The void was silent.

  It always was.

  'Look at the stars, Lay,' Yasmina had oold her. 'Do you know what Ibn al-Haytham wrote? He said that the universe is written in light, and that those who read its nguage decipher fate itself.'

  Lay had scoffed at the time. She had ruled through steel and ing, not superstition.

  But now, as she drifted betweeh and whatever y beyond, she wished she had listened more carefully.

  A iation room, dimly lit by nterns, the st of ink and spice thi the air. Lay sat with the same poise she had always wielded, a bde hidden behind silk. She had not been born into power—she had seized it, carved it out with wit sharper than any steel. A queen, not by divine right, but by sheer force of will.

  She had been nothing at first. The fotten daughter of a oo unimportant to remember. A child born into a world that did not love her, cast aside by parents who had only wished for sons. She had been tolerated, igreated as little more than an obligation—a girl who should never have mattered.

  Her father had ruled a minor province, a bureaucrat ging to power through false alliances and carefully pyed deceptions. Her mother, a woman obsessed with status, saw Lay only as a bargaining piece, a future bride to be traded away for political advantage. Her older brothers? They had seen her as nothing but a burden, an unnecessary petitor in their hunger for iance.

  She learned early that love was ditional. That kindness was currency. That the world would never hand her anything freely.

  So she took. Yet she had learned early that power was not given to the meek—it was taken. Whehrone had bee vat, torn apart by warring fas, it was she who had maneuvered, whispered, and outpyed every rival. She had turned enemies against each other, made the stro warlords dan her palm, and when the dust settled, it was her hat was whispered in reverend fear.

  The nobles who had sed her? Gohe siblings who had mocked her weakness? Elimihe father who had once decred she was 'unsuitable' to lead? He had bowed before her in his final days, too broken to resist the storm she had bee.

  'You always had sharp eyes, Lay,' he had wheezed from his sickbed, 'but I hought you would turn them on your own blood.'

  She had looked down at him, expression unreadable. 'her did I.'

  Regret? No. She had done what o be dohe world had given her nothing, so she had takehing.

  She had ruled the greatest empire in the known world, not by birthright, but by making herself indispensable.

  Her reign had not merely been one of survival, but of revolution. The ws that once silenced women had beeten under her decree. Child marriages, once a on practice, were abolished. Women were given the right to own busio be educated, to hold power—true power, not borrowed from fathers and husbands. She had fought for these ges, and she had won.

  But it had e at a cost. The noble houses had resisted her, calling her unnatural, a deviation from tradition. They had whispered of her arrogance, of her refusal to submit. They had called her dangerous.

  Jinhai had oold her, during a te-night iation, 'You forced history to turn its gaze upon you, Lay. Most rulers let the tide of tradition guide them. You rewrote the course of the river itself.'

  She had smiled, sippiea. 'And you disapprove?'

  'I admire it,' he had admitted, though his voice was ced with the weight of his own straints. 'But my empire is not ready for such things.'

  A, despite his reluce, he had always listeo her. Always watched, fasated, as she tore down the walls that bound her people.

  She had done more than rule. She had built. She had introduced publiitation, the first rge-scale bathhouses, and the earliest forms of city pnning. It had been her idea to refine sted oils into what would ter be knoerfume, turning the art rao a booming industry. And i, she had begun drafting blueprints for a new iion—an ehe first of its kind, inplete, but the beginning of something greater.

  She sat across from Emperor Shen Jinhai of the Easterial Dynasty, a man as cold as the mountain winds. Between them, a part bearing terms of peace—a treaty that could uwo powerful empires. Yet, in the flickering dlelight, their gazes lingered just a little too long, the sileween words heavier than mere diplomacy. It was not the first time they had shared suents. Over the years, their paths had crossed time and again—formal visits, feasts veiled as political maneuvers, quiet moments stolen in grand halls where they discussed not war, but poetry, philosophy, and the burdens of snty.

  'You always hesitate before signing, Lay,' Jinhai murmured, fiapping against the part. 'Why is that?'

  She exhaled, a soft, nearly imperceptible smile toug her lips. 'Because treaties are easy to sign. Harder to uphold.'

  Jinhai chuckled, low and knowing. 'You don't trust me?'

  She studied him in the dim light, recalling the long years of their iions. The stolen versatioween court feasts. The nights spent in quiet iations, where they spoke less like rulers and more like weary souls who uood one another.

