Episode 1 | The Everlight Protocol

Snow drifted in the air, glowing like embers.

Gusts of torrid wind stoked them, fueling their descent from an artificial sky. Strangely starless and starving, swallowing the heavens. Hael shivered, heart rattling his ribcage. The field of bleached wheat and muted lavender swayed around him. Impossible. Eerie. Wrong. A warning—nagging, clawing, visceral—urged him to flee. To escape. But the sight of the snow mesmerized him, kept him rooted in place.

Hael never laid eyes on snow before. Had never traveled beyond the Orbital Mirrors of Tenebris. His elderkin, Evrin and Valeska, spent most moons on Icariel during the Frost Tides, and whenever they left, Hael burned with envy. They promised to take him there on his 10th birthday to see the Festival of Kirtha. It was a celebration of the Void Vein that kept the planet alive despite its permanent winter. The snow was said to gleam with starlight and cloak mountains that were shaped like slumbering wolves. 

Once, he tried to sneak into the cargo hold of the SS Minlu, which had been destined to pass through the Mistveil on its way to the planet, but the crew ratted him out to his father. Hael sulked for days, hiding in his secret alcove within the archives and dreaming of what snow might look like, feel like. He was nine and hardly a child anymore. He was dying to visit all the worlds the Divine Lady wove into her stories, but more than anything, he wanted to visit Icariel to see the snow.

Because, cold as his homeworld was, snow didn’t exist on Tenebris. 

This…isn’t…right. Don’t touch it. Leave. Hurry. Run. But Hael already lifted a bare hand to capture the flurries, fingers bent in hesitant curiosity. They trembled against their will, frigid despite the broiling breeze whipping through the field now. The flurries kissed his skin, a whisper of powdery silk. Powder? Silk? Not cold, as he had imagined. Not wet, as he had read. But a powder that burned his skin. Hael recoiled from the flurries, small blisters forming on the flesh of his fingers.

He stumbled back, air caught in his lungs. This was—

“It’s going to be okay.” His father appeared and knelt before him, divine scythe in pieces between them. His stellarium armor was cracked, the blood of unseen wounds seeping out from the fissures. Half his face was burned from temple to collarbone. Fear, cold and sickening, stabbed Hael’s chest. This is not okay. Hael stiffened, unable to sever his gaze from the shock in his father’s blazing, cobalt eyes. Eyes bright with rage. Eyes wide with terror. His entire being vibrated with the flow of his flux magic, cells drunk on it. A rasped cry broke from Hael’s lips.

“Listen to me…” His father drew in a ragged breath, a sheen of crimson wetting his blistered lips. He rested a hand on Hael’s neck and brought their foreheads together. He smelled of lighting and metal and decay. His mouth moved, but Hael caught only pieces. “You must do this…for our people…for our Divine Lady…it’s the only way to restore what has been lost.”

Then blood oozed from his orifices; it thinned and trailed from his eyes and ears. The ground beneath them shuddered and the artificial sky gasped, both swallowed by an explosion of pure, white light and superheated air. His father screamed over the roar of the wind, which now consumed the field. “Swear it on your life, Hael. Swear it—”

Run. Run. Run. Run. Awareness tore through Hael, sharp as a blade through flesh. He knew what this was. Death. The teeth of death shredding his world. Swallowing it whole. Snuffing it out. Starless and starving. Always starving. Hael clung to his father, words burning the back of his throat, but he could not say them.

And then Hael’s father crumbled into ash. The pieces of him scattered among the flurries of snow. Snow that lit the air on fire—

“They must be out of their fucking minds.”

Hael Astraeus flinched awake, the nightmare banished by a veil of sunlight. It trickled down through the lush, golden canopy of the sprawling oak he rested beneath—a refuge from the searing suns and stifling afternoon heat. He blinked up at the leaves fluttering in the balmy breeze, sweat and tears wetting his flushed cheeks. His heart was a piercing needlepoint, laced with lingering dread and longing. 

I’m in…the Gardens of Clarity. Hael’s fingers curled around the key that hung from his neck, hidden under his uniform. It hummed against his skin, grounding him in the present. He exhaled deeply, his grip loosening. It was a nightmare.

