The silence that followed the retreat of the Iron Sultanate's airship was heavier than the noise of its turbines.
In the Grand Plaza of New Aethelgard, thousands of citizens stood frozen, their festive teal-and-gold tunics fluttering in the wind. The confetti from the celebration still littered the cobblestones, now mixed with the churned mud where the Iron-Guard had dragged the screaming Diplomat away.
They were looking at their King.
For twenty years, Kael Light had been a symbol—a statue in the high tower, a silhouette on a balcony, a face on a coin. They knew he was the "Saint" who had kept the lights on. They knew he was the "Healer" who had cured the Rot. But they had forgotten, or perhaps never truly known, that he was also the Blood Weeper.
They had just watched him incapacitate a squad of elite mechanized soldiers without lifting a finger, simply by projecting his own existence into their minds. They had seen the soldiers clawing at their own chests, screaming about broken bones that weren't broken.
Fear. It was a cold, sharp scent, distinct from the smell of ozone and roasted nuts that filled the festival air. Kael could smell it radiating from his own people.
"Your Majesty," a young Iron-Guard captain whispered, stepping forward. He was trembling. "The... the prisoners. The Envoy. What are your orders?"
Kael turned slowly. His iridescent grey eyes were dull, the silver-blue ring of the Blessing dimmed by the output of the curse. He wiped a streak of golden-violet blood from his cheek.
"Throw them out of the city gates," Kael said, his voice flat. "Leave them on the road. Let them crawl back to their Emperor. I want them to tell him exactly what it feels like to stand in my shadow."
Kael walked past the captain. The crowd parted instantly, creating a wide berth. No one reached out to touch his hem. No one threw flowers. Mothers pulled their children behind their skirts.
Kael kept his head high, but inside, the "Stable Agony" was riotous.
Thud-Crack.
His sternum fractured. It was a sympathy break, triggered by the collective emotional recoil of the city. He didn't wince. He simply walked toward the Royal Spire, alone in a sea of people.
Pip was waiting for him at the lift. The Lord Keeper leaned heavily on his cane, his face pale.
"You scared them, Saint," Pip said quietly as the brass doors closed, shutting out the world.
"Good," Kael said, leaning against the wall and finally letting his posture slump. "Fear is a reflex. It keeps you alive. If they are afraid of me, they might survive what's coming."
"Was it necessary?" Pip asked, watching the floor numbers climb. "To use the Agony like that? You tortured them, Kael."
"I didn't torture them, Pip. I just shared," Kael whispered. He looked at his un-aging hands. "I just let them carry the weight for ten seconds. I carry it for a lifetime. If that is torture... then what am I?"
Pip didn't answer. The lift arrived at the Council Deck with a soft chime.
The War Room was already in chaos.
The holographic map on the obsidian table was flickering red, displaying a massive, distorted signal moving slowly from the southern badlands toward the fertile valley of New Aethelgard.
Lord Ignis was plugged directly into the table, his mechanical spider-legs twitching as he processed streams of data from the border sensors. Thorne, the retired commander, sat in his wheelchair, his face grim, while his grandson, Kaelen Thorne—the new Commander of the Iron-Guard—paced the room.
Kaelen was a striking image of his grandfather at his prime, but without the scars. He wore the black Soul-Steel plate with a natural grace, but his eyes held the anxiety of a man who had only known peace time patrols, not total war.
"Your Majesty," Kaelen said, snapping to attention as Kael entered. "The scouts... the scouts are gone. All of them."
"Gone?" Kael took his seat at the head of the table.
"Vaporized," Garret said from the shadows. The Alpha of the Moon-Scarred stepped into the light. He looked agitated, his claws extending and retracting rhythmically. "My pack... I felt their connection snap. Not one by one. All at once. Whatever is out there... it didn't fight them. It erased them."
"Show me," Kael commanded Ignis.
Ignis tapped the table. The hologram zoomed in on the southern border.
"This is the seismic data," Ignis rasped. "Look at the wave patterns. It's not footsteps. It's... treads. Massive, continuous treads. The disturbance is three miles wide."
"Three miles?" Pip gasped, sinking into a chair. "That's a city moving."
"It is the Great Engine," Ignis said. "The Envoy wasn't lying. The Sultanate has spent twenty years strip-mining their own territory to build it. It's a land-dreadnought. A mobile fortress. And according to the thermal scans..."
The hologram shifted to a heat map. The center of the disturbance glowed with a sickening, deep purple light.
"...it's running on a Dark God Fragment," Kael finished, recognizing the signature.