  'I trust you more than I trust most,' she admitted finally. 'But trust is not the same as certainty.'

  'I trust you,' she admitted. 'I do not trust history.'

  For a moment, there was only the sound of the crag nterns. The unspoken truth huweehey were both rulers bound by duty, both aware that what existed in these fleeting iions could never be. Not truly. It was unspoken, a forbidden uanding—admiration, respect… perhaps something more.

  There had been moments—small, fleeting, but impossible to ighe way he had once reached to adjust the heavy golden csp of her ceremonial robe before thinkier of it. The night they had walked the pace gardens, discussing the weight of leadership, when she had allowed herself the rare indulgenagining a world where things had been different.

  'Perhaps in another life,' he had once murmured.

  'Perhaps,' she had replied. But there had never been another life. Only duty. Only war. Only fate pulling them apart before they had ever truly e together.

  'You speak of prosperity,' Jinhai had said, his sharp eyes searg her own, 'but your people accept fn rulers?'

  Lay had smiled then, weary but resolute. 'We do not need querors, nor do we need division. We need unity. Trade, knowledge, strength—our worlds are more alike than you admit, Your Majesty.'

  But her of them would ever see the future they envisioned.

  The first sign of betrayal had beeter taste iea. The sed had been the way Jinhai clutched his throat, his eyes widening in shock.

  A single, deadly poison—administered to them both. A cruel, poetic fate for two rulers who had, against the tide of history, dared to find kinship in one another.

  Lay, even as her vision blurred, calcuted. The dosage, the delivery, the precise moment—none of this was random. Yasmina had always spoken of poisons as tools, their timing as vital as the bde that followed. But something was wrong—Jinhai was colpsing too fast.

  Her mind raced, assessing, calg. If the poison took full effect before Jinhai hit the floor, his head could strike the stoh enough force to rob him of what little dignity he had left ih. She had seds—seds.

  Summoni reserves of strength, she reached across the table, knog over a small silk pillow just in time to break his fall. A meaningless act? Perhaps. But dignity ih mattered. Even if she could not save him, she could offer him that final mercy.

  Yet, even through her pain, her mind tched onto one final puzzle: who?

  The tea had been ied. Every precaution taken. A… it had still reached them.

  Her mind sifted through the st moments, recalling three figures who could have orchestrated this.

  First, Minister Halim—her most trusted adviser, a man with a reputation beyond reproach. But had his loyalty waned? Had he grown tired of serving a ruler who refused to be a puppet?

  Sed, Lady Zafira—a e turned diplomat, once loyal but increasingly frustrated with Lay's reje of certain 'traditions.' She had reason, she had access.

  And stly… the unassuming servant, Jinhai's own cupbearer, a boy who had been with him since childhood. The least likely suspect. But was that not the mark of a true assassin?

  Her breath slowed as she accepted the bitter truth—trust had been her greatest weakness.

  As the world blurred, Lay had reached out—not to the treaty, not to her , but to Jinhai himself. 'They will rewrite history,' she had whispered, even as her vision darkened. 'They will make it seem as if we ried.'

  The st thing she heard was the sound of a goblet shattering against the floor.

  Jinhai's face twisted with a mixture of emotions—gratitude, regret, and something deeper, something heavier. His lips parted as if to speak, but no words came. His eyes, dark and unwavering, locked onto hers, silently veying the apology he could not voice.

  Lay uood. He had been a ruler first, a man sed. Bound by duty, by expectations, by the weight of a thousand unspoken rules. A, in this moment, he was her.

  His firembled, lifting slightly from the table, as though reag for her—too te. Always too te.

  She exhaled a bitter breath, her strength fading. 'Don't apologize, Jinhai,' she whispered. 'We both khis was how it would end.'

  A tear traced down his cheek. Whether for himself or for her, she would never know.

  And then—a whisper, barely a breath against the darkness.

  'I'm sorry, Lay… This is all I could do for you…'

  Faint, distant, yet unmistakable. A voice she had not heard in years. But there was something else—another presence.

  A sed voice, yered beh Yasmina's, barely above a whisper. Fn, unknowable, yet strangely familiar.

  'It is not yet your time, you are more than this'

  Her heart ched. Who was that? The words held a weight she could not pce, a significe that chilled her bones. A name she had never heard, yet it coiled in her mind like a long-fotten memory.

  Then, like an ember igniting within the abyss, sciousness returned.

