The connection to the physical world snapped.
The crushing, atmospheric weight of the Regulus's pressure vanished in an instant, leaving Regius feeling paradoxically weightless. The sensation of his own skin, the burning heat of his body, and the desperate sound of his father's voice—all of it receded, pulled away like a tide retreating violently from the shore.
He fell through the river of his own consciousness. It was a journey through the layers of the soul, a freefall into the depths of the self. He crashed through stacks of memories like a diver breaking through panes of glass, each impact stripping away a piece of the identity he had constructed over fifteen years.
He saw flashes of the dining hall, the silver cutlery gleaming under warm lights, and the crushing anxiety of sitting straight while his parents discussed politics. He felt the phantom constriction of a high collar and the weight of expectations that felt heavier than any armor he had worn.
He saw the training yards and felt the blistered skin of his palms wrapping around an energy practice sword. He heard the grunts of the guards he sparred with, men who held back their strikes to avoid bruising the heir of the family. He tasted his own blood from a split lip, a secret trophy of the only time he had managed to goad a sparring partner into a real hit.
He smelled his mother's perfume as she tucked him in, her silhouette framed by the soft glow of the hallway light. He felt the cold stone of the balcony railing under his forearms as he stared up at the night sky, searching for a signal in the vastness of space, feeling a pull he couldn't name but desperately wanted an answer.
The fall stripped him bare. The gravity of the bond pulled him deeper, dragging him down to the bedrock of his soul.
He hit the bottom, and his boots struck a surface of polished obsidian. The impact rang out with a clear, bell-like tone that vibrated, a singular note of absolute clarity.
Regius stumbled, catching his balance. His breath hitched. He expected the stale, recycled air of the underground Sanctum. Instead, he breathed in something dense and filling.
It felt like stardust.
He stood in the center of a vast, circular chamber. It was immense, a cathedral of shadows carved from a black stone that seemed to absorb the light. High, curving walls rose around him, stretching up hundreds of feet, lined with archways that led nowhere and balconies that overlooked nothing.
It was an observatory.
Above him, the roof was a single, colossal dome of transparent glass. Through the glass, the sky stretched into infinity—a vast dome of familiarity. The vastness of space in clarity, but it was quiet. The constellations were distant and dim, waiting for a spark to ignite them.
A low grinding sound drew his attention upward.
Suspended beneath the apex of the dome, a colossal mechanism spun in a slow, silent dance.
The Grand Orrery.
Rings of brass and solidified light interlocked, rotating around a central axis. Spheres representing celestial bodies clicked into alignment, their movements heavy and deliberate. Gears the size of houses turned with the inexorable momentum of fate.
Regius stared at it, mesmerized. The machine pulsed with a faint, violet luminescence. This was his summon energy. This was the source of the power that had nearly disintegrated his body.
He turned toward the northern edge of the obsidian floor. Something broke the perfect symmetry of the observatory.
Silhouettes.
Regius walked toward them. The obsidian floor became more solid beneath his feet, more solid, in a way, than the stone of the physical world. The air here was still, devoid of wind, yet it carried a pressure that prickled at the surface of his skin.
As he got closer, the shapes resolved into a semicircle of seven thrones carved from the darkness itself. They rose from the floor like jagged peaks of a mountain range, imposing and ancient.
Regius stopped ten paces away. His breath hitched in his throat.
The thrones were occupied.
In the center, raised on a dais of platinum that shone with a dull luster, sat the Lord Commander.
The figure was shrouded in blinding, painful white light. Regius couldn't look directly at it; the radiance burned his eyes, forcing him to squint. He felt the terrifying gravity radiating from the seat—the same crushing authority that had spoken through his lips in the Sanctum. The entity slept, its chin resting on a gauntleted fist, waiting for the eons to pass.
Regulus.
The name surfaced in his mind, heavy and absolute. This was the being. This was the thing that had treated his parents as ants.
Regius tore his gaze away from the center. He looked to the right.
Three thrones sat in the shadows. They held figures, but Regius couldn't focus on them. They were blurry, terrifying silhouettes of condensed darkness. He strained his eyes, trying to make sense of the outlines.
The figure on the immediate right of the Commander was massive—a jagged, mountainous shape covered in what looked like scales of obsidian. Regius tried to resolve the image, but his mind slid off it. It was a void in his perception, a shape too heavy and too complex for his current strength to perceive.
