Page 50

Fifty

T he battle regalia was ancient.

Karian stood at the heart of the Varkaal’s command chamber, still as stone. All around him, the obsidian floors caught the glow of shifting red lights, casting his towering silhouette across the walls like a living shadow. The air was thick with tension—coiled like a predator just before the strike. The hum of energy through the walls, the low resonance of the engines beneath, the disciplined silence of the Yerak—it all built toward a single moment.

His armor was black as the void between galaxies, etched in burning silver that mapped his history—victories, conquests, oaths taken and broken. His pauldrons curved high and cruel, like the wings of a predator bird mid-flight. Behind him, a living cloak made of nano-fibres shimmered and hissed with kinetic energy, alive with whispered war chants in the old tongue.

His mask was jagged metal and unreadable light. Cold, expressionless. It bore no face, no humanity—only command. Only fear.

He had not worn this since the siege of Thrannos, when he cracked a coalition of thirteen systems in two weeks.

This was not the side of himself he wanted Leonie to see.

But this was the version the galaxy obeyed.

He stood at the command dais, hands clasped behind his back, unmoving. Around him, the Yerak moved with silent efficiency, executing commands without question. They knew the tempo of conquest. They had followed him through worse.

Across the holoviewer, the Severance , Cruxar’s flagship, buckled inward and then burst apart in silence. The core rupture flared for a split-second—bright, sterile, final.

Cruxar, the Seventh Marak, was dead.

“Confirm,” Karian said, his voice like tempered glass.

A Yerak commander stepped forward. “Severance destroyed. No escape signatures. No surviving auxiliary craft. Cruxar is eliminated. His fleets have scattered or fallen. You are now Steward of the Seventh Domain.”

Karian gave a slow, single nod.

The treaty was broken now—intentionally, publicly. The galaxy’s fragile equilibrium shattered. But no challenge would come. Not immediately.

“The others?” he asked.

“Observing. With caution.”

They would watch. They would weigh their odds. But they would not act.

Because they had seen.

They had seen what he could do. How quickly he had erased Cruxar. How thoroughly. The speed, the precision, the scale—none of the Marak could rival his fleets. His shipyards, his armies, his will. He had always prepared for more than was needed. Because he knew how fragile respect could be if not reinforced with power.

Let them whisper. Let them convene in secret. Let them dare.

He would crush the next who rose. And the next.

They would bend.

He turned away from the holoviewer. “Deploy occupation fleets to the key worlds. Begin reconditioning of the administrative castes. All state communications now issue from Luxar.”

“Yes, Marak.”

“And Earth,” he said, more quietly.

The Yerak stilled. “Defensive perimeter already expanding. Shall we begin cultural neutralization protocols?”

“No,” he said. “They are to be left untouched.”

A beat of silence. The crew did not question, but he could sense the confusion.

“Station my black-flag fleet around the system. Earth is mine now. Let the galaxy know it. There will be no raids. No abductions. No contact unless I authorize it.”

They obeyed, of course. But none could understand.

Only he knew what Earth meant.

Only he knew that everything—every order, every battle, every shattered treaty—had been for her.

She would hear about this, of course. She would know Cruxar was gone, and that it was he who had done it. She would guess at the scale.

But she would never see the mask. Never hear the silence before a kill order. Never feel the way the Varkaal pulsed with anticipation of destruction.

He would shield her from this part of him. As much as he could.

Let her think it was political. Let her believe it was cold necessity. He would allow the truth to be softened, stripped down into something less monstrous. She could know he was powerful. But not this powerful. Not this ruthless.

Because if she ever truly saw what he could become… she might fear him.

And she was the only thing in the universe he could not afford to lose.

He turned toward the wide viewport. Earth hung in the dark like a glimmering seed, small and trembling, suspended in a web of stars. So chaotic. So primitive. So unremarkable.

But for her… he would guard it like a god.

“Prepare transmissions to the Five,” he said, not looking back. “Show them Cruxar’s last breath. Let them see the ease of it. Let them taste their own mortality.”

“And if they respond with protest?” the Yerak asked softly.

He smiled behind the mask.

“They won’t.”