  She awoke.

  The first sensation was that of breath—not the shallow, rattling breath of death, nor the tormented wheeze of one gasping for air, but true breath. Deep. Steady. A sign of life.

  And for the first time in ay, she felt warmth.

  'Where… am I?'

  Memories flooded her mind—not of eorment or cycles of suffering, but of warmth, of kindness, of a time when she had believed in goodness. Something pure. Something… human.

  She remembered being Sn Lay al-Zahira, Queen of the Eternal Crest, ruler of a vast Middle Eastern empire that had anded both fear and reverence. A woman of untouchable grace, ing intellect, a… she had ruly held power. Her reign had been one of intrigue, of navigating treacherous courts filled with vipers in silk robes.

  She had fought for her people, striving to protect them from the ever-looming forces of greed and war. She had built roads, strengthened alliances, educated women in sces and arts—all in pursuit of a future where poielded wisely, not selfishly.

  But even wisdom was no shield against betrayal.

  And then…

  She had died.

  Not by war. Not by revolution. Not by a rival monarch's bde.

  It had been poison.

  A slow, creeping agony disguised as a gentle sleep. No bde to fight, no eo face—just the quiet betrayal of something unseen, something ied, somethi to make her fade without a sound.

  Her people never khe truth. The court wept for their queen while the guilty raised their goblets in silent triumph.

  Yet now, she was here.

  And this body—

  Her eyes snapped open. A new wreeted her.

  The Celestial ti.

  A nd of boundless qi, where the heavens dictated one's fate and only those who reached for the divine could escape mediocrity. This world was not ruled by kings and emperors but by sects, grand pilrs of cultivation that dictated the very bance of existence.

  Mountains stretched into the heavens, their peaks wreathed in clouds, standing like sentinels of eternity. A rivers shimmered with ethereal energy, their waters carrying the whispers of the past. The nd itself pulsed with qi, an om force woven into the very fabric of reality.

  And above all, there were the Immortals.

  Those who defied the heavens, who carved their names iernity. They were not simply warriors, but schors of power, philosophers of divinity, architects of fate.

  She khis world.

  She had learned of it long ago, from a woman named Yasmina, a wandering schor who had once graced her court. Yasmina had spoken of a nd beyond the deserts and the seas, a pce where warriors did not merely wield steel but bent the very fabric of reality to their will.

  'Your world is bound by kings and borders,' Yasmina had oold her as they stood beh the arched ceilings of the grand library. 'But in the Celestial ti, the heavens themselves decree one's fate. There, a beggar may rise to the throne, and an emperor may be reduced to dust if they ck the strength to hold their power.'

  Lay had listened ily, fasated by tales of sects that ruled not with armies but with sheer might, of mountains that reached iernity, and of rivers imbued with wisdom. 'And what of justice?' she had asked.

  'Justice is but the will of the strong,' Yasmina had replied, her amber eyes filled with both reverend sorrow. 'To seek fairness is to seek power first.'

  Now, standing in a world she had ohought only myth, Lay realized the truth of those words.

  A lump formed ihroat. 'Yasmina…' she whispered to the silence. 'I was a fool to doubt you.'

  She had dismissed Yasmina's tales as romanticized exaggerations, the fantasies of a wandering schor desperate to make fn nds sound grahan they were. But Yasmina had spokeruth, and Lay had akeime to tell her how much she valued her.

  'If only I could see you again, just once,' she murmured, her voice thick with regret. 'If only I had one more ce…' But Yasmina was long gone, lost to time and the cruel hand of fate. Or was she?

  A chilling thought slithered into her mind. What if this was not a different world, but the same one in another form? What if the empire she had ruled still stood, but history had merely shifted its course? Could it be possible? Could her own past be written somewhere in this world's history?

  Her heart pounded. She had to know.

  Here, strength was truth.

  Power was the only absolute.

  Yet despite all its grandeur, all its vast, unfathomable wonders, she smiled.

  A soft, wistful smile. Not of amusement, ement, but of uanding.

  Because she had once believed in a better world.

  And now? Now, she had a new life—ohat she would dedicate to something greater than herself, to creating rather than ruling, to guiding rather than quering.

  She rose from the bed, her new body f familiar.

  The sensation of qi thrummed beh her skin, potent but untamed. And it terrified her.

