Night fell over Xlezas like a shroud of lead. The air, saturated with an acrid humidity that made the cabin's wood crack and rot at a visible rate, seemed to refuse to move. Zirinos sat in a corner, arms crossed over his knees. He did not sleep. The image of Fánia — that perfect echo of Mira that the universe had flung in his face the day before — acted like an acid in his mind, corroding the fragile restraint he struggled so hard to maintain.
Suddenly, the silence of the forest changed. There were no snapping twigs or heavy footsteps, just a sudden shift in the density of the air.
The Old Man rose from his cot in a fluid movement, unnatural for his age. Beneath his hood, his irises gained the glassy, cutting gleam of the Perceptor Eye. He looked directly at Zirinos and made a firm, horizontal gesture, demanding absolute silence. With his other hand, the Old Man grabbed Xi'Hera's shoulder — she was already awake, cimitar in hand — and unceremoniously pushed her into the trapdoor camouflaged beneath the earthen floor. The girl swallowed the protest rising in her throat; the terror in the Old Man's eyes was a warning she had learned to respect. The wooden lid closed, and the earth covered her once more.
A second later, the cabin door was not pushed open — it was imploded.
The impact sent splinters of rotten wood flying across the room. Two massive silhouettes were outlined against the outside mist. They were Dissonants, Xerazith's modified scouts. Their bodies were a biomechanical abomination: metallic respirators driven directly into the flesh of their necks, subcutaneous armor plates that made their muscles appear deformed, and high-frequency weapons that vibrated with a sharp, destructive hum.
The cybernetic optics of one of them swiveled, focusing on the prince.
"Royal blood signature confirmed..." the scout's voice came out modified by a vocal synthesizer, mechanical and cold. "We found him. The Destroyer of Endomyar is weak."
Zirinos rose slowly. His muscles protested, the chronic fatigue weighing on every joint, but his gaze hardened. The "Glitch" of Endomyar stirred in the depths of his soul, begging to be released. A single burst of that conceptual energy would reduce the scouts to dust, but Zirinos knew the price: the cabin would collapse, and the shockwave would kill the Old Man and Xi'Hera below.
*No*, he ordered himself. *Use your body. Use what remains of the man.*
The first Dissonant advanced, delivering a downward strike with a vibrating blade. Zirinos did not retreat; he used his superior tactical intelligence. He took a millimeter-perfect lateral step, letting the enemy weapon embed itself in the earthen floor, and delivered a sharp blow with the side of his hand to the junction of the scout's mechanical respirator. The metal shattered, and the man choked on his own chemical blood.
However, the second scout flanked him, raising a short-barreled weapon aimed precisely at the area of the trapdoor where Xi'Hera was hidden.
The ancient fury and repressed sadism of Zirinos roared in his mind. The impulse to tear out that man's eyes, to dismember him inch by inch to make him pay for the audacity of threatening his refuge, almost overwhelmed him. His eyes threatened to gleam with a destructive golden light. He wanted to make him suffer.
"To your right! Duck and advance two steps!" shouted the Old Man's dry voice.
The Old Man had activated the Perceptor Eye. He had no strength to fight those monsters, but he saw the immediate future. The warning allowed Zirinos to dodge a blind plasma shot that melted the wall behind him. Following the Old Man's premonition, Zirinos lunged forward, grabbed the second scout's armed arm, and, with a perfect, clean leverage movement, broke his neck.
The Dissonant's body fell inert. The first one, still choking from his destroyed respirator, tried to get up, but Zirinos brought his heel down with surgical precision on his skull.
Silence returned, broken only by the hiss of black, chemical blood corroding the earthen floor. There was no torture. No prolonging of the pain. Zirinos had controlled the monster to the end.
The Old Man deactivated the Perceptor Eye, his eyes returning to normal, though his face seemed ten years older from the strain. He walked to the trapdoor and opened it. Xi'Hera emerged, trembling slightly, looking at the armored corpses and then at Zirinos, with a mix of horror and a reluctant respect she had never shown before.
The Old Man looked at the cabin's destroyed walls and then fixed his heavy eyes on Zirinos.
"They found your trail, boy. These were just the hunting dogs. The main pack will be on its way."
Zirinos looked at his hands, clean of energy, but stained with the scouts' blood. He understood immediately. His purgatory was over.
"If I stay, they'll burn the forest with you inside," said Zirinos, his hoarse voice echoing in the destroyed cabin.
"Yes," replied the Old Man, without a trace of resentment. "Your time of silence is over. You have to move. Protect what you learned here."
Zirinos nodded. He did not say long farewells. He gathered his worn cloak and the few belongings he carried from Lunos. He looked one last time at Xi'Hera, who gripped the handle of her serrated cimitar, trying to appear strong in the face of losing the man who, despite everything, had sustained her these past weeks.
The prince turned his back and walked out of the cabin, swallowed by the cold, toxic mist of Xlezas. He was alone again. Without a kingdom, without an army, fatigued to the marrow.
Yet the forest did not let him march far. Just a few hundred meters from the cabin, in a clearing where the mist parted slightly under the grey sky of Xérius, the path was blocked.
An immense figure, clad in heavy garments and exuding an aura reeking of mutilation and sacrificed souls, awaited him in the center of the path. He was no common soldier.
Truilus looked at the fallen prince of Z, his eyes fixed on the pattern of red, black, and gold hair that identified the royal lineage.
"Judgment awaits you, Prince Zirinos," said Truilus, his voice echoing like iron thunder through the forest. "The twins demand your presence."
Zirinos stopped, the chemical rain streaming down his weary face. The isolation was over; the political game of Galaxy X had come to reclaim its Judge.