10th January, Space Era Year 101.
A white sheet of snow blanketed the Royal Cemetery of Berlyn.The winter wind carried dry leaves adrift across marble graves, until it came to rest before one stone, engraved with a single name:
"Anya Vilozyver."
Aelyzabeth Thors knelt before it.Her slender hand trembled as her fingertips traced the carved letters.A faint sob escaped into the frozen air—a sound her son, Aerys, had never heard from her before.
"Anya… You must never have wished to be born into this madness…""All of this… it was Margaret's doing—my own sister."
Tears fell onto the snow.Aerys stood silently behind her, his head bowed in reverenceto the sister he had never known.No word left his lips; he simply stood— still and solemn, like one who understood death more deeply than life itself.
When they returned to the Thors Manor, Aelyzabeth made a quiet but irreversible decision.
"From this day forth," she declared,"all the children shall stay with their father.Aerys… will remain with me.I shall take sole charge of his education and upbringing."
Though she held a doctorate in child psychology,she could no longer pretend to comprehendwhat resided within the mind of Aerys Vilozyver.
The Central Government Assembly.
A week later, Aelyzabeth Thors presided over a cabinet session, delivering her report on the progress of replacing the Space Dollarwith the Centory Pound.Production of the new banknotes and coinage lagged behind schedule— a matter of grave concern to the administration.
This time, she brought Aerys with her.Not as a display of the heir apparent— but because she no longer wished to let him out of her sight.
Within the dim chamber, aglow with the light of data screens, Aelyzabeth stood at the heart of power.Yet her gaze was drawn only to the boy seated beside her— reading the national financial report with an unhurried calm, deciphering graphs and complex tablesas though they were his native language.
When the session ended, reporters from the Nationale Zentrale Nachrichtenagentur, (NZN) National Central News Agency and foreign agencies swarmed the hall.She was compelled to face them, as the supreme leader of the Republic.
"Lord Aelyzabeth Thors," a reporter called,"is it true that you have formally appointed an heir?"
"Yes," she answered calmly,"Aerys Vilozyver—my eldest son."
The hall erupted in the staccato of camera shutters.
"And what is your stance on democracy within the Empire?"
"Democracy," she replied,"is a system that can never resolve its own failures.We have chosen the path of stability—for the survival of the nation and its people."
"And the economy, my Lord?"
"The economy," she said, "is the lifeblood of a nation.The new currency is its heart—and we shall not allow that heart to cease beating."
From his seat behind her, Aerys listened in silence.He watched the steel in his mother's eyes— firm, resolute, yet shadowed by quiet sorrow.He studied her cadence, the rhythm of her words, the art of silencing a room with a pause— the subtle choreography of command.
That day, Aerys spoke not a single word.But he learned— that a handful of words, spoken with precision, could command the world itself.
Thus ends Chapter A-VI.