  Her breath caught ihroat. Power—real, tangible power—coursed through her veins, something she had never experienced in her previous life. She ched her hands into fists, but the sensation did not dissipate. It coiled within her, an unfamiliar force pressing against her very being.

  She staggered back, her heart pounding. This was beyond her uanding. In her world, power had been influence, words, and diplomacy. Here, it was something intrinsiething woven ieself.

  'What... what is this?' she murmured, panic creeping into her voice.

  The knowledge surfaot from her own experiences, but from the lingering memories of the body's previous owner. A girl named Meilin. A disciple of the Silver Lotus Sect. A sect that, in its prime, had been a bea of enlighte, but now stood on the precipice of oblivion. It was weaker than what she had once wielded as a s was hers. A foundation to build upon, a vas upon which she would reshape destiny.

  She walked to the mirror, and for the first time, she truly saw herself.

  The refle that gazed back was that of a young erhaps sixteen at most. Her hair, long and ink-bck, cascaded past her waist like a river of midnight. Her eyes—once filled with the golden fire of imperial decree—were now a deep crimson, as though the blood of an empire had been sealed within them. Her skin, pale as por, bore no blemish, no imperfe.

  She was fwless.

  A beauty that could topple cities, that could reduce even the most steadfast warriors to kneeling worship.

  Yet, behind that beauty, behind the delicate features ahereal grace, there was something more.

  Something resilient.

  Somethiermined.

  She stretched out a hand, feeling the flow of qi, testing the limits of her new form.

  A rush of energy surged within her veins, untamed but potent.

  This body… It was weak for now.

  But that would ge.

  Her lips curved into a small, knowing smile. A woverned by power, ruled by cultivation?

  She had once been the ruler of an empire, the unchallenged sn of a world without equals.

  And now?

  Now, she would make the most of this life.

  But first, she o uand the world she had been reborn into. She needed knowledge.

  Because knowledge, as always, was the foundation of all power.

  And theiced it—the emblem on the sleeve of her robes.

  A withered lotus, embroidered in silver thread.

  The dying symbol of a se the verge of colpse.

  The Silver Lotus Sect.

  Once a respected name, now a crumbling relic of the past. A remnant of a golden age long since faded, its members dwindling, its resources strained, its enemies encroag.

  In this world, sects lived and died like shifting tides. Those without power were swallowed whole, their legacies erased, their nds devoured by the strong.

  And she…

  She had been reborn into ruin.

  Her body was not alone.

  A distant voice trembled through the air. 'Meilin…!'

  A sob. A desperate gasp. Then arms—warm, trembling arms—ed around her, a sensation sn it sent a shock through her core.

  She stiffened.

  Another pair of hands grasped her shoulders, aear-streaked face pressing close. 'Our child, our Meilin! She's awake!'

  Lay didn't know how to reaever, in her past life, had aouched her like this—not out of love, not out of relief. She had been a queen, a ruler adored by her people, but never held as if she mattered beyoitle.

  'Why… are they g for me?' The thought was fn. In her world, power was survival, affe was a tool, and siy was a liability.

  But here, in this dyi, these people—her parents—were holding her as if she were their entire world.

  Something deep inside her stirred, unfamiliar and terrifying.

  But ruin was just another word for opportunity.

  She would not seek domination, nor quest, nor revenge.

  She would rebuild.

  The first step?

  Reviving the Silver Lotus Sect.

  And from there…

  She would begin her assion.

  The murmurs around her were hesitant, ced with uainty. Her parents—their warmth was overwhelming, but the unfamiliarity g her. Could she afford to trust? No. But she could adapt.

  As she y there, eyes fluttering open, she began assessing. The room, the people, the emotions on their faces. Her mind, hohrough years of ruling, dissected every detail as though preparing for war.

  Her father—grief-stri, but not weak. His hands trembled as he held hers, yet his grip was firm. A man who had seen too much loss.

  Her mother—tears streaming, relief and exhaustion written in every line of her face. But there was nothiful in her expression—only pure, overwhelming love.

  Lay's breath hitched. This was different. Unditional.

  In her past life, affe had always been transaal. But now? Her mother's sobs were not for a lost heir or a failed alliahey were for her, Meilin, the daughter they had thought lost.

  Love, real love, was fn to her.

  Had they known something? Had they hidden something from her? No, not yet. Not enough information.

  Her voice, measured and steady, broke through the air. 'How did I… survive?' she asked, tilting her head as if still disoriented. 'And the sect… how is the Silver Lotus Sect faring?'

