The first thing Mali noticed when he woke up was the silence.
For twenty years, his mind had been a noisy, crowded room. It had been filled with the whispers of his insecurities, the shouting of his fears, and lately, the screaming siren of the Imposter Syndrome debuff.
Now, it was quiet.
But it wasn't empty.
It was like standing in a vast, well-ordered library. There was a presence there, a humming, golden-silver background radiation that felt like... logic. It felt like safety.
He opened his eyes. The ceiling of the Imperial Suite was bathed in the soft, artificial morning light of the Thronecycle.
He turned his head. Anya was asleep beside him. Her dark hair was fanned out on the pillow, her face relaxed in a way he had never seen. She looked younger, softer.
He looked at her, and a thought floated across his mind: 'Her REM cycle is terminating in 4.3 minutes. Her cortisol levels are down 90%. She is dreaming of... a garden.'
Mali blinked. That wasn't his thought. He didn't know what cortisol was. He didn't know how to calculate a REM cycle.
He sat up, looking at his hands. He flexed his fingers. He felt... precise. He looked at a dust mote floating in a sunbeam. Instantly, his mind calculated its velocity, its trajectory, and the air current moving it.
I can see the math, he realized.
[SHARED TRAIT ACTIVE: THE BINARY STAR] [SOURCE: ANYA ALKAHEST] [EFFECT: MALI GAINS ACCESS TO PARTIAL [PER] AND [INT] OF PARTNER.]
He wasn't just borrowing her confidence. He was borrowing her brain.
Beside him, Anya stirred. She took a deep breath, her eyes fluttering open. She didn't look groggy. She looked... electrified.
She sat up abruptly, staring at her own hands. She clenched a fist, and the air around it cracked, a tiny, sonic boom caused by the sheer speed and force of the movement.
"Whoa," she whispered. Her voice was husky with sleep, but vibrating with power. "I feel... heavy. Like I'm made of lead and lightning."
She looked at Mali, her eyes wide. "Is this... is this how you feel all the time?"
"Is what?"
" The POW," she breathed. "It's... it's an ocean. It's endless. I feel like I could punch a hole through the hull of a dreadnought."
Mali smiled. It was a calm, calculated smile. "And I feel like I could navigate that dreadnought through an asteroid field blindfolded. I can see the... the threads of the room."
He reached out, not to touch her, but to touch the idea of her in his mind.
Good morning, strategist.
He didn't speak the words. He thought them, pushing them across the golden bridge that now connected their souls.
Anya gasped, her eyes locking onto his. Good morning, scary cat.
Her thought-voice was clear, crisp, and sounded like a bell ringing in his head.
We need to work on the nicknames, he thought back, feeling a surge of amusement that was half his, half hers.
We have a lot to work on, she replied. My 'Tapestry' is trying to calculate firing solutions for your 'Lance' and your 'Dominion' is trying to dissolve my breakfast order. We need to calibrate.
She swung her legs out of bed. "But not now. Kaelen is pacing outside the door. His heart rate is elevated to 110 BPM. He's anxious."
Mali blinked. "You can hear his heart rate?"
"No," Anya said, standing up and stretching, her body moving with a new, lethal grace borrowed from his VIT. "But I can see the probability threads leaking under the door. Something has happened."
The honeymoon—the brief, eight-hour sleep cycle—was over.
Ten minutes later, they were in the War Room of the Imperial Spire. They were dressed in matching "daily" regalia—Mali in his black and silver, Anya in deep indigo and gold. They moved in perfect sync, walking shoulder-to-shoulder, their strides matching instinctively.
General Kaelen and Admiral Vorlag were waiting. The holographic map of the galaxy was no longer the calm gold and blue of the wedding ceremony.
It was bleeding red.
"Your Highnesses," Kaelen said, slamming his fist to his chest. He looked tired, but his eyes were blazing with a grim readiness. "We have... activity."
"The Kratos Drift," Mali said instantly. He didn't need to be told. He could see the red blotch expanding on the map, and thanks to Anya's INT, he understood the vector immediately. "They're moving."
"Not just moving," Vorlag corrected, tapping the console. "Coordinating. Since your... demonstration... against Baron Korr, the Drift has gone silent. No raids. No chatter. We thought they were cowed."
"They weren't," Anya said, her voice cool and analytical. She stepped up to the map, her eyes scanning the data streams. "Silence in a chaotic system indicates external organization. Someone... or something... stopped them from fighting each other and pointed them at us."
"Precisely," Vorlag nodded, looking at Anya with newfound respect. "At 0400 hours, deep-range sensors picked up a massive energy spike in the center of the Drift. It's a Void-Gate. A big one. And coming through it..."
