The descent was not turbulent, but Devouir felt it all the same.

  Every vibration of the ship traveled through his chest like an uncomfortable reminder that he was there by choice. Not by divine mandate. Not by historical destiny. By choice. And that, more than anything, made it unbearable.

  He watched the planet through the side viewport. Tau Ceti IV looked anything but solemn from the air. An opaque, wounded body, cut through by low clouds and crystalline formations that seemed grayer the closer they drew. There was no grandeur. No promise. Only ground waiting to be used.

  Devouir wiped his hands against his coat without realizing it. They were damp.

  He did not like being this far from speeches. From cameras. From places where doubt could be dressed up as reflection. Here there was no distance. Here decisions had physical weight. Here war was not a word. It was a smell.

  He thought about what was about to happen. He thought, unwillingly, about what might happen. Tau Ceti was the center of the war and the only real chance to tip the balance for the Separatist Union for the first time.

  The ship touched down.

  The impact was soft. Too soft for what churned inside him.

  When the ramp lowered, the first sound that greeted him was the Balmorean chanting. Deep. Ancient. Monotonous. It did not sound like praise. It sounded like insistence. Like erosion.

  Devouir stepped outside and felt immediate relief when he saw him.

  Arktrup was there.

  Standing still, as if he had not walked there. As if the planet had arranged itself around him. The old man did not raise a hand or make any gesture. He did not need to. His presence was enough.

  Devouir felt the knot in his stomach loosen slightly.

  It’s fine, he thought. If he’s here, then this makes sense.

  He approached without haste, almost reverent.

  “Master,” he said, inclining his head slightly.

  Arktrup looked at him with that expression that revealed nothing. Neither approval nor criticism. Only certainty.

  “You arrived,” he replied. “On time.”

  Devouir exhaled. He did not even know from what. But he needed to hear that.

  A few steps away, Roq waited. Straight. Impeccable. His uniform fitted as if it were part of his body. Devouir registered him from the corner of his eye the way one registers a valuable tool. With attention, not affection.

  A great soldier, he thought. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  Roq was efficient. Unquestionably efficient. Where others hesitated, he calculated. Where others believed, he measured. Devouir respected that. Needed it even.

  But he did not fully trust him.

  He could not.

  There was something in Roq that did not bow to anything intangible. Something that did not accept leaps of faith. And Devouir, no matter how often he told himself otherwise, lived on them.

  “The camp is secured,” Roq reported. “The ceremonies are wrapping up. We can move to the pavilion whenever you wish.”

  Devouir nodded, but his gaze returned to Arktrup.

  “In a moment,” he said. “When the master indicates.”

  Roq made no comment, though Devouir felt his silent judgment like pressure at the back of his neck.

  They walked a few steps away from the noise. Devouir lowered his voice almost unconsciously.

  “Is the path fixed?” he asked. “Do you know how we win this war?”

  Arktrup did not answer at once.

  “For some time now, my dear Larton,” he said at last, “victory has been assured.”

  Devouir swallowed.

  “I am afraid of being wrong, Master. Millions depend on us. I cannot fail.”

  “That is good,” Arktrup replied. “Those who do not fear have already erred.”

  Devouir closed his eyes for a moment.

  Trust, he thought. Not as one trusts an ally. As one trusts an invisible structure that keeps the world from collapsing.

  When he opened his eyes, the fear was still there. But it was more bearable.

  “Let us go,” he said, turning toward the pavilion. “I do not want them to see me doubt.”

  Arktrup followed.

  Roq followed at a measured distance.

  And as Devouir walked, he told himself what he always told himself in moments like this:

  If Arktrup has seen it, then it cannot go wrong.

  Though somewhere deep down, he already knew that thought was the most dangerous thing of all.

  Roq walked a few paces behind, just enough to observe without interrupting.

  He saw Devouir standing tall, trying to regain composure, and the bald man at his side moving with that calm that had always offended him. Not because it was false. Because it seemed unnecessary.

  There he is, he thought. The counselor.

  Devouir had not mentioned him often, but when he did, it was always with that particular tone reserved for the unquestionable. He did not say Arktrup thinks. He said Arktrup saw. He did not say Arktrup believes. He said Arktrup knows.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Roq hated that.