  The room fell silent for a moment before her father spoke, voice thick with worry. 'You've been in an unwakeable slumber for weeks, Meilin. We feared…' He swallowed hard. 'We feared we had lost you.'

  A calcuted pause. Then Lay—Meilin—nodded slowly, as if letting the realization sink in.

  Processing. Analyzing. Every word, every hesitation.

  'But I am here now,' she murmured, a small, reassuring smile. 'And I will not let our sect fall into ruin.'

  Even as she forted them, her mind was already w. This will take years to piece together. But I will learhing.

  When she spoke, her voice was careful, calcuted. 'The great empires beyond these nds… the ones far to the west. Who rules them now?'

  Her father hesitated, exging gnces with the others. 'The western nds are fn to us, daughter,' he admitted. 'But we have heard of a great empire beyond the deserts, ohat fell to turmoil some geions ago. Its name, however, is lost to time.'

  Lay's breath hitched. Her empire? Lost to time? The weight of it settled over her like a heavy cloak, suffog and final.

  But she had one more question. A final test.

  She inhaled deeply, voice even. 'Who rules the Celestial Dynasty now?'

  The moment the words left her lips, the air in the room ged. The warmth fled. Her parents teheir hands trembling. Eveending disciples went pale, their gazes darting to the door as if fearing eavesdroppers.

  Her masped, c her mouth. Her father, usually posed, visibly shook.

  'Never…' he whispered, gripping her hand so tightly it almost hurt. 'Never speak that name carelessly, Meilin.'

  The sileretched, suffog.

  And Lay knew.

  The name she had uttered was not just known—it was feared.

  Years had passed.

  Far away, beyond the reach of the western empire and the sects of the east, a ruler sat upon a throne of cold jade, his face hidden in the flickering dlelight. The air was thick with the st of inse, though it did little to mask the underlying stench of blood.

  The ruler had survived.

  Not by his own strength, nor by the will of fate, but by her.

  In those final moments, he had felt himself slipping into the abyss, the poison w its way through his veins, his limbs numbing. He had braced for the sharp, iable impact against the marble floor—but it had never e. The softness beh his head, the way his breath still lingered in his lungs long enough for his physis to arrive, all of it was her doing.

  'Lay...' he had thought in that moment, the weight of realization pressing down on him heavier thah itself. She saved me.

  But why?

  The thought haunted him still, years ter. Every night he traced the fine silk of the pillow she had moved beh him, the same ohat had softened his fall in those final moments before the poison could steal his life entirely. It had bee act, her final mercy, aed how much it haunted him. The air was thick with the st of inse, though it did little to mask the underlying stench of blood.

  Emperor Shen Jinhai had survived.

  Or at least, that was what the world believed. But was this truly the same man who had once spoken of unity in the dlelight, who had admired Lay's defiance even as he refused to follow in her footsteps? Or had time, paranoia, and grief twisted him into something else? A shadow of the ruler he had once been?

  His firaced the fine silk of the pillow he had once rested upon, the same ohat had softened his fall in those final moments before the poison could steal his life entirely. It had bee act, her final mercy, aed how much it haunted him.

  'Lay...' he murmured, his voice almost reverent.

  The courtiers around him dared not meet his gaze. The great hall was lined with kneeling figures—nobles, servants, officials—all who had bee that night. One by oheir heads bowed lower, waiting for their fates to be decided.

  'Who among you,' he said softly, dangerously, 'knew of the poison before it touched my lips?'

  No one spoke. The sileretched, taut as a b.

  Then, with a flick of his wrist, justice—or paranoia—took its course.

  He had bee ruthless. Every shadow was a threat. Every whisper was treason. A, in the privacy of his chambers, he traced the embroidered pattern of that silk pillow, his fingers lingering as though it held a warmth long since lost.

  He had loved her. Or perhaps, he had merely admired what he could never have. It no longer mattered. What mattered now was finding the truth.

  And so, the bloodshed tinued.

  Yet, in the darkest hours of the night, as he sat aloaring at the silk pillow she had pced beh him, a flicker of doubt g his mind. Would she have looked at him now with disgust? Pity? Would she have called him a fool for chasing ghosts through rivers of blood?

  Yet as the years passed, whispers of an unfinished creation from the nds of the west reached his ears.