He pressed a button. The map zoomed in on the red stain. Thousands of jagged, black signals appeared.
"A fleet," Mali whispered. But he didn't feel the old panic. He felt a cold, hard assessment. "That's not a raiding party. That's an invasion force."
"Correct," Kaelen rumbled. "Intelligence suggests it is led by a Void-Lord. A 'Corrupted' of significant power. They are calling him 'Malakor the Severed.' And he has issued a broadcast."
Kaelen hesitated. "It is... addressed to you, Prince Mali."
Mali looked at Kaelen. "Play it."
The room darkened. A holographic projection materialized above the table.
It was a monster.
Malakor was humanoid, but only barely. He was a towering construct of black, jagged metal and rotting, purple flesh. His face was a void of swirling shadows, with two burning red eyes that seemed to stare out of the hologram and into Mali's soul. He wore armor made from the hulls of destroyed Imperium ships.
" Alkahest... "
The voice was a grinding tectonic shift. It sounded like rocks being crushed together.
" The Unmaker is dead. The line was broken. And now... a child plays in his ashes. "
Malakor leaned forward, the shadows of his face writhing.
" You dissolved a gnat in the Drift, little prince. You think this makes you a god? You are a candle in a hurricane. I am the Severed. I am the End of Lines. I am coming for Sanctum. I am coming to finish what we started twenty years ago. "
The creature raised a clawed hand, pointing.
" Prepare your throne, child. I will be sitting on it by nightfall. "
The hologram cut out.
Silence filled the War Room. The threat was absolute. A Void-Lord. A being of pure Chaos, coming to test the new, unproven Emperor.
In the past, Mali would have crumbled. His Imposter Syndrome would have told him he was going to die, that he had doomed them all.
But today, he felt Anya's mind brush against his. He felt her analysis.
He's posturing, her thought-voice whispered. He's trying to incite fear to lower our collective Karmic defense. He's a bully.
A bully with a fleet, Mali thought back. And he's right. I am inexperienced.
You are, she agreed. But we aren't.
Mali looked at the map. He saw the red fleet moving toward the "Aegis Line," the Imperium's outer defense perimeter.
"Admiral Vorlag," Mali said. His voice was steady. "What is the fleet status?"
"The Home Fleet is at 90% readiness," Vorlag reported. "We can intercept them at the Aegis Line. But..." he paused. "Malakor is a LEVEL 90 entity. Conventional weapons have... limited effect on a Void-Lord. We can destroy his ships, but he will board us. He will tear through my cruisers like paper."
Vorlag looked at Mali. "To kill a Void-Lord... we need an Alkahest. We need a Dominion skill."
The room looked at Mali.
He was the weapon. He was the nuke. They needed him to go out there, to the front lines, and face a LEVEL 90 monster.
His System flashed.
[QUEST RECEIVED: THE FIRST DEFENSE] [OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT VOID-LORD MALAKOR] [DIFFICULTY: IMPOSSIBLE (SOLO)] / [HIGH (CO-OP)]
Mali looked at his hands. "I can't control it," he admitted openly. "If I use the Mantle or the Lance against something that strong... I might burn out. I might miss."
"You won't miss," Anya said.
She stepped forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him. She looked at the map, her eyes blazing with silver light.
"General Kaelen," she ordered. "Deploy the 1st and 3rd Scion Legions to the Aegis Line. Form a 'Phalanx' defensive grid. We don't need to attack them. We need to catch them."
"Catch them?" Kaelen asked.
"We channel them," Anya explained, her hands moving over the map, drawing lines of light. "We use the fleet to create a funnel. We force Malakor's flagship, the Severed, into this kill-box here, Sector 7-Alpha."
She pointed to a patch of empty space.
"And then?" Vorlag asked.
Anya turned to Mali. She took his hand. The Binary Star link flared, a pulse of golden-silver light visible to everyone in the room.
"And then," she said, "we will be waiting."
Mali felt her plan download into his mind. It was dangerous. It was insane. It required him to be a scalpel of infinite precision, guided by a mind of infinite calculation.
It required them to be one.
Mali looked at the map, then at Kaelen.
"You heard the Empress," Mali said, and the title rolled off his tongue like he'd been born saying it. "Prepare the Sovereign. We are going to war."
Kaelen grinned, a feral, scarred expression. "At once, Your Majesty."
As the officers scrambled to obey, Anya squeezed Mali's hand.
Are you scared? she asked silently.
Terrified, he replied. But I'm not hiding.
Good, she thought, and he could feel her ferocious, protective pride. Because that thing threatened my husband. And I'm going to help you unmake him.