Until the end of days, we are loyal, Aquila promised him.
From that day, Seraphim never looked back from his independence. Whilst the Lion had sought his contributions to the war on multiple occasions and he had given it, he had his own motives for everything. The Auranair had shown him a vision. She had given him the sole duty of safeguarding Her birthplace and he would do everything in his power to do that, even if it meant his death and his legion’s extinction…Even if it meant betraying the trust of the other Apostles.
He had come to Hydron alone. By now, he and his brother walked through the Gateway to each other’s worlds as though it were a mere doorway between rooms. The relaxation of safety protocols had come about through a mutual respect and understanding of each other. Though their relationship with the other Apostles was vastly different, they shared an irrefutably common ground; they were both looked down upon for doing what they believed they must. Over time, their trust for each other built until such a point that even their legionnaires saw little use in being strict when it came to their use of the Gateway.
Now, just as he was about to return to his own sanctum, safe and secure from the interference of the war, Seraphim did something he hadn’t for almost his entire life. He questioned himself. Was he right to go back to Apollia, to his reclusion? Of course, part of him assured. He might not have been waging war against the Phantoms directly, but his discoveries on Apollia meant he would never have to.
With that in mind, he stepped towards the Gateway without further hesitation. He drove his body into the orb of energy, feeling the light embrace him for its own before transporting him to a place that no vessel could ever travel to. It felt like the touch of a god’s hand and he imagined it was rather similar to what the humans referred to as rapture.
The feeling only lasted a few seconds before he was back on the surface of Apollia. It was a strange notion to think of it as a planet when he wasn’t entirely certain it was at all.
“My Lord, it is good to see you returned” Aquila called out, evidently surprised that he was here.
Seraphim saw him standing nearby. His intuition had been right, then. The Commander had been poised to step through to the Hydra’s House when he came through the Gateway. The fact meant only one thing; his legion had discovered more about the meaning locked in the runes of the cave walls beneath the city of Elysium.
“Aquila, tell me what you have learned” he said. When the legionnaire’s eyebrows creased and his eyes frowned more than his lips, Seraphim realised there could only be grave news to be heard. “Tell me everything, and spare me no pain”.
Chapter 7
THE LUMINON SAILED through space at speeds unfathomable by human standards. The Blackstar class vessel, wrapped in a cocoon of energy that allowed it the slipstream required for hyperspace travel, was alone in taking its trip to what the Empire referred to as The Shield.
To say The Shield was a defensive network would be a gross understatement akin to saying a star was hot. Formed from three closely joined star sectors, the existence of which were a secret to the Empire’s public population, The Shield was a vast complex of fortress worlds and space stations that, together, provided the most intricate military asset that the humans possessed.
Forged to the east of the Meridian Sector, home of Gothica itself, The Shield was all that stood in the way of the encroaching Vorlan Conglomerate. It had taken almost a century to build, its purpose required long before the Deian War became a reality.
With the arrival of the Phantom threat, the sheer importance of the conjoined sectors became ever more apparent. With the Guardians’ help, its construction had been sped up with no cost to integrity and power, but the Empire had taken the legions’ advice and technology with little given in return.
Now, Lupus and Calla journeyed towards the greatest achievement in human military history. However, before they could reach their destination, there was a place that Lupus had insisted upon Orion to take them. He had kept it a secret to Calla, but she was aware enough to know they had taken a diversion on the route they had planned together.
They were moments away from arriving. It was a sight that Lupus had waited years to show her. He had dared to dream during the Purge Crusades, when it seemed he would never find her again, that he could bring her to witness the majesty of what only he and his legion had seen and now that dream would be fulfilled.
He had never been more excited to see her reaction to something as simple as a sight she could behold with her own eyes. When the comms-unit in his chamber clicked and Orion announced their imminent arrival, he fought to contain his eagerness. Calla hadn’t seen him so enthused for an age, perhaps not since she was human on Gothica and all they knew was life at the Academy. His mood was infectious and the fact of its rarity didn’t escape Lupus either, but it was an overzealous joy that he didn’t want to fight.
He took Calla’s hand, kissed her lightly on the lips and told her to follow him to the greatest gift he could ever give her.
HE TOOK HER up to the Luminon’s observation deck, a vast room that sat on the centre of the ship’s sleek back. Resting atop a supporting spine, it crested the armoured ridge of the vessel like a clear bubble. When he first led her up on the service elevator, itself more elegant than its function had a right to be, he was glad to see that there was nobody else in sight. It would be the way he had arranged; just them, all alone.
The doors to the observation deck hissed open smoothly, as if they had never been used. In truth, the room had only been entered by a select few since its addition to the Luminon, one that Lupus had insisted on when they first encountered the place he had brought the ship back to now.
