Twenty-nine days after the imperial ambassador’s murder.

Ghostship “Starrunner”, outer space

Devan gazed out the long window occupying the upper part of the wall opposite him. Radiant and flickering stars dotted the black canvas of outer space, forming tails of the Milky Way. He savoured every moment of it, a welcome respite from the grim thoughts of his mission.

There was little else to stave off the boredom of the journey. The ship’s network required an access panel, and there was only a single speaker in this worn, metal canister of a room. At least it’s peaceful.

“You moron. Stop acting like an idiot. What do you think you’ll see?” said Kalz, the brown-haired boy sitting across from Devan. He stared condescendingly at his brother, Less, who was standing on one of the seats to get a better look outside.

The other boy swivelled his head to meet the gaze, his unruly blond hair whipping to follow. Eyes locked, the two boys held still for a moment. “Oh, shut up,” Less said. “You think you’re any better?”

“Shithead”

“Void crawler.”

Devan sighed. Here we go again. He tuned out the profanities that were being tossed about with the fluency and familiarity only those in their early teens could have – those that believed it made them more adult-like.

To their credit, the boys had been fairly calm during the trip. Ever since the last stop, however, the two had been drumming their fingers on their knees, tapping their feet on the floor, even occasionally glancing through the window above them to see if they could spot any signs of the approaching star system – and they’d been arguing.

Devan supposed it was logical given the circumstances. Impatience spurred their irascible mood, and what little patience they did have was slowly chipped away by their growing excitement. Their origins were the cause. They wore clothes typical of the undersurface: tatty shirts and jackets; and trousers with frayed hems and cuffs, so stained with grime that it could no longer be washed off. Their malnourished faces spoke volumes of the poverty they had lived in. This had to be their first journey into space.

Tired of their squabbling, Devan clapped his hands. “Calm down, you two. I get that you’re all giddy since we’re one stop from Radaar, but keep this up and you’ll get us busted. Your hormone-filled heads still remember what the consequences of that are, hm?”

The boys rolled their eyes, and Kalz said, “We do. Everyone knows, given how much they hammered us with the fact.”

“Well? Go on,” Devan said.

I should be more careful as well. The boys’ exuberance and crackling curiosity reminded him too much of Michael. He’d often found himself answering more of their innocent questions than he’d have wanted to. He had to stop. There were too many things that could jeopardise his mission already.

Less shook away a fringe of curly blond that hooded his eye, then recited in monotone, “Of all the crimes, ghostfaring is considered by far the worst and receives the harshest punishment as written in the Pact.”

“We, the package being smuggled by a ghostship, determine the punishment,” continued Kalz in the same monotone. “Immediate death for the lower spheres of influence, death by torture for anyone above the middle, and the cruellest punishments for those of the army and those living close to the palaces.” He stopped then and scratched his chin in thought. “They never told us anything about what would happen to anyone above that. Even the palace servants were never mentioned.”

“Stupid,” said Less, elbowing his brother. “It’s because that’s the same as declaring war. The Emperor himself would likely torture them before feeding them to his Hounds.”

Devan smiled wryly. The irony had not faded since the start of the journey. Rather, it might have grown stronger. There he was, on one of the ghostships – Starrunner – dressed in the plainest of the hooded, grey coats, bought off one of the cheap stalls in the undersurface markets, travelling to the Empire with a few days’ worth of credits, a fake identity, and a concealed matrix just below the skin on his palm that marked him a Hand of the King of Ascion.

“Bale, do you know how much longer we have to reach Bellos?” Less asked.

“Just be patient,” Devan said. “I know you’re both sick and tired of being cooped up in here, but those are the rules.”

Sitting in the corner of the small room, Devan often gazed out the long window occupying the upper part of the wall opposite him. Radiant and flickering stars dotted the black canvas, forming tails of the Milky Way. He savoured every moment of it, a welcome respite from the grim thoughts of his mission.

Then a headache struck him like a hammer.

“Should it be shaking this much? It didn’t shake like this before,” Kalz said as the ship shook, his hand nervously grasping at the smooth wall and failing to grab onto anything.

Devan pressed a hand to his forehead, the coldness only barely helping at all. It stopped helping after a few seconds. The violent storm they were passing through racked him with pain, like his skull was struck by a metal bat. Repeatedly.