The room went silent.
"A fragment?" Thorne wheezed. "Like the one in you?"
"No," Kael said, touching his chest. "Mine is a parasite. It lives in the biology. This... this is a raw chunk of the entity. They must have dredged it from the Sunken Cradle after we left. They're burning it. They're using the Void as coal."
"If they are burning Void," Garret growled, "then it explains why the scouts vanished. It eats matter. It eats life."
"We have the Radiant Grid," Kaelen Thorne said, trying to project confidence. "The city shields are impenetrable. We held off the Frost Lords; we can hold off a machine."
"The Frost Lords used magic," Ignis countered. "The Great Engine uses mass. And if it's powered by the Void, it will drink the Radiant Grid like a milkshake. We cannot defend, Commander. If that thing reaches the city walls, New Aethelgard is finished. It will consume the ground we stand on."
Kael looked at the map. He saw the red stain moving inexorably toward his home. He saw the farms, the villages, the lives he had spent two decades protecting.
"We can't defend," Kael agreed. "So we attack."
"Attack?" Pip asked. "With what? The Iron-Guard is a police force. The Moon-Scarred are hunters, not siege-breakers. We dismantled the heavy artillery ten years ago during the disarmament."
"We have the Twins," Kael said.
The air in the room grew cold.
"No," Martha's voice came from the comms-link. She was in the Healing Halls, listening in. "Kael, you promised. You promised you wouldn't turn them into weapons."
"I promised I wouldn't make them batteries," Kael corrected, his voice hardening. "There is a difference between a battery and a soldier. A battery has no choice. A soldier volunteers."
"They are children!" Martha cried.
"They are seventeen," Kael said. "They are the most powerful entities on this continent aside from me. And right now... they are the only thing that can match the output of a Void Engine."
Kael stood up. "Ignis, prepare the Binary Protocol. I want the dampeners on the Royal Spire lowered to combat-levels. Calibrate the Grid to channel their output, not suppress it."
"Saint," Ignis warned, "if we uncork them... there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. Once they taste unrestricted flow, their resonance will expand. They might never be able to live in the city safely again."
"If we don't do this, there won't be a city to live in," Kael said.
He turned to Kaelen. "Commander, mobilize the Iron-Guard. Evacuate the southern villages. Fall back to the Stormhaven ruins. We make our stand there."
"And you, Your Majesty?" Kaelen asked.
"I'm going to have a conversation with the stars," Kael said.
The Containment Deck was silent when Kael returned. The air was heavy with tension, the ozone smell sharper than before.
Castor and Pollux were waiting. They hadn't moved since he left. Castor stood by the window, watching the smoke of the retreating airship on the horizon. Pollux sat on the floor, surrounded by a circle of frost.
"You sent them away," Castor said without turning around. "The Iron Men."
"I bought us time," Kael said, walking into the room. "But not much. The Great Engine is coming."
"We heard the alarms," Pollux said softly. "We felt the ground shaking. It's big, isn't it?"
"It's a world-eater," Kael admitted.
He stopped in the center of the room. He looked at the twins. They had grown tall and strong in their cage. Castor had the broad shoulders of a warrior, his golden energy crackling under his skin like trapped lightning. Pollux was slender and lethal, her cold aura creating a mist that clung to her ankles.
"They want you," Kael said. "The Engine runs on Void. It's hungry. It needs a star to balance the equation. If they catch you... they will put you in a furnace that makes this room look like paradise."
"So we hide?" Castor spat, turning around. His eyes were blazing. "We sit here and juggle fire while the Iron-Guard dies for us?"
"No," Kael said. "Today, you don't hide."
He reached into his coat and pulled out two objects. They were bracers made of the matte-black Soul-Steel Kael had forged in the Silent Tundra. But Ignis had modified them; they were inlaid with circuits of copper and crystal.
"These are Focus-Point Limiters," Kael explained. "Right now, your power is omnidirectional. It goes everywhere. It's wasted. These will bind your resonance. They will turn the explosion into a laser."
He tossed the bracers to them. Castor caught his with one hand; the metal hissed as it touched his hot skin. Pollux picked hers up delicately, frost instantly coating the black iron.
"You want us to fight," Pollux realized.
"I want you to choose," Kael said. "You can stay here. The Spire is the safest place on earth. I will go out there, and I will throw my body against that Engine until I break it or it breaks me. I might win. I might die. But you will be safe."
Kael paused, letting the weight of the words settle.
