different from the courage fragment's blue. This one felt heavy. Solid. Grounded.
Ren approached slowly. The fragment responded to his presence, brightening with each step.
You found me.
His father's voice. But different. Deeper.
The courage fragment taught you to sacrifice. This one will teach you to endure. To stand firm when everything tries to knock you down. To be the immovable object in a universe of unstoppable forces.
"What is this fragment?" Ren asked aloud.
Endurance. The strength to keep going when hope is lost. The will to survive when survival seems impossible. I needed this more than any other during the war. And now you need it too.
Ren reached out. His fingers touched the purple light.
And the universe exploded.
He was back on Elarion.
No. Not Elarion. A memory of Elarion. The ruins before they were ruins. The spire before it was broken. Warrior's training in the courtyards, laughing, living.
And there, among them, his father.
Younger. Less worn. But unmistakably Kael Vortanis.
"You're here."
Ren turned. His father stood beside him, solid and real.
"Am I dead?" Ren asked.
"No. You're inside the fragment. Accessing memories." Kael smiled, and it was like watching the sun rise. "I can't stay long. Just long enough to tell you what you need to know."
"Tell me."
Kael gestured, and the scene changed. They stood on a battlefield now. Bodies everywhere. Ships burning in the sky. The stench of death thick in the air.
"This was my lowest point," Kael said quietly. "After the girl I loved died. After I'd lost everything. I stood here and thought about giving up. Just ending it."
"But you didn't."
"No. I kept going. Not because I was brave. Because I was stubborn." He looked at Ren. "That's what endurance really is, son. Not some noble quality. Just stubbornness. Refusing to quit even when quitting would be easier."
Ren looked at the battlefield. At the death and destruction.
"How do you do it? How do you keep going when everything hurts?"
Kael was quiet for a moment. Then: "You find something worth fighting for. Someone worth living for. For me, after I lost everything, that something was revenge. Later, it was justice. And then..." He smiled softly. "Then I met your mother, and I found something I never expected. Hope."
He put a hand on Ren's shoulder. Even as a memory, the touch felt real.
"You'll find your own reasons to keep going. Your mother. Your friends. The people you'll save. The universe you'll free. Hold onto them. Let them carry you through the dark times."
The scene began to fade.
"Dad—"
"I know, son. I know. But I have to go. The fragment is yours now. Use it well."
The battlefield dissolved. The memories faded. And Ren was alone in the chamber, the purple light flowing into his chest, becoming part of him.
When he opened his eyes, he was lying on the ice.
The structure was gone. No black needle. No ancient walls. Just empty ice and purple sky.
"Ren!"
His mother was running toward him, her suit covered in frost, her face pale with fear.
"I'm okay." He sat up slowly. The purple light was inside him now, alongside the blue. Two fragments. Two aspects of his father's soul. "I'm okay, Mom."
"What happened? The structure just... vanished."
"I got the fragment." He stood, testing his legs. They felt solid. Strong. "Dad's endurance. It's mine now."
Sara stared at him for a long moment. Then she did something unexpected.
She laughed.
"You know, when I imagined your future, I never pictured you running around frozen moons collecting pieces of your father's soul."
Ren grinned. "Disappointed?"
"Never." She hugged him tight, environment suits and all. "Never, baby. Let's go home."
They walked back to the Starfire together, the wind picking up behind them. Behind them, where the structure had stood, there was nothing but ice and memory.
Two fragments down.
Ten to go.
END OF CHAPTER 6