Imperial Calendar 66k 420.
Three cycles had passed since the night the world fractured. Three cycles since the psychic crystal shattered in the frozen wastes, since King Aiden was slaughtered in his bed, and since a fanatic named Enoch claimed a holy throne in the name of a sadistic God.
The continent of the North had been violently redrawn in blood and iron, but inside the sprawling, high-vaulted nursery of the Obsidian Palace, there was only a profound, untouchable peace.
Devin stood over a finely carved crib of dark highland oak. Resting inside, clutching a small, stuffed dire-wolf, was a three-cycle-old boy with a shock of unruly dark hair and bright, inquisitive amber eyes.
Arthur.
Devin had named his son after his true father—the murdered King of Trangdar. He had done it quietly, privately justifying it to the Cyprian court as a gesture of historical respect, but Rebecca knew the truth. Arthur was the anchor that had tethered Devin's soul to the mortal realm when the hatred for the Creator had nearly driven him to a suicide mission.
"His runic compression lessons start next cycle," a voice said from the doorway.
Devin turned. Queen Rebecca stood leaning against the heavy iron doorframe. She wore the silver crown of Cypris woven flawlessly into her dark hair, but the heavy velvet robes of her station were currently swapped for a reinforced leather tunic, and there were faint traces of engine grease beneath her manicured fingernails. She had kept her promise; she wore the crown, but she still commanded the mechanical bays.
Devin smiled, a genuine warmth flooding his chest. "He is three, Rebecca. He doesn't need to know how to compress Frazer coils yet."
"If he's going to inherit the most advanced infrastructure on the continent, he needs to know how it breathes," Rebecca countered, walking over and wrapping her arms around Devin's waist, looking down at their sleeping son. "Besides, he took apart my favorite brass spanner yesterday. The boy has a gift."
Devin kissed the top of her head. For a fleeting moment, the universe was perfectly contained within the stone walls of the nursery. But a heavy, rhythmic footstep echoing down the corridor outside signaled the inevitable intrusion of the outside world.
Dawson appeared in the doorway. The super-human was now twenty-two cycles old. He had grown slightly broader in the shoulders, an absolute apex predator encased in gleaming silver-and-black armor, his oxidized steel eyes as blank and terrifyingly alert as they had been the day Devin first saw him.
"The War Council is assembled, My King," Dawson reported flatly. "The continental border reports have been verified by the Institute."
Devin sighed, gently untangling himself from Rebecca. The peace was over for the day. "I will be right there, Commander."
Leaving the nursery behind, Devin followed Dawson down the spiraling corridors of the palace to the tactical command center.
The massive iron table in the center of the room was dominated by an updated, fiercely complex map of the Northern Kingdoms. It did not look like the map they had studied three cycles ago. The board had been ruthlessly carved up by Enoch's holy war.
Standing around the table were the kingdom's top generals, but Devin's eyes went directly to the red markers indicating hostile territory.
Enoch had not rested after taking Colstar. The revolutionary had utilized the stolen naval dreadnoughts and the infinite wealth of the ocean kingdom to systematically crush the Mortipian garrisons in the south. Trangdar—Devin's ancestral home, the very ruins Ferran had tried to burn—had been completely liberated by the sub-human army. It was now Enoch's symbolic capital.
"Enoch commands three crowns," Dawson stated, tapping the map with a silver pointer. "Colstar provides the naval and economic supremacy. Reignn, under the continued treason of King Culdrun, provides an endless influx of radicalized infantry. And Trangdar provides a heavily fortified, mainland staging ground."
"And Emperor Ferran?" Devin asked, his voice hardening into the tactical cadence of King Kross Sapien.
"The Mortipian Federation no longer exists," Dawson reported, moving the pointer to the heavily shrunken borders of crimson. "Emperor Ferran grew weary of the relentless attrition. He was losing thousands of men trying to hold the southern ruins against Trangdar, and losing his heavy cavalry trying to hold the northern passes against Reignn. Three rees ago, he officially recalled all his forces. He has retracted entirely to his capital."
Devin stared at the isolated red island of Mortipia on the map. Ferran, the arrogant, fiery prince who had once swung a training sword at him under a weeping willow, was now a besieged, exhausted man. He was surrounded on both sides by Enoch's fanatic armies, hoarding his remaining resources just to keep his own walls from falling.
"And Lady Fenrys?" Devin asked quietly, masking the deep personal concern with diplomatic inquiry.
"Secure," Dawson confirmed. "Emperor Ferran ordered his sister out of Mortipia before the borders closed. She was married to a high-ranking esoteric scholar in the Kingdom of Airza last cycle. She resides there currently, far from the front lines."
Devin offered a microscopic nod of relief. Fenrys was safe. Her undeclared Holy Gene was hidden behind a scholar's robes in a peaceful kingdom.
"Our alliance holds strong," the Cyprian General of the Vanguard interjected, gesturing to the western side of the map.
Devin had spent the last three cycles forging an impenetrable geopolitical shield against Enoch. Cypris had officially bound itself to three other nations. The Sulin Federation was holding the western flank, ruled by an eleven-cycle-old prodigy who still demanded the entire continent address him simply as '8'. South of Sulin lay Airza, now ruled by the young Queen Andrea after her parents stepped down, prioritizing defensive runic wards over expansion.
And directly bordering the frozen wastelands was Firebrim.
"Queen Atelia sends her regards, My King," Dawson noted, his voice entirely devoid of inflection. "Firebrim's foundries have fully recovered from the initial uprisings. The sub-human populations there are heavily monitored. The Queen also notes that Princess Ariel celebrated her third cycle of life yesterday."
Devin had to bite his tongue to stop the King's mask from cracking.
