The gates of Berilinsk creaked shut behind them. Aurania walked behind the truck, her warriors flanking the vehicle as it carried their dead through the heart of their village. The sun had reached its peak, but the streets were too quiet.

  She’d allowed Inelius to help only because she’d fought beside him before and he’d never given her cause to doubt him. The CIPHER girls, though—they were harder to place. The blonde one, Tamiyo, looked like she’d been dropped into this mess by accident. Trouble, clearly, but not malicious. The other one—the girl with purple hair and metal limbs—that one watched everything. She hadn’t spoken much yet, but the way she hovered near the smaller one was… protective.

  They walked in silent formation, a solemn procession for the fallen. Aurania was the last to enter before Androdes, the yellow-green lazarco posted on gate duty, closed it behind her. He was a newer recruit to their militia, and had only worn their uniform for 9 months. He was still too green to have known this kind of loss, but he stood tall, his jaw tight.

  Aurania had stood where he was once. Their mother had ensured she knew that leaders were born through labor, not entitlement. Planting, harvesting, hauling, watching over children, digging graves. She’d done it all. So had her sisters.

  It made it all that much harder to see her people fall.

  The human man, Jory, had been loyal and hardworking; Aurania would need to break the bad news to his fiance before the day was over. The woman Kasey didn’t have any family on the planet, but she had plenty of friends in town, Veolo included. The two d’moria were brothers; Thorsul had been so excited to show his younger brother Thamdir everything he knew. Thamdir had his neck broken on his first real mission. Their parents would be devastated. And Klix the shorn had painted murals that still lined the western gate. He had been bold with his hands, whether shaping color or touching her skin on cold nights in years past.

  She would miss him dearly.

  After witnessing the mysterious man survive Aurania’s attack, the people of Berilinsk were full of questions. She’d told Inelius to pull the truck around back of the village clinic, but word had already spread. A crowd awaited as they entered the village, waiting to pay respects as their loved ones returned home. Aurania approached Inelius in the drivers’ seat and told him to follow her, then headed for the town center. The gathered crowd parted to allow them to pass.

  The people of Berilinsk were predominantly lacravida, but not exclusively. They were a close knit community, and over the coming week, Berilinsk would mourn in color. Music would rise with the sun, laughter would follow tears, and at night, lovers would find each other under starlit veils. Grief was never buried, it was danced with, sung through, shared. This was their way, the way of life and creation. Theirs was the mother race, from which all others had entered the universe. And even more, she was an Enderchild, a direct descendant of their creator, if the myth could be believed.

  Her mother had told her of such things when she was very young, and the teachings continued well into adulthood. At 54 years old, Aurania was the youngest of the three sisters that bore the Enderchild name. Her sister Serava was the middle child at 61 years of age. She had chosen to become a Matron for the village, one of their revered spiritual leaders. Serava would spend the coming days overseeing rituals and much longer after assisting the friends and families process their grief. Their eldest sister Samara had been Chieftess since their mother passed ten years ago.

  “Inelius, stop here,” she commanded. He did as he was told, parking the truck in the middle of the town square. The villagers would take care to see to the dead and prepare them for farewell. “Come with me,” she told him and his little companions. Her voice was cold, but she would not lose her temper again, not like she had with the stranger.

  She led them from the town square and over to Silvara's Hall, the building where the Chieftess conducted formal government matters. The building was grand and ornate, named for Silvara Enderchild, one of Aurania's ancestors who helped found Berilinsk. Aurania walked in front of them, leading the way, and behind they were followed by the sisters, Amalia and Violet. Amalia had a bouncy personality, but looking at them, one might think Violet the more cheerful one because of her twin ponytails. As they walked, a beautiful clear summer sky basked them in the light of the afternoon sun.

  They entered the building’s foyer and a human man exited the main chamber, walking toward them. He was one of the town's doctors, and he'd been assigned to monitor the mysterious man after Aurania had knocked him unconscious.

  “Elias, how is he?” she asked as they approached each.

  “Hey Aura, he's still unconscious. I did some basic checks on him, he's, well he's stable but—just like everything else about him, his vitals are abnormal. I just got done updating Samara, come on down and see him when you get a chance, I'll show you what I mean.”

  “Will do, thank you,” Aurania said. “Hey, can you do me a favor before you head back to that thing's cell?”

  “Sure, what is it?” Elias asked.

