Part 1: The Last Reliable Sight
Sir Rylen Thorne stood in the antechamber outside the council chamber, hands clasped behind his back, and waited. The Black Tower felt different at night. The ancient stone held the cold more deeply, and the low hum of the environmental systems was the only sound. He had been here many times over the years, but rarely for a summons that came with so little explanation.
The heavy doors opened. An attendant gestured him inside.
“Sir Rylen. They are ready for you.”
He stepped through. Five Knights sat behind the long table. At the center was Knight Commander Veylan, an old man whose Sight had begun to fade years ago but whose judgment remained sharp. To his right sat Proctor Halvern, the man who had overseen Rylen’s own ascension.
“Sir Rylen,” Veylan said without preamble. “Two of our brothers are missing on Nayara. We need you to find them.”
Rylen kept his face neutral. Nayara was a cold, sparsely populated world with a single stellar Gate. It held little value except for an extensive ancient Gate ruin that had been recently excavated. Research teams had been picking at them for decades with little to show for it.
“Details, sir?”
Veylan slid a tablet across the table. Rylen picked it up and scanned the summary.
“Knight-Sergeant Corven and Knight Auralis were dispatched six weeks ago after local authorities reported unusual activity around one of the secondary ruin sites. Their last transmission mentioned headaches and what they called ‘probability noise.’ Three days later, all contact ceased.”
Rylen frowned. Probability noise was not a term he had of heard before.
“Why me?” he asked.
Proctor Halvern answered. “Because you’ve shown that your Sight remains stable under strain. Few can do it cleanly when things begin to fray. You are one of those who can.”
Rylen accepted the assessment without false modesty. It was true. His gift had always been precise rather than spectacular. He did not try to push his Sight beyond its limitations. He saw what mattered in the moment, and he had learned not to force it when the threads resisted.
“Understood,” he said. “I leave at once, I assume?”
Veylan nodded. “Travel light. Nayara’s Gate is not far from the planet. Take only what you need. And Rylen… do not assume this is simple misconduct or desertion. Both men were reliable.”
The dismissal was clear. Rylen bowed slightly and left the chamber.
***
He packed quickly. Black armor, sidearm, his curved plasma-edged sword, and a small field kit. No heavy support. The Order expected its Knights to operate alone when necessary. He had done so many times.
The journey through the stellar Gate was uneventful. A long ship ride out to Thuna Alpha, transition through with priority status to Nayara Alpha, and then traverse space to the planet. He wasn’t overly fond of space travel or transitioning through the stellar Gates, but it was part of the job.
He was once again given priority status and his shuttle was cleared for de-orbit and landing immediately. A local administrator, a thin man in a heavy coat, met him on the ramp.
“Sir Knight. We were told to expect you. I am Director Soren. I… I assume you are here about the missing men.”
“I am,” Rylen said. “Take me to where they were last seen.”
Soren looked uncomfortable. “Their last known location was at Outpost Three, near the southern ruin field. We have not sent anyone since they stopped responding. The research teams are nervous.”
Rylen studied the man for a moment. His Sight remained quiet, telling him nothing useful yet.
“Show me.”
They took a ground transport across the frozen plain. Nayara’s sun was a pale disc low on the horizon. The landscape was all jagged black rock and wind-scoured ice. In the distance, the ruins rose like broken teeth — massive, curved structures of dark alloy that had survived whatever cataclysm ended the Builders’ era.
Outpost Three was a prefabricated hab module half-buried in snow. The door had been forced from the inside.
Rylen entered alone.
The interior was dark. Emergency lighting cast everything in dull red. He moved carefully, one hand resting on the grip of his sidearm. His Sight stirred as he stepped deeper into the structure — not a clear probability thread, but a sense of wrongness.
He found the first body in the common area.
Knight-Sergeant Corven lay on his back beside an overturned table. His armor was intact. There were no obvious wounds. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. Rylen knelt and checked for vital signs out of habit, though he already knew the man was dead. The skin around Corven’s temples was mottled with burst capillaries. Dried blood crusted his upper lip.
Rylen stood and triggered his Sight.
Normally it would show him the most likely paths forward from a moment like this. Instead, the threads fractured. Multiple thin lines stretched out from the body, then snapped and twisted. One thread simply ended in absolute darkness, as if it had been cut.