"Or," he continued, "you can put those on. You can come with me. You can be the Binary Stars. But if you step out that door... you are not children anymore. You are targets. You will see death. You will cause death. And you will never be able to claim innocence again."
Castor strapped the bracer onto his arm. It clicked shut, and the ambient heat in the room suddenly vanished, sucked into the Soul-Steel. Castor took a deep breath, his eyes focusing.
"I'm tired of innocence," Castor said. "I want to burn something that deserves it."
Pollux hesitated. She looked at her brother, then at Kael. She looked at the city below—the lights, the people, the life she had watched from a window for ten years.
"If we don't fight," Pollux whispered, "the lights go out."
She snapped the bracer onto her wrist. The frost on the floor evaporated.
"Good," Kael said. "Then listen to me closely. The Binary Protocol is dangerous. You cannot fight apart. You must stay within twenty feet of each other. Castor generates the plasma; Pollux shapes the magnetic field to contain it. If you lose sync... you will detonate. Do you understand?"
"We are twins, Kael," Castor grinned, a fierce, reckless expression. "We've been in sync since the womb."
"Let's hope so," Kael said. "Because the thing coming for us eats stars for breakfast."
The mobilization of New Aethelgard was a spectacle of desperate efficiency.
Within the hour, the Slip-Runners were launching from the Spire, carrying the elite Moon-Scarred packs to the southern ridges. The steam-trains were redirected, loaded with Iron-Guard battalions and heavy munitions, rushing toward the ruins of Stormhaven.
Kael stood at the base of the Spire, wearing his full battle-gear: a coat of woven Soul-Steel, his sword at his hip, and a new grey cloak that Martha had sewn for him.
Ignis rolled up in a specialized command tank. It was a spider-walker, a massive version of his own lower body, bristling with antennae and mana-siphons.
"The Twins are loaded into the Solar-Vessel," Ignis reported. "It's a shielded transport. It will keep their signature masked until we are in range. But Saint... the seismic readings are getting worse. The Engine... it's accelerating."
"It smells the food," Kael said.
Pip walked up to him. The old man was leaning on his cane, looking small against the backdrop of the war machines.
"You're leaving me behind to mind the store again," Pip said, trying to joke, but his voice shook.
"Someone has to keep the chair warm," Kael smiled. He reached out and hugged Pip. It was a gentle embrace; Kael was terrified of crushing the old man's frail bones. "If the Engine breaks the line... initiate the Blackout Protocol."
Pip stiffened. "Kael..."
"If we fall," Kael whispered, "you blow the Spire. You destroy the Grid. You bury the city. Do not let the Sultanate take the infrastructure. Do not let them have a base."
"I... I understand," Pip choked out. "Come back, you idiot. Just come back."
"I always do," Kael lied.
He climbed onto the command tank. He looked back at the Solar-Vessel—a sleek, white ship hovering silently, carrying the two most dangerous teenagers in the world.
"Move out!" Kael commanded.
The column of machines and monsters surged forward. They moved through the streets of the capital, past the silent, terrified crowds. The people watched their ageless King ride to war once more, flanked by werewolves and machines.
As they left the city gates and entered the southern plains, the sky began to darken.
It wasn't night. It was smoke.
On the horizon, thirty miles away, a mountain was moving.
The Great Engine rose above the treeline. It was colossal—a towering mass of black iron, gears, and smokestacks that scraped the clouds. It was at least two miles wide and a mile high. Massive treads crushed the forests and hills beneath it, leaving a trail of flattened, dead earth.
And from its center, a deep, violet spotlight swept across the land—the eye of the Dark God Fragment.
IT IS A MOCKERY, the God in Kael's mind roared, trembling with a mixture of rage and recognition. THEY HAVE TAKEN MY FLESH AND BOLTED IT TO A TRACTOR. THEY ARE BURNING ME TO SPIN WHEELS.
"Does it hurt?" Kael asked internally.
NO, the God hissed. IT IS WORSE. IT IS NUMB. THAT FRAGMENT... IT IS LOBOTOMIZED. IT IS A ZOMBIE GOD.
Kael watched the behemoth approach. He felt the "Stable Agony" ramping up, his bones sensing the impending violence.
"Castor, Pollux," Kael spoke into the comms. "Do you see it?"
"We see it," Castor's voice crackled back, sounding small. "It's... really big, Kael."
"Size is just gravity," Kael said. "And gravity is just a suggestion. Get ready. We strike at Stormhaven."
The Army of the Broken raced toward the shadow of the Engine. The ground shook with every rotation of the enemy's treads. The air tasted of ash.
The War Council was over. The execution had begun.