"Class is now in session," Anya said. The words hung in the air, a final, irrevocable judgment.
Mali, his mind still reeling from the Anya Alkahest (née Cygnus) update, could only nod, his throat dry. He was a student in a school he never applied to, for a test that would cost him his life.
"First," Anya said, and her voice was no longer that of a wife, or even an ally. It was the crisp, cool voice of a strategist about to plan a war. "You need to understand the board."
She walked to the center of the vast, empty room. "Interface, activate. Display: Galactic Strategic Map, Sector 7."
The room darkened. The air in front of them shimmered, and a vast, three-dimensional map of the galaxy bloomed into existence. It was a swirling, intricate nebula of light, stars, and colored territories, so real Mali felt he could reach out and touch a sun.
"This," she said, gesturing to a large, golden territory, "is the Aethel Imperium. Your territory. Your burden."
She pointed to an adjacent, deep-blue territory, almost as large. "This is the Cygnus Ascendancy. My home. Our power."
Her hand moved to a third area on the map. It was a jagged, spreading stain of dark, angry red, like a wound in the fabric of space. "And this," she said, her voice turning to ice, "is the Corrupted Void. Our enemy. They don't just use karma. They break it. They are the dissonance in the Cosmic Hum. They are why your parents are dead."
Mali stared at the red stain, and a cold, familiar hatred rose in his chest. "The Corrupted," he whispered.
Anya's head snapped toward him, her eyes sharp. "What did you say?"
"On Toten. My... my adoptive parents. They were killed by 'The Corrupted.' Men who used Chaos. Their power... it felt like that." He pointed at the red stain, at the raw, visceral wrongness of it.
Anya's eyes widened, her professional mask cracking for a second. "You've seen them? Fought them?"
"I couldn't fight," Mali said, the old shame returning. "I was a void. I just... ran. I hid. I hated them, but I couldn't do anything."
"You don't understand," Anya said, a new, fierce light in her eyes. "That's not a failure, Mali. That's intelligence. The Corrupted on your world were just a symptom, a tiny infection. The Void is the plague. We didn't just retrieve you. We rescued you. You've faced the primary enemy and survived. That's not a weakness, Mali. That's experience."
His System flashed.
[NEW TRAIT GAINED] > (TRAIT) Void Survivor: You have encountered and survived a manifestation of the Corrupted Void. +10 to (PER) when sensing Void-based entities.
Anya didn't wait for him to process. She was on a roll. "The enemy is why we are here. The Void is expanding. Our alliance is the only thing strong enough to stop it. Which brings us to tomorrow's meeting."
She waved her hand, and the starmap was replaced by three-dimensional, holographic busts of the council members.
"This is the council," she said. "Your first test."
She pointed to General Kaelen's stern, scarred face. "General Kaelen. His loyalty is absolute, but it's not to you. It's to your bloodline. He will respect strength."
She pointed to the next, a cold-faced man in a fleet admiral's uniform. "Admiral Vorlag. He controls the fleet. He doesn't care about your bloodline; he cares about results."
Finally, she brought up the sneering face of her own ambassador. "Ambassador Vael. She is terrified of your power, and she sees your weakness as a confirmation of her fears. She will try to pull your strings."
Mali felt the room spin. "I... I can't. They'll... they'll tear me apart. They're all... they'll see right through me."
"They will," Anya agreed immediately, her voice sharp. "If you let them."
She walked up to him, her eyes burning with intensity. "This is where you stop thinking like Mali the porter and start thinking like a strategist. First, you need to understand the tool." She tapped her own temple.
"The Legacy System isn't a 'game,' Mali. It's a translator. The universe operates on laws of Cosmic Karma so complex they would shatter our minds. The System takes that impossible reality and translates it into a format we can understand. Your Imposter Syndrome debuff? That's the System literally translating your crippling self-doubt into a quantifiable penalty. It's real."
She motioned to the STATUS window that hovered in his vision. "Your stats. Let's look at them. POW (Power): 9,876,543. What does that number mean to you?"
"Nothing," Mali whispered, and it was the truth. It was just a number.
"Wrong," Anya snapped. "POW isn't how hard you can punch. It's your raw, cosmic potential. It's the 'Alkahest' part of you. It's the 'universal solvent.' It is the capacity to unmake reality, to dissolve karma. It is a number so high it terrifies Admiral Vorlag's entire fleet. It's an ocean of power."
She then jabbed a finger at the next line. "But this is the one that matters. CTL (Control): 2. That is your ability to wield that ocean of power with any finesse. Right now, you have the power of a star, but the control of a terrified child. You have a sledgehammer, but they're asking you to perform brain surgery. That is why you're scared. The System is telling you: you are a bomb that doesn't know how to not explode."
Mali finally understood. The fear he felt wasn't just in his head; it was a rational, mathematical fact. He was a danger.
"This is why you don't fight," Anya continued, her voice softening just a fraction. "This is why you don't argue. You don't try to impress them. You use me. My System is different. It's a 'Tapestry.' I see their connections."
She closed her eyes, the silver threads re-igniting in her pupils. "Kaelen's 'Fealty' thread is white-hot, but it's attached to your TITLE. Vorlag's 'Pragmatism' thread is a cold, steel-blue, connected to the fleet. Vael's 'Skepticism' is a brittle red, connected to me."
"So what do I do?" Mali pleaded. "How do I fight that?"
"You don't."
Anya stepped back, her lesson complete. "You are an Alkahest. You are a bomb. Your very presence is the only card you have to play. Tomorrow, you will not be a prince. You will not be a leader. You will be a symbol."
She saw the familiar 'imposter' look return to his face and she cut it off. "Not a puppet, Mali. A lynchpin. A flag! A flag doesn't fight, but an army will die for it. Your job tomorrow is to sit, to watch, and to listen. Let them posture. Let them argue. You are the eye of the storm. You are the one thing they all need."
"And... and if they ask me something?" His voice was a bare whisper.
"You will be silent for three full seconds," Anya commanded, drilling him. "You will look at Kaelen. You will look at me. Then you will look at the council and you will say, 'I trust the counsel of my General and my wife.' Nothing else. Not one word."
Mali stared at her, his mind slowly grasping the sheer, elegant simplicity of her plan. She wasn't teaching him to be a prince. She was teaching him to survive. She was building a fortress around his Imposter Syndrome, using his silence as the walls.
"I... I can do that," he said, his voice gaining a single, faint thread of certainty.
"I know you can," she said. She gave him another small, rare smile. "Now. That is the political battle. But the schedule Kaelen gave you is real."
She gestured to the cold, empty room. "This is your apartment. My quarters are adjacent. Get whatever rest you can. 0600 will come faster than you think, and Kaelen's idea of 'basic control training' is not going to be... gentle."
She turned and walked to the door, which hissed open at her approach. She paused, looking back at him.
"You survived the Void, Mali," she said. "You can survive a council meeting."
The door slid shut, leaving him alone in the crushing silence of his new, golden cage. He looked at the window, at the fleet of impossible power, and then at his own STATUS screen.
He was terrified. But for the first time, he wasn't alone. He had a plan. He had an ally.
He had a wife.
He collapsed onto the impossibly large, cold bed, not even bothering to get under the covers. Sleep was a luxury he couldn't afford, but exhaustion took him anyway.
He was woken, what felt like only seconds later, by a piercing alarm. It wasn't a chime. It was a klaxon, a military alert that made him bolt upright, his heart hammering.
The room's lights snapped to a harsh, bright white.
General Kaelen's voice boomed from the speaker, devoid of all ceremony. "On your feet, Your Highness. 0600. The Training Deck awaits."