Foreword
In every age, there are stories the galaxies try to forget. Whispers sealed in archives. Names scrubbed from history. But the truth is stubborn. It finds its way back into the light.
This is not the tale of heroes draped in perfection, nor villains born of simple malice. It is the record of those caught between the machinery of empires and the weight of their own hearts. A record of power stolen, bartered, and broken.
You will see sacrifice. You will see love twisted by fear, and fear overcome by love. You will see a planet breathe again.
And you will see that in the end, the stars themselves can be rewritten.
Copyright © 2025 by Thaya Mkhize All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the author. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
Trigger & Content Warnings
Violence & War: Depictions of battle, destruction of cities and planets, injuries, and death.
Gore: Occasional graphic descriptions (e.g., severed heads, wounds).
Torture & Imprisonment: Physical and emotional suffering, forced confinement.
Medical Trauma: Hospitals/medbays, severe injuries, comas, mentions of medical experimentation.
Abuse & Exploitation: Astral energy harvesting from living beings; non-consensual body modification.
Death & Loss: Death of loved ones (on- and off-screen), grief, mourning, funerals.
Psychological Trauma: PTSD-like symptoms, survivor’s guilt, manipulation, fear, and betrayal.
Sacrifice: Characters choosing or being forced to give their lives for others.
Emotional Distress: Intense crying, breakdowns, confessions under duress.
Political Oppression: Tyranny, imperial exploitation, slavery parallels and forced labour.
Enjoy!!😊
Prologue – Chocolate Cake Is The Best
Forget the music, the laughter, the jokes, my little sisters and cousins darting under the table, my mother running after them trying to catch their little bodies. The balloons and all the decorations, or the surprising turnout of relatives and friends.
It’s the cake.
This thick slice of double-fudge chocolate cake sitting on the paper plate before me, laced with just the right amount of bitterness in the cocoa and topped with a ganache that shimmers like molten gold. I think I’m drooling.
As soon as I take a bite, it melts on my tongue like heaven, so much I close my eyes and just taste it.
“Hmm, this is divine.”
“Are you having a foodgasm right now?”
I choke before laughing. I hear Emma’s laugh ring with mine not a second later as I open one eye and look at her. She sits across the table, wearing that pale blue dress we picked out at the store a few days ago, her hair is tucked in a careless grace, there’s dandelions sticking out of the blond strands, courtesy of my little sisters. She looks beautiful, gentle, and kind.
“Em, you don’t get it, this is the pinnacle of humanity.”
She continues to laugh while shaking her head.
“You’re being dramatic Jay, it’s just cake.”
She leans over and steals a bite, I allow her, after all, there’s no reason for me to hoard. Because this is it. The peak of the twentieth cycle.
The end.
This cycle was good, warm, kind, quiet. I was born in a loving family, blessed with two younger siblings who smile like the sun, parents who raised me like a treasure. There were no wars and I never had to fight. And then there’s Emma, I have imagined growing beyond numerous times. I think we would get married and I’d spend the rest of my days listening to how her laughter fills the air like life itself.
But alas, dreams of the future are void for me.
“Wow…it’s actually super good!”
I grin as she savours the cake.
“Told ya.”
Someone suddenly yells above the music, ‘Where is the birthday boy!?’, probably uncle Roy. I stand, offering Emma my hand.
“Let’s go dance.”
She does not hesitate to take my hand and I lead her to the backyard where everyone is gathered. The sun spills over the grass like honey, catching the edges of the balloons and the paper lanterns and the cheesy ‘Happy 20th, Dork’ banner, Emma definitely wrote this. The aroma of grilled food and sweets is drifting in the afternoon air.
I allow myself to laugh as Emma and I start dancing to the upbeat music blasting through the speakers.
Is it selfish of me to want this moment to last forever?
As if reading my thoughts, the air suddenly begins to shift. I can feel it, the tightening pull of the cosmic thread…they’re here.
A crack like the blast of a thunder strike explodes above all the music and laughter. Gosh, they just never come quietly, always these grand entrances. The music stops, everyone is alarmed, my sister runs to grab my leg in fear, I crouch down and ruffle her head.
“It’s okay Lil, don’t be scared.”
She smiles even though she’s trembling, her two front teeth are missing and she looks adorable. Lily never did like thunderstorms. Damn…I will never see this kid again. This sucks.
I turn to look when the gate appears, a crackling tear in the fabric of space. It feels like gravity is sharpening, pulling everything in. Then they step out, clad in black and silver, the crest of the seven stars etched on their chest armour, then below it, the mark of the Obsidian Protocol. They step out of the gate like death’s incarnate, they are.
The Executioners.
There’s two of them again this time, they always come in pairs. One is a bulky man, phase blades fastened on his back. I think I’ve encountered him before? But the woman is new, and I feel my breath catch when I look at her.
Her armour glints, pristine, polished. She’s poised, tall, stepping with an elegant and deadly precision. Her platinum hair falls down her back in perfect straight strands, a single strand overhanging onto her face. Her face is severely breathtaking, stunning, pale, almost inhuman in its perfection, like a statue sculpted from moonlight. It’s hard to tell her age, I mean, it’s hard to tell all their ages, I guess. She looks like she could be younger than me, but her intensity says otherwise. I flinch when her eyes turn to me, her gaze is sharp, her eyes are golden, searing, and I feel frozen for a moment. She stares at me for a second and behind that beautifully cold calculated mask, something seems to flicker.
This is how I go this time, at the hands of an interstellar goddess, not bad. I stand up, brushing crumbs of chocolate cake off my shirt before I take a step towards them.
I don’t feel any panic or fear, only a stillness, the kind I have learned at the end of all my previous cycles. I walk to them calmly, behind, Emma screams my name, my mother cries, my sisters wail, my father and uncle Roy try to fight using the gardening tools. The bulk man bars them, he doesn’t hurt them. After all, the duty of an Executioner is to kill the Zenith, no one else, just me.
The goddess visibly flinches when I step before her, her hand shoots up to grab her weapon with a sudden urgency, she seems startled. She’s staring, her eyes, her black pupils dilated. I marvel at her weapon for a moment. It’s a single-edged longsword, curved slightly, like a katana, the blade gleams with a translucent shimmer, like moonlight on black water, there’s some delicate runes pulsing softly in a silver light, I suppose some language only known to the Executioners? The hilt is wrapped in midnight-blue leather, I think it’s from the skin of a space drake. The guard is shaped like a partially eclipsed moon. Gosh…even her weapon is beautiful.
“I’m good to go.” I tell her. She flinches yet again, her golden eyes, now wide, staring at me. Then her eyes burst in astral force, the glow surges through her blade and she raises it, then she brings it down in a swift arc, cutting through my chest in a second. It hurts only for that second; I think she’s saying something? Her lips are moving but the sound of her astral energy is drowning everything out.
Then, an explosion of white.
The taste of chocolate cake still lingers in my tongue as all of my senses begin to shut down.
Really.
Chocolate cake is the best.
