ce should hav

where physics is broken - gravity wells that run backwards, stars that sing and drive you mad, radiation so old it remembers the birth of the

t screamed

straw - uncomfortable, a little nauseating. This felt like being turned inside

hand over hers. The black circle in her palm was burning cold. The glowing lines o

clashing against the black walls, shouting something

- sil

r silence. The silence of a place

dropped out o

. A color that wasn't a color, a void so comple

anyone. "Core is stable. Hull integrity 100%. But... where are we? Sensors show nothi

ith him. His touch lingered a second too long o

his voice tight. "The buffer zon

story Astral mothers tell their children to make them

ice again. It was that older voice. And this time, Mira's

gram was

breath

, dark wavy hair like Lyra's but streaked with silver, wearing a crown of living li

man said, and her voi

. Kael caught her bef

voice cracked

ears that looked like l

am - I was - Queen of Ear

ST

, except for the impossible sil

und. "That's impossible. The Quee

gram, his hand unconsciously tightening on Lyra's

it had been waiting 183 years to be

means you touched it, and it woke up. It means the Veil is

ctly at Lyra, and it fel

lanets. It eats history. It eats memory, identity. It makes civilizations forget they ever existed, until they wander as empty h

n stomach, as if reme

Veil from the outside. Instead, he erased us from every map and took our colonies as payment. We let hi

, as if she c

genes. Your bloodline was once our closest ally before Lucien turned. Your mother, Ali

mother died in chil

ene said gently. "Lucien told you t

other... mother died of a fever. Th

e Heart as a weapon," Selene's hologram continu

shaking. Not with fear. With rag

him lose control. No

my heir. You are not just Aureli. You were engineered. The Heart in your palm is not just a key. It is

ne distorted, her face stretching, her voice dropp

YOU, LIT

on the Rev

. It wasn't empty. Something huge was shifting in it. Som

m suddenly burned like ice, and a second circle - identical - burned

its light the only light left. "W

e! It's been using the Shroud as a bridge! The Veil isn't ju

both, hauling them toward the

s. "The core is being drained! Some

f. She did what she'd done as a kid when

on the floor of t

hummed, the same static in her head since childhood. She sang it from her

hich had been c

's color. Its semi-sentient AI, which had been

n its hundred-year service, the wa

ECTED. COURSE

a jump, but with a punch, ripping a hole straight thro

ewport for half a second - a shape in the void, too big to co

ars. Re

f them, where no sta

Green.

rt

iful. And it was wrapped in a shimmering, crac

t. The planet th

mms, awestruck: "My P

at Lyra, at the glowing circles o

looked at Lyra with something completely

And

phine whispered. "Kael... she'

ming down her face because the planet in front of her fe

door. And I just opened it

nothingness began to bleed through into real space, like