The silence after Corvin's revelation was a physical weight, thick with the ozone tinged air of the fissure and the coppery scent of their own spilled blood. Nyxara's decision to parley hung in the stagnant gloom, not as a hope, but as a death sentence. The eight pointed star's afterimage was seared into their vision, a brand of impossible allegiance that did nothing to warm the chilling dread her choice had instilled.
The rebellion's leadership did not gather; they simply existed in shared, shattered space, each consumed by the ghosts Nyxara's gamble had summoned.
Haruto stood rigid, his back to the others, one pale hand pressed against the cold, damp obsidian. His aristocratic composure, so recently reforged after his breakdown, was a pane of glass under immense pressure, webbed with hairline fractures. He saw not the rock before him, but the strategic maps of his youth, the clean lines of the fallen House Isamu's logic. Nyxara's move was not logic; it was sentiment. It was his father, Takeru, trusting the Frostguard's honour, believing in protocols and parleys while Ryo's butchers sharpened their knives in the dark. A low, almost inaudible sound escaped him, a sharp exhalation that was the ghost of a scream. His knuckles, where they gripped the rock, were bone white. She trusts the geometry of diplomacy against a man who only understands the calculus of pain. The polished control was there, but beneath it, a tectonic fury threatened to break free, not at Nyxara, but at the brutal, repetitive stupidity of hope in the face of absolute evil. Every lesson from his father's flaying, every whispered secret of statecraft dissected over cold tea, screamed that this was not a gambit but a surrender. It was placing their one potential ally, however enigmatic, onto Ryo's sacrificial altar. The vow he'd sworn over his father's mutilated corpse, to unmake his killers, felt both more impossible and more urgently violent than ever. To do nothing was its own form of blasphemy.
Shiro flinched as if struck, his right hand flying to the Polaris scar on his palm. It wasn't flaring with light, but with a deep, sympathetic ache that radiated up his arm, a phantom echo of every cruelty Ryo had ever inflicted. The news of the parley dragged up the memory of the throne room, the Butcher King's venomous delight as he revealed Yuki Aratani's fiery death. It pulled forth the image of his mother's pyre, a spectacle he'd been forced to witness as a child, the scent of charring flesh and incense forever seared into his soul. He saw Nyxara on a similar pyre, not of fire, but of political theatre, her multi hued light extinguished for the entertainment of the court. He respected her courage, a courage that felt alien and terrifying, but it looked less like bravery and more like a surrender to a death wish, a willing walk into the slaughterhouse because the fight outside it was too exhausting. His breath hitched, the grinding pain in his wrists a dull counterpoint to the sharper agony in his heart. Aki's face flickered in his mind, bright, hopeful, trapped in her own glacial prison. Was this what it took to save anyone? A grand, futile gesture that only served to tighten the tyrant's grip? The helplessness was a cold stone in his gut.
Across from him, Kuro's corrupted arm erupted in a violent pulse of sickly blue light, the luminescence lancing up past his collarbone, making the invasive tendrils writhe like frozen worms under his skin. The static around his head escalated to a deafening roar, a physical manifestation of the storm inside him. Nyxara's defiance mirrored his mother's ,Kaya, who had defied Ryo to show a young Kuro a moment of kindness, only to be torn apart by hounds for it. He could already see it: the public forum, Nyxara standing proud, and Ryo finding some small, imagined slight, some flicker of defiance in her kaleidoscopic eyes, and ending her. Not quickly. Not cleanly. Making a prolonged, excruciating example of her, just as he had with Kaya. A strangled sound, half growl, half sob, escaped him. He clutched the frozen, dead weight of his arm, his storm grey eyes wide with a terror that was both personal and prophetic. He admired her, but the cost of defiance in Astralon was written in his mother's blood and now, it seemed, in Nyxara's future. The cold fire in his veins felt like a premonition of the icy fate awaiting her. Every pulse was a countdown to a spectacle of horror he'd seen before.