Pain lanced through Rylen’s skull. He staggered and caught himself against the wall. A warm trickle ran from his nose. He wiped it away and stared at the blood on his glove.
This was not normal.
He had pushed his Sight before. He knew the cost. This felt different. It felt like something had reached into the threads themselves and torn them.
Rylen forced his breathing steady and stepped back from the body. He activated his comm.
“Director Soren. I have found one of them. Corven is dead. No sign of Auralis yet. Seal the perimeter and do not let anyone approach this outpost until I clear it.”
There was a pause.
“Understood, Sir Knight.”
Rylen ended the transmission and looked once more at Corven’s face. The man had been steady. Reliable. Not the type to panic or abandon his post.
Whatever had happened here had not been simple violence.
Rylen’s Sight flickered again at the edge of his awareness — a brief, jagged flash of something moving through the snow outside the outpost. Multiple paths. One of them led toward the ancient ruins.
He drew his sidearm and raised it in a low-ready position, selecting high-penetration rounds. The weapon linked its targeting system to his helmet and brought up a reticle to help him aim without raising it fully.
Something on Nayara was interfering with the threads themselves.
And it had already killed one of his brothers.
He stepped toward the door, blood still drying on his lip, and moved out into the freezing wind.
Part 2: The First Fracture
The wind cut like a blade across the frozen plain. Rylen kept low as he moved toward the southern ruin field, using the jagged black outcroppings for cover. His armor’s thermal regulators fought the cold, but the ache behind his eyes remained. The Sight flare he had experienced beside Corven’s body had not fully faded. Threads still flickered at the edges of his vision, thinner than they should have been.
He stopped at the crest of a low ridge and looked down.
The research teams had established a small camp at the base of the largest ruin structure. Prefab modules, floodlights, and a pair of heavy excavation rigs sat in a rough circle. Several figures in environmental suits moved between them. One of the rigs was positioned over a deep trench that had been cut into the ancient alloy floor of the ruin.
Rylen activated his comm on a secure channel.
“Director Soren. I am approaching the main dig site. I want every researcher accounted for and gathered in the central module. No one enters or leaves until I speak with them.”
There was a short delay.
“Sir Knight, some of the team are still in the lower chambers. It will take time to bring them up.”
“Then bring them up,” Rylen said. “Now.”
He cut the link and descended the ridge.
By the time he reached the camp, the researchers had assembled inside the largest module. Twelve people in total. Most looked nervous. A few looked annoyed. Director Soren stood at the front, wringing his gloved hands.
Rylen removed his helmet. The cold air bit at his face.
“One of my brothers is dead inside Outpost Three,” he said without preamble. “The other is still missing. I need answers. Who has been working in the lower chambers?”
A woman near the back stepped forward. She was older, with sharp eyes and graying hair pulled tight under her hood.
“Dr. Elira Voss. I lead the excavation team. We opened a sealed secondary chamber three weeks ago. The two Knights were present when we first breached it.”
Rylen studied her. His Sight remained quiet, which told him she was probably not lying outright, but it also refused to show him the usual branching paths of her intentions. The static at the edge of his vision was still there.
“What did you find inside?”
“Fragments,” Voss said. “Pieces of what appears to be an older Gate core or control mechanism. Unlike anything we have recovered from the surface ruins. The fragments had some interesting interactions with certain people.”
Rylen’s expression did not change, but the word interactions settled heavily in his chest.
“Show me.”
Voss led him through a reinforced airlock and down a series of temporary stairs into the trench. The ancient alloy walls rose on either side, marked with faint geometric patterns that had survived whatever ended the Builders’ civilization. At the bottom, a circular hatch had been cut open. Beyond it lay a chamber lit by portable lamps.
Inside, three people sat restrained to medical chairs. Two men and one woman. Their heads were shaved. Thin silver filaments ran from small implants at the base of their skulls into portable monitoring units. One of the men twitched constantly. The woman’s eyes were open but unfocused.
Rylen stopped several paces away.
“What have you done to them?”
Voss hesitated. “As I said. There were… interactions. These men are restrained for our safety and theirs.”
Rylen moved closer to the woman. She turned her head slightly at the sound of his boots. Her pupils were dilated.
He opened his Sight.
The threads that should have surrounded her were there, but they writhed like something wounded. When he tried to focus on the most probable path she would take in the next few seconds, the vision shattered into static. A spike of pain drove through his skull. He tasted blood.