At first, Calla could see nothing. Though the room’s walls were quite clearly made of glass, providing a completely panoramic view to what awaited them outside, they were currently tinted black. She knew without being told that the deck’s design incorporated this function in order to make the glass opaque. Given the otherwise near-invisibility of a stationary Blackstar, or even one in transit, it would do little use to have a structure that would attract and reflect any hint of light and give away their presence to unwanted attention.
Lupus waked to the centre of the room and she followed, partly magnetised to him, partly drawn alone by intuition of what he wanted her to do. When she stood side by side with him, she was surprised to find that he didn’t move to cover up her eyes for a final tease. She could feel his excitement; it was palpable in the air. It was beginning to overcome her too.
“You realise the walls are still black, don’t you?” she joked.
He gave her a smile that she had never seen before, one that she could tell he had waited an unknowable time to express. “Calla Vaylian, what I am about to show you is a sight that no human eyes have ever seen. It is one of my dearest secrets and this dimension’s biggest prize. Behold creation itself”.
Calla smiled back, uncertain but trusting the power of his words. She began to form a reply, to ask a question that was nagging at her mind ever since she knew he was about to share with her something that only he and his legion had ever been privy to, but he stopped her.
“First, you should see it. Then you will have both a thousand questions and a thousand answers all at once” he promised.
She saw the earnest look in his eyes and the question she had vanished. “Show me” she said tentatively.
With that, Lupus took his gaze away from hers and looked at the section of glass directly in front of them. When her eyes copied his, the opacity of the walls faded with deliberate and perfect timing. The sight before her was like nothing she had ever seen before. Quite simply, there were no words to do it justice.
IT WAS A vista unimaginable to even the most imaginative of artists and poets. There were all the colours of the spectrum; those that could be seen by their once-human eyes and the thousands of shades that their Apostolic vision helped them perceive. The sheer brilliance and variation was almost blinding, but not to them. It to
ok several moments for Calla to be able to understand what she was seeing.
Stars blossomed into existence, fires burned with the fiercest intensity and the richest beauty. Clouds of astral dust gathered together and were haloed by the light of dying gas giants, while a hundred white dwarfs battled with their red cousins for her attention. After what felt like an eternity of staring in awe and fascination at the miracle that her brain could barely fathom and interpret, she glanced at Lupus and knew she would never be able to believe that he had brought her here and shared this perfection with her.
It should have been impossible, but he had taken her to a place that seemed to be a miniature galaxy of suns. It was like their own private collection of stars, the young and old, the newly born and the ever-dying. In the space of a few moments they witnessed a thousand creations with a plethora of endings so profound and moving that no human eye would be able to withstand the experience.
As magnificent as it was, there was something even more poignant that struck her heart with lightning strikes. Only he knew how to find this place. Prior to their arrival here, she had overheard him directing Orion to the precise location, even the Captain evidently unaware of the co-ordinates for reasons of secrecy.
Though Lupus hadn’t given away any crucial details, wary of her listening in, she had heard enough to suggest the 617th had wiped their records of this place, leaving only Lupus with the knowledge of how to return. The reality that, if he wished, he could have kept the secret to himself forever, made her admire him more than ever but, at the same time, made her feel entirely unworthy of this gift.
The question that she had nearly asked before he revealed the galaxy of suns to her came back with a vengeance, but when she spoke, it was barely a whisper. “Lupus…why have you shown this to me?”
Then he turned to her and he gave an answer that threatened to take her breath away. “Because, Calla, you and I…” he began, turning to regard the scene outside. “You are I are greater than this…”
THOSE WORDS WOULD stay with Calla for the rest of her life. They made her want to cry, smile, laugh and embrace Lupus with all of her being. Here was a man who had saved her life more than once, been there through thick and thin and waited a decade for her when he had never known he would see her again. The size of his heart eclipsed everything that he was unfolding beyond the Luminon and he had dedicated it to her.
“How can I ever match this, Lupus? Saying ‘I love you’ will never compare and I have no grand gestures to prove how completely I belong to you” she finally said, elevated beyond words by his display of emotion but hurt by herself that she had no way to return it in kind and do her own feelings justice.
When he replied, he surprised her even more with his sensitivity. “But don’t you see? You don’t need any of this to make me understand. You still being here with me alone is the biggest gesture you could give me.
You have seen the ugliness of me in battle, heard my screams at night when even my dreams attack me, but now you have seen true beauty and yet you still seek to tell me how you feel. Anyone else would have refused to return their attention to me after seeing what’s out there. I am forever honoured by you, Calla”.
She laid a trembling hand on his chest, his words making her nervous to touch the man she loved for fear of him fading away. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Lupus” a soft tear ran gently down her cheek, “but I’m glad I did it”.
Lupus lifted her chin with a finger and brought her eyes to his. Here was the one thing in the entire universe he ever really wanted to protect. Whatever happened, no matter what horrors the war would bring, he would save her. He loved her beyond words, beyond even the galaxy of suns, but he knew she could never understand the depth of that. Yet, the hopeful curve to her smile and the pleading look in her eyes for him to be real, to be the man who had saved her already so many times before even when she was human, was enough to make him believe they were bound together.