Princess Ariel. Three cycles old. Conceived on the exact same night Dawson had visited Queen Atelia's bedchambers during the Expanse expedition. The timeline was undeniable, the biology was absolute, but the Commander of the Royal Knights completely failed to register the reality of his own paternity. To Dawson, Princess Ariel was merely a foreign dignitary's offspring, a geopolitical data point to be reported.
"Send Queen Atelia our warmest congratulations, Commander," Devin managed to say, his voice perfectly even. "And Queen Echidna?"
"Halipan remains entirely independent," Dawson replied, dismissing Firebrim and moving the pointer east. "Queen Echidna continues her policy of absolute brutality. Any sub-human caught crossing into Halipan is publicly executed. Enoch has attempted to send missionaries to radicalize her slaves, but they are returned to Trangdar in pieces. She is a variable we do not need to manage."
Devin leaned over the table, the tactical layout burning into his mind. Enoch had half the continent. Devin had the other half, locked behind heavy defensive treaties. It was a massive, continental stalemate, a cold war waiting for a single spark to ignite the final, apocalyptic clash.
"Double the patrols on the eastern mountain passes," Devin ordered, his amber eyes sweeping over his generals. "Enoch's scouts test our borders every rees. Do not engage unless fired upon, but leave no blind spots. Dismissed."
The generals bowed and filed out of the war room, leaving Devin alone with Dawson.
The suffocating weight of the crown pressed heavily against Devin's temples. He needed fresh air. He needed to step outside the sterile, heavily armored walls of the Obsidian Palace and feel the pulse of his own city.
"I am going for a walk, Dawson," Devin said, turning toward the private exit. "Low profile. No royal guard. Just you."
"Acknowledged," Dawson replied, the heavy broadsword at his hip clicking softly as he fell into step behind his King.
Devin wore a simple, unadorned black cloak over his tunic, pulling the hood up to obscure the silver crown. They exited the palace through the heavy service doors, descending into the bustling, vibrant upper rings of the capital.
Cypris was thriving. The markets were flooded with fresh grain imported from Sulin, and the streets were lit by the flawless, glowing alchemical lamps Rebecca's engineers had installed. There was no fear of Enoch here. There were no riots. The citizens of Cypris walked with the confident, easy stride of a people who knew they were protected by the most lethal military on earth.
Devin navigated the winding cobblestone streets, his mind drifting back to the encrypted note Enoch had left in the frozen Expanse. A pagan king ruling over a religious kingdom.
Cypris was fiercely religious. For generations, they had worshipped the Creator, the divine architect who favored the strong. But as Devin walked past the grand central plaza, he noticed something strange.
The massive Grand Sanctum, the cathedral where High Bishop Oris used to hold daily sermons praising the divine light, looked... empty. The towering obsidian doors were closed. The heavy scent of burning myrrh and frankincense was completely absent from the air.
Instead, a massive crowd was gathered in the center of the plaza, huddled around a newly erected stone monument.
Devin frowned, pulling his hood lower as he drifted toward the edge of the crowd, Dawson trailing silently behind him like a lethal shadow.
The monument wasn't an abstract silver sculpture of the Creator. It was a flawless, towering statue of a young man wearing a heavy mantle, a broadsword resting at his feet, and a crown upon his head. It was a statue of Kross Sapien.
Standing at the base of the statue was a young woman wearing a simple white tunic. She wasn't a priestess of the Sanctum. She was a mechanic from the lower bays, her hands stained with the same grease as Queen Rebecca's.
"For generations, they told us to look at the sky!" the woman shouted, her voice ringing with a fierce, absolute devotion that sent a sudden, icy chill down Devin's spine. "They told us the Creator watched over us. They told us the sickness in the lower rings was a divine test. They told us to pray to a silent, empty void!"
The crowd murmured in agreement, their eyes fixed on the towering statue of Kross.
"But the sky didn't cure the venom in our blood!" the woman continued, raising a heavy brass cog in the air like a holy relic. "The sky didn't rebuild our pressure valves! The sky didn't forge the alliances that keep the holy war from burning our homes to ash! Why do we kneel to a God who demands our suffering, when the sun walks among us?"
"For the King!" a man in the crowd roared, dropping to his knees on the cobblestones.
"For the true light!" another shouted, following suit.
Within seconds, the entire plaza—hundreds of Cyprian citizens—had dropped to their knees, bowing their heads not in political respect, but in absolute, terrifying religious worship.
Devin stood frozen at the edge of the plaza, his breath catching in his throat.
"They call themselves the Kross Selective," Dawson reported quietly from the shadows, his voice completely analytical. "Intelligence indicates the movement began two cycles ago in the mechanical bays and has rapidly spread to the upper rings. They have actively rejected the Grand Sanctum. They believe you are a deity made flesh. They worship you."
Devin stared at the people bowing to his statue.
The sheer, monumental irony of it was suffocating. He was a dead prince. He was a parasitic ghost shoved into the body of his enemy by a twisted, sadistic God who viewed mortal lives as toys. He hated the Creator with every fiber of his stolen soul. He was quietly building an army to fight a holy war against God's chosen prophet.
And in response, his own people had entirely abandoned the Creator, and elevated Devin to a God.
Are you watching this? Devin thought, his amber eyes narrowing as he looked up past the stone statue, past the alchemical lamps, and into the cold, pristine sky of Cypris. You wanted a holy war. You gave Enoch the sub-humans. But you gave me Cypris. And they don't pray to you anymore.
"Do you want me to disperse the unauthorized gathering, My King?" Dawson asked, his hand resting on his blade.
Devin looked at the worshippers. If Enoch was coming with the absolute fanaticism of divine right, Devin couldn't fight him with just steel and politics. He needed his own zealots. He needed the Selective.
"No, Commander," Devin whispered, turning away from the plaza and pulling his black hood down over his eyes. "Let them pray."