Ryota Veyne let out a wet, rattling sigh that ended in a cough, dark blood speckling his lips. The Old Star's pragmatism, hardened in a hundred frozen battles, warred with the memory of Kaya's sacrifice. He understood strategy, the value of a gambit, the need for a distraction. But this? This was feeding a lamb to a glacier. Ryo didn't understand peace; he understood consumption. He'd consumed the Frostguard's honour, consumed Volrag's loyalty, consumed Kaya's light. Nyxara was just the next meal. "Fool's errand," he grunted, the words scraping his ruined throat. "Thinks she can reason with the avalanche." He shifted, agony flaring in his gut, a fresh stain spreading on his bandages. His guttering Polaris light, the last ember of Kaya's gift, seemed to dim further, as if in mourning for another light about to be snuffed out. He had seen good men and women walk into Ryo's parlours with hope in their hearts and never walk out. This felt no different. The weight of his own powerlessness was as heavy as the mountain above them. He was a weapon, broken and bleeding out in a dank hole, while the real battle was fought with words and lies he could not combat.
Juro said nothing. His silence was more thunderous than any outburst. He stood at the fissure's mouth, a solid, immovable bastion of fur and frost forged steel, but his shoulders were tensed, his grip on his axe hafts so tight the leather wrappings groaned. He saw Nyxara's decision through the lens of Takeshi's betrayal, another bond of trust shattered on the rocks of Ryo's corrupting influence. He saw a leader walking into the viper's den, believing in the goodness of a brother, only to find a Void Guard's poisoned blade. His jaw was clenched, a muscle ticking in his temple. History wasn't repeating; it was a spiral, dragging them all deeper into the same frozen hell. The urge to act, to charge out and physically interpose himself between Nyxara and the fate he foresaw, was a physical ache in his muscles. But the memory of the ledge, of Takeshi's venomous words and the love hidden beneath them, was a cage. Action without understanding was what had fractured his world. Now, they were being asked to understand, and the understanding was its own form of torture.
Into this maelstrom of silent, shared trauma, Corvin reappeared. Not with a swirl of shadow feathers, but simply there, as if he'd stepped from a fold in the darkness itself. His galactic eyes took in the scene: Haruto's rigid back, Shiro's haunted grip on his scar, Kuro's pulsing corruption, Ryota's grim resignation, Juro's furious silence.
"Her choice is made," Corvin stated, his distorted voice cutting through the thick atmosphere. It wasn't an apology. It was a fact, cold and hard as the obsidian around them. "She believes the demonstration in the Plaza, the proof of your resilience, has altered the board. She believes Ryo, at his core, is a strategist who will see the mutual destruction of continued war."
Haruto whirled around, his obsidian eyes blazing with a cold fire. "What she believes is wrong! He is a cancer! You don't negotiate with a tumour; you fucking cut it out!" The outburst was raw, the Architect's control slipping to reveal the wounded, vengeful son beneath. The fissure seemed to shrink with the force of his fury.
"Rushing in now would not save her," Corvin replied, his calm a stark contrast to Haruto's fury. "It would merely prove Ryo's point, that we are reckless, emotional, incapable of the strategic patience true power requires. It would give him the excuse to execute her immediately and then purge this city until the stones are red and the last spark of defiance is extinguished. Your charge would be the spark that burns the last hope for this city, not its salvation."
He took a single step into their midst, his gaze sweeping over each of them, his words carefully chosen, aimed like scalpels at the heart of their individual sufferings. The low thoom of his ring seemed to mark time, a countdown to an inevitable catastrophe.
"Haruto," he began, his voice losing some of its distortion, becoming sharper, more analytical. "You understand precision. The cost of a mistimed strike. Vengeance, served cold, is a dish that must be prepared with excruciating care, lest it poison the chef. Rushing now is not precision; it is the wild swing you condemned in the Plaza. It is the very lack of control you despise."
His gaze shifted to Shiro. "Shiro". Your entire life is a testament to scars borne. The scar on your palm. The scars on your soul. Nyxara offers a path, however dangerous, that leads away from creating more. It is a gamble on a future where scars are memories, not ongoing punishments. Is that not a wager worth making, however long the odds?"