  Not because he doubted the old man’s intelligence. It would have been foolish to. What he could not tolerate was his position. Arktrup had no real ties to the Separatist Union. He had not lost family in the campaigns. He had not commanded troops under orbital fire. He had not signed orders condemning thousands of anonymous names.

  And yet he walked as if all of it belonged to him. As if he owed no explanations.

  Roq adjusted his belt, an automatic gesture. A way of reminding himself who he was and why he was there.

  “The troops are ready,” he said, breaking the silence. “The Balmoreans too. They are… restless.”

  He did not look at Arktrup when he said it.

  “I know,” the old man replied. “That is why we brought the prisoner.”

  Roq frowned slightly.

  “The prisoner?”

  Arktrup stopped and tilted his head toward the far end of the camp.

  Two men dressed like him, in the dark robes of the Conclave, were walking with someone held by the arms. They were not dragging him. They were not pushing him. They were simply walking with him.

  Roq narrowed his eyes.

  First he noticed the gray hair. Then the posture. Then the scars.

  Recognition came instantly.

  He felt a sharp blow in his chest, as if the air had grown heavier.

  “No,” he muttered.

  He stepped forward, disbelieving, as the figure came close enough to erase any doubt.

  Rodrick Viulk.

  The Black Spider.

  Hero of the Universal Government. The butcher.

  The face that had led impossible offensives, campaigns that had swept entire planets, decisions that had cost millions of separatist lives. A name spoken with hatred, fear, or a mixture of both.

  Roq clenched his teeth.

  “This is…,” he searched for the word, “this is enormous.”

  Devouir turned to him, surprised by the tone.

  “It is,” he nodded. “A victory. A real one.”

  Roq did not hesitate.

  “We must announce it,” he said. “Now. Let everyone know. Let the Union see it. Let the Universal Government understand the message. We do not capture someone like this every day.”

  Arktrup slowly shook his head.

  “Not yet.”

  Roq looked at him directly for the first time.

  “What do you mean, not yet?”

  “The Balmoreans are tense,” Arktrup explained. “They need to believe the sacrifice has meaning. If we announce this now, they will feel we have already won. That their rite is secondary.”

  “And it is,” Roq shot back. “This is pure propaganda. Political leverage.”

  “Not for them,” Arktrup said calmly. “For them, it is faith.”

  Devouir hesitated. Roq noticed immediately.

  “Larton,” he insisted. “This consolidates the alliance. It is the perfect card.”

  “Or it breaks it,” Arktrup replied. “If they feel used.”

  The silence stretched one second too long.

  Roq watched Devouir glance at the prisoner, then at the bald man, then at the camp. He saw the smallest flicker of discomfort. The internal balance shifting.

  Damn it.

  “After the sacrifice,” Devouir decided at last. “We make the announcement afterward.”

  Roq tightened his jaw.

  “I disagree,” he said evenly. “But I will comply.”

  Arktrup did not react.

  Roq turned to the soldiers.

  “Take him to the pit,” he ordered. “With the other candidates.”

  Viulk did not resist.

  As they led him away, Roq followed him with his eyes until he disappeared into the shadows of the camp.

  Part of him knew it was a dangerous move.

  Another part, more honest, knew exactly why it angered him so much.

  It was not only strategy.

  It was that once again, the bald man was setting the rhythm of the war, and he could only adjust his pace to avoid falling behind.

  The stench of the pit was almost solid. It was not breathed. It was crossed. It clung to skin, seeped into clothes, filtered through pores like sour humidity. Old sweat. Dried blood. Stagnant urine. And something else. Something Nolan had come to recognize as the smell of prolonged waiting. Of bodies that had stopped asking how much longer.

  He breathed through his mouth. It did not help. The air felt heavy. Each inhale scraped his throat.

  He shifted slightly, careful not to draw attention. A few steps away, apart from the others, was Harlan.

  He was not really sleeping. Nolan knew that. Harlan was curled in on himself, arms wrapped around his legs, head buried between his knees. It was not a resting posture. It was retreat. As if he were trying to disappear inside his own body.

  “…it was not like that…” Harlan murmured, barely audible.

  Nolan stiffened but did not look at him immediately. He had learned that looking too often only made it worse. Harlan had been talking to himself for days. Fragments. Names. Questions that expected no answer.