Rylen stepped back sharply, one hand braced against the wall.
The woman smiled faintly. Her voice was hoarse.
“Fascinating,” she whispered. “Just like the others. If you already have Sight, the effects are more extreme.”
Rylen wiped the blood from his upper lip and forced his Sight closed. The effort left him lightheaded.
“You did something to these people. Did something to my brothers. Didn’t you?”
Voss did not argue. “We saw an opportunity. The core fragments can enhance certain sense. The potential—”
Rylen cut her off. “Where are the rest of the fragments?”
“Secured in the analysis lab above. We kept the largest piece down here for live testing.”
He turned and climbed back out of the chamber. His head throbbed with every step. By the time he reached the surface module again, the pain had settled into a steady, grinding pressure behind his eyes.
While Voss and the others watched, Rylen accessed the terminal linked to their daily logs. Most of the files were standard research notes. One directory was heavily encrypted. He bypassed it with his Order credentials. Inside were progress reports attached to Imperium clearance codes he did not recognize. One line stood out:
Subject stability remains the primary constraint. However, the interference effect on active Sight users has exceeded projections. Recommend accelerated field testing against live Order Eternium assets.
Rylen read it twice.
This was not rogue research. Someone with significant authority had approved exposing Knights to whatever these fragments did.
He turned to face the gathered researchers. His voice was calm, but cold.
“Every person in this room is now under Order custody pending full investigation. Director Soren, you will remain here with me. The rest of you will be processed and held in the main camp. Dr. Voss, you will accompany me back to the secondary chamber. I want to see every fragment you recovered.”
Voss opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. She nodded once.\
As Rylen followed her back toward the trench, the static at the edge of his vision pulsed again. For a brief moment he saw a thread — not from the researchers, but from the direction of the deeper ruins. It was short. Violent. And it ended in the same absolute blackness he had seen beside Corven’s body.
He touched the hilt of his sword and kept walking.
Whatever had been done to those test subjects was spreading.
And someone, somewhere, had known exactly what they were creating.
Part 3: The Web
Rylen followed Dr. Voss deeper into the secondary chamber. The portable lamps cast long shadows across the ancient alloy walls. The air was colder there, and the faint hum of the monitoring equipment felt louder than it should. His head still throbbed from the earlier Sight flare. Every time he triggered it, even slightly, the threads near the test subjects twisted and broke apart.
Voss stopped beside a reinforced storage case. She keyed in a code and lifted the lid. Inside, resting on padded foam, were three irregular shards of dark metal veined with faint blue light. They looked like broken pieces of a much larger mechanism.
“These are the primary fragments,” she said quietly. “We kept the largest one for resonance testing. The others were used on the subjects you saw.”
Rylen did not touch them. Even from a meter away he could feel the wrongness radiating from the shards. His Sight recoiled from them the way a man recoils from a sudden drop.
“Who are you really?” he asked. “Who authorized you to test on human subjects?”
Voss hesitated. “Clearance came from the Gold Tower. I’ve been assured that this research is a top priority. All subjects were volunteers who—”
Rylen turned to face her. “By whom?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Who exactly authorized this? The Gold Tower is not a person. I want a name.”
“And I have none to give you,” Voss said calmly. “I am simply a researcher performing an assigned task, Sir Knight.”
He stepped past her and accessed the terminal built into the side of the chamber. Most of the files were heavily encrypted, but the system was of Imperium build so his Order credentials cut through the outer layers. What he found made the ache behind his eyes sharpen.
Internal memos. Progress reports. One file was marked with a seal he had only seen a handful of times in his career — a directive level that bypassed standard Order oversight.
He opened the most recent entry.
Field observation confirms that sustained exposure to the fragments produces measurable degradation in active Sight function. Subjects exposed for longer than seventy-two hours show increasing inability to resolve probability threads beyond short-term tactical windows. This effect appears cumulative. Recommendation: Proceed to Phase Two deployment against live Knight assets to validate operational effectiveness.
Rylen read it again, slower this time.
They were not trying to create new Knights.
They were building something to kill them.
He closed the file and turned back to Voss. His voice was low.
“You knew what this would do to us.”