  Deep beh the surface of a nd untouched by war, hidden within byrinthiunnels of carved stone aal, workers toiled uhe dim glow of ented nterns. Maery, archaic yet ahead of its time, y half-built, gears rusting from abando yet still waiting for pletion.

  This was the vision of a queen long buried by history.

  'Our world moves on the backs of beasts and the will of men,' Yasmina had once said. 'But what if we could break free from such straints? What if movement did not require suffering?'

  The first es blueprints painstakingly drawn by Lay's own hand, rested here. Unfinished. Fotten. But not abandoned.

  Standing before it was a tall muscur woman cloaked in dark silk, her expression hard, her eyes filled with unyieldiermination and besides her was a sy young man who is barely her height named.

  Zafira had not met Emery through war or revolution—no, she had stumbled upon him in the most mundane of circumstances, yet it had ged everything.

  She had needed spices—yes, spiot for herself, but for the men under her and who wouldn't stop whining about the bnd food. And so, she had goo the market, expeg a simple trade.

  Instead, she had found him.

  A sy fner, wearing spectacles and arguing—no, lecturing—a mert over the principles of leverage. She had rolled her eyes, thinking him another fool who mistook words for power. But then she had listened.

  And she had realized she had never met a man who spoke like him.

  He had spoken of numbers aions, of the way the stars moved instead of stood still. He cimed that water spiraled differently depending on which side of the world it flowed from. He had written books—books!—on something called gravity, on motion, on the very fabric of space.

  She had thought he was mad. She had thought he was brilliant. And she had thought, more than anything, that she needed him.

  'You're saying the stars don't just hang there? They… fall?' she had asked, utterly bewildered. 'That's ridiculous. Everyone knows the heavens are eternal.'

  Emery had sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. 'No, they don't just hang. They are in motion, pulled by an unseen force. Everything that rises must fall—it's not magic, it's physics. You drop a sto falls. You shoot an arrow, it arcs. The stars follow the same rules, just on a much grander scale.'

  Zafira had crossed her arms, unvinced. 'Sounds like nonsense. How do you know they move? Have you been up there? Have you fallen from the sky yourself?'

  Emery had given her a long, exhausted look before muttering, 'A, here you are, listening.'

  Now, standing beside her in the underground halls, he was no longer an etric schor talking about the stars. He was her engihe one who would take Lay's vision and turn it into something real. He raising how amazing this engine looked and looking it up to down while murmuring to himself.

  Even if he still insisted on saying the most ridiculous things.

  Zafira watched him, arms crossed. 'You speak of her like a disciple worshiping his master.'

  Emery didn't deny it. 'Because I am.'

  She scoffed, tilting her head. 'And what exactly did she do to earn your devotion?'

  Emery adjusted his spectacles, firag the rusted edges of the unfinished mae. 'I studied everything she left behind—her writings, her diagrams, even her failed attempts to implement sanitation systems in the western capitals. She ged the world once, and had she lived longer, she would have do again.'

  Zafira exhaled, her gaze darkening. 'Yasmina envisioned a world where suffering was no lohe cost ress. Where men did not break their backs pulling carts, where travel was not dictated by the speed of a dying horse. She wao free people from the s of bor, so they could pursue something greater.'

  She stepped forward, pg a hand on the mae's rusted frame. 'Lay was the one who made it possible. She turned dreams into reality. Yasmina dreamed ress; Lay built the means to achieve it.'

  Emery chuckled, shaking his head. 'And now you want to turn it into a on.'

  Zafira's voice was cold. 'Now I want to finish what they started.'

  She turo the gathered workers, her voice rising. 'This is not about war. This is about justice. What was stolen from them—what was stolen from us—will be repaid in full.'

  She had ied Yasmina's cause, but more than that, she has Lay's her fury.

  'We do not build to live in the shadows,' Zafira al-Rahim's voice rang through the underground halls, her words sharp as tempered steel. 'We build so that our names are never erased. So that history does not fet what was stolen from us.'

  The workers before her—engineers, schors, rebels—listened with rapt attention. They had long since cast away their old allegiances, drawn to her by a cause greater than themselves.

  'What they did to Lay… what they did to Yasmina…' Zafira's fingers curled into fists. 'We will return their suffering tenfold. The east has a ruler who does not deserve his throne, and the west is ruled by ghosts. We will shape the future with our own hands.'

  She turned, fag the massive unfinished mae at the heart of their underground facility. The engine, decades ahead of its time, designed by Lay's own hand but left inplete by her untimely death.