  “No… do not look…” Harlan whispered again.

  Nolan closed his eyes for a second. Counted to three. Opened them.

  An hour had passed since the forced labor stopped. The routine was always the same. Naked under the sun, hauling meaningless materials, digging pits only to fill them again, moving corpses, raising structures that would be demolished the next day. It was not work. It was calculated erosion.

  Then the dry order. The whip cracking against the ground. The march back.

  Now they were human remains piled in the dampness of the pit.

  His arms were numb. His fingers barely responsive. His feet burned, blistered and raw. His back throbbed deeply. The straps had left marks across his shoulders. Swallowing hurt, as if even his throat had cracked.

  But the worst part was not the pain.

  It was the interval.

  That dead space between punishment and the next command. When you were no longer a person but not yet dead. When the mind began asking dangerous questions.

  The pit offered no comfort. Carved brutally into rock, its walls irregular, wet, dark. A few torches hung at useless intervals, throwing trembling shadows that twisted faces into masks. Almost no one spoke now. Some muttered in fevered sleep. Others groaned without realizing it. Most breathed slowly, resigned, like animals penned in.

  Harlan murmured again. Nolan could not make out the words, but he recognized the tone. The same as always. A conversation that existed only inside his head.

  Then came the footsteps.

  First the metallic drag of chains. Then boots descending the sloped corridor.

  Nolan lifted his head immediately.

  New prisoners.

  They appeared at the entrance of the pit, shoved forward by Balmorean soldiers with silent violence. But something was wrong. He felt it before he understood it.

  They were thin men with ashen skin. Completely bald. Not shaved. Stripped. No eyebrows. No facial hair. Skin taut, almost waxed. They looked incomplete, as if essential parts had been erased.

  And they showed no expression.

  They did not beg. They did not tremble. They did not resist. They walked as if they had already passed through death and whatever came next no longer mattered.

  Nolan pushed himself up a little further, ignoring the pain.

  He had seen men break. Fanatics. Deserters. Defeated soldiers. This was different. There was a stillness in them that was not peace. It was total surrender. The kind that makes your skin crawl.

  “They are not… they are not…” Harlan muttered suddenly.

  Nolan glanced at him. Harlan was staring at the ground.

  At the end of the line, Nolan saw him.

  He did not stand out immediately. But he did not hide either. Taller. Broader shoulders. Walking slowly, with tired firmness. No chains. Gray, disordered hair falling over his forehead. A face marked by scars and sun, like an old painting time had refused to erase.

  He stopped briefly. Looked at the pit without fear. With unshakable fatigue.

  Nolan recognized him in less than a second.

  His stomach clenched. Cold ran down his spine.

  Harlan straightened slowly, following Nolan’s gaze. He did not ask. He did not need to.

  Someone nearby whispered a name.

  “Rodrick Viulk.”

  There was no doubt. Not resemblance. Not hallucination. It was him. General of the Universal Government. The face of entire campaigns. The name attached to extermination orders and official speeches. For many in that pit, the embodiment of the enemy.

  The silence that formed felt physical.

  Even the bald men seemed to pause. Some prisoners shifted away instinctively, opening space without looking at him.

  Viulk sat near one of the walls, resting his back against the damp rock. He did not look at anyone. He did not seem worried.

  It was not arrogance.

  It was exhaustion.

  Nolan swallowed. He had fought. He had killed. He had seen friends die. But nothing felt as cold as having Rodrick Viulk a few meters away, breathing the same rotting air.

  His mind searched for explanations and failed. Why was he there? Why not execute him? Why bring him alive?

  Harlan began rocking slightly.

  “He should not be here… not now…”

  Nolan pressed a hand to his chest, not from pain but to feel his heartbeat. To make sure he was still awake. That the pit had not swallowed him too.

  Then Rodrick Viulk slowly turned his head.

  His eyes met Nolan’s.

  No threat. No surprise. A direct, measured look. As if he had known Nolan was there all along.

  His voice was firm. He did not need to raise it.

  “Nolan Ryen,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  The entire pit seemed to hold its breath.

  And Nolan understood, with unbearable clarity, that nothing that followed would be simple. Not for him. Not for Harlan. Not for anyone still breathing in that place.