“We were told it was necessary,” she said, her demeanor changed. There was now conviction in her tone. “Some think the Order has grown too powerful. Too independent. They believe that if another major conflict ever comes, Knights with strong Sight could decide the outcome without regard for Imperium authority. This was meant to be a failsafe. A balance.”
Rylen felt something cold settle in his chest. Not anger. Something heavier.
He had spent his entire adult life believing the Order served the Imperium and the people within it. The idea that parts of the Imperium now saw the Knights themselves as the threat had never occurred to him.
He was about to press Voss further when the lights in the chamber flickered.
A low alarm began to pulse from the monitoring units attached to the restrained subjects.
Rylen’s hand went to his sword.
“Status.”
Voss checked the readouts. Her face paled. “Two of the earlier subjects… they’re no longer in their containment cells. They must have slipped out during the confusion when you arrived.”
Rylen drew his blade and ignited the plasma edge. The blue light filled the chamber.
“Get over where I can keep an eye on you.”
He triggered his Sight, searching for the most likely paths of approach.
Nothing.
The threads were gone. Where there should have been branching futures showing movement through the ruins, there was only static and blank space. The pain hit him immediately — sharp and blinding. He staggered as blood ran freely from his nose.
Two figures dropped from the ledge above the chamber.
They moved wrong. Too fast. Too precise. Their eyes were completely black. One carried a heavy pry bar. The other held a scavenged plasma cutter. Neither made a sound.
Rylen tried to track them. His Sight gave him nothing. No warning. No probability lines. Just emptiness where they should have been.
The first attacker was already swinging.
Rylen barely got his sword up in time. The pry bar crashed against the flat of his blade with enough force to jar his shoulder. He twisted away as the second attacker lunged with the plasma cutter. The superheated edge missed his ribs by a finger’s width.
He had never fought without his Sight before. Not like this.
The two modified men coordinated without speaking. One pressed him from the front while the other circled. Rylen’s training kept him alive for the first few exchanges, but every time he tried to anticipate their next move, his vision fractured and fresh pain lanced through his skull.
He caught the plasma cutter on his pauldron. The armor held, but the heat seared through. He drove his elbow into the attacker’s throat and followed with a short, brutal strike from his sword hilt. The man dropped, but the other was already moving in.
Rylen spun and brought his blade across in a wide arc. The plasma edge caught the second attacker across the chest. The man fell without a sound.
Breathing hard, Rylen deactivated his sword and wiped blood from his face with the back of his glove. His head felt like it was splitting open.
Voss stared at the two bodies, eyes wide.
“They were stable this morning,” she whispered, genuinely shocked. “The degradation… it’s accelerating.”
Rylen looked down at the dead men. Even in death, their eyes remained black.
He had come to Nayara expecting to find missing Knights and perhaps some illegal scheme they’d been a part of. Instead he had found the first weapons specifically designed to strip Knights of their greatest advantage.
And someone with real power had approved it.
He activated his comm with shaking fingers.
“This is Sir Rylen Thorne. I need immediate extraction support to Nayara. Priority one. Send everything you can spare.”
The response was immediate.
“Negative, Sir Rylen. All available assets are committed elsewhere. You are to hold position and await further instructions.”
Rylen stared at the comm unit.
They were being cut off.
He looked toward the deeper sections of the ruin, where the largest fragment still waited.
Whatever this program was, it had only just begun.
And it already knew how to blind them.
Part 4: The Prototype
Rylen stood over the bodies of the two modified subjects for a long moment, blood still dripping from his nose. The comm message ordering him to hold position played again in his mind. He did not believe it was a coincidence.
He turned to Dr. Voss. She was pale and shaking.
“Take me to the lead researcher,” he said. “The one actually running this project. Not the field teams.”
Voss swallowed. “Dr. Harlan Korr is in the primary analysis lab deeper in the ruin. He rarely comes up.”
“Lead the way.”
They moved through a series of reinforced corridors that had been cut into the ancient structure. Emergency lighting strips glowed along the floor. Rylen kept his sword drawn, plasma edge inactive but ready. His Sight was still fractured. Every attempt to open it brought fresh pain and static, so he stopped trying.
The analysis lab was larger than he expected. Workstations lined the walls. In the center, suspended in a containment field, floated the largest Gate fragment they had recovered. It was nearly the size of a man’s torso and pulsed with slow, irregular blue light.
A tall, thin man in a dark coat stood at one of the terminals. He looked up as they entered. His expression was calm.