  “Go out to the fields and find Miraen. If she hasn't heard what's happened yet, I would like to tell her myself.”

  “Of course, I'll let her know. See you in a bit.”

  He started to turn, but the blonde CIPHER spoke up, softly at first. “Excuse me. Elias, was it?”

  “Silence,” Aurania shot her a look bordering on disgust. “You are far from trustworthy until I determine where you fit in all this.”

  The girl flinched.

  Her posture shrank, then straightened. She looked afraid, but not frozen. There was a flicker of something steadier behind her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Tamiyo said quietly. “I just… I have scanners with me that I bought specifically to diagnose that man. Please, Mr. Elias, take them with you,” she removed the bulky backpack slung on her shoulders.

  Elias looked to Aurania for guidance. She glared at the girl for several moments before silently nodding. Tamiyo handed over the bag, and Elias staggered under its weight as she let go. She appeared to be an advanced CIPHER, so she must have been fitted with an upgraded frame to lift heavy objects. Elias almost dropped the bag but managed to keep it from hitting the ground. He'd probably have a hard time getting it all the way to the cell by himself.

  Amalia laughed playfully at him before asking Aurania, “Permission to give him a hand, Boss?”

  Aurania allowed herself the faintest grin. Even in the wake of loss, the girl’s spark remained. “Sure thing, dismissed.”

  Amalia giggled and slung her rifle onto her back, then easily threw the bag over one shoulder. She headed for the door, calling back to Elias, “Come on, handsome.”

  Aurania turned to lead Inelius and the two CIPHERs into the main chamber. Violet followed them in, posting up at the exit.

  “Lieutenant Inelius,” Aurania started her formal introduction. “You stand before Samara Enderchild, Chieftess of Berilinsk. Introduce your companions.”

  Aurania's eldest sister had been facing away when they entered, discussing something with one of her staff. She turned to face them, tall and serene. At 7’1”, she towered over the chamber though still shorter than Aurania by a handspan.

  wore her golden hair in a braided crown, curls spilling down her back. Her robes were deep gold with black embroidery, styled in one of the traditional cuts of the lacravida. The sheer fabric flowed over her full form, proudly displaying the way motherhood had shaped and marked her body. She’d borne a dozen children and was once again pregnant as of two months ago. At only 68 years old, she could easily yield a dozen more if she so desired. Her body had been producing milk for over twenty years, a living symbol of strength and abundance among her people.

  Inelius did as instructed; he placed a hand on his heart and stated, “It's a pleasure to see you again Chieftess, it's been too long.” He gestured to the CIPHER girl, “May I introduce Miss Tamiyo, a recent acquaintance of mine. The mysterious man whom I heard caused Berilinsk a great deal of trouble disappeared from her ship the other day.”

  “If only we were meeting again under more pleasant circumstances,” Samara said. Her voice was honeyed velvet wrapped around iron. Soothing, maternal, but unmistakably firm. “But it is still good to see a familiar face.”

  She stepped down from the raised dais, her presence commanding without a single aggressive motion. Her eyes briefly lingered on Tamiyo, then moved past her. “And the other?”

  Inelius offered a small smile. “This is Raine, she’s a longtime friend of mine.” He glanced toward her and Aurania could practically smell his fondness for the purple-haired CIPHER.

  Raine gave a slight nod, respectful but not meek. “A pleasure to meet you ma’am.”

  Samara studied Raine for a heartbeat longer, then turned fully to Aurania’s group.

  “Miss Tamiyo. You cradled chaos to our world, yet appear before us willingly. That, at least, earns you a respectful audience instead of one delivered in chains.”

  She gestured around them, pacing closer. “In this hall, truth is sacred, and omissions are viewed as silent lies. Do we understand each other?”

  There was a pause before the girl responded. “Yes ma’am, thank you for your kindness.”

  “Excellent,” Samara said. “Start from the beginning and leave nothing out.”

  The girl exchanged a glance with Raine, she appeared to be leaning on her for support.

  “I come from the Conservatory controlled world of Batist,” Tamiyo began. “Almost a month ago now, I killed a man and fled the system in a stolen ship.”

  She hesitated, eyes flicking between Samara and Aurania.

  “Roughly 60 hours ago, the navigation system of my ship alerted me that I was headed directly for the Mandachor Abyss, I’m sure you all have heard of it, correct?”

  They nodded.