Hael gathered the fragments of memory and emotion, and buried them. Now is not the time to waver, he reminded himself, swallowing hard. Act now, process later. When all his emotional resources could be devoted to the tasks of dissecting the nightmare, Hael would unpack it. Understand it. Deal with it. 

But in the shadow of his deeds, Hael couldn’t afford to dwell on the consequences of his mission, to overthink all reasons he shouldn’t do it. Reasons that included espionage, terrorism, and grand theft–the least of his soon-to-be-crimes against the Astral Veil. No, Hael refused to waver. Failure wasn’t an option in his path of revenge and promises made to the Dread Knights. Nor was doubt when others had more to lose than he did.

That part of him, at least, was still human. Yet not inhuman enough to ignore the Knight Guardian kicking the heads off flowers along the garden path, festering with unbridled rage.

Hael’s mouth pressed into a thin line. From one nightmare into another. Divines within…

“What ails you now, Evencrest?”

A seething Pippa Evencrest–one of his Knight Guardians of the mechanic variety–wore a path in the grass, kicking pebbles and flowers out of her way.

“Come on, come on, come on….” she hissed under her breath, ignoring him, blonde ponytail swinging like a pendulum of doom. She crawled atop the half-wall and jabbed the screen of her touchpad with a violent finger. Then thrust it up in the air in a threatening prayer.

But in Cystirin, prayers were rarely, if ever, answered.

“Mirror Heal simulation, complete. Panel power restoration estimate, 75%. Fixware upload, failed.” 

Shrieking through gritted teeth, Evencrest threw her touchpad and dropped to a sitting position, legs dangling over the edge of the wall. The touchpad landed with a thud in the grass, screen cracked and glitching. Her cold, sapphire eyes snapped in Hael’s direction. 

“What ails me is that ⅓ of the mechanics are off world! The rest of us are stuck here, stretched thin to the bone trying to fix the Oribital Mirrors on one of the hottest fucking days of the decade.” She huffed and crossed her arms, scowling at the sky. 

Hael followed her gaze, where a meshing of metal and bio-glass domed over the city. Smoke drifted across the cloudless sea of blue above them.

“It never stopped you before,” he replied evenly, drawing a hand down his face as if to wipe the exhaustion away with the sweat. It was a lingering effect of the cryo-regen therapy he received days before, which left his muscles taut and bones brewing. His starlight flux burned in his veins, reacting to radiation in the air and starving for it, but Hael fought the urge to absorb it. He had no need of it. Yet. “Precisely what is the issue even you can’t solve?”

Evencrest’s posture went rigid, cheeks reddened with fury. “I will solve it, sir. I assure you of that. But make no mistake…it’s a vicious cycle. We need those panels to combat the solar flares and the heatwaves, but they’re causing the panel issues in the first place. To even get them online to offset energy overload, we need to upload a fixware program, but now we can’t even do that.”

“We’re all accustomed to panels shutting down,” Hael reminded her, crossing his arms. “It’s your job to fix them, regardless of what broke them in the first place.”

“It’s more complicated than that, sir.” One of his knights–a lanky Knight Mage with curls of ginger hair–peeked up from a handful of playing cards. “Comms, trains–the whole network is offline.” 

Again. 

No one had to utter it aloud; the fact hung like a body from the gallows between them. It poured from the sweaty faces of knights dogged with tasks and flitting around the square outside the walls of the Gardens of Clarity. It nestled in the weary, rigid bodies of his unit, who clung to the shade with reverence. It ate at the Starward Legion’s morale, feeding foul tempers and starving them of reason. The list of duties was endless, pointless. A means of testing a knight’s usefulness and resourcefulness—and of reminding them of the perils of falling short in the eyes of Emperor Vulcraith.

Hael’s unit of knights was only allowed to rest in the Gardens of Clarity because the Science Division and the Starward Legion didn’t want them to collapse from heat exhaustion. Not only would that make them useless, but it would also signal to the citizens that the solar storms were out of the ordinary. Out of control. 

In other words, terrible for the Astral Veil’s PR campaign touting peace and prosperity. With solar storms cooking the planet, they couldn’t be farther from prosperity if it crawled in bed with them.

Another knight threw down a winning card and said, “It’s not the mirrors that’re fucked, it’s the network satellites. Solar winds fried two of them. No way they’ll be back online for a while.”

Evencrest went deadly still. “What do you mean ‘a while’?”