Beside it sat a figure composed of swirling dust and gravity, and further down, an aerodynamic shape that hinted at wings.
He looked to the left of the Commander. Two more blurry shadows sat there. One was a hunter with three triangular lights on its face, sleek and dangerous. The other was a shifting mass of violet mist and fur.
Regius's mind slid off them. They were voids in his perception as well. The mere act of looking at them caused a buildup of migraine pain behind his eyes.
But the final throne on the far left was different.
It glowed with a soft, inviting silver light. The figure seated there was sharp and dignified.
As Regius watched, the figure stirred.
The knight stood up. She stepped off the dais, her movement fluid and graceful. She wore an armor of living, interlocking white plates that shimmered like moonlight on water. A diaphanous cape, translucent and ethereal, billowed from her shoulders in the nonexistent wind.
She wears a full helmet with a sleek, pointed visor and horn-like crests. On top is a silver diadem or circlet. Set in its center, glowing with a soft light, is a gem.
She walked toward him. Towering over, standing nearly eight feet tall, radiating a presence of lethal precision and absolute balance.
Regius wanted to run. The memory of Regulus's arrogance was fresh in his mind. He expected judgment. He expected to be crushed by another wave of gravity.
The knight stopped in front of him. She reached up and removed her helm.
Underneath, her face was serene and beautiful, composed of light that had learned to mimic flesh. Her eyes were silver mirrors with pupils that had stars living in them, reflecting Regius's terrified expression. Her hair flowed like liquid mercury.
She knelt. Driving her gauntleted fist into the obsidian floor, she bowed her head, lowering herself before the fifteen-year-old boy.
"Greetings, my liege," she said. Her voice was clear like water from a glacier. "I am Libra. Your first knight."
Regius stared at her. The air in his lungs felt thin.
"Y-You are the one I bonded with?"
Libra looked up. Her silver eyes held no deception. "You bonded with the Celestial Order, my Lord. We are the constellation of your soul."
She gestured to the line of thrones behind her—the blinding star in the center and the five terrifying shadows flanking it.
"We answered your call," Libra said. "But your body is still young. The energy in this world is thin. The others... they require more strength than you currently possess. They slumber until you are worthy enough to have them as your companions."
Regius looked at the blurry silhouettes. He felt a chill crawl up his spine. He pointed a trembling hand at the shadow to the right of the Commander—the massive, jagged outline that felt like a dormant volcano.
"Who are they?" Regius asked. "Tell me what they are."
Libra shook her head.
"Even if I want to tell you, I cannot," she explained. "Names have power. If you knew their names, you would reach for them. And if you reached for them now, before your strength has risen, their weight would shatter your mind. They are the burden you are not yet strong enough to carry."
"And him?" Regius pointed to the center. To the blinding light. "He took over my body."
"He is our Lord Commander, and he is in slumber. He awoke only to ensure the gate was open. To ensure the vessel would not break under the crushing weight. Now, he waits."
"Waits for what?"
"For you to prove you are worthy."
Regius looked around the observatory. The high walls, the crystal dome, the silent machinery. It felt lonely. Vast.
"What am I supposed to do? He said the world was weak. That I have to be a king or a dead man."
"He speaks the truth of the stars. The world outside is fragile. It is a world of paper and glass."
She stood up. She was taller than him, an avatar of justice and war. She turned back to Regius. Drew the sword at her hip. It was a blade of solidified starlight, humming with a perfect, harmonic frequency.
She held it out, hilt first, offering it to him.
"I am the Scales," she said. "I will teach you balance. I will teach you to weigh your power, to use just enough to win, and never enough to burn. I will be your sword and your shield until the day you breathe your last."
She looked him in the eye. Her silver gaze pierced him, seeing the fear and the ambition warring in his heart.
"You are not alone in this dark room, my Lord. I am yours. And you are my purpose."
Regius looked at the blade. The light of it was cool and stabilizing. It didn't hurt to look at, like the Commander's throne. It felt like a tool. A weapon he could understand.
He looked at the silent, sleeping knights behind her. He realized, with a jolt of clarity, that his life of gala dinners and duels will be more complicated than ever before.
He reached out. His fingers brushed the hilt. The metal was cold, but it warmed instantly at his touch.
"Teach me."
The silver light flared. It rushed up his arm, flooding his vision, drowning out the observatory, the Orrery, and the silent thrones.
The darkness claimed him, pulling him out of his soul and back into the waking world.