FRAGMENT INTRO
The royal cruiser was burning when it reached the border again.
Fire stretched across its hull, tearing bright wounds into the metal and hurling glowing debris into the darkness. Behind it, three imperial fighters detached themselves from the starfield. They did not close in hastily, and not chaotically, but with a calm that was worse than any threat.
The cruiser tried to turn.
One of its engines flared, broke apart, and sent the hull lurching heavily to the side. For one brief moment, the shields spread blue across the ship once more, thin and trembling like a final skin, before the next shot cut through them and tore fire from inside.
Only a few seconds still separated the cruiser from the other side.
The final hit took even those seconds from it.
The explosion stood like a sun between the worlds, bright enough to make the border visible, even though there was no line there.
When the light went out, only black remained.
The prince came out of the bathroom with only a towel around his hips.
Warm water still ran from his hair, gathered at his chin, and slid over his shoulders, chest, and stomach. Droplets followed the clean lines of his trained body, over wet skin, abdominal muscles, and dark tattoos that stretched across him as if someone had left a story on him that he himself did not always want to read.
He reached for a cloth, ran it through his hair, and only then realized that he was not alone.
Three boys were sitting in his room.
One was lying across his bed, so naturally, as if the piece of furniture had been waiting for him for years. Another had a bowl of fruit on his knees and was chewing with a calm that felt almost insulting. The third sat by the window, turning a small technical device between his fingers, paying no particular attention to either the locked door or the wet prince in front of it.
The prince looked toward the door.
It was closed.
His gaze wandered back to the three boys.
“How did you get in here?”
The boy on the bed grinned.
“You should pay your guards better.”
“We don’t pay anyone.”
“See,” the other said, reaching for another piece of fruit. “That’s exactly where your problem is.”
The prince snorted softly, pulled the towel a little tighter, and threw the cloth he had just used to dry his hair at him.
The boy ducked away laughing.
Behind the tall windows, the city glowed in gold and white, wide and safe and full of life.
Inside, four boys laughed as if at least this evening belonged to them alone.
The door opened slowly.
The Emperor stepped out first.
Blood clung to his coat. At first glance, they were only dark spots, on the sleeve, on the gloves, and on the black fabric of his chest, but the smell followed him into the corridor immediately. Metal. Warmth. Something heavy that should not have come out with him.
A boy walked behind him.
He kept his gaze fixed ahead until the Emperor stopped in front of two guards.
“Clean this up.”
He said nothing more.
The guards lowered their heads.
“Yes, Emperor.”
The boy kept walking, but just before the door closed behind them again, he looked back.
Only for an instant.
It was enough.
In the room stood chairs that no longer looked like chairs, because someone had made them into something else. On a table lay knives, clamps, and narrow tools, neatly arranged, even though nothing in that room was clean. Blood ran in thin lines across the floor, gathered at a metal edge, and dripped slowly into a dark channel.
Farther back, parts of a body lay in the shadows.
The boy turned his gaze away before his mind could make a whole image out of it.
The door closed.
The Emperor walked on.
And the boy followed him.
An old monk stood with nine others in the monastery’s assembly hall.
The candles burned low, and their light barely reached the high stone walls, where the shadows of the men stood long and motionless. The cold of the mountains hung between the walls. It came through cracks, under doors, and from the floor itself, as if this place had waited for centuries and forgotten every warmth while it did.
For a long time, no one spoke.
“So the time has come,” one of the monks finally said.
The old monk did not look at him. His gaze rested on the center of the room, where no fire burned and yet a weak light fell across the floor, colorless and restless, as if it came from a depth that did not lie beneath them.
“Yes.”
Another monk clasped his hands together.
“They are still children.”
The old monk raised his gaze.
“Still.”
That single word made the room heavier.
The youngest of them drew in a breath that was barely audible. “Are they ready?”
Outside, wind brushed over the monastery roofs, and for a moment it seemed as if even the mountain were listening.
“No one is ready when a prophecy finds them.”
No one contradicted him.
A candle flickered.
“A peasant boy,” the old monk said.
At the edge of the circle, someone lowered his head.
“The Emperor’s son.”
The wind struck against the shutters.
“A royal prince.”
The words remained standing between them, heavier than any silence before them.
At last, one of the candles went out.
A small Gamba sat between the leaves and held a Watabu berry with both hands.
Its body shimmered in several colors at once. A warm shade of yellow ran across its back, green flitted over its arms, and a bright violet moved across its face, changing whenever it turned the fruit and sniffed at it curiously. The Watabu berry was almost too large for its hands, but the Gamba held it tightly, as if it had found something that belonged only to it.
It bit into it.
The skin cracked softly.
Cold rushed through the small body, clear and quick, and for a single instant all the colors lit up brighter. The yellow vanished first. Then the green. Last, the violet dissolved from its face.
Blue remained.
Deep and still, it lay over the Gamba, as if the fruit had brought not only cold, but a memory that had not yet happened.
Something moved in the river.
The Watabu berry fell from its hands into the grass.
The blue drew together.
And tipped into red.
Two boys sat on the bank and held their fishing rods out over the water.
The river lay calm before them, smooth enough for the trees to reflect in it. Sunlight slid over the surface, small insects hummed between the stalks at the edge, and from the forest came that warm smell of earth, leaves, and summer that made everything seem more peaceful than it perhaps was.
One of the boys was just about to say something when the fishing line went taut.
It did not tighten slowly, and not with a tremble, but with a hard jerk, too sudden and too wrong for this silent water.
The surface broke open.
A massive fish shot up from the depths, dark and heavy, with scales like wet stone and a mouth that seemed far too large for this river. Between its teeth, a smaller fish thrashed, bright and silver, barely more than a flickering piece of light, before the large one tore it apart in midair.
Water struck the bank, scales sprayed through the air, and red droplets fell onto the grass.
The fish plunged back into the river.
The surface closed over it, as if it had never done anything but lie there calmly.
The two boys sat there motionless.
In the bushes behind them, something small glowed red between the leaves.
