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He had access again.

The Perseus Prime was a few days away, butfokkwaiting around. Also, he was unsure the dreadnought could navigate or even find the Celestial Pathway.

He tapped into his neural node and accessed the secured SableNet channel, bypassing Sivania’s firewalls.

A ghost-like shimmer flickered into view in his HUD, resolving into a sinuous, obsidian-skinned form.

She lounged in a hovering armchair within the abstract code-generated space of her domain, dressed in a shimmering wrap dress of liquid starlight that shifted with her every move.

Glowing lines of ancient runes ran along her ebony arms, her impossibly long legs crossed as if she had all the time in the galaxy.

‘Well, well, well.’ Her voice purred into his neural link, laced with silken amusement. ‘Look who it is. I was starting to wonder if you ascended to godhood yourself.’

Ki’Remi exhaled through his nose. ‘We came close. Mirage, we require a lift.’

Her luminous, pupil-less eyes flared with interest. ‘Do you now? Mission accomplished?’

‘I’ll fill you in later,’ he growled. ‘First, we need to dust off this chaotic realm before I lose my damnfokkin’ mind.’

She arched a sculpted brow. ‘That savage?’

‘Extremely. Please get to my location. Fast.’

Mirage sighed, conjuring a holographic data sphere in her hand and spinning it with lazy indulgence. ‘You realize that reaching a divine astral field through multi-dimensional pathways requires an astronomic amount of calculations I have to run in real-time, which is super exhausting.’

Ki’Remi smirked. ‘You? Exhausted? Never.’

She snorted. ‘Ungrateful. Fine. I’ll get the Alatyr through your little celestial no-fly zone. However, this is going on your tab, Sable. At the least, you owe me five packs of my best, rarest brand of synth cheroots. Do they stock any in the heavens? A deified cheroot might be quite mind-blowing.’

‘Mirage,’ he warned in a growl.

‘So impatient.’

Her fingers danced across the floating code sphere, and reality itself hummed.

After a beat of silence, she gave him a broad beam. ‘Done. The Alatyr will be with you in a few hours. I’m pushing its xentium engines as fast I can get to you.’

She leaned forward, grinning like a predator. ‘Now, tell me, Sable. What kind of mess did you land yourself in this time?’

Ki’Remi’s gaze flicked to Issa, who had been listening from the sidelines.

‘Let’s just say gods make terrible hosts.’

‘I can’t wait to hear that story when you get back. My node will be onboard to guide you home as always.’

Mirage laughed, rich and wicked, vanishing in a cascade of glowing runes.

ISSA

They waited for the Alatyr on the Celestial Seat’s diamond-slabbed landing pad.

A ripple in the ether and Zenas appeared out of thin air, in the Sedevan way of materializing out of the blue.

He strode toward them as behind him, shadowed against the skyline, rose a fleet of divine warships, their sleek, gilded hulls reflecting the Sacran sun.

He slowed to a stop before them, his expression carved from stone and sorrow.

‘I’ve come to bid you farewell,’ Zenas said, voice steady despite the maelstrom building around them. ‘Also, to ensure you get an escort out of Sivania.’