* * * * *
“So,” the low voice of the record-keeper spoke carefully in a language that was not his own, “I have nearly come to the end of my tale, but how much does this, our history mean to you, to your planet?
“Soon now, after millennia of freedom, Kiel3 will be returned to the Seynorynaelian Empire, and under the will of the immortal Emperor, Marankeil. There will be nothing you or I can do to prevent this. However, there is one hope for your world, and for the thousands of other provinces across the galaxies who would keep their freedom. The Immortals would not accept this fate; they would not allow Marankeil and his Empire to control the rest of time. Their final mission, their exile, became a desperate search to somehow alter history and the future. Before taking up their cause, I was able to recall my former self, the man who had once dedicated his early life to the preservation and study of ancient lore.
“So it came to pass that on the morning of their final departure I broke my vow of silence and gave them hope that an Enorian singularity would come from your planet Kiel3, and this singularity was fated to help them destroy the Council of Elders, to stop their poison from spreading across the universe. How long I had kept that regrettable vow of silence and what difficulties it lay upon me I cannot tell you—yet in that one moment I was at last able to break it.
“I had given up my humanity long ago, but in that moment, I also sacrificed my second chance for a human life and body again in order to protect Alessia and the generations on board Selesta, to become the mechanical heart of the ship itself, the record-keeper, the living memory that inhabits Selesta. I am Selesta now.
“I cannot convey what this sacrifice cost me, but for my own sacrifice and for the sake of those whom I now protect—as long as any power remains to me, in this mission to your world I hereby swear I shall not fail, nor let any power come between me and my chosen destiny.
“I shall not rest until I know that the Seynorynaelian Emperor is dead.”
The Last Immortal : Book One of Seeds of a Fallen Empire Page 83
