The Yanthi

  To serve the empire is not a choice—it is an honor. Through your sacrifice, Giantridge shall remain eternal.

  — Imperial Information Agency

  The ethereal being hovered in the dim assembly room, its pulsing light casting distorted shadows that flickered like uneasy spirits. Its presence was otherworldly, a being both solid and insubstantial, as though it existed on the edges of perception. Around me, the recruits stood frozen, their faces a patchwork of awe, fear, and confusion. The weight in my chest grew heavier. Was it the being’s gaze? Or the meaning behind its words?

  “Long before your gods fashioned your existence,” it began, its voice resonating both aloud and within our minds, “a formidable force slumbered beneath the sands of your Greatdesert. The insect hives call it the Great Consciousness. To them, it is both deity and tyrant—a force capable of reshaping their will and their world.”

  Its words carried a cadence I recognized, though it was buried beneath layers of alien resonance. Testimony. Over the years, I’d learned how to pick apart the nuances of a story, searching for motive, intent, and truth. This being wasn’t offering just information; it was delivering a statement, one laced with the weight of consequence. And like any testimony, it begged the question: What wasn’t it telling us?

  The room fell silent, save for the faint hum of the lights above. A westfolk merchant shifted uneasily, his earlier bravado now replaced by a tense, guarded expression. A thiwen near the back muttered something under his breath, clutching the hem of his tunic with trembling hands. I observed their reactions, cataloging the details as I had been trained to do, though my own unease simmered beneath the surface.

  “How do you know this?” one recruit ventured, his voice faltering.

  The being’s glow flickered faintly, its edges blurring for a moment. “The Great Consciousness is not unknown to us in the Eighth Realm,” it said, its voice heavy with the weight of millennia. “Its slumber is one of the few constants across all realities. Should it awaken, its reach would extend beyond your realm. You are not the only ones who fear its stirring.”

  “Why should we believe anything you say?” another recruit called out, their voice edged with a mix of fear and defiance. “Why are you even here? Aren’t you supposed to belong to some other… realm?”

  The being’s light dimmed slightly, as though responding to the weight of the question. “I was brought here,” it said. “Not by choice, but by necessity. My realm, like yours, is affected by the delicate balance that binds all existence. Travel between realms is dangerous and rare, but this moment—this threat—demands intervention.”

  It paused, its shimmering edges flickering. “I am not the first to cross this divide, nor will I be the last. Those who survive such journeys are often… changed. Others dissolve entirely, becoming one with the fabric of the void. My presence here is a risk to myself and my realm, but the Great Consciousness must not awaken.”

  I scrutinized its words, searching for cracks in its logic, but there were none I could see. Still, I couldn’t ignore the undertone of desperation in its voice. It wasn’t just warning us; it was pleading, a subtle undercurrent that set my instincts on edge.

  A thiwen recruit whispered, his voice trembling, “If it’s that dangerous… why not just kill it now? Destroy it before it can wake?”

  The being’s light pulsed, faintly but noticeably. “The Great Consciousness cannot be destroyed,” it said simply. “Not by mortal hands, nor even by my own. It is a remnant of the void—the nothingness that existed before the realms were divided. When the realms split, fragments of that void remained. This is one of them.”

  The weight of its words settled heavily in the room. My thoughts snagged on its last statement, trying to pull the threads together. The void. The split. The fragments left behind. It was like the beginning of a puzzle, the pieces scattered but tantalizingly within reach. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the full picture.

  The Lord Commander stepped forward, her boots striking the stone with precise authority. “Enough,” she said, her voice sharp and commanding. “Your presence here isn’t for tales of cosmic balances but for a pressing reality: the scorps’ onslaught. With the Hovnsgard’s ranks thinned and the imperial forces stretched elsewhere, Emperor Aldain’s directive is clear. We muster squads of twenty, drawing from every capable soul.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  She turned her attention to Udak, giving him a sharp nod. Taking her cue, he stepped forward stiffly, gesturing toward a map mounted on the wall. The map was hand-drawn, its lines slightly uneven but precise enough to convey the scale of the threat. Giantridge loomed at the northern edge, its mountainous terrain sharply outlined, while the Greatdesert dominated the southern expanse, a yawning void of ochre and gold. Between them, the empire's heartlands sprawled in crisscrossing lines of roads, rivers, and cities.

  “You’ll be stationed at the concourse entrance,” Udak began, his tone measured and authoritative. “Other units will cover the north and south approaches, while more are embedded within the mountains, ready to defend key positions if the front lines falter.”