The knight shrugged, shuffling his deck of cards. “A while.”

“Spit it out, Bartlowe.”

Hael pinched the bridge of his nose. “Quiet.” 

“Nothing to spit, Evencrest. Gunth and me bumped into a Knight Errant, who relayed the info. The poor bastard has to run from Waypoint to Waypoint to deliver news every hour.”

Evencrest’s leather satchel joined her cracked tablet on the ground, tools rolling in the grass. She cursed and shoved off the half wall, once again pacing around the inner edges of the gardens. This time, with her rapier out of its sheath. Her flux surged and settled in cycles, stopped only by the dampener bracelets worn at her wrists. 

With each step, she stabbed the dirt, listing names under her breath—her dream hit list, no doubt. It was a cathartic act. Evencrest was famous for her foul temper, but she was loyal to the Starward Legion to the core. No matter how much it pissed her off.

“Enough,” Hael commanded, slamming his sheathed sword and glaring at them. Ice spread from where it struck the ground, casting frost across the shaded grass between them. He leaned into it, fingers laced over the hilt and green eyes glowing sharply. His knights sprang to their feet, hands over their hearts and mouths shut.

“Bartlow, go to the nearest Waypoint and retrieve our next orders. Get a status update for our fair mechanic here so that the rest of us may find peace in this infernal hellscape. Gunth, assist Grand Knight Lu with delivering supplies to the citizens. Remind them that loitering outdoors today is ill-advised by the Science Division.” Hael rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Evencrest—”

“I will run maintenance on the Oriel Towers to ensure the plasmic veil doesn’t lose power during this shitstorm of a day. The mirrors might be shot to hell, but I’ll be damned if the ground level barriers fail, too.” Evencrest shoved her rapier back into its scabbard and crossed her arms.

“Then see it done.” Hael nodded, voice low and cold. With a huff, Evencrest gathered her tools and touchpad. She hissed and shoved by the other knights, who sprang out of the way, before disappearing through the hedges with a flick of blond hair.

Hael shifted his attention back to the comms touchpad on the bench, which he’d been reviewing before falling asleep. It should have been lit with mandates, reports, and a live map of current Starward Legion postings. All Knight Marshalls had access to this information, depending on clearances. Hael had one of the highest, but right now, all it showed was a network error. 

When the Dread Knights announced Griffin Hartwin was joining their mission at the last minute, Hael nearly burst into starlight. He took it as a bad omen and rushed to gather the rest of the intel that morning—including security codes from Evencrest’s touchpad. The tech pirate was insane. A genius among them, sure, but the edgiest, mouthiest, most dishonorable pyromaniac Hael had ever encountered in his 800 years.

2,800 days have passed since he infiltrated the Starward Legion. He grinded his way to the position of Knight Marshall, situating himself within the heart of this planet, Arboros. Each treasonous act he committed over the years knotted in his throat, as if he’d swallowed bitter nettles that could not be dislodged. He would not regret shattering the sky on Arboros, but he could still grieve those losses to come because of futile ignorance and stubbornness. The Astral Veil had its chances to come clean, to alter course, but had refused over the centuries. Now its people would pay the price and not just in blood.

Only the foolish believed vengeance and salvation demanded just blood; the price was his soul, piece by precious piece, altering him on a fundamental level he could not yet comprehend. And after today, the citizens of Arboros would never be the same again, either.

Cystirin hung by a ragged thread, fraying at its edges. It wouldn’t take much to make it snap, to shatter its false sky and bring it crashing down on the city. And to do it during the Titanus Exodus? Well, that’s poetic justice.

Erde. Hael sought out the consciousness of his falcon companion. A low purring stirred in the back of his mind as Erde woke up. Find Steeltalon. Tell him to meet me at The Silver Chalice and to bring a network ghost. Proceed with caution. Comms, network—it’s all down. He set his touchpad aside and scanned the cobbled streets that ran around the perimeter of the Gardens of Clarity.

Cystirin was in the final throes of Titanus Exodus, a week long celebration of human independence from the Esin, who departed R-39 over a thousand years ago today. In years past, thousands flocked to Arboros from nearby planets to take part in the vibrant festivities, but with the heatwaves and solar flares, celebrations this year fell short of their usual grandeur. 

