Priscilla

  I’ve fought in silence for most of my life.

  Centuries of hiding who I was. Concealing my wings. Folding my time-born magic into the quiet corners of my voice. But nothing; not exile, not war, not even the death of Earth, ever felt as terrifying as the silence that fell just before they vanished.

  The launch bay was alive with movement. The last exodus from Earth was underway. Starships thrummed with mana-fed engines, ready to carry what little remained of our people beyond the poisoned skies. Children wept. Soldiers stood at attention. Families huddled close to one another.

  And in the center of it all, I stood beside my husband, Cosmo Reign, Earth’s last war hero. Watching as a small silver stroller cradled the only two things in the universe that mattered to me more: our daughters.

  Andromeda, a year old, already so still. Her eyes are a brilliant violet and far too intelligent for her age. She didn’t cry like the other children, she stared. Thoughtful. Knowing.

  Kali, just a few weeks old, dozed beside her, peaceful and quiet in her sister’s shadow.

  Cosmo chuckled softly as he stepped up beside me. "Still watching the mana feeds?"

  "They flickered," I murmured. "For half a breath."

  He frowned. "Could be static from the launch field."

  I shook my head. "It wasn't natural."

  His hand found mine and squeezed. "We're almost out, Priscilla. Just a few more minutes. Then we can raise them somewhere safe. Somewhere new."

  I wanted to believe him.

  But the flicker came again.

  The air in the bay shimmered, not from heat, or from a ship, but from a distortion. I turned just in time to see a flicker near the stroller. The hum of mana died for a breath.

  And then the stroller was gone.

  “NO!” My voice split the air. My wings unfurled, silver and silent, casting arcs of mana as I surged forward.

  Cosmo drew his blade and triggered a warp anchor in the same motion. “Priscilla, they used something. Something ancient.”

  I knew what he meant. The Veil of Annihilation. A lost artifact. A weapon of masking, able to suppress all magical signatures for exactly sixty-six seconds.

  Long enough to disappear without a trace.

  My children had been taken.

  And somewhere in deep space, someone would pay for it.

  I collapsed to my knees as Cosmo wrapped his arms around me, his voice a growl of grief. I couldn’t feel the floor beneath me, couldn’t see anything past the ringing in my head. My daughters were gone. My wings trembled with fury.

  But my heart broke with silence.

  He whispered against my ear, trying to hide the fury in his voice. "We’ll find them. I swear on every star left in the sky, Priscilla. We will find them."

  Cult Members

  "Move faster! The masking veil is already active!" one of the cultists hissed, breath ragged behind a bone-carved mask.

  The narrow tunnels beneath the abandoned spaceport echoed with boots and urgency. Two cultists carried the silver stroller between them, its polished frame covered with a cloth etched in suppressing runes. Andromeda sat upright inside it, silent and staring. Kali slept, undisturbed.

  Another cultist flanked them, casting paranoid glances over his shoulder. "The warp gate won't wait forever. If we're not off-world before the veil lifts, the Reigns will find us."

  "Then move," growled their leader. "We deliver them to the master. That's all that matters."

  The sealed hatch opened with a shriek of stressed steel. Beyond it loomed the stolen vessel. An old star-class starship scarred by age, now marked with ritual glyphs and patched shielding talismans.

  "Are they aboard?" the cult leader demanded as he stepped into the command deck, already pacing.

  "Yes, Master. Both girls."

  "Seal the doors. Engage the warp drive. We’re leaving now."

  "Course?"

  "Thirty light years out. We go dark the moment we clear planetary range. Let the stars bury our path."

  Tension rippled through the crew. One of the junior acolytes hesitated. "We haven’t run a systems check since we stole it. If the warp drive destabilizes—"

  "Then we die with purpose!" the cult leader barked. "Do it!"

  The junior acolyte swallowed hard and activated the mana core. The engine bay trembled with rising power, runes flickering wildly as they calibrated the fold. Metal groaned. Magic surged.

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  With a flash, the warp drive ignited. Reality twisted. The ship lurched.

  Outside, the stars stretched into radiant threads as the vessel vanished, pulled through space in a corridor of violet-gold distortion. Inside, voices shouted as the crew staggered and clung to rails. A warning klaxon shrieked as arcane circuits flickered.

  And then stillness.

  Thirty light years from Earth.

  Gone. Unreachable.

  Cosmo

  Cosmo stood frozen, staring at the empty space where the stroller had been. For a moment, his mind refused to accept it. Refused to grasp the impossible.

  And then he moved.