“B-Bale, do you—” Kalz began.

“Shut up for a minute,” Devan said, pressing his fingers harder on his temples.

The ship got far enough away from the storm a couple of minutes after that.

Devan let out a long sigh.

“A-are you alright?” Kalz asked.

“It’s the place we just passed through,” Devan said. Given his innate sensitivity to the Gift, it was bound to hurt, but he hadn’t expected it to be that much.

“We didn’t feel anything.” The boys looked at each other questioningly, but both shook their heads in answer.

Still massaging his temples, Devan absent-mindedly said, “You’re not adepts, of course you wouldn’t feel it.” He swallowed a curse just as the words left his mouth.

“You’re an adept!?” they said in unison, beaming with excitement. “We’ve only heard rumours about them! But you don’t have a stone. Adepts need those stones, right?”

Clarity of mind returned with alternating waves of self-admonishment and disbelief. He closed his eyes. There was no getting out of this one. After taking a moment to internally scold himself with several choice words, he said, “…Not all adepts do.”

“How does that work, then?” one asked.

“Is the rumour I heard about—” the other started.

“—can you cause—”

“—actually rich—”

Devan threw his hand up to stop them. “I’m not even going to try to remember everything you’ve just tossed at me. What I will do is answer three questions. Don’t look at me like that. I said three.” He crossed his arms, waiting.

After some whispering with his brother, Less said, “How do stones work?”

Devan sighed. “Tether Stones.” The name itself wasn’t important, but the boys' ignorance of the basics suggested their scarce knowledge on the topic came from nothing but rumours and overheard conversations. That would make explaining this quite tedious.

Their cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but their eyes still gleamed with boundless curiosity. With clenched fists pressed against their thighs, they stared at Devan expectantly. They wouldn’t give up at this point.

Well, it’s not like a little explaining will hurt. “You know about the Furnaces?”

They nodded, but the way they sucked in their lip spoke of their uncertainty.

Devan continued, “There are two types of Furnaces: the small ones, like the one in this ship; and the main ones, yeah? Of the latter, there's one at each of the original eleven capitals. The Tether Stone links an adept to one of those. The reason you need the link in the first place is because of the foulness.”

They frowned in confusion. “But no one ever mentioned anything like that,” Kalz said. “When we heard people talking about it, it always sounded so grand and awesome.”

“It is. Part of it, anyway,” Devan said. “The Gift isn’t just a blessing. Using it damages both body and mind. The Tether Stone transmits the foulness to a Furnace, where it’s refined into pure energy. The Furnaces already act as generators, powering ships, stations, or city districts, even spells; but only the main ones can handle the load of more than a handful adepts channelling.”

“How can you use the Gift, then?” Kalz asked. “We heard you can always tell an adept by the stone on their left hand – wait, you’re not sick or anything from that foulness thing, are you?”

“It’s safe if you’re an Awakened. Their own body functions as a Furnace. The reason they’re so few is that it’s hard to naturally overcome the instinctual rejection towards harm.”

“Naturally…?” Less asked.

“Is that a question?” Devan smirked at the horrified expression on Less’ face. “I’m joking. It means not using a Tether Stone as a crutch. Once they experience using the Gift, adepts can technically do it again without one. Though the foulness would accumulate inside them and since they have no way of purging it… they’d explode, mutate, or go insane before long.”

“Uh, can anyone become an adept?” Less asked, his voice fading with every syllable.

“If they have the money for it. That’s why you only hear about the upper class being adepts, or, in the case of the undersurface, the very top of a major gang. The Centres that distribute the stones charge enormous amounts for it.” He raised a finger to forestall any other questions. “Those were your three.”

“Oh…” they said. The disappointment was palpable.

Don’t make those faces. Sadness flitted across Devan’s face. Those boys weren’t even the first people he’d managed to disappoint in the last few weeks. No doubt, Aster had already told Michael and Ayelin of the mission. Devan would be away for at least another few months. That would make it a year and a half. He looked at the boys again. Maybe it won’t be so bad to do something small for them.

“Listen up, you two,” he said. Their gazes jumped up to meet his. “If you behave yourselves until we reach Radaar, I’ll show you something very cool with the Gift. Do we have a deal?”