Yet, despite warnings from the Science Division, the citizens of the city had not been deterred. Music flowed through the streets, competing with the soft dings of windchimes and the chirps of heat-loving wendrils. Coins glittered in the sunlight. Bubbles of conversation spilled out of shops. A handful of bards stood in the shade, reciting poetry of titan battles and the beauty of Duskra’s last Ahme. The few children who braved the outdoors gasped with delight as the hydris flux performances rewarded them with spouts of cool water to play in. Merchant trolls lugged carts of packed-up goods down the cobbled roads, their clumsy steps shaking the ground. Hael’s bench softly rocked to their rhythm.

Everyone celebrated Titanus Exodus in different ways. Some danced until their bodies were wracked with euphoric exhaustion or sang the near-forgotten songs of their homo cosmien ancestors. Others tasted the burgundy wines from the Imperial Cellar or gorged on padi, spiced delicacies fried on sticks. There were those who desired the other delicacies the city had to offer, from the ithalium dens of the east to the gilded pleasure ships of the south. There were few limits imposed on how to properly celebrate. To indulge and experience the sensory of life in all its colors was to be human. And nothing–no one–strived to be more human than Arboros. Flux Arcana, however, was the line they wouldn’t cross.

Cosmos forbid they ever resemble anything alien by way of magic.

Hael didn’t hate the citizens of Arboros. In some ways, he envied their resilience and blissful ignorance. It spared them from the burdens of having to take responsibility. It wasn’t their fault their naked eyes couldn’t measure the slow swelling of their dual suns. It wasn’t their fault that they’d been taught to fear their Flux Arcana magic. It wasn’t their fault that the Oracles of Aisil quelled their worries with false logic whenever alarm arose. 

No, he didn’t hate them; he pitied them. They were children to his 800 years. Part of him wished for them to break free of the dream that slowly killed them. But to do that, they had to know how truly powerless they were. How powerless he had been when his homeworld was ripped from him, among other precious losses. The power of truth could only be received at rock bottom, when they had nowhere else to turn their gazes except upon the truth. That would be his blessed and cursed gift to the citizens of Arboros.

The down network wouldn’t intervene with his part to play in the mission. But it was an inconvenience that would make Griffin trigger-happy and Emperor Vulcraith paranoid beyond reason. The movements of his Infernal Knights would be especially unpredictable today. His Imperial Archives would be off limits and swarming with innumerable spies, mages, and guardians. There were too many moving parts for Hael to keep track of, too many variables to account for when he was about to commit the highest form of treason in the R-39 galaxy.

Still, the offline network was an inconvenience to the mission. Just one of many wrenches thrown into an already precarious plan. 

The first wrench had a name: Oryn Thalas.

Bane of Hael’s existence, and yet, the only reason he would be  able to carry out his Dread Knight mission. The Knight Scholar was supposed to be on Duskra, unearthing Esin relics and meeting with local tribes to collect mythological data. Hael had called upon several favors and paid a fortune to ensure Oryn stayed there, far from the Dread Knight mission and the hazards of being the disappointing son of Knight Master Advern Thalas. The old man was the emperor’s favorite mutt who helmed the Starward Legion and the Science Division with an iron fist. And like most on Arboros, he had no love for Knight Scholars.

Perhaps that is what endeared Hael to the child. A mix of pity and empathy that gave birth to a kind of affection. A world of difference between them, yet they were both outcasts on Arboros. Their bond developed into a complicated and strange friendship. A friendship that gave Hael access to intel on the Imperial Archives–and left him either warm with fondness or bitter with guilt. 

For once, Hael couldn’t blame the boy. It was all thanks to the accursed Oracles of Aisil, who fawned over the Knight Scholar like vultures circling their next corpse. They loathed the boy, but their fates were tethered to him as much as his was to theirs. Hael prayed the next Orbital Mirror panel that broke fell on their cathedral. May their spires burn. He smirked at the thought.

Oryn’s desert green cloak and worn messenger bag sat on the other end of the bench, entrusted to Hael for safekeeping and collecting golden leaves. He peeked under the cover of one of the tomes—a block of gibberish that he thought might have once been Gorggulian, the language of a cryptid tribe on Galene. But it was the other text that caught his eye. The gild of the title had faded, but it was still legible: The Ballads of Ahmya. A collection of songs. Hael’s heart leapt, and his veins flooded with dread. That’s what the boy risked public persecution for? Songs spun by the spiders of the sand. A forbidden text.

