[Katherine PoV]

Katherine paced the short corridor like a caged storm. The ship was enormous. It had vaulted cargo decks, briefing theaters, and a hangar big enough to swallow lesser shuttles whole. Yet, the passage leading to the landing ramp was deceptively tight.

'Good. Let them see I'm furious,' she thought. Then, she remembered with a sour twist of relief that the only witnesses were her soldiers.

'Shit. Shit.' The curse rattled through her skull with every turn she made.

John's voice replayed anyway, calm where hers was not. "It will be a good opportunity. Make allies. Meet Pollux if you can."

Then he was gone again, slipping off on another mission he wouldn't explain, leaving her to be the face of York whether she wanted the stage or not.

Now she was both: de facto head of the York delegation and the General responsible for the Red Rangers. Someone who should answer directly to the Emperor and at the same time was against him. The contradiction sat like a live wire in her chest. One misstep could look like insubordination to the throne; another could be read as treachery by the Houses. There was no safe angle, only a narrow path to walk.

'There's no avoiding it,' she told herself, stopping at the corridor's viewport. 'At least we're not enemies.'

York and their allies wanted reform, not revolution. They intended to keep the Empire intact, to sand down its sharper edges, not break the wheel. Along with an immediate election, no more delays, no more imperial excuses.

Through the small window, she watched other ships stitch their way down from the sky.

She tugged once at the line of her jacket to fix a wrinkle that wasn't there, fingers brushing stitched rank and the subtle, armored weave beneath.

"Are we ready?" she called, turning on her heel. Her voice filled the corridor, snapped from the metal like a ricochet.

"Yes, ma'am," said the officer at her elbow. Around him, her soldiers moved in the well-oiled rhythm.

"Prepare to land," she ordered. "Take us to position."

The deck pitched almost before the words left her mouth. The ship nosed into descent, gravity digging fingers into her shoulders as the pilot bled speed in a hard, clean arc. The hull shuddered in protest.

KH-THUNK. Landing legs deployed, claws biting dirt beneath the grass. A hiss rolled through the corridor as pressure equalized and hot air vented from the joints.

"Extending the stairway," the pilot's voice crackled in her ear.

The rear hatch exhaled a soft hiss, then began its slow descent, revealing a sweep of green. Between ship and mansion, the ground churned with motion. Hundreds of soldiers flowed across the grass in disciplined currents, forming human corridors for dignitaries and sealing perimeters.

"In position," an officer barked.

Her soldiers moved without hesitation, a ring snapping into place around Katherine. She took the first step down, walking slowly while taking sometime to watch everything around her.

At the far end of the lawn, the mansion caught her attention. Her brother had mentioned it in passing, never saying where it stood.

To her side, a handful of ships still sat on their pads, cooling, while their passengers disembarked.

Katherine glanced over her shoulder. Two titanic vessels were shouldering their way through the cloud of smaller craft, hulls bearing the unmistakable sigils of Great Houses. One marked with the clean, lunar geometry of Selene; the other with Dardanus's simple icon, a three-pointed star.

She halted at the foot of the ramp and waited.

The first to reach her came at a measured pace, leaning on a cane that clicked against the stone of the path with each step. His gaze was hard beneath a sweep of black beard, the eyes on one side set within engineered sockets that tracked with inhuman precision. The entire right half of him was machinery; the right arm and leg were metallic prosthetics.

Yet, Katherine could see much more than a simple mutilated veteran. Others might feel pity or sympathy, but she felt apprehension. She knew very well that the Heirs were not there because they had the right blood. No, they were developed over decades, through hard training. If someone was still there after fifty years and several Waves, they were someone to be feared.

"Cicero," she said, inclining her head. "It has been some time. How was the journey from Tros?"

He returned the nod with another. "Young Katherine. The crossing was easy," he said, "though not peaceful."

"Orks?" she asked, already bracing for the familiar calculus of casualties and reports.

"I'd have preferred Orks," Cicero said dryly. "Mercenaries, styling themselves as pirates." The whir of servos underscored his words as he shifted his weight. Up close, his prosthetics were not decorative; they were scarred, reinforced, ready to be used in battle once more. His soldiers ringed him at a respectful distance, eyes scanning, weapons quiet and present.

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She acknowledged with a slight tilt of her chin. Out-of-system houses paid an additional tax due to their distance. Raiders, pirates, corrupt soldiers, hungry men with too much sky and too little credit.

"How is John?" Cicero asked, and his gaze sharpened, evaluating. "He won't be attending?"

Katherine kept her face still, the trick she'd taught herself between wearing a general's rank and a House's colors. "John is occupied. Another emergency."

He let that sit for a heartbeat, the corner of his mouth quirked in something that wasn't quite a smile. "An emergency for the York heir to handle," he said, "or the Golden Ranger?"

