"The honesty, fury and heart of Sol Hidiyan drove his actions far more than his mind ever could."
- The Eternal Scholar Ranken of the Great house Yudi.
Sol covered his face and walked through the desert. The hurricane winds made each step feel like an ordeal but over hours which became days he travelled through the desert. In the evening the scorching heat turned to freezing cold and Sol could see the sky. The stars shone more brightly than ever, it was a far cry from the almost black night skies of Hidyan, his home for all his life.
By the eighth day of walking in the distance Sol could finally see what looked to be solid ground. A rock face stretched out from the ground and formed an eerie symmetry. As Sol approached it he began to notice that in fact the stone wasn't natural but had been carved. Statues of tall, thin men and women were lined up towards the rockface's entrance.
Sol eventually concluded that the place was some form of ancient palace forgotten to time left to the winds of decay and disease. It became all the more obvious as he climbed the crumbling steps of the building and arrived towards its entrance. The heavy stone doors were impossible to move, it took Sol several minutes until he could find another less conspicuous entrance to the building.
"So you've found your way inside," the Pious's voice said.
Sol turned around and scowled towards the women.
"I have, and why have you placed me in this dream of yours?"
"That is not for you to know, this is Venus's dream you are merely altering it to my liking."
"Altering it?" Sol asked.
"Your actions and your presence are within her dream as well, you're manipulating her Shenalshir even if you don't realise it. Every grain of sand you intercept affects her in some almost indistinguishable way, but it does indeed affect her."
"So if I'm altering your dream, why have you chosen for it to take place here? Couldn't it have been on any other more hospitable planet?"
The Pious chuckled. "Child, do you know where this is?"
"It would be irresponsible for me not to." Sol said truthfully. "We're upon Krysian–formerly known as Kepler-10c–it was humanity's capital for a thousand years before it was almost entirely reduced to rock and sand by a terraforming disaster."
"Could you recite to me some more of the planet's interesting facts."
"At the dawn of the second century BD it was considered to be the largest terrestrial planet within humanity's sky. It's radius is approximately 2.35 Earth Radius and–"
"That's quite enough," the Pious said. "You understand this planet then?"
Sol nodded.
"So then can you understand my intentions of showing this to your sister?"
Sol thought over the woman's words. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of messages that could be inferred or learned from the fall and extinction of life up Krysian, yet Sol could not pin down a single one.
"There are too many stories, messages and lessons to be learned from the event."
"You catch on well my child."
"If that's the case then why show an overwhelming number of truths to a child?"
"When she wakes she will tell you why." The Pious said as she opened the door in front of Sol and walked inside.
Sol followed behind the Pious. The halls in which they travelled through were covered by elaborate murals depicting the advancement and progress of civilization from the Sol system all the way to the terraforming and Kepler-10c into a garden paradise. None of it of course covered its fall and almost instantaneous vaporisation.
Sol marvelled at the ingenuity of the place. Even now within the dream, thousands of years after the end of life on the planet, service machines maintained their schedule cleaning and polishing the stone flaw after each step of Sol. Sol didn't know whether this was true or simply an extrapolation of the witches dream yet he still marvelled at it.
"The presence of machines amazes you?" Pious asked.
"No, but it does intrigue me."
"It shouldn't, these places are a relic of a bygone era, an era before the existence of the Order and the status quo of the Imperium. It was a day before the–"
"Golden Bull of 1 AC , I am aware of the history, I am also aware that in 6 AC the hymn of humanity was sung for the first and last time."
"Your mother has taught you well child, your memory is sharp, sharper then most I meet. It will serve you but not save you from what is to come."
Sol stared at the woman and closed his eyes. He reached out across the dream. He reached out. He reached out for his Venus, his sister. He searched for her, and searched, but could not find her.
"Such actions will not work here. Whether they knew it or not, the humanity of this time had developed an alloy that is able to not only black but channel the mind's power. In the right hand the alloy could act as a funnel yet even to this day we cannot tell what it is made of."
Sol turned towards the Pious and put his hand against the flaw which was made with a reflective black alloy. "You share this information so freely with someone outside of your order and yet I know that you withhold even this from the Emperor, the man who allows and keeps your freedom. Why? Because you fear my father's growing ascent and gamble upon his son as a possible future emperor?"
The Pious smirked slightly before beginning to walk away from Sol. "You speak highly of your father."
Sol followed after her.
"Should I not?" Sol asked with a hint of anger.
"You forget that you are not just of one bloodline."
"You claim to share this because of my mother? She is of common of blood, yet you still consider her?"
"Sol can you tell me how humanity before the calamities choose there leaders?" The Pious asked.
Sol scowled at her. He didn't answer, he knew it of course, but he didn't want to play into the woman's games. The 'democracy' of early humanity is the nobility's best kept secret. Sol had studied it only a few months prior, it was a strange system bound to corruption and infighting, yet it served humanity's interest's for thousands of years.
"They elected from a pool of commoners based on popularity."
"And did blood matter to them?"
Sol stood silent for a moment.
"Speak." The woman's voice said into his head.
"No. Skill, efficiency and popularity were the key factors."
"Correct. Your mother is skilled in the Order's arts." The Pious began. "If you hadn't been born she would've been standing in my place in front of you." The Pious stopped and turned around towards Sol. "I share this information with you child because you need to hear it. Soon you and your family are sent to die, the Order has done what they can to save you from it yet even our power only goes so far."
"How does this information and dream help me from death?" Sol asked.