“Sir Rylen Thorne,” Dr. Harlan Korr said. “I had hoped we would have more time before you reached this depth.”
Rylen stopped several paces away. “You knew I was coming.”
“We monitored your approach from the moment you landed. Your reputation for thoroughness preceded you.” Korr gestured at the fragment. “Impressive, isn’t it? The Builders understood things we are only beginning to rediscover.”
“You are creating weapons to kill Knights.”
Korr turned his head to the side. “Not exactly. Death is a suboptimal outcome. An unfortunate side-effect of the research, not the goal. What we’re doing, Sir Knight, is trying to discover the secret of Sight. What we found instead was a method of nullifying your gift, something the people funding this research are keenly interested in.”
Rylen felt the weight of the revelation settle over him. This was not some rogue cell. This was an attempt to revive ancient tools of control.
“You are destabilizing my Sight,” he said. “You are breaking something fundamental.”
“Only in proximity to the fragments,” Korr replied. “The effect is not permanent in most cases. But it is enough. Enough to level the field when it matters.”
He tapped a command into his terminal.
A reinforced door on the far side of the lab hissed open.
A man stepped through.
He was taller than Rylen and broader through the shoulders. His head was shaved. Thin black filaments ran from the base of his skull down his neck and disappeared beneath a dark tactical harness. His eyes were completely black, like the two attackers from earlier, but there was something colder and more focused in them. He moved with unnatural fluidity.
“This is Subject Nine,” Korr said. “Our most successful integration so far. He has been exposed to the primary fragment for eleven days. The degradation of his original cognitive functions is minimal. His ability to operate outside probability threads is… significant.”
Rylen raised his sword and ignited the plasma edge.
Korr stepped back. “I would advise against engaging him directly, Sir Rylen. But I suspect you will not listen.”
Subject Nine moved.
Rylen triggered his Sight on instinct.
Nothing.
The threads that should have surrounded the man were gone. Where there should have been futures to read, there was only a void. Pain exploded behind Rylen’s eyes. He staggered as the prototype closed the distance with terrifying speed.
Rylen threw himself sideways. The prototype’s fist slammed into the workstation where he had been standing, crushing metal and shattering screens. Rylen came up swinging. His plasma blade carved a burning arc through the air. The prototype twisted at the last moment. The edge grazed his shoulder instead of taking his head.
They circled.
Rylen had trained for decades to fight while reading probability. Without it, every movement felt slower, heavier. He was forced to rely on decades of drilled technique and raw reaction. The prototype, by contrast, seemed to move with perfect economy. It did not waste motion. It did not telegraph.
A kick caught Rylen in the ribs. Armor absorbed most of the force, but the impact still drove the air from his lungs. He countered with a short, brutal combination — blade, elbow, knee — driving the prototype back a step. For a moment he thought he had the advantage.
Then the prototype’s hand shot out and caught his sword arm at the wrist. The grip was crushing. Rylen felt bones grind. He released the sword and drove his free hand into the man’s throat. The prototype released him and stepped back, but showed no sign of pain.
Rylen retrieved his blade and reset.
He stopped trying to see the future.
Instead he watched the man’s shoulders, his hips, the way weight shifted between his feet. He let training take over. When the prototype lunged again, Rylen was already moving. He sidestepped, brought his sword across in a tight horizontal cut, and severed the prototype’s left arm at the elbow.
The man did not scream.
Rylen followed with a rising strike that took the prototype across the chest and up through the neck. The plasma edge burned deep. Subject Nine collapsed to his knees, then pitched forward onto the deck. Blood pooled beneath him.
Rylen stood over the body, breathing hard. His sword arm trembled from the strain. Blood ran freely from his nose and one ear.
Korr had not moved.
“Impressive,” the researcher said quietly. “You adapted faster than we projected.”
Rylen deactivated his blade and turned toward him.
“There are already others,” Korr said before Rylen could speak. “Subject Nine was only the most advanced here. We have shipped viable candidates to three other sites. The program will continue with or without this facility. With or without me.”
Rylen stared at him.
Korr smiled faintly. “You can kill me. You can destroy this fragment. It will not matter. The knowledge has already spread. The Imperium has spent too long afraid of what Knights with strong Sight can do. This was always going to happen.”
Rylen raised his sword.
For the first time in his life, he did not know what the right action was.
