The Cassiopeia Cradle came apart with a sound like a cathedral exhaling—rings unbinding, coils unspooling, every component disassembling down to its constituent bolts, which then unlocked further, into filings, into dust. In ten seconds, the masterwork of the Iron Fist and the engine of SHALTOKOL was a grey drift settling across the cavern floor.

“That’s one less,” Kushim said quietly, leaning on his spear. His green eye lingered on the rift-scar (invisible to the naked human eye) still hanging in the air where SHALTOKOL had departed—sealed now, but puckered like a badly healed wound. “But he has passed through. And he has Hubris with him.”

“We will address that,” Argos promised, a complicated expression trying to develop on his face, one which he refused to allow. “He is still…” He didn’t let himself finish the sentence. Instead, he knelt beside the Red Knight, who had finally allowed himself to slump against the base of a shattered column, his bare face grey with blood loss. “The children need rest none of us can give.” The blind judge’s voice gentled by a degree. “And you, old friend, need more than rest.”

Claudius said nothing. He was staring at the broken half of his sword where it lay in the rubble, at the epitaph his brother had carved into it, and his scarred face was unreadable.