Act III, Vexana: AbsentChapter 31
Chapter 31: The Sea of Stars
The dark beyond Dawnbreak. May 997.
Far out in the dark, the Storm Citadel turns toward Dawnbreak, and its queen asks a question.
The Storm Citadel came out of the last of the dark with its storm drawn tight against the hull. It was the Enders’ mothership, a city of black ribs. In its holds stood thousands of Enders, gray and still.
Obsidia stood at the prow. Far ahead, a young galaxy turned its pale arms. Somewhere in it hung Dawnbreak, one small world, with a dome of light over its last city.
She spoke to the empty dark.
“Once humanity has been purged, what will become of us?”
Nothing answered. Nothing in the holds could. The Mother Matrix, which had made her kind, had never answered either.
She knew what the answer looked like. She had lived it.
On a dead planet under a gray sky she had watched a singularity open: a tear in the dark that leads somewhere else. The Mother Matrix had come through it. On another world, six star-shaped portals had opened over a city. She had counted them. Under them nothing was left standing.
Then came the long sleep in the void, after the last city fell. That was the answer so far. A world ended, and the Enders slept, until another world grew.
On that small world lay the next such city. Its children wore uniforms and learned to fight her kind. She found it touching.
And one pawn in it was hers.
The purge was only the work. What came after was the question, and the pawn was her way to find out.
“Someday, when this story nears its end, she too will return to me.”
The Storm Citadel, the throne hall.
The placeThe throne hall
The throne rose from the floor like a spine. Pale plate after plate climbed from the keel to the roof. Every rib of the ship hung from it. If it broke, the Citadel would be crippled.
Obsidia sat where a neck would be. Her weapon crossed the hall and settled under her hand, long and silver-pink. She stroked it as one strokes a pet.
“Destruction is mine to command, yet my finest creation... has gone off-script.”
She was not angry. Every move her creation could make, she had already planned. She hoped it would find one she had not.
The hall faced forward, into the dark. Far ahead, a small light flashed. It was a rift in the shape of a four-pointed star, magenta, opening and shutting. On its far side lay the city.
The Citadel turned toward it and began to close the distance.