As the shadow canopy shimmered above the towering palace nestled atop the jungle world of Nal'uth, the Convocation of Shadows reached its apogee. Crystal-fire lanterns danced in the thick air, painting the palace in crimson and voidlight. The banners of the Mahasimu Empire snapped in the high wind—serpents of dominion streaked across the sky.
On the Grand Terrace, Princess Safi stood resplendent in layered regalia woven with embryonic silk and laced in imperial gold. Her face was composed, the perfect portrait of devotion—but within, her heart was a furnace of ambition. At her side, Lady Thalia, veiled in obsidian silks, leaned close, voice a dagger cloaked in breath.
"The moment is now," she whispered.
"Strike. The Queen will not expect it. The palace is ours."
Without a flicker of expression, Safi raised her hand in silent command—a prearranged signal. All around, shadows stirred as her conspirators, planted across the balconies and upper chambers, began to move.
But the Nine Royal Guards had never left the Queen's reach.
From the rear of the terrace, Nyota, Commander of the Obsidian Custodians, stepped forward with the silence of execution. The other eight fell into formation, surrounding the traitors with mechanical precision.
"Princess Safi," Nyota declared, voice cold and honed like obsidian,
"by decree of Queen Saumu, your plot ends here."
Gasps erupted across the crowd. Nobles recoiled. Moro, Safi's loyal bodyguard, lunged forward to defend his mistress—but Nyota moved like fate itself.
One swing.
Moro's head rolled across the obsidian tiles, stopping at the edge of the ceremonial dais. Silence reigned. Safi froze—not in fear, but in seething betrayal. She summoned her shadowcraft, trying to lash out with ancestral power—but the Nine closed in, their combined force pressing down like a gravitational prison.
Her power died in her throat.
"Touch her not," Nyota commanded the Custodians. "She bears royal blood. By sacred edict, only the Ancient Queen may pass judgment upon her flesh."
Shadowsteel shackles were conjured from the void, binding Safi's limbs in nullifying silence. Nyota fastened them herself, though her touch avoided any direct harm.
Lady Thalia was not so fortunate. The veil torn from her face, her attempted flight was halted by twin psychic lashes. She was gagged, bound, and dragged before the gathering.
"Lady Thalia," Nyota pronounced, "is condemned as Traitor of the Crown. She shall be cast into Gharar—the deepest pits. Let her soul be swallowed by despair."
Bound for Gharar: Two Fates, One Descent
Aboard the Shadow-Class Transport, a sleek vessel carved from midnight alloy and sealed with psionic locks, two prisoners sat in silence. In the main chamber, Lady Thalia was secured in a cage of energy-iron, her face bruised, eyes filled with defiant fire.
In a separate section—insulated by ancient shielding and guarded by ritual wards—Princess Safi remained isolated, seated on a throne-like restraint woven from pure shadowsteel and bone-glass. She was untouched, unbruised, her power suppressed only by ancestral seals. No one spoke to her. No one dared.
She was a prisoner, yes—but one wrapped in the invisible armor of her lineage. Her true punishment awaited the will of a power beyond even Saumu's.
Only the Ancient Queen, the mother of Saumu and architect of the bloodline, had the right to pass sentence on one of her royal daughters.
"She is untouchable," murmured Amani, watching Safi's chamber from the observation slit.
"Until the Ancient One speaks."
"And when she does," said Roko, "Gharar itself may shake."
Meanwhile, Lady Thalia heard none of this. She was already composing a thousand futures in her mind—ones where fire rose from within the darkness of Gharar and consumed her enemies.
"You will die forgotten," Jalia hissed at her.
Thalia smiled, a slow and terrible thing.
"No," she replied. "I will become the whisper that drives your empire mad."
Arrival at Gharar: The Empire's Wounds
As the vessel entered Gharar's orbit, the prison world came into view—a continent of shadow floating in a sea of red storms, pocked with fortresses and tomb-halls.
At the Prime Obsidian Bastion, a crowd of one million Umbari warriors stood waiting in absolute silence—not for Thalia, but for Safi.
The palace's special containment sanctum, a vast temple-vault woven into the planet's crust, was prepared to house her until the Ancient Queen's decree arrived. Inside it, psychic hymns hummed in endless loops, singing of blood-right, loyalty, and penance.
Thalia was dragged in chains through the Forge of Shadows, stripped of name and identity, her trial already decided.
Safi, on the other hand, was taken beneath the Bastion—into the Sanctum of Royal Silence, where she would remain untouched, alive but exiled, until the Queen Mother herself spoke from her hidden sanctuary.
Beyond the Empire: The Zelith Strike Begins
In the gleaming halls of Zelith Prime, where crystal domes echoed the dreams of ancient stars, the High Council deliberated over the Mahasimu threat.
Still unaware of the collapse unfolding within enemy borders, the Council focused on opportunity.
"A fracture forms in the Uli system," reported First Speaker Zhal-En. "Rumors, faint but undeniable. We must confirm them."
High General Vrakhar bowed. "I will send scouts. We will find the break—and drive a blade through it."
Within hours, a team of five was assembled:
Seris Korr, seasoned field commander.
Elan Virel, master of infiltration.
Talan Rynn, demolitions expert.
Ishara Vey, psion and mind-mapper.
Droven Maal, cultural mimic and translator.
Their target: Akaris V, a fortified border world near the edge of the Uli system.
Their mission: locate the signs of empire collapse—and prepare the first strike.
They departed in silence, unaware that Safi's fall and Thalia's vengeance would soon send tremors through the very foundations of the Mahasimu dominion.