Part 5: The Hard Truth
Rylen kept his sword raised. The plasma edge hissed softly in the cold air of the analysis lab. Dr. Harlan Korr stood calmly beside the containment field holding the largest Gate fragment, as if the death of Subject Nine had been nothing more than an unexpected data point.
“You will tell me everything,” Rylen said. His voice was rough. Blood still trickled from his nose and ear. “Names. Locations. Who gave the orders.”
Korr studied him for a moment, then shrugged.
“No harm at this point,” he said enigmatically. “There is no single name. This effort has support at the highest levels of the Imperium. Not the Emperor himself — not yet — but those who advise him and those who fear what the Order has become. For centuries the Knights have held Sight as their exclusive domain. That power has made you untouchable. Independent. When the next crisis comes…and it will come…many believe the Order will choose to serve its own interests rather than the greater good.”
Rylen felt the words land like blows.
“And who gets to decide what the greater good is?”
“We were tasked with creating a counterbalance,” Korr replied, ignoring the question. “But we found so much more. The fragments are the key. Bits of Gate core material that are proving to be quite useful. The effect is crude now, but it will improve. In time we will have operatives who can move through the world without Knights being able to see them coming. Weapons that exist in the gaps between your threads.”
Rylen lowered his sword slightly. The pain in his head made it difficult to think clearly.
“You are recreating the old horrors,” he said. “The ones before Reconciliation.”
Korr almost smiled. “The old horrors were created by the Order’s predecessors, Sir Rylen. Or at least with their knowledge. What would the Order Eternium be without an enemy? Even if they had to manufacture one themselves?”
Rylen turned away from him and looked at the suspended fragment. Even damaged, his Sight still reacted to it. The threads around the shard twisted and died. He could feel the wrongness of it in his bones.
He had two choices.
He could return to the Black Tower with what he had learned. He could report everything — the fragments, the modified subjects, the high-level backing. But if Korr was telling the truth, the Order might already be compromised. Some within the Imperium clearly wanted the Knights Eternal weakened. Reporting this could mark him as a threat. Or worse, it could accomplish nothing at all.
His other option was to destroy what remained here. Burn the research. Shatter the fragments. Kill Korr and every researcher who had touched this work. Then disappear long enough to decide what came next.
Both paths felt like betrayal.
Rylen closed his eyes and tried to open his Sight one more time. The effort sent fresh agony through his skull. Fractured threads flickered and broke. He saw flashes of possible futures — returning to the Tower in chains, being declared rogue, watching other Knights die in ambushes they could not see coming. He saw himself destroying the lab and then being hunted across half a dozen worlds. None of the threads were clear. None offered certainty.
He opened his eyes.
Korr was watching him with something close to pity.
“You feel it now,” the researcher said. “The helplessness. That is what we have lived with for generations while the Order Eternium walked above us, seeing paths we could never see. This is balance.”
Rylen stepped forward and struck Korr across the face with the hilt of his sword. The man dropped to one knee, blood running from a split lip.
“Balance is not built on breaking men,” Rylen said quietly.
He bound Korr’s hands and dragged him to a terminal. Using the researcher’s credentials, he began copying every file he could reach onto a secure data core. He also saw that the containment chambers had been rigged with failsafe charges. In the event the facility was at risk, they could blow the core fragments. Using Korr’s biometric signature he armed the charges.
When the copy was complete, he pulled Korr to his feet.
“You are coming with me,” Rylen said. “If you are lying about how widespread this is, I will know. If you are telling the truth… then the Order needs to hear it from someone who was part of it.”
Korr said nothing.
Rylen activated his comm and opened an encrypted channel to the Black Tower. He recorded a short, coded message containing only what was necessary: the existence of the fragments, the effect on Sight, and the fact that the program had high-level support. He did not name Korr. He did not request extraction. He simply stated that he would return when he could and that the Order should assume any further communications from him might be compromised.
He transmitted the message. It would still have to travel through the local network and then enter the cue for transmission through the Gate, but it was on its way.
The charges fired and the sound was muffled as the blast was held by the containment system. The largest fragment cracked and went dark. Rylen did not wait to see the full result. He pulled Korr toward the exit and began the long climb back toward the surface.
His Sight remained fractured. Every few steps the pain spiked and broken threads flickered at the edge of his vision. He did not know if he had made the right choice. He only knew that doing nothing was no longer an option.
