For a year, there was peace.
The world healed under the guidance of its new, strangely cooperative pantheon. Cities were rebuilt. The scars of the Ravager invasion slowly began to fade. The Void Imperium, under the joint rule of Emperor Nox and Queen Serian, became a beacon of progress and stability.
Nox learned what it was to be a king in peacetime. It was, as he had suspected, a lot of paperwork. But it was also… good. He found a quiet satisfaction in watching his people thrive, in seeing the kingdom he had built not just survive, but flourish.
He spent his days in council meetings, his evenings in Vexia's library, and his nights on the balcony with Serian, watching the stars. The fire in his soul had not gone out; it had just… banked, transforming from a raging inferno into a steady, powerful warmth.
He was happy. It was the strangest, most unfamiliar feeling in the world.