He turned to Kuro, his galactic eyes seeming to reflect the chaotic blue pulse of the prince's corruption. "Kuro". You know the price of defiance in your father's house. You have lived it. You carry it in your flesh. Her defiance mirrors your own. To charge in now would be to spit on that same defiant spirit, to treat it as a weakness to be protected rather than a strength to be leveraged. She has chosen her stand. Honor that choice by making yours count."
His attention fell on Ryota. "Ryota". You have lost more than any of us to Ryo's hunger. Kaya. Volrag. Your command. Your peace. You understand the value of a soldier who holds the line, even a doomed one, to create an opening for others. Nyxara has chosen to be that soldier. The question is, will we waste her sacrifice? Or will we use the time she buys us to sharpen the blade that severs the head of the beast?"
Finally, he looked at Juro's broad back. He didn't speak immediately. The silence stretched, acknowledging the depth of the Frostguard heir's silent fury. When he did speak, his voice was lower, almost respectful. "Juro". Brotherhood betrayed is a wound that never truly heals. It teaches a brutal lesson: trust is a weapon that can be turned against you. I do not ask for your trust. I ask for your patience. For your cunning. So that the next blow struck is not one of desperate emotion, but of calculated finality. So that the next bond tested is not broken, but proven."
He stepped back, encompassing them all. "The die is cast. We cannot stop her. The window she provides is our only advantage. We must wait. We must use these hours to mend, to plan, to become the precise, lethal counter stroke that can exploit the chaos her parley will inevitably create. In the waiting, you will find not weakness, but your strength."
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
His chilling final admission hung in the air, a verdict and a command. The path of reckless heroism was closed. All that remained was the agonizing, necessary pause in the eye of the storm, a silence filled with the ghosts of the past and the terrifying uncertainty of the gamble to come. They were left with nothing but their trauma, their distrust, and the grim, shared understanding that Nyxara's fate was now the ticking clock by which their own would be decided. The weight of inaction settled on them, heavier than any armour colder than the void itself.
The silence after Corvin's final, chilling pronouncement was a living thing. It wasn't the absence of sound, but the presence of a terrible, shared understanding. Nyxara's fate was a clock tower whose bell had just begun to toll, and they were trapped in its shadow, forced to listen. The weight of inaction was a physical pressure, a cold hand squeezing each heart according to its own weakness: Haruto's pride, Shiro's hope, Kuro's rage, Ryota's grief, Juro's loyalty.
It was Haruto who moved first, breaking the stasis not with emotion, but with cold, hard calculus. He turned from the wall, his face a mask of pale, strained focus. The Architect was back, building scaffolding over the abyss of his fury. "Fine," he bit out, the word sharp as a shard of ice. "We cannot stop the gambit. Then we must optimize its parameters." His obsidian eyes scanned the cramped fissure as if it were a tactical map. "Communication. If we are to act on the chaos she creates, we need real time intelligence. Not cryptic warnings after the fact." His gaze, accusing and demanding, fixed on Corvin. "Your crows. They are your eyes. Can they be our ears? A way to get a message out of that palace the moment things turn?"
It was a practical demand, a test. Trust wasn't given; it was built on utility. He was offering Corvin a strand of cooperation, thin and strong as piano wire.
Corvin gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. "The Corvus network within the palace is fragile, but it exists. A single, pre arranged signal can be managed. A specific pattern of shadows cast by a particular window at a specific time. A dropped petal from a frost bloom in a courtyard. Subtle. Deniable."
"Deniable until it's not," Haruto countered, but he was already processing, adapting. "Contingencies. We need a rally point if we are forced to scatter. Somewhere Ryo would not think to look. Not the Hearth, not the Warrens." He looked at the others, finally including them in his grim architecture. "Somewhere that exists in the blind spot of both regimes."