The boys’ grins almost split their faces, and they nodded enthusiastically, no traces remaining of their previous disappointment.

The ride was rather uneventful from then on. Devan’s tiredness had just begun lulling him to sleep, when the ship's intercom beeped, turning everyone's attention to the speakers.

“This is Cana O'Rell, ship’s First Officer, speaking. We’ll be arriving in Bellos in sixty seconds.”

The ship shook once more as its propulsion thrusters heated. The construct of the Gift – a spatial bubble – that had taken them across light years in a matter of hours unravelled. Its energy passed through Devan like a wave of cold water, sending shivers down his spine. Then, the engines roared. He lurched to the side as inertia took over, lifting him slightly off his seat.

When everything stabilised, Kalz and Less sprang up from their seats and glued their faces to the window, gazing at the slowly expanding star system.

“This is Cana O'Rell, ship’s First Officer, speaking. We’ll be arriving at Razan station in two hours and forty-three minutes. It’ll be a smooth ride from here.”

As they approached Razan station the planet below it grew as well, allowing a clear view of the swirling storms raging over the surface of the inhospitable world. The Bellos system had been used mainly as a transit point for several other systems, while the planet had been made into a mining world, exporting its products across the Empire.

A commotion outside the door extinguished the boys’ glee.

“I-is that normal?” Less asked, turning his anxious eyes to Devan. “We weren't found out, right?” Kalz tried peeking through the window, but there was no way he would see the approaching imperial ships.

“Probably a patrol,” Devan said, causing the boys to flinch. “We’ve entered imperial space. It’s normal for them to be paranoid with the war on the horizon.”

Several minutes passed.

The sounds coming from outside the room ceased. “Seems we’ve passed the inspection,” Devan said.

Two and a half hours later, the details of the station could finally be seen. It looked like a spinning top, narrowing from top to bottom. The four vertical ribs protruding from the sides were the hangars, going from the top to around three quarters of the station length downwards. Each of those should hold at least fifty ships, and even the smallest had at least a twenty-man crew. Perfect for gathering information.

The pilot of the ghostship manoeuvred carefully, matching the rotation of the station before activating the side thrusters. Like a puzzle piece, the ship slid inside an empty octagonal space fitted for the freighter class.

The ghostship shook as heavy machinery mounted inside the docking bay grabbed onto it, stabilising and locking it in place. The smuggled passengers were allowed to exit first, along with several officers while the rest of the crew got to refuelling, checking for repairs, and logging – essentially faking – their journey.

Pneumatics whistled, opening the exit door of the ship. Past the tube tunnel that followed, stood a bright, massive hangar deck. Ships of varying sizes and colours occupied the other docking bays, mostly supply and transport ones, and about a dozen freighters.

The hangar deck itself fanned out, housing all the larger ships on a single level, though split among the many sections. The smaller ships were, instead, stationed on the higher levels, with walkways connecting platforms that each had four to five docking bays.

Slanted, rectangular neon lights, placed on pillars descending from the ceiling and running along the wall, illuminated the docking area in equally spaced patches. A difference from the dim and far glow of the stars, gently spreading their shine through the transparent barrier separating the inside of the station from the coldness of space.

The group Devan was with descended a lowered ramp in pairs, and he cast a glance to the outside as he set foot on the station floor. The sight still managed to take his breath away.

“I hate this part,” a woman dressed in pink said – one of the last people to exit the ship. The first few steps of her walk had been strained by the change in gravity. “It makes you feel old and weak.” She strode towards a corridor leading to a high-class lounge, her bodyguard – a man in a light-brown coat – following right behind her.

There was a highborn on board? Devan had only given the two people a cursory glance, though something about the woman had caught his attention. No matter. He could think of her identity another time.

“Bale?” Kalz said. “Do you mind if we come with you this time? The stations are really complex, but we don’t want to stay near the ship all the time again.” He scratched the back of his head. “So…”

Devan smiled at the two. “Just don’t stray too far.”

Compared with some of the stations he’d been to before, the interior of this one was relatively simple – first timers would naturally disagree – allowing him to quickly grasp the positions of other decks and draw a map of them in his mind.

The first stop was going to be a nexus of information and loose tongues – the bar.