Somewhere above them, the cold wind of Nayara waited.
And beyond that, an Imperium that had quietly decided the Knights were the problem.
Rylen tightened his grip on Korr’s arm and kept moving.
He had no idea what he would find when he returned home.
Part 6: The Beginning of the End
Rylen made it as far as the first research station before they took him.
He had been careful. He had varied his route, disabled security systems… but someone had been waiting for him anyway.
The team that captured him moved with the same unnatural precision he had seen in the prototypes in the deep lab. They didn’t try to kill him. They used non-lethal suppressors and a neural disruptor tuned specifically to interfere with Sight. When the device hit him, what remained of his fractured probability threads collapsed completely. For the first time since arriving on Nayara, Rylen was truly blind.
They bound him, stripped his armor, and placed a suppression collar around his neck before loading him onto an unmarked transport. He never saw their faces clearly. They wore matte black tactical gear with no insignia.
He woke in a reinforced cell somewhere deep underground. The walls were lined with dampening fields. A single observation window looked in from above. On the table beside his cot sat the containment box that had held the fragment. It was open. The fragment was gone.
Rylen sat up slowly. His head felt strangely clear for the first time in weeks. The constant pressure behind his eyes had vanished. When he tried to trigger his Sight out of habit, nothing happened. The threads were simply gone.
A voice spoke through a speaker in the ceiling.
“You fear you will regret your choice to come to Nayara, Sir Rylen.”
He recognized the voice. It was Dr. Korr.
“You made this necessary,” Korr continued. “We couldn’t risk you returning to the Black Tower with what you know. Not while the program is still in its early stages.”
Rylen stood and faced the observation window.
“You’re building weapons to kill Knights.”
“We’ve been over this,” Korr replied calmly. “We were correcting that imbalance. You were simply unfortunate enough to see it too soon. Now you will find yourself involved in something… more.”
Rylen flexed his hands. Something felt wrong in his body. His movements were too smooth. The suppression collar should have left him sluggish and disoriented. Instead, the pain from his earlier injuries had faded to almost nothing.
He looked at his reflection in the dark glass of the observation window.
His eyes were nearly black.
The change had accelerated since his capture. Whatever they had done to him—the neural disruptor, the collar, or simple proximity to the fragment again—had pushed the transformation forward.
He understood now.
They hadn’t just captured him to silence him.
They were finishing what they had started. Making him into something… else.
Rylen turned slowly in the cell, testing the limits of his body. His reflexes were sharper than they had any right to be. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the shape of the room around him without needing to see it. Not through Sight. Through something else.
Korr spoke again.
“You are becoming what we need. The process is imperfect, but you are adapting faster than our previous subjects. We will study you. Improve the method. And when we are ready, we will create more like you.”
Rylen didn’t answer.
He understood the full shape of it now. This wasn’t a rogue project. It was the beginning of something larger. A quiet restructuring of power. The people behind it intended to create a new class of operative that could nullify the Order’s greatest advantage. They would use these weapons first against threats to their own control, and eventually against the Knights Eternal themselves.
And he was becoming one of them.
He tried to speak. Tried to force the words out that the Order needed to hear. That a shadow was rising inside the Imperium. That the Knights were being systematically blinded and replaced. But when he opened his mouth, the words felt distant. Wrong.
The part of him that had once been Sir Rylen Thorne was already slipping away.
He sat down on the edge of the cot and stared at the floor.
There would be no warning.
No desperate transmission. No final message to the Black Tower. Even if he could reach them, they would not believe him in time. And soon, he would no longer be capable of delivering it.
The transformation was not just physical. It was pulling him away from who he had been. The longer he stayed here, the more the fragment’s influence — and whatever else they were doing to him — would complete the work.
Rylen closed his eyes.
In the darkness behind his lids, he no longer saw probability threads.
He saw paths.
Clean. Efficient. Invisible to anyone still bound by normal Sight.
He had come to Nayara to protect the Order.
Instead, he had become the first weapon raised against it.
And there was no one left to stop what he was becoming.
“In the coming days you will forget who you were,” Korr said. “You will become something more than a mere Knight Eternal. You will be forged into a blade to strike against the old order.”
Rylen tried to block out the words. How could this be happening to him?
“Welcome to Project Umbral.”