Shiro let out a shaky breath, the ache in his scar receding slightly under the focus of a concrete problem. "The old aqueducts," he murmured, his voice rough. "Beneath the Academy's foundation. They're half flooded, frozen over. The entrance is behind a fallen grate in the lower crypts. Even the Temple guards don't patrol them. Too cold. Too many ghosts." He offered the memory like a painful gift, a piece of his past he'd rather forget. It was a place of whispered secrets and stolen moments, a refuge for a slum rat who'd never belonged. Now, it could be a refuge for rebels. The thought was a strange comfort, a thread of continuity in the unravelling chaos. His defiance, always a raw, reactive thing, began to cool into something harder, more determined. He would not let Ryo take another light. Not without a fight that would cost him.
Kuro's head snapped up. "The Academy? That's crawling with my father's…"
"Exactly," Haruto interrupted, a flicker of grim satisfaction in his eyes. "He believes it his seat of power. His control there is absolute, and therefore, his complacency is greatest. He would not think to look for us under our own feet. It is a calculated risk. The best kind."
Ryota grunted, a painful sound that ended in a wet cough. "Indeed. Sometimes the best place to hide a knife is in the king's own boot." He shifted, trying to find a position that didn't send white hot agony through his gut. "Patience. It's a weapon, same as an axe. You don't swing it; you let the enemy's own momentum impale them on it. I've held frozen passes for weeks, waiting for a storm to break, for a supply line to snap. This is no different. We wait for Ryo's move. We wait for his overreach." His weathered face was grim. "And when he makes it, and he will, we be ready to freeze the blood in his veins." Every word was an effort, each one costing him a fraction of his dwindling strength, but he forced them out. They needed to hear it from him. The Old Star, even broken, was still their anchor.
Kuro listened, the static in his head receding as a cold, sharp focus took hold. The fear for Nyxara was still there, a knot of ice in his stomach, but it was being forged into something else. "He'll try to break her," he stated, his voice flat, devoid of its earlier panic. He knew the script. "Publicly. He'll want to make a spectacle of it. To prove his strength. That's our window. That's when his attention, the attention of every guard, every noble sycophant, will be on her. On his triumph." His corrupted arm pulsed, not with chaotic pain, but with a low, ominous thrum, as if in agreement. "That's when we move. Not to save her. To avenge her, if it comes to that. To make his triumph the thing that destroys him." The vow was a promise carved in ice. It was no longer about his mother, or his own survival. It was about ensuring that Nyxara's sacrifice, however foolish he believed it to be, would not be in vain. The corruption was a part of him, a hated, painful burden, but in this moment, its cold fury felt like an ally.
Juro finally turned from his post. He didn't speak. He simply looked at each of them in turn: Haruto with his brittle plans, Shiro with his painful offering, Ryota with his weary patience, Kuro with his vengeful resolve. Finally, his gaze settled on Corvin. He gave a single, slow, deliberate nod. It wasn't forgiveness. It wasn't trust. It was an acknowledgment of a shared battlefield. The fissure was their trench, Nyxara's parley was the opening artillery barrage, and they were the squad that would have to go over the top. His grip on his axes loosened, not in surrender, but in readiness. The time for standing guard was over. The time for preparation had begun. The memory of Takeshi was a fresh wound, but it was now a lesson etched in bone: some battles were not won with axes alone, but with the grim patience to wield them at the exact moment it would hurt the most.
Corvin watched the fragile unity coalesce, forged in the crucible of shared desperation rather than affection. It was stronger that way. "The paths are shifting," he said, his distorted voice softer now, less an announcement and more a shared confidence. "The Corvus do not see the future, but we see the currents of possibility. The current flowing from the Winter Palace tomorrow is thick with blood and frost. But there are… tributaries. Smaller, fainter streams that branch off from the main flow. Paths of escape. Paths of disruption. They are difficult to see, harder to navigate. They require not force, but…" he sought the word, his galactic eyes seeming to search the very air between them, "…harmony. A unity of purpose acting as a single entity." He was speaking of them. Of the Twin Stars' resonant bond, of Haruto's cold geometry, of Ryota's anchoring strength, of Juro's unbreakable will. He was offering not a guarantee, but a sliver of hope rooted in their own bizarre, fractured synergy. For the first time, his presence felt less like that of an outside observer and more like a part of the desperate equation.
