The Citadel of Stars stood silent above the golden clouds of Xel'Tharion, suspended in low planetary orbit like a frozen god staring down upon its creation. The sun, a colossus of crimson flame, bled light into the vast halls of the Throne Spire, dyeing polished obsidian floors in warm blood-red hues. Each column of the great chamber rose like a titan carved from starlight, and at the very end of it all sat the Eternal Throne—empty.
For the first time in over forty-five thousand years, the seat of Imperator Xelzar was vacant.
Hundreds of dignitaries and highborn warlords had gathered in tight silence, their armors gleaming, their cloaks weighed by lineage and blood. Some wore weapons openly—ancient traditions allowed it—while others bore psionic halos or shimmering war crests, manifestations of raw inner power. But even the most hardened of them bowed their heads as the great doors of the chamber groaned open.
He entered.
Not the Imperator. Not yet. Not the god of war they had followed through centuries of conquest.
But the boy.
Cael.
Sixteen. Short for a Xelvarian. Slim. His robes were simple, dark crimson with golden trim, nothing like the towering armor of the Lords around him. His hair, a deep, unnatural shade of ember-red, was tied back with a single silver clasp. A strange crown, not forged of metal but woven from luminous tendrils of unknown energy, hovered just above his head—an heirloom from an age none remembered. His eyes, glowing with shifting tones of red and gold, scanned the chamber not with fear, but with calm.
It wasn't his presence that drew attention.
It was the one behind him.
The old Imperator.
Xelzar.
He walked with deliberate grace, clad not in his celestial battleplate, but in ceremonial robes of dusk-black and stardust. His silvered hair fell like a mantle. His face, sculpted like the marble statues of a forgotten age, bore no emotion. But the pressure of his presence pressed upon every soul like a dying star's gravity.
The ancient ruler stepped beside the boy and placed a single hand upon Cael's shoulder.
"This is my final command," Xelzar said, his voice rippling through every molecule in the air. "He is Imperator."
Gasps, murmurs, fury. None dared interrupt aloud. But beneath the silence, a hundred psionic pulses clashed and flared.
Cael stepped forward.
He turned to face the crowd—a sea of living legends, commanders of entire galactic fleets, sorcerer-kings, descendants of the first Conquest. He bowed his head, then raised it again.
"I do not ask for your obedience," he said quietly, his voice soft yet unmistakably firm. "I will earn it."
The silence fractured.
One of the old guard stepped forward—General Varthos, adorned in living armor, eyes like shards of moonstone. "You are untested. A child among titans. By what right do you ascend the throne of eternity?"
Before Cael could answer, Xelzar spoke.
"By mine."
The old Imperator's voice did not shout. It did not need to. Power cracked through it like lightning behind every word.
"I have crushed empires with a thought. I have burned gods and walked through the ashes. I have seen all that power creates, and all that it destroys. And I tell you now: Cael will be greater than I. Not because of might. But because he chooses not to wield it first."
The chamber remained still.
Then Varthos, with a slow exhale, knelt.
Others followed. Some reluctantly. Others immediately. A few hesitated, but none dared remain standing when Xelzar lowered his gaze.
A new era had begun.
---
Later, Cael stood alone on the star balcony overlooking the horizon of Xel'Tharion.
He could see the shipyards of Velkor-7 gleaming in the void, the lightning storms over Tyras V, the pulsing light of Zythra-Prime's psionic towers. The empire was vast beyond imagining, and now it was his.
But what was an empire?
A weight? A legacy? A crown of fire?
Behind him, a presence formed—not Xelzar this time, but another.
Prinzessin Lyzira, the Shadow Empress. Cael turned. She regarded him coolly, her midnight eyes unreadable.
"They will try to break you," she said. "You know that."
"Yes."
"They will test you. Betray you. Bleed you."
"Yes."
She stepped closer. "And what will you do, boy-emperor, when your own blood turns against you?"
Cael looked up at her. His gaze burned softly, like a star not yet born.
"I will not burn them," he said. "Not unless I must."
She smiled then, a sharp and dangerous thing.
"You might survive after all."
She vanished into mist.
Cael turned back to the stars. The war was not here. Not yet. But it was coming.
In the silence before the storm, he stood still.
Not as a child.
But as Imperator.