"One day you will know." The Pious said, turning back around and walking down a staircase.
Sol looked across the room and with a terrified expression ran down the staircase overtaking the woman within moments. He rushed into the centre of what appeared to be a large functions room surrounded by three metre tall columns carved from the very mountain itself.
In the centre of the room Venus was curled up sobbing. Her skin was a bloody mess, her long black hair had been bleached white by stress and her expressive eyes a pupiless grey.
Sol rushed into the centre and went to hug his sister but simply fell through her as she sobbed. He tried again, and then again, but it only resulted within him falling onto the ground.
"What have you done?" Sol demanded.
"I will not tell you unless you command me to." The Pious said before sitting down within a corner overlooking the siblings.
"Tell me!"
The Pious remained silent, she would not react to such provocations even in her most impatient state.
Sol clenched his fists and cleared his mind. It was a test, the Pious was testing him. The Pious was asking him to command her not with her voice, but with his mind. Sol turned towards his sister, she was withering away, starved to the bone and at resorted to chewing off sections of her fingers to eat.
Sol turned back towards the Pious. He focused on her, he cleared his mind of everything: his sister, mother, the planet and the clothes he was wearing, they were all wiped from his mind. He focused upon two things, two words. He closed his eyes and whispered them in his mind. 'Tell me.'
Sol opened his eyes and looked back up at the Pious. The woman viel-faced looked back at him and opened her eyes. She whispered under her breath something foreign even to her and turned towards Venus.
"To free her of the torment of this dream you must properly enter it yourself. As of now you are only observing the dream, you can watch and walk through the dream but you can't touch anything in it, you can't feel it."
"And how do you suppose I do that!?!" Sol shouted back at the Pious.
The Pious looked at him and scowled. "You're twins, the first in centurie, this is something I cannot answer."
"You trapped my sister within a cycle of endless hunger and pain without knowing whether she can be freed or not?"
The Pious turned towards Sol with a look of disregard. "Suffering increased progress within the past, who says it cannot increase it into the future?"
Sol scowled at the woman and then cleared his mind. The suffering of his sister came before his own petty anger against the Pious, she could come later. "Breath", Juno's voice reminded him in his mind. "You're not like other siblings, you're twins, you share a special connection, unseen in generations." Sol scrunched his fists trying to understand what the people around him ment, he couldn't understand the so-called 'connection' in which everyone around him referred to.
He stood there for several minutes trying to piece together what information he could. He came to nothing, his mother had always referred to the bond but never had him demonstrate it, the Pious was asking him to manifest something he had not yet even attempted. He clawed at his mind and then at his face. Nothing came.
Venus wailed in pain and instinctively Sol ran over towards her and once again fell into the ground. Sol looked up, he was facing directly into the entrance hallway in which he'd originally come through. The edges of it were lined within the black alloy.
Juno waited patiently outside the door. Her son inside wailed in frustration and agony, it had only been two or so minutes, how long had it been inside the Shenalshir? Hours, days? It was hard to tell, the Pious could seemingly manipulate it at her will, even the time in which passed inside were all at her whim.
Sol cried out in pain from inside the room once again.
Juno winced over in pain, she could feel it. Juno could feel, even to only a small extent the pain Sol and Venus felt. She could, she could feel the hunger and thirst of Venus along with the desperation and despair of Sol. They suffered and so she suffered. Juno almost fell to the floor in pain, she felt sick, nauseous even yet she clung to the top of the door and stood there.
Juno bent over and began reciting the litany of house Hidiyan through herself and into her children.
Sol could hear it, his mother's voice inside his mind. She'd invaded his privacy yet again, but how? He was in the Shenalshir. The Pious was far more powerful than Juno, far more proficient in the ability to control and protect her mind and the things it produced.
Sol turned towards the Pious. She stared back at him with a face of oblivion. Sol now knew, the Pious was letting this happen, she wouldn't have allowed it if she didn't want it or at least accept it in some form.
Sol turned away from the Pious and closed his eyes. He followed his mother's words and repeated them clearly and concisely.
"Born amongst water and steel, a Hidiyan breathes on.
"Raised by warrior and servant, a Hidiyan watches on.
"Brought about by women and sovereign, a Hidiyan continues on.
"Educated in war and scholar, a Hidiyan learns on.
"Amongst all these a Hidiyan must live on, they must face what they fear most and let it overcome, overtake and oversee them.
"Only once a Hidiyan knows this fear may he seek its obliteration.
"Only once he knows true fear, may a Hidiyan let it pass over him.
"Within the end a true Hidiyan knows itself and all its belongings as it overcame its greatest challenge.
"Its own fear."
Sol opened his eyes and looked up. He could see it now, he didn't have the ability to do it by himself, but he wouldn't need to. Sol rushed up the staircase and down the hallway before arriving at the front door where he'd entered from.
Sol took a deep breath and then pushed with all his might to close the door. The stone moved only a little. He heaved harder. The stone moved a little more. Sol screamed in pain as he pushed even harder, his arms were shaking at the pressure that they were being exerted upon. The door finally gave way and closed completely.
Out of breath Sol stumbled and used the murals within the wall as a support to lift himself up. He took a deep long breath before standing up fully and turning down towards the room where he'd rushed from.
This will do, Sol thought to himself.
He took another deep breath and closed his eyes. He focused and cleared his mind as he'd down before. He knew how to do it–at least within the Shenalshir–he was to use the reflective properties of the black alloy to allow for the magnification of his mind.
He breathed in deeply once again. "Awaken."