Valerian's POV
Valerian’s world had shrunk to the space between one ragged breath and the next. His son, his star, was gone. The warmth had fled his tiny body, leaving behind a cold stillness that felt like a tear in reality itself. His hands hung useless at his sides, trembling. He looked for his brother, the Emperor, for some anchor in the storm, but the throne dais was empty. He was alone.
Antheros’s grief was a terrible, silent thing. Her sobs made no sound, but her entire body shook with a force that seemed to break her from the inside out. She just rocked the baby, her eyes hollowed-out pits of despair.
Staff and guards, friends who had celebrated with them hours ago, now surrounded them like ghosts. Some collapsed to their knees, their own weeping a raw echo of their lady’s silent pain. The old scholar, whose face had beamed with joy earlier, was now a crumpled figure on the floor. His weak voice cut through the haze.
“Who?” the old man whispered, his face streaked with tears. “Who would be so profane as to throw back a gift from the gods?” He crawled forward on trembling knees, his eyes fixed on Antheros. No one stopped him. He gently took her free hand. “Champion…”
His voice, though frail, grew stronger. “Take my life. Let it be fuel for his.”
A thought, a mad and impossible hope, ignited in the darkness of Antheros’s eyes. It was a spark of the fierce will that had earned her the title of Champion. She looked from the scholar to the still face of her son. The child was not long gone. Her resolve hardened into something terrifying.
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“I will not lose you,” she whispered, her voice raw.
She gently laid their son on the star-stitched quilt on the floor. A soft, dangerous light began to glow around her as she prepared to channel her own life force, her very soul, into the child’s body.
Valerian’s confusion turned to cold dread, then to understanding. He saw the truth in her eyes: she would burn herself to ash for even a chance to bring him back. In that moment, a decision settled in his heart, quiet and absolute.
He moved without thinking, his hands already tracing the glowing lines of a support formation on the floor around them—a perfect circle, drawn from instinct and desperation. “If Antheros is the fire,” he thought, “I will be the fuel.” He knelt and placed his hands over hers, pouring his own life energy into the ritual.
A young maid, the one who had rushed in after the scream, knelt without a word and offered her hand. Then a guard, then another. One by one, the loyal members of House Hammer—retainers, servants, friends—knelt and joined the circle, offering a piece of their life, their soul, to this impossible cause. The air crackled, thick with sacrifice.
The old scholar smiled a sad, peaceful smile. He placed his hands on Antheros’s shoulder. “Let my old life warm a new one,” he said, his voice a soft rustle. A final, brilliant pulse of energy flowed from him, and then he slumped to the floor, his duty done.
Antheros, her mind lost in the storm of magic, poured more of herself than anyone. "If a life is the price," a thought echoed in Valerian's mind, a reflection of her own, "let it be mine."
The light of the ritual grew blinding. Valerian felt his life draining away, his body growing cold and heavy. He held on, his focus only on his wife and son, until consciousness finally frayed and darkness took him. The last thing he heard, or thought he heard, was the faint, fragile sound of a baby’s cry.
