The Jade Vulture coasted through a dying starfield.
To the naked eye, the sector was empty—a graveyard of collapsed suns and scattered debris drifting like cosmic ash. But in the void beyond, hidden by collapsed coordinates and erased from public starmaps, lay a place even the Sovereigns feared.
The Rift of Tyn-Gol.
It wasn't on any known navigation chart. The coordinates had been locked in the Auctioneer's vault, traded for the Sovereign fragment Kairos now carried. According to the encoded log, it was the final resting place of a relic called the Cartograph of Tyn-Gol.
A Sovereign tool. One that didn't just reveal hidden routes—
It revealed what was meant to remain lost.
Preparations and Tension
In the ship's war room, the crew reviewed the limited data.
Raya tapped through a projection of warped space. "The Cartograph is located inside a collapsed hyperspace vein. Normally, anything that enters gets spaghettified and quantum-sifted."
"In English?" Vael asked.