He didn't wait for the answer, and she didn't offer one, just lifted a shoulder in the smallest of shrugs.

Behind Cicero came another entourage, the last ally Katherine had been waiting for.

Pollux of Selene had shed the boy she remembered. Leaner once, now he carried height and new breadth in his shoulders, the Selene uniform hanging on him with an ease earned rather than borrowed. The pale lunar sigils and dark fabric suited him, and he moved without looking to his sister for cues. He stepped forward, brought his right fist to his chest, and dipped his head.

"Lady Katherine," he said.

"Sir Pollux," she returned, a small nod acknowledging both his rank and his growth.

With Cicero on one side and Pollux on the other, the triangle of John's painstaking alliance clicked into place. Katherine turned toward the mansion and began the long walk across the sun-bright lawn.

Ahead, at the base of the broad steps, the heirs of the Great Houses were already gathering—a row of living emblems beneath the marble columns.

Nine heirs waited near the first steps. Katherine knew each face and name. Years of Academy and court had drilled their names, tempers, and ambitions into her. She kept a mental ledger of their behaviors. Who bluffed, who bullied, who remembered insults.

As she got closer, some of them gave a simple salute, a quick nod of the chin, and a small smile. She replied with a slight nod, keeping it polite but brief. But two stepped forward, not happy with maintaining their distance.

The first came swathed in a long white cape over the standard Meridius battle dress. Heir to the reigning Emperor, Adrian wore confidence like a second cloak. His smile was broad without being careless, and there was a peculiar serenity in his gaze.

'They should be the most nervous. Curious,' she thought, watching him approach. With a quarter of the Empire against them, Meridius should've arrived with tight jaws and sleepless eyes. Instead, he looked like a man stepping onto familiar ground.

"Lady Katherine," Adrian of Meridius said, voice warm as sunlight. "Congratulations on your new position."

"Thank you, young Adrian," she replied, letting the adjective carry more meaning than politeness. He'd never served a conscription term, using less than excusable means to avoid the Academy. The young lord was trained within his House's forces, groomed behind closed doors. It made him an unknown variable. Was he a weapon or an ornament, no one could say.

"You grow more radiant by the day," Adrian continued, smile tilting toward flirtation without quite falling into it. "I imagine you're hunting allies, or a fiancée, who can help you secure the most coveted seat."

He dangled the imperial throne like bait. Katherine felt Pollux's attention sharpen at her shoulder, Cicero's mechanical gaze whir softly.

"Many thanks," Katherine said, and pitched her voice to carry to the gathered heirs. "For now, I'm focused on my duties as General."

The statement landed the way she intended, bright, clean, final. It closed not just Adrian's gambit but preempted anything Pollux might be tempted to propose in a moment of boldness.

"Great. Because if memory serves," a voice cut in, smooth as a blade slipping between ribs, "you were meant to be my betrothed."

Mordred stepped out from behind Adrian. He'd heard the talk of marriages and alliances, and he wore the interruption like a carefully chosen accessory.

"But don't worry, Lady Katherine," he went on, tone tilting toward magnanimity. "We'll forget that promise. I have too many crises on my hands as it is."

There it was: a gift with a ledger attached. Her freedom returned to her as a favor she would be expected to return.

"Very generous of you," Katherine said, and kept her face composed. In her head, she marked the debt. Nothing came free in an Empire built on ledgers and blood.

Two paces behind Mordred stood a figure in a high officer's uniform, posture rigid, eyes skirting hers as if the horizon had become fascinating. Alan. The sight of him tightened something in her chest.

'Damn it,' she thought. She knew why he'd thrown in with Mordred. She knew the arguments, the calculations, but she couldn't follow him down that path.

"Alan," she said. "A pleasure to see you. I trust your new leader treats you well."

"The President is a great leader," he replied, voice cool, gaze fixed beyond her shoulder. A practiced answer that said everything and nothing.

Adrian cleared his throat with perfect timing, cutting the line of tension. "Very well," he said lightly. "Shall we go in?"

Around them, the heirs murmured assent. Katherine turned with the others and took the first measured step, allies flanking her, eyes from a dozen Houses weighing her tread.

The sky tore open.

A roar like chained thunder rolled over the lawn, thrumming through rib and stone. Shadows dragged across the grass as something vast shouldered the clouds aside. A ship, no, a moving country of metal, slewed into view.

It was titanic, dwarfing even the proudest ships that had already landed. A wedge of armor and intent, its hull carried a sigil none of them recognized. Not Meridius, not Selene, not Dardanus, nor any crest she'd memorized.

"Who the hell comes on a ship that big?" someone blurted from the knot of nobles behind them.

"Is someone missing?" another voice asked, strained, as if trying to account for ghosts on a checklist.

Beside her, Cicero and Pollux pivoted, their attention snapping to Katherine as though she might have the answer hidden in her sleeve.

"Do you know who it could be?" they asked together.

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