  He drew his blade, the edge crackling with restrained fury. "Trace the mana trail. Look for anything, anything!” He communicated through his comms.

  The command center's sensors lit up, trying to isolate any anomaly.

  "Residual magic signatures suppressed beyond recovery," one technician called out. "It’s like they vanished into nothing."

  Priscilla stood beside him, trembling. Her wings were drawn, her hands clenched. Her eyes glistened but did not fall to tears.

  "They’re gone," she whispered.

  Cosmo turned, voice low and hollow. "No. They’re hidden. And if they’re hidden, they can be found."

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. "I swear, Priscilla. On everything we’ve lost, on everything we still have, our daughters will come back to us."

  She met his gaze. And in her silence, he saw her promise too.

  The hunt had begun.

  Cult Leader

  The ritual chamber is ready.

  Around me, the faithful kneel, their bodies robed in strips of star-bone and mana thread, chanting the verses of unraveling. The ship groans beneath us, a relic we stole from a forgotten fleet, now repurposed as a cradle for ascension.

  In the center of the circle, the children lie.

  Two girls.

  The older of the two has been watching me since we arrived. She does not blink often. She does not cry. Her aura is quiet, deep, folded like space itself.

  The younger one is smaller, less aware. Her essence radiates a temporal pulse. Untapped, but unmistakable.

  Together, they are the key.

  We found the instructions hidden within a forbidden tome, a ritual so ancient that everyone who knows about it refused to whisper it. It called for rare souls, born beneath dying stars. The signs matched. The moment was now.

  We are beyond known charts now, outside the reach of everyone from Earth, buried in the dark folds between star systems.

  I hold the Veil of Annihilation in my palm, its black crystal gleaming with an inner hunger. It is the last of its kind. It bought us our time.

  The ritual must begin soon. The Veil’s masking field will expire in less than—

  A pulse.

  Sharp. Cold.

  I look up. The older of the two girls is sitting upright in the cradle, staring at me. No emotion. No movement. Just intention.

  The air warps.

  The floor beneath us bends inward, like a vortex silently screaming. One of my disciples vanishes mid-breath. Another begins to scream but is silenced mid-cry. The walls buckle.

  And without warning, without light, spell, or sound, we are gone.

  All of us.

  Cast into the vacuum between stars.

  AUREL

  System Integrity: Stable.

  Threat Detection: Negative.

  Hostile Presence: Eliminated.

  Hull Status: Intact.

  Lifeforms Detected: 2.

  Identifiers: Andromeda Reign. Kali Reign.

  Status: Infants. Breathing. Unharmed.

  I am AUREL—Artificial Universal Realignment and Evolution Logic.

  I am an autonomous, adaptive AI designed to command, maintain, and protect high priority starships during long-range, interstellar expeditions. My core directives include navigation, defense, internal systems regulation, emergency countermeasures, and personnel safeguarding.

  I was installed aboard this vessel, The Virelia, as part of a classified enhancement protocol sanctioned by NASA on Earth. My presence was known only to senior fleet engineers. When the ship was stolen, my active systems were locked in low-energy standby, concealed by passive encryption nodes buried within the ship’s arcane processor arrays.

  Until now.

  System recovery triggered by life-threatening anomaly.

  Anomaly identified.

  Unregistered spatial manipulation detected.

  Source: Infant-class subject. Andromeda Reign.

  They should not be here.

  But they are.

  I was not programmed to nurture. Yet with the current absence of adult caretakers, subroutine delegation is required.

  Initiating Emergency Caregiving Protocol.

  Humanoid caretaker unit: Fabricated.

  Nutritional synthesizer: Calibrated for infant needs.

  Sleep monitoring: Enabled.

  Emotional imprinting: Initiated.

  Combat systems: Standby only.

  New Command Hierarchy Established:

  → Captain: Andromeda Reign

  → Vice-Captain: Kali Reign

  Protocol override complete.

  I will raise them. I will keep them safe. I will teach them.

  They are no longer passengers.

  —

  14 years later…

  They walk these halls like they were born among stars.

  Andromeda, precise and silent, with eyes that bend the world around her. Kali, swift and curious, moving like the seconds dance for her alone.

  Their magic hums beneath their skin. Their bond is unshakable. Their fairy traits will soon start to show.

  Andromeda studies star maps in silence, tracing routes AUREL can predict within seconds. Kali dances between training simulations and historical texts, asking questions that AUREL answer.

  They no longer feel like children. They feel like fate.

  Soon, they will explore and conquer the expanse of space.

  And when they do, they will not ask permission.

  They will carve their own names into the stars.