You’re being uncommonly nosy, Astraeus, Erde remarked suddenly, amusement bursting through their link. Hael dropped the cover with a start, tsking under his breath. You could ask him, you know. He would tell you. He tells you everything.

I am not, Hael retorted. I cannot, and he would be foolish to.

Sure, sure was her only reply. Hael shook his head, dispelling her voice from his mind.

Under the veil of radiation saturated light, it was easy for Hael to see the golden, residual hue of Oryn’s barrier flux. He followed its flow towards the white marble steps that stopped just before the half-walled garden, where they ascended to the sparkling fortress of the Cathedral of Aisil. Oracles traveled the steep steps, cloaked in the finest white magi-tech fabrics with bronze embroidery. With their hoods covering all but their painted mouths, they resembled divines amongst mortals. But Hael knew they could bleed just as easily as anyone.

His eyes snagged on Oryn, a sharp exhale escaping him. Golden-eyed and freckled as his forefathers, the Knight Scholar was a leaf in the wind. Carefree, well-tempered, earnest in everything he did—a curious mind driven by gut instinct. But he was a wretched and indecisive fool, nonetheless. 

Naïve as the day he was born. 

Oryn followed the Oracle Mother down the steps, surrounded by a circle of her most devoted students. He had that kind-hearted, lop-sided smile on his face, glowing like a damned saint, even as she criticized and belittled him over his clothes, which were still windswept with dust from the desert. Even as his hands trembled from overextending his flux to keep a faint barrier tightly wrapped around him. Sweat dripped down his brows, slowly leeching the color of life out of him. Still, Oryn smiled and nodded, accepting whatever nonsense the old crone barked at him. 

Too vulnerable, the thoughts drifted through Hael’s mind. Too malleable. Too expendable. 

Evencrest returned to the garden wall. She mopped damp strands of blond hair from her face and raised her chin in an air of superiority. “That is why Knight Scholars make terrible knights. They are perfect for fodder and political ass-kissing, but utterly useless outside of a book. Who knew the golden son of the Knight Master would be a bootlicker? Gods, they should have spared us all the shame and left him to rot in one of his ditches on Duskra.”

In the blink of an eye, Hael cast luminous daggers across the garden, the nodes on his knuckles shimmering with Illume flux. They embedded themselves in the stone wall, close enough to Evencrest to earn a widened gaze. Too close. Not close enough.

“Dig sites, Evencrest. Not ditches. Dig sites.”

“I don’t care what they are, sir. I’d rather serve under Mothas–” 

Hael got into his Knight Guardian’s face. “Watch yourself,” he bit coldly. His hand trembled around the hilt of his own sword, itching to loosen it, to cut her down where she stood for her treason. 

He was sick of hearing about Edgir Mothas. The first son of the Knight Master’s brother, Mothas was a social cripple with a sharp tongue that always knew where to cut deep and sticky fingers that he couldn’t keep to himself. He was uncouth, cruel, and undisciplined, but he wielded a strong type of aerokinesis that made him valuable. Useful enough to turn a blind eye when he used his abilities against others, earning him little more than finger wagging. The idea of a dishonorable man sitting in a tainted seat of power…Hael grimaced. Oryn was the better choice.

“I am watching myself, sir. But the people of this city will not bend to someone like him. He is a Knight Scholar, through and through.”

His knuckles blanched with his grip, as if grounding him and protecting Evencrest from him. He stepped back, sucking air through his teeth to quell the feverish heat welling inside him. “You will bend, Evencrest. You will all bend.  He will always be the son of the Knight Master. He will rise to the position of advisor to the emperor. Your superior, in fact. Are you questioning their decision?”

The words were chewed out and left a bitter taste in his mouth. But they were the truth. If Oryn stayed in Cystirin, if he remained on Arboros, he would eventually become the next Knight Master. It was a role handed down, father to son, an inevitable destiny. They would break and remake him to their likeness. They would strangle the questioning nature of a Knight Scholar out of him. A mercy in some ways, a cruelty in others. 

But Oryn would be remade. And then Hael would have no choice but to greet his friend as an enemy.