The Solvaren Clan Leader stood within the ruins of the governing hall and watched the projection suspended above the broken roof. Nerath's emergency formations had combined the records of the surviving orbital stations into a single image, displaying the imperial vessels that had withdrawn into a defensive arc beyond the planet, the lone dark-gold vessel holding its position ahead of them, and the unknown sovereign floating silently between those forces and Nerath.
The unknown Anchor sovereign had ignored the Ebon Meridian commander's demand and shown no intention of identifying himself or leaving.
The Clan Leader turned towards the unknown women who continued floating with her eyes closed. These two strangers could eventually disappear as suddenly as they had arrived, but the Solvaren Clan would remain upon the world where the confrontation began. They had to bear for whatever was done by these two.
"Is this what you wanted, Narev?" the furnace-allocation elder suddenly demanded.
The words pulled the Clan Leader's attention away from the unknown women. Narev stood near the remains of the conference table, his domain already withdrawn and one hand pressed against the blood darkening his robes. The other council members had surrounded him again, although no one attempted to resume the battle while the warning around the unknown woman remained close enough for all of them to feel.
"You forced us to face reality," the elder continued, pointing through the open roof. "But now look at where your choice has brought the clan."
Narev looked through the broken roof toward the projection. The certainty that had carried him through Deyran's assassination and the battle against the council no longer remained within his expression. "No."
The senior commission elder's jaw tightened. "You knew the Empire could punish the entire clan for what you did. Every person in this chamber warned you before you chose to fight."
"I knew they could," Narev answered. His gaze lowered toward the fractured floor where Deyran's body remained beneath a collapsed section of the conference table. "I believed that once there was no declaration left to hide behind, at least some of you would finally stand with me. When none of you did, I mostly thought the council would surrender me, and the Empire would execute me. I thought my death might make you remember this refusal when the next declaration came, or that someone in a later generation would understand that our acceptance had never been complete."
Narev closed his eyes for a moment. "But I never imagined these two strangers would interfere, or that this would become a battle between an Anchor sovereign and Ebon Meridian…" When his eyes opened again, he did not attempt to defend his decision. "I was wrong."
None of the elders answered immediately. The governing district around them remained filled with alarms, damaged formations, and streams of clan members carrying the wounded away from the ruined buildings. Far above them, more vessels continued gathering throughout the regulated lanes.
The Clan Leader did not join their argument. Nothing they said could change the past several minutes, and deciding how much blame belonged to Narev would not protect a single person from what was approaching. He needed strength or authority capable of reaching beyond Nerath, and he possessed neither.
He raised his UNI-OS and connected to the Ancestor Caldris.
Ancestor Caldris accepted the connection after a few seconds.
The Clan Leader gave his report without wasting time upon explanations the records could provide more clearly. He transmitted the complete surveillance from the governing hall, the council's attempt to restrain Narev, the arrival of the two unknown travelers, and the confrontation that followed. The image hovering above his UNI-OS shifted as he turned, allowing the connection to capture the shattered buildings around Avaris and the unknown woman still stabilizing above the ruins. He added the orbital records last: the enforcement elder being driven away from every inhabited station, the destruction of the distant moon, and the unidentified anchor sovereign returning to wait between Nerath and the gathered vessels.
...
Caldris sat motionless within the command chair of his starship as the final recording ended.
The vessel remained berthed beside a regulated transit station within Andromeda, close enough to the Crimson Vital Sect's territory for Caldris to request another audience without appearing to linger above Sanguis Prime as an unspoken threat.
The authorized Ebon Meridian delegation was expected within several days, and he had remained in the galaxy because he intended to meet them before their formal audience with Hestia. If their demands threatened the descendants upon Nerath, he had wanted enough time to speak with her again and prevent the negotiation from turning toward retaliation.
He had travelled to Andromeda personally, warned Hestia before the official delegation arrived, and asked her not to answer an ancient covenant in a manner that placed the surviving clan at risk. For generations before that journey, he had made himself useful to Ebon Meridian so that the influence granted by his cultivation and elder title could continue shielding the Solvaren descendants from the worst demands placed upon them.
Yet while he remained here attempting to prevent a distant negotiation from endangering Nerath, Narev had killed an imperial commissioner, and two completely unknown sovereigns had transformed the resulting arrest into the death of an Ebon Meridian elder.
"DAMN IT!" Anger rose within Caldris before he could prevent it. Everything he had spent generations preserving had been carried to the edge of destruction within minutes by people who possessed no place within the covenant, the clan, or the fragile arrangement that had allowed its descendants to survive.
"CALM DOWN! CALM DOWN!"