For a moment, the fissure felt less like a tomb. A plan, however skeletal, was taking shape. A rally point. A signal. A strategy of patience and brutal retaliation. The oppressive weight lifted a fraction, replaced by the tense, electric hum of imminent action deferred. They were broken, bleeding, and distrustful, but they were pointed in the same direction, a collection of shattered blades bound together into a single, terrible weapon.
It was in that fragile, nascent moment of solidarity that the world changed.
The faint, ever present groan of the mountain ceased. Not faded. Ceased. As if a great hand had been clapped over the planet's mouth. The drip of water from the fissure's roof halted in mid air, droplets hanging like frozen glass beads, capturing the dim light in perfect, impossible spheres. The dim amber light from the Plaza's runes didn't just dim; it was sucked away, the photons themselves seeming to flee, plunging them into an absolute, suffocating blackness that was deeper than mere absence of light. It was a negation of vision itself, a void so complete it pressed against their eyeballs.
And then the sound came.
A low, resonant hum that seemed to originate from inside their own bones, vibrating their teeth, their marrow, the very essence of their being. It was not a sound of this world. It was ancient, cold, and impossibly vast, the auditory equivalent of staring into the void between galaxies. It was a frequency that spoke of cosmic indifference on a scale that made Ryo's cruelty seem like a child's tantrum.
On Corvin's finger, his void stone ring erupted. It didn't pulse; it convulsed, flashing erratically between utter blackness and a sickly, violent purple white light, emitting a series of sharp, discordant THOOM sounds that were out of sync with the pervasive hum, like a heart trying to beat against a tidal wave of static. The light it cast was wrong, a strobing, nauseating glare that revealed their faces in frozen tableaus of dawning terror.
Through the disorienting blackness, Shiro's Polaris scar flared in terrified response, a single, desperate point of amber light that illuminated their shocked faces for a fractured second, Haruto's analytical mask shattered into pure shock, Ryota's pain etched grimace, Juro's wide eyed alarm. Kuro's corruption blazed blue, the invasive cold flaring so violently he cried out, a raw sound lost in the hum, clutching his arm as the tendrils seemed to writhe and burrow deeper in a panic that was not his own.
In that fleeting, strobing glimpse of light, all eyes went to Corvin.
His head was tilted, his body rigid. His galactic eyes weren't just wide; they were stretched, the swirling nebulae within them moving at a frantic, terrified pace, galaxies spinning out of control. It was an expression they had never seen on him, not calm observation, not calculated intensity, but pure, unadulterated recognition and a dread so profound it was humbling. He knew this presence. Intimately. And what he knew terrified him to the very core of his being.
The all consuming blackness and the deafening hum lasted for only three heartbeats, three lifetimes of existential dread. Then, as suddenly as it had come, it vanished.
The amber rune light flickered back to its dim state as if nothing had happened. The water droplets fell, splashing onto the stone floor with a series of soft, wet reports that sounded obscenely loud. The mountain's groan returned, a familiar, almost comforting sound.
But the silence that followed was now charged with a new, more primal fear. Their ears rang with the absence of the hum. Their bodies thrummed with the ghost of the vibration. The air itself felt thin, scraped clean by the passing of something unimaginable.
And into that ringing, terrified silence, a whisper coiled. It did not come from any of them. It seemed to form from the condensation on the walls, from the cold air itself, slithering into their ears with an intimate, invasive clarity. The voice was smooth, genderless, and colder than the deepest glacial ice. It did not boom or threaten. It dripped with a disdain so profound it was more terrifying than any roar. It was not Ryo's voice. But it carried the same essential, cosmic chill, refined and amplified to an unbearable degree, stripped of all mortal pretence.
"The Queen of Stars walks into the lion's den."
A pause, filled with the sound of six people not breathing, their blood turned to ice.
"How predictable."
Another pause. The voice seemed to savour their terror, to drink it in from the very air.
"How... disappointing."
The final word hung in the air, not fading, but simply ceasing to be, as if the entity had lost all interest and turned its infinite, annihilating attention elsewhere.
The fissure was silent once more. But the world outside was no longer just hostile. It was aware. It was bored.
And it was watching.
If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.