Page 7

Seven

T he throne room of the Velthra pulsed with life, though no breath stirred the air.

Karian, Marak of Malvar , sat at the heart of it—still, watchful, immense. He was Majarin, yes, but not like the others. Not like the Yerak, who served him with tireless precision. No—Karian was one of the Seven. A Marak . The ruling caste. The apex. A biological anomaly born once in every century, forged by the depths of Luxar’s oceans and shaped for dominion.

He did not reign by politics. He did not command by vote. He was , by law and nature, sovereign.

The chamber acknowledged him.

The walls themselves—grown from living coralsteel and memory-glass—shifted subtly in rhythm with his breath. Lights shimmered along the vaulted ceiling, trailing across rune-carved columns like bioluminescent waves through dark water. Every inch of the room echoed with the past: battles won, treaties sealed, rebellions crushed. Generations of Yerak had inscribed their loyalty into this place.

And in its center, the throne—a living construct, grown specifically for him—cradled Karian’s massive form.

His seven tentacles lay coiled beneath him, gleaming obsidian-black, sheened with iridescence, lined with suckered ridges capable of splitting reinforced alloy. Even at rest, they radiated controlled violence. His upper torso remained perfectly still, arms folded across his armored chest.

Stillness, for a Marak, was not passivity.

It was the threat of motion.

His mask—forged from obsidian alloy, veined with flowing silver, smooth and featureless—concealed his face. It had never been removed in the presence of another since the day of his ascension. To show his face would be to offer something intimate. Something sacred.

No one alive had earned that right.

Not yet.

Around him, the Yerak moved with clockwork precision. Slender, graceful, endlessly obedient. Though Majarin in origin, they were cast apart from him by biology and ancient law—smaller, softer, incapable of the generative force that birthed the Marak line. They were his engineers, his warriors, his hands and voice.

But never his equal.

And never his pleasure.

Temian approached from the shadows, robed in dark-blue silks, his age marked by the silver threading at his temples and the slightly dulled edges of his gill lines. He bowed deeply, one hand touching the floor in deference.

“My Lord,” he said, voice quiet and measured, “the human has been cleansed, clothed, and delivered to her quarters. The nourishment you prescribed has been prepared according to genetic and enzymatic tolerances.”

Karian inclined his head.

“She has not spoken in any recognizable tongue,” Temian continued. “But… she is afraid.”

“She should be,” Karian said simply.

Temian did not flinch. He knew better than to mistake the Marak’s bluntness for cruelty. Karian did not rule through sadism. He ruled through precision, through clarity, and through power.

Fear was not an indulgence. It was a tool.

Karian’s tentacles shifted, flexing slightly, the tips curling and uncurling against the floor with the lazy menace of a predator not yet hungry. The movement alone caused the walls to dim slightly in deference.

The silence held.

And then, softly, Karian spoke again.

“She watched me at the auction.”

Temian blinked. “Yes, my Lord.”

“She did not beg.”

“No.”

“She did not avert her eyes.”

“No, my Lord.”

Karian leaned forward, just slightly, the weight of his attention shifting like a shifting tide.

“She intrigued me.”

It was not a confession. It was a declaration.

Temian bowed his head once more.

“Your judgment is absolute.”

Karian turned his thoughts inward. The human— Leonie —was from a planet so remote most maps considered it a myth. Earth. Crude. Fragile. Undeveloped. Yet teeming with a kind of emotional volatility that the Majarin had long since purged from their evolution. The Yerak revered order. Obedience. Perfection.

But perfection, he had begun to suspect, came at a cost.

There had been something wild in her gaze. Defiant, even in fear. A spark unburned. It called to something in him he didn’t yet understand.

“She must learn our tongue,” he said.

“I will summon the linguists,” Temian offered.

“No.”

Karian stood.

The movement was liquid. His cloak, stitched from the living fibres of sea-thread harvested in the midnight trenches of Luxar, flowed behind him like a trailing current. He rose to his full height, towering above even the tallest of Yerak. The light dimmed reflexively, shadows bowing before his ascent.

“I will teach her myself.”

Temian’s breath caught—but he schooled it quickly.

“As you command, my Lord.”

Karian stepped down from the throne. The platform shifted beneath him, adjusting to his weight and flow as his tentacles propelled him forward in a low, sweeping glide. Faster than any humanoid stride. More fluid than any engineered motion. The Velthra responded, walls flexing open before him like breathless lungs.

At the threshold, he paused.

“See that she is treated with care,” he said. “No harm is to come to her.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

And then he was gone—slipping into the living corridors of his vessel, the heartbeat of the ship echoing through his bones. The ache in his chest remained—a hunger unfulfilled, deep and ancient.

Others of his kind drowned such hunger in conquest, or ritual, or political games.

But Karian had always been different.

And now, in the silence of his command, he felt it stirring again. Not just interest.

Possibility.

A single flame in the dark.

And he would see where it led—no matter what it changed.