  'We finish this, and the world will bow not to emperors, not to sects, but to us.'

  ''They will answer for what was doo you,' she whispered. Her name was Zafira al-Rahim,, and she would see the man responsible for their suffering burn.

  Even if it meant pleting the engine herself—and using it as the on t Jinhai to his knees.

  Emery adjusted his spectacles, his fingers brushing against the cold steel of the unfinished engine. His mind raced, pieg together the fragmented blueprints, the calcutions, the principles far ahead of their time. This was not a mae built for war.

  Zafira's voice rang through the chamber, filled with fury and vi, but he barely heard her. The more he studied Lay's work, the more something g him. The sheer efficy, the iy of design—Lay had not been craftiru.

  'Zafira,' he finally spoke, his voice even, but ced with doubt. 'You cim this is a on, but Lay did not design it as one. If she wanted destru, there are a hundred simpler ways she could have do.'

  Zafira's sharp gaze so him. 'And what do you think she intended, Emery?'

  He inhaled, his mind rag. 'I don't know yet. But I do know that this—' he gestured to the mae before him, '—was never meant to be a tool for vengeance. Lay wasn't building a future of war. She was building something else.'

  Zafira scoffed, her fists tightening. 'You think I care what she intended? I care about what I do with it now.'

  Emery narrowed his eyes, realization dawning. 'So that's it? This isn't about Lay, or Yasmina's dream. This is about you. About revenge.'

  Zafira didn't flinch, but something flickered in her gaze.

  'You weren't there, Emery,' she whispered, voice dark with restrained fury. 'You didn't watch them erase her. You didn't hear how they rewrote history, how they called her a failure, how they made the world fet her name.'

  The workers behind them listened in silehe weight of her words settling over them. Some nodded in agreement, others shifted uneasily.

  Emery started to doubt her words. Was that truly what had happened? He had read so many ats, studied so many flig reports, but the truth had always been elusive.

  History was written by the victors—but what if her Lay nor Jinhai had truly fallen that night?

  His mind raced. He had assumed Lay had perished, that Yasmina had been lost, but if Lay had time to act—to push a mere pillow beh Jinhai's head—then she had time for more. What if she had prepared an antidote? What if she had ated for treachery long before the poison had ever touched her lips?

  And then there was Jinhai. The emperor should have died that night, yet he had lived. Why? He had been poisoned, just like Lay. If one had the means to teract it, wouldn't the other?

  His fingers curled slightly, his mind calg probabilities. It made no sense for oo survive while the other perished unless… unless one of them had pnned for both to live.

  But whie? And why?

  Poison is effit, but not absolute.

  Emery sighed, turning his gaze back to the engine. His fingers drummed against the cold steel, mind spinning through calcutions, probabilities, and tingencies. Lay had seen further than any of them, her vision stretg beyond the limitations of war and vengeance. And now, that vision stood on the precipice of being repurposed for destru.

  But for what? Would this truly be justice?

  Or would it be the step in buryirue visioh the weight of history?

  And so his mind sharpened, visualizing the meics of what had to be done. Gunpowder—a mix of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal. Ratio? 75:15:10, the optimal bance for bustion without catastrophistability. He sketched out the process mentally, ensuring stability in every step. The barrels? Hardeeel, fed at precisely trolled temperatures to withstand the pressure of igniting powder. Rifling—subtle spiral grooves ihe barrel to stabilize projectiles. Ignition? Matchlock? Flintloo, too rudimentary. Somethier, something reliable.

  His fiwitched, instinctively mapping the on's design. The barrel—long and drical. The firing meism—spring-loaded, striking a percussion cap to ighe charge. The projectile—a lead ball encased in copper for stability. A semi-automati? Impossible without industrial-grade maing. A repeating meism? Achievable.

  His hand moved before he could stop himself. With practiced precision, he grabbed a piece of charcoal and begag on a worn wooden board. The room fell into silence as they watched, some ihers in sheer fusion. The fhe schor, the man who spoke of stars and gravity, was now drawing something none of them could quite prehend.

  Zafira narrowed her eyes, arms crossed. She didn't uand the intricacies of whatever he was doing, but the way his hands moved—deliberate, fident, like a child lost in his own world—unnerved her.

  'This man speaks of theories no one else grasps, and now he moves as though building something from nothing,' she thought. 'Does he even see us anymore?'