He forced the emotion back before it could harden into judgment. Narev had created the first breach, while the records showed the unknown woman stopping the fight between the elders and even stopping the strike of the enforcement elder. Caldris did not yet understand who they were or why they had intervened, and blaming them would save no one.
The Clan Leader remained before him as a projection, waiting in the ruins for an answer.
"Have either of them identified themselves?" Caldris asked.
"No, Ancestor. The man has not spoken since taking position above the planet, and the woman has not opened her eyes since awakening the Chime."
"Has he issued any threat against the clan or the Empire?"
"None. He has ignored every transmission from the vessels and remained where you see him."
Caldris looked toward the recorded figure waiting beyond Nerath. An Anchor sovereign had killed an Astral elder of a Lesser Major Sect and remained in place instead of fleeing. More importantly, the response had already risen beyond Caldris's authority, and he had no way of knowing what forces Ebon Meridian might have dispatched toward Nerath before this call even began.
"Begin preparing every civilian settlement and clan division for departure," Caldris said.
For several seconds, the Clan Leader did not respond. Even the governing elders visible behind him stopped speaking and turned toward the projection.
"Ancestor," the Clan Leader finally said, "are you ordering us to abandon Nerath?"
"I am ordering you to make certain that if a path opens, millions of people are not still gathering their lives when it closes. Activate the planetary disaster protocols. Suspend every furnace that is not required for medicine or emergency supply production, recall our transport vessels, and move the most vulnerable populations toward the protected districts. Prepare the inheritance archives, medicinal reserves, mana crystals, and everything the clan cannot rebuild if Nerath is lost. All the actions should appear as if we are merely protecting our clan people. It should not look like we are preparing to flee after an organized rebellion."
The Clan Leader looked briefly toward the orbital projection above the ruined hall. "But Ancestor, what will preparing accomplish? There is nowhere for millions of people to go."
"Not yet," Caldris replied. "I will speak with Hestia."
"After what this council signed?" the Clan Leader asked. "Do you truly believe she will help us?"
"I do not know," Caldris answered. "I asked her not to answer the covenant in a manner that cost the descendants their lives, but I possess no right to command her now. I will tell her what happened and ask for her help. What other choice do we have? Ebon Meridian will no longer treat this as the crime of one elder after losing an Astral sovereign in the confrontation that began above this city. Hestia is the only person with the power to even talk with the Ebon Meridian sect and to make the sect hesitate before destroying our clan. If she refuses, the preparations will have cost us little. If she agrees and we are not ready, we may waste the only path our people receive."
The Clan Leader lowered his head. "I understand, Ancestor. The preparations will begin immediately."
"Keep them within the disaster protocols and send me an updated report once every population center has responded. I will contact you again after speaking with Hestia."
"Yes, Ancestor."
The connection disappeared, leaving Caldris alone within the quiet command chamber. The empty void above the console still held a faint shimmer where the projection of ruined Avaris had been, and for several moments he remained seated without issuing another instruction.
He had spent more than a million years believing that the survival of the Solvaren descendants proved the choice to remain in Valtheris had been correct. The entire Nerath and the clan would never have existed if everyone had followed Hestia into an unprepared intergalactic exodus. Millions of descendants had been born because their ancestors remained behind. The clan possessed cultivation inheritances, trade connections, wealth, protection, and an influence its ancient members could never have imagined.
Caldris had spent an age looking upon all of that as proof.
Now the weakness beneath that proof stood before him with brutal clarity. If something threatened Ebon Meridian deeply enough that the sect truly decided to destroy the Solvaren Clan, Caldris could do nothing to stop it.
His Astral cultivation, his elder title, the favors accumulated across generations, and every relationship he had carefully maintained could soften individual demands and protect particular descendants when the system remained stable. None of those things gave him the strength to oppose the power above that system if Ebon Meridian itself decided the clan was no longer worth preserving.
For a moment, Caldris felt as though fate had become determined to drag the Solvaren Clan back toward the same destruction he had spent his entire life trying to prevent.
Hestia's return had reopened the covenant. The council's attempt to secure imperial protection had driven Narev to murder. Unknown sovereigns had appeared at the exact moment intervention could turn that murder into a confrontation with the entire Ebon Meridian Sect. Every safeguard Caldris had constructed had failed at once.
He finally straightened within the command chair and opened the vessel's navigation channel. "Disengage from the transit station and prepare a route toward Sanguis Prime."
The vessel's intelligence acknowledged the command as dark-gold lines awakened throughout the chamber. Beyond the transparent wall, Andromeda's distant stars began shifting as the docking restraints withdrew.
Caldris had spent more than a million years defending the choice to remain. Now he was preparing the descendants of that choice to take the road he had once refused.