‟Very well done, you two,” Seth called out to them, clapping sarcastically and coming to a stop at the front of the Hyperions. He looked around at the soldiers, staring up and down the line of rifles pointing at Xaleyp and Evangeline. ‟I will be honest, I never expected you to make it this far, despite Gareten’s assurances that you would and his warnings that you were not to be underestimated. I must ask now, however, that you abandon your foolish mission and surrender yourselves before we are forced to exterminate you.”

Even as Emperor Seth Drake spoke, a rumbling from one of the explosions ran through the hangar, causing several of the soldiers to look at each other with nervous glances. Seth, however, simply looked around as if it were another day strolling through a park, walking back and forth in front of them. His footsteps echoed loudly in the stillness of the bay, penetrating to even the furthest corners.

‟Where the hell are my parents?” Xaleyp’s voice shook and his hands gripped tighter around the handles of the assault rifle, turning white at the knuckles. His breathing came hard and fast, waiting for Seth to make just one mistake so he’d have a reason to shoot him.

‟Xaleyp, your parents have been gone for years.” Seth stopped short of laughing, instead shaking his head with the shadow of a smile on his face as he looked at the ground. ‟What has Siatia been putting through your head to make you think that I had anything to do with their disappearance?”

‟Colonel Ire abducted them when he kidnapped me,” Xaleyp said, trying to keep his voice steady but failing miserably. After several seconds of trying to settle himself, he continued, ‟He took them, then you had them hidden away, and I want to know where they are right now, so I can kill you and find them.”

This time the Emperor couldn’t help but laugh, throwing his head back and letting the roar fill the hangar with its mirthlessness. His footsteps accentuated the noise, grating like nails on metal in Xaleyp’s ears.

‟Though I know you won’t believe me, I really have no idea what you are talking about. I do have a little surprise for you, though it might not be what you expected, Xaleyp Vah’Aris, my star pupil who could’ve done amazing, inspiring things for the galaxy if you had just listened.”

He stopped walking at once and turned on his heel to look back the way he came, keeping his hands folded expectantly behind him. There was movement in the hallway, followed by more footsteps and finally the appearance of a boy Xaleyp’s age, his blond hair sticking up in narrow spikes and a thin beard growing on his face. One of his hands swung freely at his side while the other kept a sword—flat down and with a set of red runes emblazoned on it—pressed against his shoulder. Even if he hadn’t seen him in months, just the sight of Maxwell Worthshire with the Sword of Razeph sent a icy chill down Xaleyp’s spine, and he had to resist the urge to charge forward and take him down. Just seeing the sword brought back the memories of the ancient voices in his head, and he swore he could hear them even from across the room.

‟You should be dead or in jail,” Xaleyp said, the words somewhat stuttering over each other and his voice feeling unnaturally loud in the quiet hangar. He took deep, steadying breaths to try and control the anger he felt seeing the boy, silently hoping that none of the soldiers called him out on it. Out of the corner of his eye, he could tell Eve was looking at him with a confused expression on her face, but he ignored it. ‟You were dragged out of the Emperor’s office by two of his guards right after he should Colonel Ire, right before the ship blew up. What in the everliving fuck are you doing here?”

‟Ah, and Seth thought that you wouldn’t recognize me after a few months and having to go through so much.” Max’s heels clicked with each step on the floor as he walked past the line of soldiers and stopped about halfway to Xaleyp and Eve. Another rumble ran through the ship, sending another round of worrying glances through the Hyperions. ‟But shouldn’t you be asking me how I’ve been, if I had a good vacation, how’s the family? You know, the usual things people ask their friends after they haven’t seen each other in a while to catch up, or whatever the hell they call it these days.”

He spun the sword in slow, precise arcs with steady gyrations of his shoulder and wrist, letting the the tip scrape off the floor to send dazzling sparks in all directions at each impact. Long gouges were left in the metal with each strike, glowing bright with the heat the sword imparted before changing to a dull gray as it cooled, the mirror-like surface destroyed.

‟I guess we never were friends though,” Max said, ceasing the spinning and holding his opposite hand to his chin as if deep in thought. ‟After all, we never really had a chance to properly introduce ourselves on that fateful day in the Emperor’s office. Lucky for us, he saw the potential and ensured I survived—the guards brought me to an escape vessel just moments after taking me from the office and took me to some godforsaken planet in the Outer Rim. Once he got a solid footing on Arcadia and you disappeared, he sent for my retrieval to wield the sword in a way you were too apprehensive to do. To become a god.”

With each word Maxwell said, Xaleyp found his breathing growing heavily and more ragged, and his face became red-hot. After everything he had been through, everything that happened since his time at Vertyn, how did the past always manage to find its way back to haunt him?

Subconsciously, he started moving to one side, trying to put as many of the fallen crates between him and the Hyperions as possible as well as ensure that Eve was a good distance away from him. Before he got more than half a meter, however, Max’s eyes narrowed, and a smile broke out over his face as he pointed the sword in Xaleyp’s direction.

‟If I were you, I would stay exactly where you are until one of us tells you to move.” Max made small circles with the tip of the sword as he rotated his wrist to emphasize the point, causing tiny streaks of lightning to arc over the blade.

‟You know, I never really got a chance to know you, Maxwell,” Xaleyp said, continuing to saunter to one side even as the Hyperions kept their rifles trained on him. ‟But you seem like you don’t really have any ideas of your own, only doing what others tell you to do. Why else would you be so willing to listen to the voices of the sword when I tried pushing them away? Were you the same way before they brought you to Vertyn, always doing whatever made your parents or friends happy without a second thought?”

‟Silence,” Max hissed, his hand standing to shake as he kept the tip of the sword pointing in Xaleyp’s direction. The arcs of lighting mingled with small flames beginning to break out over the blade, seeming to emanate from the runes. ‟You know nothing about me or my family, so don’t even pretend, you petulant child.”

Xaleyp took slow breaths with each step, doing his best to remain calm even as Max’s face contorted with rage. All the Hyperions except one were pointing their rifles at him, including Seth, who had a look of mild amusement on his face at the entire situation. The last remained firmly fixated on Eve, waiting to see if she made a wrong move. Another rumbling ran through the ship, this one last longer and feeling much stronger than the previous ones, seeming to unsettle even the Emperor.

‟There’s only one way out of here alive, Seth,” Xaleyp called out, trying his hardest to keep his voice from betraying his true nerves. ‟Come with us, and we’ll make sure that you get a fair trial under the Siatian Concord, just like you would do for me.”

‟Xaleyp, I thought you would’ve known me better than that after the few months we spent together, especially with the events that took place at Avalon.” Seth laughed mirthlessly, tossing his head back and letting the unnatural noise fill the hangar. He took a pistol from the holster at his waist and pointed it straight up into the air for a moment before tilting his head slightly in Xaleyp’s direction and cocking the gun slowly. He accentuated each word, letting the echo fade away before speaking the next. ‟I never lose.”