  “Well,” Tamiyo continued, “I had never seen a black hole before and I chose to investigate. But… Not long after it came into view, it began to shrink, smaller and smaller until there was nothing.”

  Samara had been listening with her arms crossed. She released them, but her hands only halfway fell to her sides. “Are you saying—”

  “Yes ma’am,” Tamiyo responded quickly. “The Mandachor Abyss is gone.”

  The room fell silent, and a pressure hung in the air from the weight of her words. No one spoke, everyone was processing. Inelius’ eyes had gone wide, his mouth hanging open. He turned and squinted at the girl, his face silently asking, ‘are you serious?’

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  Finally, Samara's voice broke through the quiet. “If what you say is true,” she paused, finding her next words carefully, “then the balance of our world has shifted. This may well explain all of the unusual weather patterns we’ve been seeing. But how does that man fit into all of this?”

  Tamiyo swallowed again. “I found him at the epicenter, exactly where the singularity should have been.”

  Aurania narrowed her eyes at the girl.

  “At first I thought I was wrong,” Tamiyo continued. “That the instruments had glitched or I’d miscalculated. But with everything happening since… the strange fluctuations, the crazy weather patterns…” She shook her head. “I know what I saw.”

  Aurania stepped forward, voice cold. “You found a stranger floating in deep space, where a black hole was supposed to be and you brought him here. Without warning. Without asking. Why?”

  “Because I am a fugitive from the Conservatory.” She looked up and met Aurania’s eyes with an unexpected fire. “I knew nothing of your world or how great a risk I may have been taking at being arrested. I wasn’t trying to endanger anyone, I swear.”

  “So what made the risk worth it?” asked Samara.

  “My primary function is care,” Tamiyo responded. “That’s what I was built for. And when I found him, he was unconscious. I didn’t know what he was. I just knew I couldn’t leave him out there.” She looked between them, her posture tense but not defensive.

  Samara’s expression didn’t change. But Aurania pressed again, sharply this time: “Inelius, you’re a lieutenant in the Owangara militia. You didn’t think to report a missing spaceman from a fugitive’s ship?”

  Inelius’s jaw tensed. “How was I supposed to know her missing person was causing the crazy weather? I helped her back to her ship, we found out the guy was missing, so I helped her look. Simple as that.”

  Aurania’s nostrils flared, but Samara raised a hand before she could snap again.

  “They have a point,” her sister said, calm and composed as ever. “None of them had full context for what was happening until today. It may have been reckless, but not malicious.”

  Aurania held her tongue, jaw tight.

  Samara turned back to Inelius. “Where is her ship?”

  “Currently at the Owangara spaceport,” he replied, squaring his shoulders.

  “By the time you return,” Samara said, her voice smooth but unyielding, “I will have contacted your captain to inform him that her ship is to be impounded under Royal Order.”

  Inelius blinked. “You know you can’t officially order anyone outside of Berilinsk.”

  Aurania stepped in, her voice low and dangerous. “Careful, Inelius.”

  He met her glare without flinching. “Careful yourself there, Aura. Grill me all you want, at the end of the day, we’re on the same side. We need to figure out how to fix whatever is happening to our planet,” he paused and looked to Samara. “Without stirring up a political shitstorm.”

  Aurania’s jaw tightened. She didn’t appreciate being challenged in front of Samara, especially not by a man whose loyalty she’d never doubted. But part of her respected the spine it took to call her out. He wasn’t wrong, just infuriating.

  “So we have a missing black hole,” Samara said, “a mysterious man found in its place, and a whole mess of unstable weather patterns.” She looked at Inelius, then Tamiyo. “Anything else?” Her tone was stern, but not hostile.

  Tamiyo hesitated, then nodded once. “Yes ma’am. I found him by tracking Aether Dust. I don’t know much about it, but the scanner on my ship read like he’s completely made of the stuff.”

  A subtle shift passed through the chamber. Samara’s gaze lingered on Tamiyo for a long moment, then she looked to her sister. “I believe we’ve heard enough for now. War-Chieftess, I leave them in your charge.”

  Aurania nodded and called over her shoulder, “Violet, escort them to a guest house.”

  “Are we prisoners?” Tamiyo asked nervously.

  Samara answered calmly, “You, Tamiyo, are our guest for the time being. You’ve been honest and no further harm has come to our people since your arrival. But until we understand more about the man you brought here, you’ll remain under our supervision.”