  He sketched rapidly, almost feverishly. First, the barrel, its dimensioiculously measured. He scribbled rapid calcutions beside it, noting spin rates and bore diameters. Then, the firing meism, each spring, each hammer carefully designed for efficy. His lips moved slightly as if running through equations, his fiwitg with the o refio perfect. Then, the ammunition—ical, aerodynamisuring range ahality.

  By the time he stepped back, brushing dust from his coat, the entire schematic had been id bare. The murmurs grew louder. Even the most hardened rebels among them found themselves drawn in, uain but fasated.

  'If war is what you want,' Emery finally murmured, adjusting his gsses, 'the's give you a war mae. But not ohat will wipe out cities in a si. No. We need something effit, practical, and reproducible. Something that will ge the battlefield without turning the world to ash.'

  He turo the gathered engineers, his voice sharp, deliberate. 'We shift our focus. Fet rge-scale destru. Instead, we make something that be produced rapidly—something that be pced in the hands of every soldier, every fighter. A force multiplier.'

  Zafira's brow furrowed. 'What are you suggesting?'

  'Firearms.'

  A ripple of murmurs spread through the room. Emery tapped the metal frame of the unfinished ehis mae's greatest strength isn't destru—it's produ. We use it to mass-produething smaller, something that will tip the scales of war without erasiire nations.'

  Zafira crossed her arms. 'And how exactly do you propose we make these… firearms?' she sounded fused but ied as she always has

  'We need a stable propelnt—gunpowder. A mixture of saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. Then we eel, precisely fed for barrels, meisms that handle repeated firing, a system of ignition—perhaps a wheel lock or flintlock meism. It's plex, but achievable. The engine streamlihe process, cut down inefficies. If we do this right, we create an army that doesn't o rely on brute strength or cultivation alone. We give them power in their hands.'

  The room was silent as Zafira sidered his words. She was no fool—she khat mass-produg ons would fually shift the bance of power. But Emery could see the fli her eyes. She wanted something grander, something catastrophic.

  And that was exactly why he had to push this dire. He o trol what they built.

  She exhaled sharply. 'You think this is what Lay intended?'

  Emery's fingers curled slightly against the engine. 'I think Lay wanted progress. I think she wanted ge. And I think she uood that power doesn't always e from the loudest explosion—but from the quiet, relentless force of innovation.'

  Zafira narrowed her eyes, but after a long pause, she nodded. 'Fine. We begin the research.'

  Emery ined his head. He had won this battle—but the war was far from over. He would o find a way to shift their efforts even further, to ehat Lay's legacy wasn't twisted beynition.

  But he o be smarter than Zafira. Than all of them. Lay saw further than any of them. And now, her creation stood on the edge of being repurposed for war.

  Emery tapped his fingers against the cold steel of the engine, his mind spinning through every possible move. Zafira was blinded by fury, her resolve unshakable, but she wasn't stupid. She could be reasoned with—if she believed she was getting what she wanted.

  He o buy time. o shift the dire of this project without her realizing it.

  'Fine,' he said finally, adjusting his spectacles. 'If you want a on, we will make a on. But we do it properly—testing, refi, full trol over its capabilities. If we rush this, we risk sabotaging ourselves before we ever strike. We take our time.'

  Zafira eyed him, wary. 'And you, the schor from the west, will oversee this?'

  'Who else here uands Lay's blueprints like I do?' Emery tered. 'You want this to work, don't you? The me e does.'

  He watched as her jaw tensed, weighing his words. Then, finally, she nodded.

  Emery exhaled silently. The first step was plete. Now, he just had to make sure the on they built would never be used the way Zafira intended.

  As the workers dispersed, he remained behind, trag his fingers over the edges of the unfinished engine. His mind drifted to Lay—what had she truly envisioned? What had she hiddeh these yers of innovation?

  Then, something caught his eye.

  Beh a set of rusted schematics, buried among old part, a single page stood out—delicate, aged, written in ink that had faded over time. A note, signed in Yasmina's handwriting.

  Emery's breath hitched as he read the words silently to himself:

  'The foundation of all things is movement, but the greatest power is not speed—it is time itself. If we succeed, we will not only ge the world… but the very fabric of fate.'

  His grip on the paper tightened.

  Lay hadn't been designing a mae for war.

  And as he tucked Yasmina's note away into his coat, he knew ohing for certain—this mae was never meant for war.

  Aher was he.

  She had been designing something far greater.