The Reing drifted through the void, a leviathan of war and whispering spirits. It was more than a warship—more than mere steel and sorcery—it was a relic of dominion. The great dreadnought of House Drais eclipsed the stars behind it, an omen of death that carried the weight of turies. Its hull bore the scars of a hundred battles, and the sigils of vanquished foes had been carved into its pting like trophies on a hunter’s wall. The ship moved like aability, its presence bending the fabric of space itself.

  Drakonheimr Omega loomed ahead, its frozen expanse a stark trast to the tropical bands that wreathed its equatorial belt. Magis flickered across the heavens, auroras casting an eerie glow upoundras below. To the uninitiated, the world was a desotion, cold and ruthless. But to those who ks secrets, Drakonheimr Omega was a bastion of power. It was the crucible that had fed House Drais into what it was today.

  Drakon Vaelinor Drais, the Baron of Bck Pyres, stood at the bridge, hands csped behind his back. His gaze was fixed upon his homeworld, his expression unreadable. At his and, the unications officer hailed the stardock.

  “Of ash and bones,” the officer intoned.

  The response was immediate. “Of ash and bones.”

  Beyond the viewport, the great harvest had begun. Haulers drifted toward the surface, dragging carcasses of ic dragons through the void. Their massive forms—serpentine, a—were bound in luminous s of etheriergy. Some still twitched, their death not yet absolute. It was a gruesome sight, but ohat spoke of House Drais’s true nature. They were not mere warlords. They were architects of death, bending the ws of life and oblivion to their will.

  Drakon desded in his oskiff, the sleek craft cutting through the atmosphere. Below, Drakenspire awaited.

  The city defied expectation. It was no grim necropolis, no morbid den of uh. It was vibrant, a metropolis where gothic spires stretched toward the heavens, where neon-lit boulevards thrummed with life and industry. House Drais had mastered death, yes—but they had not forsaken civilization. Merts haggled in the grand bazaars, schors debated philosophy and war in t academies, artisans plied their craft in fes that burned with alchemical fme. And among them moved the dead.

  Not the mindless husks whispered about in fearful courts. The revenants of Drakenspire were elegant in their preservation. Their bodies, untouched by rot, were augmented with cyberid fine raiment. Only their luminous blue eyes and the eerie precision of their movements betrayed their nature.

  One such revenant awaited him at the dog ptform. A woman, her beauty unmarred by time, her pale skin kissed only by the chill of death. She bowed with effortless grace.

  “Wele home, my lord,” she said. “Drakenspire has missed you.”

  Drakon studied her for a moment before nodding. “You serve Duke Dragan?”

  “I do. I am Lady Seleeward to the Duke in all matters of court.”

  As they traversed the city, Selene spoke of history. Of Aldric Drais, the first of their name, who had tamed the dragons of their world long before their house had mastered neancy. Before the revenants, before the great dreadnoughts, they had been dragon riders. Warriors of flesh and fire. But then came the Celestial Empire. Then came House Sorius, with their golden banners and their promises of unity.

  “Duty, honor, loyalty,” Selene mused. “That is what Aldric stood for.”

  Drakon scoffed. “The first two, perhaps.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You doubt his loyalty?”

  “To House Sorius? Always.”

  Selene smiled, but said nothing more.

  Drakenspire Keep loomed ahead, a fortress of impossible scale. Its gothic towers cwed at the sky, its walls adorned with lumiurrets that pulsed with are energy. Drakeguard mechs patrolled the ramparts, their armored fliding like specters of metal and wrath. Ihe halls were vast, their ceilings cathedral-high, their stained-gss windows casting eerie patterns upon the marble floors. The air was thick with history, with ghosts of the past lingering in the periphery of memory.

  Drakon moved through the corridors, his gaze lingering on the relics of his childhood. He could almost see it—Lyrius, his younger brhing as they dashed through these halls, knog over priceless heirlooms, evading tutors and guards alike. The bond they had shared had been strong once. And now? Now it was a wound that festered beh armor and duty.

  In the great hangar, the Bck Duke awaited.

  Dragah Drais was a figure carved from shadow and steel. His silver hair and cyberic eyes lent him an aura of cold precision, his presence sharp enough to cut. He did not waste words.

  “Leave us.”

  The attendants withdrew, the doors sealing shut behind them. Dragan moved to a et of dark ironwood, retrieving a gss deter filled with a deep, amber liquid. He poured two measures into obsidian cups, the aroma sharp and smoky, ced with an uone of something a.

  “V?lum Ambrosia,” he said, oo Drakon. “A taste of old glory.”

  Drakon accepted the drink without ent, the cup cool against his fingers. The first sip burned like liquid dusk, rich with the bite of fermented aetherfruit and aged wyrmwood.

  His gaze shifted to the window, and after a moment, he stepped forward, standing beside his uncle. Beyond the reinforced gss, the heart of the Starfe pulsed with industry. The carcass of a ic dragon was being stripped of its celestial flesh by robotic sers, its luminous bones veyed along h ptforms to the stage of refi. Alchemical vats ed, submerging the remains in eldritch solutions, hardening them for their ultimate purpose. Mithril spray coated the skeletal frame, yering it in a shell that gleamed uhe cold, artificial light. Artisans and engineers worked in tandem, affixing meical limbs, are duits, and neural matrices, birthing war-beasts of metal and uh. Its ethereal eyes igniting, a new is dragon-mech born.

  Drakon exhaled slowly, watg the se with a distant look. “Lyrius used to sneak into the core when we were younger,” he murmured. “He was obsessed with the legends of the God-Husk, vi was buried beh all this.” His fiapped against the cup. “Said he could hear it breathing in his dreams.”

  Dragan’s gaze remained unreadable, his grip firm around his own drink. When he finally spoke, his voice was steady, unwavering.

  “Your brother is a fool.”

  Drakon said nothing.

  Dragan turned his attention back to the window, to the great mae that had long outsted its makers, shaping war and empire in equal measure.

  “Lyrius thinks himself ing. He believes he moves unseen. He believes he cim the Starfe for himself without sequence.”

  A long pause. Then the Duke exhaled, his tone shifting, sharpening.

  “Do you know what separates a king from a pretender, Drakon?”

  Drako his gaze. The bck duke tinued.

  “trol. Not through force, but through the quiet s of perception. A true ruler does not demay—he cultivates it. He shapes the desires of his people so that they crave his favor. A king does not merely and. He makes obedience seem iable.”

  Sileretched betweeense and expet. Then Drakon spoke.

  “What would you have me do?”

  Dragan csped his hands behind his back. “Watch him. Let him believe he moves freely. Let him believe he is the master of his own fate.”

  A pause.

  “And wheime es, when his delusions reach their peak…” His crimson eyes gleamed. “We will correct them.”