  “And if I try to leave?”

  “Then you’ll find our hospitality wears thin,” Aurania growled.

  Samara turned to Inelius and Raine. “You two, however, are free to return to Owangara. For now. Inelius, I will send word to your captain requesting your continued assistance in this matter. Given the stakes, I expect he’ll see reason.”

  Inelius nodded, but hesitated. “Just… don’t treat her like a threat unless she becomes one.”

  Aurania didn’t quite roll her eyes. “If I thought she was, you’d already be carrying her pieces home in a bag.”

  Violet stepped forward quietly. “I’ll escort them out.”

  Raine’s voice cut in. “Would it be alright if I stayed with Tamiyo?”

  All eyes turned to her.

  Tamiyo looked back over her shoulder.

  Inelius frowned. “Raine—”

  She gave him a small shake of the head. “I’ll be fine. Go home Inelius.”

  Aurania studied the girl a bit closer. There was a fire inside her. She stood firm, gazing up at Samara with an expression that wasn't defiant, it was full of resolve.

  Samara thought for a moment, then nodded once. As the group left, her voice followed them toward the doors. “First light, Lieutenant. I want answers before the sun’s had time to yawn.”

  He turned and offered a deep bow as he continued to pace backwards. “As you wish, Grand Mother,” he said with a dose of sarcasm. As he turned back to the door, he added, “Oh and I’ll tell Captain Banto that it might be a good idea to impound the ship.”

  “Idiot,” Aurania muttered as the group left.

  Samara smiled at her, “Yeah, but he’s endearing.” She began walking back towards her study, a room that contained towering bookcases and numerous priceless relics. “I’m going to call Altina and update them on the situation.”

  “I’ll go check on our guest,” Aurania responded.

  Samara glanced back over her shoulder. “Elias will notify us if there’s a change in his condition.”

  Aurania hesitated, then shrugged. “I know. I just want to look with my own eyes. Something about him still doesn’t sit right.”

  Samara raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t sit right… or sits too close?”

  Aurania said nothing, but her grip tightened slightly on the axe as she turned and walked away.

  The late afternoon sun was hanging over Berilinsk as Aurania walked towards the eastern fields. The town was buzzing with life after the return of their fallen comrades. Much work needed to be done to prepare for the Celebration of Life. A group of d’moria smiled and waved to her from outside their hovel as they sat enjoying each others’ companionship. Just down the next street, children were running and giggling through the dust.

  Three of them barreled toward her, chased by a fourth. One, a young lacravida around nine years old, ducked and slid right between Aurania’s legs before springing back up and bolting after her friends. Her linen tunic and leather trousers were streaked with dirt and scuffed at the knees, signs of a full day spent climbing, tumbling, and tearing around the village. Aurania smiled faintly. She remembered wearing the same kind of playclothes at that age, carefree and half-wild until her body began to change around her twentieth year.

  The girl glanced back over her shoulder and giggled “Hi Aura!” waving as she ran away.

  Aurania looked after her and returned a warm smile, saying, “Hello!” before continuing on her way.

  As she moved beyond the residential quarters, the sounds of the village began to fade. She passed the crop storage warehouses, milking parlours, and grain silos, heading further out into the fields with broad, green-leaved thalgrain crops reaching up to her waist. She wasn’t in a rush, and by the time she reached her destination, the afternoon sun had shifted to an early evening glow. The sky was beginning to stain with amber and lavender, the light sharp where it bled through breaks in the clouds. Then she saw it, just above the treeline—the sun was ringed not by one halo, but three. Pale concentric circles shimmered in the sky, faint but unmistakable.

  Aurania stopped walking. She had only seen such a phenomenon once before in her life, during a time of great unrest. Her mother had called it a bad omen, a fracture in the harmony between sky and soil. The sight sent a quiet chill through her.

  A storm is coming, she thought. And it has nothing to do with the weather.

  The prisoner was being kept well away from the Berilinsk population, out past rows of crops in a building where Glimmane Beasts had been kept ages past. The fifteen foot tall herbivores still roamed the jungles around Nox, but the lacravida no longer had a reason to keep them in captivity after they had acquired better technology for hauling heavy cargo around. The building was built into the ground, square in shape, with sides 100 feet long. The thick stone walls sat at angles holding up the roof which was also carved stone. The seams and corners of the stone had been reinforced long ago with thick metal braces. The building was normally used as their armory, but she had ordered all weapons temporarily relocated while they used the building to house their “guest.”

