Imperius Exile Wastelands, Uncharted System
Year 9783 C.C. – Four Days After the Trial
*****
The descent into the wasteland was slow, methodical, suffocatingly quiet.
Seraphina Kain sat in the transport's command seat, arms folded, golden eyes fixed on the barren planet below. The dull brown terrain stretched endlessly, broken only by the skeletal remains of ruins long forgotten.
The Dominion didn't name exile worlds.
What was the point? Graves didn't need names.
'He should be dead.'
The words echoed in her mind, hollow and uncertain.
Kael Veyrin had been sentenced. Defeated. Erased. Yet The Echelon demanded confirmation—as if they weren't convinced.
'Why would they question a result they orchestrated?'
Her fingers curled slightly against the armrest. Something wasn't right.
*****
The pilot's voice cut through the silence.
"Lady Kain, we are approaching the designated coordinates."
Seraphina nodded. "Begin scanning. I want full atmospheric readings and biological trace data."
The Dominion's standard procedure for verification missions was simple:
- Locate the corpse.
- Confirm the identity.
- Transmit the execution confirmation log.
A clean process. Efficient. Undeniable.
Except, as the scans ran, the results weren't what she expected.
"My Lady," the pilot hesitated. "There's… no body."
Seraphina's eyes flickered toward the data stream. No signs of human remains. No Dominion-issued tracking signatures.
Nothing.
Her grip tightened.
"Expand the scan radius," she ordered. "What about energy traces? Any movement in the past seventy-two hours?"
The navigator pulled up the data. His face paled.
"There's… something, My Lady. Multiple signs of conflict. Energy discharge from a firefight, footprints leading away from the site."
Her pulse quickened.
'He's alive.'
*****
The transport touched down near the wreckage of a Dominion drop beacon. The structure had been half-collapsed, scorch marks scarring the metal.
Seraphina stepped onto the surface, the crunch of sand beneath her boots the only sound in the desolate air. The wind howled lowly, carrying the remnants of a recent struggle.
She surveyed the area.
Footprints. Plasma burns. Blood.
Evidence of a fight, but no corpse.
One of the guards approached her. "We found something, My Lady."
Seraphina followed them toward a fallen mercenary, unconscious but alive. His armor bore no noble insignia—a bounty hunter.
Her jaw tightened. "Wake him."
A guard knelt, injecting the man with a stimulant. Within seconds, the bounty hunter gasped, coughing as he jolted awake. His eyes flickered with confusion—then fear as he realized who stood before him.
"Tell me what happened," Seraphina said, voice calm but firm.
The bounty hunter swallowed. "We—we tracked him here. The exiled noble."
Seraphina's gaze sharpened. "And?"
"He fought back," the mercenary coughed. "Took down my crew. He was… different. Faster. Smarter. He shouldn't have won, but he did."
Seraphina frowned. "And where is he now?"
The bounty hunter hesitated.
"Gone."
Her heart beat steadily, but she felt the first stirrings of something unfamiliar.
Doubt.
*****
Her comm device buzzed. A private transmission—her father.
She stepped away from the others, answering the encrypted line.
"Report," Lord Magnus Kain's voice came through.
Seraphina hesitated.
'If I say he's dead, The Echelon stops watching. If I say he's missing, they double their efforts.'
For the first time in her life, she considered lying.
"No body was found," she said carefully. "But signs of battle confirm a recent conflict. The logical assumption is that scavengers disposed of the remains."
Silence.
Then, her father spoke. "Logical. But insufficient."
Seraphina's pulse remained steady. "The execution was carried out. The Dominion saw it."
"The Dominion saw what The Echelon wanted them to see," her father corrected. "We are not concerned with public perception. Only results."
Her grip on the communicator tightened. "Then what result do you expect?"
Another pause. Then—a subtle shift in tone.
"If Kael Veyrin still breathes, he will return."
Seraphina frowned. "Return? To what?"
Her father's voice was unreadable. "A throne is never truly empty."
The transmission cut.
She stood still, her mind turning over his words.
The Ascendancy Trials were meant to determine a noble's worth.
But Kael had never been meant to ascend.
So why did The Echelon still consider him a threat?
*****
Seraphina turned back toward the battlefield. The bounty hunter sat silent and afraid, knowing his fate was not his to decide.
Her father's words echoed in her mind.
"If Kael Veyrin still breathes, he will return."
And yet—he had already left.
The noble she had known in childhood would have never survived this exile. But the man who walked away from this fight?
'He is something else now.'
She exhaled. The Dominion demanded order. The Echelon demanded results.
She had spent her whole life following orders. But for the first time, she wasn't sure if she wanted to.
Seraphina turned to the guards. "Burn the wreckage. We leave nothing behind."
As flames consumed the remains of the battlefield, she allowed herself a single thought—one she could never speak aloud.
'Kael… what are you becoming?'
And why did she want to find out?
*****