  He picked up a pointer, its metal tip gleaming in the room’s dim light, and tapped the southernmost edge of the map. “Here,” he said, pointing to the Greatdesert. “Eleven days ago, the scorps breached the southernmost border, overrunning Rida, Mishaari, and Miqdad within hours. The three hives fell without warning, and we received no survivors—only silence.”

  He moved the pointer slightly upward, tapping Istharn. “From there, they swept north, taking Istharn. The thrawen mounted a valiant defense alongside our GOLEMs, but the scorps overwhelmed them by nightfall. Istharn’s fall was the last time we had clear lines of communication with the front.”

  Istharn. I could still picture the gold-dusted air of its market district, where I’d once tracked a smuggler funneling stolen imperial artifacts. The labyrinth of stalls had been chaotic, the kind of place where any secret could disappear if you didn’t know where to look. I wondered if those streets were now buried under the scorps’ advance.

  Udak tapped Rythen next, his voice growing sharper. “After taking Istharn, they split their forces. The larger group curved north, sweeping through Rythen and Delthaven in a matter of days. Rythen’s plains were scorched to ash. Delthaven was reduced to rubble, its defenses annihilated.”

  Rythen. I’d worked with a local investigator there to unravel a blackmail ring targeting the viceroy. Its towers had seemed unshakable, rising proudly over endless plains. The thought of those plains now blackened was almost more than I could grasp.

  The pointer moved eastward now, tracing a path along the map. “The smaller group diverted through the plainslands,” Udak said, tapping the expansive area to the map’s right. “They moved with terrifying precision, capturing the factories and strongholds that supply this region.”

  Finally, Udak’s pointer landed on Easton, marked near the northeastern edge of the map. “Their forces curved back here,” he said grimly. “They hit Easton hard. It was our last major bastion in the eastern corridor, and now it’s gone. With Easton’s fall, the scorps have created a pincer movement.” He gestured to the northern and eastern fronts. “They are closing in on Giantridge from all sides. This is no longer just an invasion. It is eradication.”

  Easton. I remembered its bustling avenues, the scents of roasted chestnuts and spice traders blending in the air. It had been there that I closed my first major solo case, unmasking a counterfeiter running a forgery operation from within the city’s libraries. The streets I had walked were likely dust now.

  The Lord Commander’s voice cut through my thoughts. “And Weston,” she added grimly. “The imperial army was stationed there to defend the northern pass. All contact was lost last night.”

  Weston. My final case before conscription. It had started with the death of a scientist from the Imperial Science Academy, their body found in the ruins of their family home. At first glance, it looked like another politically-motivated theft, the kind where the culprits took more than valuables. But something about the scene gnawed at me. The mess wasn’t chaotic; it was deliberate, almost surgical. Shelves emptied but not overturned. Papers missing but not scattered. Whoever had been there wanted something specific, and they found it—or thought they had.

  The break came when I found the desk. A solid, well-crafted piece, with intricate carvings and seams too precise to be purely ornamental. I’d encountered designs like it before—custom-made for academics or bureaucrats who valued security as much as aesthetics. I ran my fingers along its edges until I felt the faintest click. A hidden drawer slid open, revealing a husk. It looked like nothing more than a dried-out fragment of chitin, but the moment my hand brushed it, my mind burned with an image I couldn’t explain. Hive Cherklugha, seething with rage. The vision vanished as quickly as it came, leaving me shaken and grasping for meaning.

  Next to the husk lay a datapad, its screen still glowing with an article about the Empire’s atrocities during the Terie Rebellion four thousand years ago. The connection to the scientist became clearer as I read: a dissident working to prove the Empire’s truths were always lies. Their final evidence? A creature found deep in the Greatdesert, its existence a threat to the Empire’s narrative. That husk. I didn’t understand its significance then, but as Udak pointed to the scorps’ movement across the map, the memory snapped into place like the final piece of a puzzle I didn’t know I was solving.

  The klaxon’s sudden wail tore through my thoughts, startling me so violently that I nearly dropped the blade I’d retrieved from the weapons rack. My pulse spiked, the high-pitched alarm slicing through the remnants of my memory like a whip. Around me, the recruits scrambled into motion, their movements frantic as chaos gripped the assembly room.

  “Form up and arm yourselves!” Udak’s voice thundered over the din. “You are the empire’s shield now. Hold your lines, or you’ll fall with them!”

  I took a steadying breath, my grip tightening on the blade as I forced my thoughts back to the present. Every detail mattered now—the map, the fear in the recruits’ eyes, the cryptic warnings of the ethereal being. Whatever lay ahead, I would face it. One step at a time. One detail at a time.