  Inside, the building was partitioned off. The prisoner was held in one of the rear chambers, lying on a makeshift stone bed. Aurania had bound him in place herself, wrapping him in chains meant for the massive animals once held in the building. Their weight capacity was rated in tons, and the chains themselves weighed over 100 lbs per foot. She had wrapped them around him twice and secured the ends to anchors on the floor.

  Elias turned to greet Aurania as she entered, but Riza didn’t take her eyes off the man on the stone slab. She didn’t have her helmet on, but still wore the rest of her heavy black plating, and her sniper cannon was trained on the unconscious man’s head. It was a monstrosity of a weapon that fired giant aerodynamic slugs nearly a foot and a half long. The gun was as long as Riza was tall, and the barrel displayed the letters “NMW” in reference to one of her early missions with the weapon.

  “Hey there, Aura,” Elias said, “how did it go with Samara?”

  “Complicated,” she replied, setting her axe near Riza. It balanced along the flat edge on top, the haft jutting straight up into the air like a monument. “You said his vitals were abnormal?”

  “Yeah so, he appears to be human, right? But his heart rate is one of the only readings I can get a somewhat accurate measurement on, and it’s only going at about 25 beats per minute, which is very slow for a human. He’s not breathing very fast, so maybe he doesn’t need much oxygen?”

  Aurania carefully observed the unconscious man while she listened. “What else?”

  “Well, as you already know he’s a lot heavier than he looks. I tried running additional scans with the equipment that girl gave us but most of them failed to give me anything of value. That, or they gave me really wild readings.”

  “Wild how?”

  “So for instance, the scans that try to normally penetrate through the skin and bone to generate imagery for us just couldn’t seem to get through. I ran an MEG, which normally records magnetic fields produced by neural activity. But it was getting thrown all over the place, almost like his body is emitting various magnetic fields from all over. I quite literally can’t get a read on this guy.” They all stared at the man on the table for several moments. Then Elias asked, “Did that girl give any insight to what’s going on with him?”

  “Uh yeah, supposedly she found him floating in space where a black hole was supposed to be.”

  “What?!” Elias exclaimed.

  “Oh yeah, that reminds me,” Aurania continued. “Supposedly the Mandachor Abyss has just up and disappeared, what does that mean for us? How could that affect Nox?”

  “Holy shit,” Elias raked a hand through his hair. “If that’s true… the gravitational pull alone, Nox has been near it for centuries. We’d need to check with the Altina observatory, confirm if they’ve noticed any anomalies.”

  “Yeah, Samara already called them,” Aurania was eyeing the man, trying to figure him out. She felt like the air around him had a glow to it, but it was extremely faint and she couldn’t tell if she was imagining it. She also felt like heat was emanating off of him. It prickled at her skin, beckoning. She slowly began to walk towards him, feeling the need to investigate further.

  “You sure that’s a good idea boss?” Riza asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve got you here. If he gets up and tries to attack me, y’know,” she glanced back at Riza and shrugged. “Shoot him.” She kept walking.

  She felt conflicted; she was angry about the people he killed, but he felt like a mystery she needed to solve. Something was drawing her over to him.

  The heat coming off of him deepened, not in temperature, but in presence. Her vision swam, the shape of the room warped, and her hooves felt like they weren’t quite touching the ground. Then—

  She blinked.

  And in the time it took for her eyes to close and open, she was no longer in the holding chamber. She was standing in the jungle. Her hands weren’t her own. She had large human feet, not the hooves she was familiar with. Her breath came slow and steady, not hers, but his. She was watching the campsite, she could see Jory talking with Kasey and Thorsul as he smoked his pipe. They didn’t know she was there, so she decided to try talking to them. It’s not like she had many other options.

  She never got the chance. A sound to her right caught her attention and she looked to see Thamdir pointing his shotgun at her. He looked terrified. He shouted to the others that someone had snuck up on them. She raised her hands quickly and he shot at her, hitting the tree next to her head. She had to defend herself, she just needed to knock him unconscious. She ran around him and he shot at her again. She stomped the rifle out of his hand and punched him in the face.

  And as his neck snapped and the body slammed down into the ground, she was consumed by dread and fear. But she wasn’t afraid of her attackers.

  She was afraid of herself.