Time: Three Days Post-Detonation.
The sky over Aureus Prime was terrifyingly clear.
For centuries, there had always been something in the sky. The Smog. The Aether-Wall. The Iron Star. The Dissonance Clouds.
Now, there was nothing but blue. A deep, endless cobalt that stretched from horizon to horizon.
Julian sat on the edge of the fountain in the central plaza. The water had been drained. In the center of the basin, welded to the stone, was the scorched escape pod.
It was the coffin of a ghost.
Julian didn't look at the pod. He looked at his hands. One flesh, scarred and calloused. One black iron, heavy and cold.
"It's quiet," Lyra said, sitting down next to him. She wasn't wearing her armor. Just a simple jacket and jeans. She looked smaller without the ceramic plates.
"Too quiet," Julian said. "My ears are still ringing."
"That's not ringing," Lyra said softly. "That's peace. You'll get used to it."
"Will I?"
Julian rubbed his iron thumb against his fingers. The friction made a low, grinding sound.
"We spent so long fighting the noise," Julian whispered. "Now that it's gone... I don't know what to listen to."
The Titan Sleep
Skid approached them, her datapad tucked under her arm. She didn't look like a chaotic hacker anymore. She looked tired.
"Status report, boss," she said.
"Don't call me boss," Julian sighed. "I'm unemployed."
"Status report, citizen," Skid corrected with a small smile. "It's the Titans."
"What about them?"
"They're shutting down," Skid said. "Not just dormant. Offline."
She pulled up the grid.
Titan 01 (The King): POWER OFF.
Titan 02 (The Leviathan): POWER OFF.
Titan 03 (The Strider): DESTROYED.
Titan 04 (The Warden): POWER OFF.
Titan 05 (The Breaker): POWER OFF.
Titan 00 (The Keeper): POWER OFF.
"Their directive was 'Protect the Cage'," Skid explained. "The cage is empty. The prisoner is dead. They have no mission."
"They're going back to sleep," Julian realized. "Like the Ushers."
"Except one," Skid pointed to a reading that was still active. A low, steady pulse.
Titan 08 (The Silent King): STANDBY.
"He's still awake," Julian touched his chest, feeling the resonance in his bones. "Because the core is still unstable. The infection is gone, but the planet has a hole in the middle. He has to hold the walls up."
"And you have to hold the link," Lyra noted. "You're the battery."
"I can handle the weight," Julian said.
The Last General
General Elias Thorne walked across the plaza. He was not in uniform. He wore a suit—black, crisp, and uncomfortable.
He stopped in front of the pod-memorial. He placed a single white flower on the metal hull.
He saluted. Slowly. A final goodbye to Captain Arthur Vane.
Then he turned to Julian.
"The Warlords are leaving," Elias said. "Kael and Vesper are heading back to their territories. They signed the non-aggression pact."
"And Jaxon?"
"He's staying," Elias grimaced. "He wants to open a chop-shop in Sector 5. Says the 'market for cybernetics is booming'."
"Let him," Julian said. "We need mechanics."
"What about the army?" Elias asked. "I have fifty thousand soldiers with no war to fight. They're restless."
"Put them to work," Julian said. "Not patrolling. Building."
"Building what?"
"Roads," Julian pointed to the horizon. "We reconnected the North. Now we need to reconnect the West and the South. Build bridges. Lay fiber-optics. Turn the tanks into tractors."
Elias stared at him. "Swords into plowshares?"
"Something like that," Julian said. "Or at least rifles into rivet-guns."
Elias nodded. "I'll draft the orders. But Julian... they still look to you. You're the one who climbed out of the fire."
"Tell them I'm retired," Julian said.
"They won't believe you."
"Then tell them the Conductor left the building."
The Empty Throne
Later that afternoon, Julian walked into the Palace.
It was empty. The Looters had taken the tapestries. The Prime AI had stripped the servers. The Emperor was long gone.
He walked to the Throne Room.
The Golden Throne still sat on the dais. It was scratched, dusty, and looked incredibly uncomfortable.
Julian walked up the steps. He stood in front of the chair that Valerius had sat in for a hundred years.
He thought about sitting in it. Just to see.
He turned around and sat on the steps instead.
"Comfortable?"
Zephyr floated down from the balcony. The wind monk looked peaceful. His staff was strapped to his back, wrapped in cloth.
"The floor is cold," Julian said. "But it's honest."
"The wind tells me you are leaving," Zephyr said.
"I can't stay here," Julian admitted. "This city... it's full of ghosts. Marcus. My father. The Prime. Everywhere I look, I see what I lost."
"Where will you go?"
"The Scrapyard," Julian said. "It's where I started. It needs cleaning up."
"The Scrapyard is rust," Zephyr said. "It is dead metal."
"It's raw material," Julian corrected. "You can build anything from scrap if you have the right blueprint."
He looked at his black iron hand.
"I need to figure out how to live with this. How to be a human being again, not a weapon."
"That is a difficult frequency to tune," Zephyr noted.
"I have time," Julian stood up. "Finally."
The Departure
Julian packed a bag.
He didn't take much. A few changes of clothes. His tools. Marcus's control yoke. His father's spectacles. The Black Iron Mask (which he kept as a reminder of the Silent King).
He walked to the garage where the Rusty Bucket—his old hover-bike—was parked. Isolde had fixed it up. It purred like a kitten.
Skid, Lyra, Isolde, and Zephyr were waiting for him.
"You're not sneaking out without saying goodbye," Isolde said, crossing her arms.
"I'm not sneaking," Julian swung his leg over the bike. "I'm advancing in a different direction."
"We're going to miss you," Skid said, her voice cracking. "Who's going to yell at us when we blow something up?"
"Elias," Julian grinned. "He loves yelling."
He looked at Lyra.
She walked up to the bike. She put her hand on his black iron arm.
"Don't stay away too long," she whispered. "Rust needs maintenance."
"I'll be around," Julian promised. "I'm just a radio call away."
He revved the engine.
"Take care of the city," Julian told them. "Don't let it get too clean. A little dirt gives it character."
He put on his goggles.
He twisted the throttle.
The bike shot out of the garage, speeding down the ramp, past the silent Titans, past the rebuilding Undercity, and out into the vast, open Wasteland.
The Echo
As Julian rode into the sunset, the wind whipping his coat, he felt the vibration in his arm.
Thump... Thump...
The heartbeat of the Silent King.
And beneath that, a fainter sound.
The hum of the world spinning. The sound of grass growing in the cracks of the pavement. The sound of water flowing in the rivers.
It wasn't a Dirge anymore.
It was a Ballad.
Julian smiled. He tapped his fingers on the handlebars, finding the rhythm.
He began to hum along.