He leant in and kissed her on the lips. Her hand dropped from his chest to rest on his hip and he pulled her in. It was a kiss fuelled by a love that they rarely had a chance to celebrate. Whole legions had witnessed their relationship on the battlefield as they fought together, but only a select few had ever seen them openly show their affection in a romantic sense.
Now, with no restrictions in their way, they embraced one another like the heroes they were for one another. Each was a saviour to the other, each a person beyond compare. They had withstood the test of time, resisted the death and decay of war and faced down a plague threats to their love, but still it continued and still it grew in strength with every day.
When Lupus pulled away to see the fondness in her eyes, Calla pulled him down by the back of his neck like a timeless lover and kissed him on the tip of his nose. It was the big gesture she claimed she could never show him, filling him with a feeling of completeness that was simply past description. The emotion built and built inside him until it found a release, bursting out in a harmonious sadness so deep that it had taken its opposite to reveal itself.
Yet, it didn’t belong to him; he sensed it emanating from Calla and he had only reflected it. “What troubles you?” he asked, pained to see her upset when it was supposed to be a day of happiness for them both.
She looked away, her eyes flickering from the scene outside that surrounded them on all sides. Then she looked back to him and he could suddenly anticipate the words he had always expected one of them to say.
“Lupus, I’m scared…” she whispered.
The confession struck him like a hammer to an anvil, because although he had always known she was afraid, the tone in her voice suggested he had never worked out what that fear actually was. “Of what?” he said.
“I’m just…I’m terrified that we’re not going to survive the evil we’ve been fighting all this time. I don’t know why, but I can feel it in my bones…something terrible is going to happen to us and I don’t know how to prevent it”.
Lupus hugged her close, hoping that the enclosure of his arms would give her the feeling of security that she needed. “Don’t be afraid…I’m not going to let that happen”.
With her head against his chest, Calla could hear the thumping might of his heart and she believed him, yet still her fears remained. “But what if something takes you from me? What if the war forces us apart?” Then she pushed reluctantly away and asked a question that she knew was insane, but she had to ask it anyway. “What if someone else takes your heart for their own?”
Lupus was incredulous and yet, how could he blame her for asking? They were involved in a war brought to them by the gods and their purpose was the salvation of the human race. They both knew what people thought, even if some of them did support their relationship. They knew what they were doing was, by all rights, impossible and yet still they pursued it. After so many wordless conversations, sharing looks that had filled whole hours of silence when they were alone together, they had an understanding of what their future might involve. Even so, Lupus was amazed that she thought anyone could take her place.
In that moment, he fought for her with everything he had. Not just against her fears, but against the reality of their lives. “There is nothing, nothing that could steal you from me or me from you. There is no pain, no betrayal, and no injury that I could suffer to tear us apart. A thousand years away from you would not wither my heart nor make my love wane. There is no army that could stop me having you, no truth that could change me wanting to be with you.
You see me for who I am, all of me, the good and the bad and yet you remain by my side. How could you ever expect me to leave? I have waited a time beyond measure for you, for us, long before we even met at the Academy…What madness would inspire you to think I would want anyone else?”
A nervous laugh escaped her lips. She knew she was mad to have ever thought it, but somehow she needed to hear him say those words. They both did, because it validated the efforts they had made to stay together even if it mea
nt pushing others away, her sister most of all. “Forgive me, I know I can be difficult…I just don’t want to lose the only thing that’s ever made me feel like I’m not alone in this world”.
Lupus wiped a tear away from her. “There’s nothing to forgive” he said.
Calla rested herself against him and turned. They stood side by side, hand in hand, and watched the miracle of creation he shared with her. They spent the whole night together, locked in each other’s company, their expressions of love more intimate than they had ever been before.
Chapter 8
“IT IS TIME I took my leave, Raina” Gaia announced.
Raina opened her eyes, her consciousness deep in thought but pulled back at the slightest effort by the sound of Gaia’s voice behind her. She turned to her sister and felt a mix of emotions course through her. There was respect, for she was an Apostle; love, because they were bonded as being demi-gods together; trust, forged from battles they had fought as one; and more recently, guilt.
Raina didn’t like to admit what caused the last feeling, but she knew what it stemmed from. The fact was, Gaia admired the one man in the dimension that Raina never could. Of course, Gaia wasn’t the only Apostle that shared that trait and it made Raina hold a private grudge against all of them. Still, the guilt was dwarfed by the friendlier feelings she could associate with all the Apostles bar the First.
“You will be missed, I promise you. I regret the way we left things…” Raina admitted. The confession was hard for her, since she could rarely admit she was wrong, but her desire to heal the rift that had opened between them from their argument the day before won out.
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