Vaeliyan and Grace walked on Yuri’s right side, exactly as instructed, maintaining the formation without comnt. Vaeliyan was keenly aware of his position in relation to Yuri, tracking it the way he tracked footing in a fight. This was not superstition. It was procedure.
As they left the laboratory proper, Styll slipped smoothly up Vaeliyan’s armor and settled into her pocket. The motion was practiced enough to suggest she had done it many tis before, quick and confident, as if the space had always belonged to her. Vaeliyan found himself briefly amused by the realization that his armor had grown a pocket specifically for her, mirroring the one on his yellow jacket. He could not rember when that had happened, or if it had happened all at once or gradually.
Then again, it made sense.
Styll was part of him. The jacket was part of him. The armor was the jacket, and the jacket was him. Of course they would accommodate her without being asked. Of course, the system would resolve itself that way. The thought settled comfortably, as if it had always been true and he had only just noticed.
Bastard chose to pad along behind the group, silent and watchful, his presence a steady weight at their backs. He did not seem interested in perching on Vaeliyan’s head like he sotis did when bored or possessive. Instead, he kept his distance, eyes constantly shifting, reading the space around them for movent, intent, or threat. He moved like a creature that understood corridors and ambushes instinctively.
Roundy moved with them as well, silent and precise, keeping pace with Vaeliyan and Grace without comnt or wasted motion. He adjusted his position subtly whenever the hallway narrowed or widened, maintaining a consistent distance as if following an internal rule set Vaeliyan could not see.
They passed beyond the lab and into a series of hallways that felt intentionally bland. The walls were smooth, the lighting even, the floors clean to the point of sterility. Nothing identified the location or suggested purpose. It felt less like a place people worked and more like a place ant to be passed through without being rembered.
Yuri stopped at a door and, to Vaeliyan’s mild surprise, produced an actual physical key. It looked old, worn smooth at the edges from use. He unlocked the door with a practiced twist, listening to the chanism engage before pulling it open.
Beyond it was another door.
This one had no visible lock, no handle, no seam that suggested how it might open. The surface was uninterrupted and matte, absorbing the light rather than reflecting it.
Yuri leaned forward and placed his eyes close to a sensor embedded in the fra. He held still longer than seed necessary. The device emitted a soft tone, almost polite, and the door opened inward.
Instead of stepping back, Yuri leaned closer to the wall. He tilted his head, considered it, and then ran his tongue along the smooth surface beside the sensor, slow and deliberate, as if confirming a hypothesis no one else was aware of.
“You can never be too safe,” Yuri said lightly, as if sharing a casual observation rather than a guiding philosophy. “You never know who’s watching.”
Vaeliyan blinked. “Taste bud center?”
Yuri straightened, entirely unconcerned. “No,” he said cheerfully. “I just like the taste.”
He laughed.
“Ha ha ha ha.”
Grace cleared her throat. “Yuri, can we please move on?”
She frowned at him, not sharply, but with the kind of practiced patience that suggested this was far from the first ti she had needed to redirect him. It was the look of soone who had learned exactly how much pressure could be applied without causing a derailnt.
Yuri followed her gaze, then blinked as if noticing his surroundings for the first ti. His eyes drifted to the wall, then to the open doorway they had just co through, then back to the floor beneath his feet. “Oh. Yes. Sorry,” he said mildly. He peered at the wall again, leaning closer, as if it might offer clarification. “This isn’t even the right room.”
He waved a hand vaguely, already turning away. “Co with .”
They moved on.
Vaeliyan glanced at Grace as they walked, careful not to fall out of step. She t his look and gave a small, knowing shake of her head, the kind that said this was normal, or at least as normal as Yuri ever got. Vaeliyan filed that reaction away, recognizing it as important.
The corridor they entered was quieter than the last, the air cooler, the lighting softer and more diffuse. Yuri stopped at another door without hesitation this ti. Instead of reaching for a panel or a scanner, he raised his arm. The flesh along his forearm shifted, parting with a muted chanical sound as a prosthetic hand erged from within, unfolding itself with precise, deliberate movents. tal slid against tal beneath synthetic skin, joints locking into place one by one.
He lifted the prosthetic toward a recessed interface and began to move it through an intricate pattern. Fingers bent, rotated, tapped, and twisted in a sequence that looked less like a code and more like choreography, fluid and practiced, as if the door expected a performance rather than an input.
“There,” Yuri said with quiet satisfaction. “This is the right door.” He paused, head tilting slightly. “I think.”
The door slid open without a sound.
“Anyway,” Yuri added cheerfully, as if the uncertainty did not matter at all, “let’s see if I’m right.”
They stepped inside.
The room beyond was filled wall to wall with displays. Screens floated freely in the air and were embedded directly into the walls, data streaming across them in overlapping layers of color, text, and shifting symbols. So showed detailed schematics that made Vaeliyan’s eyes want to linger. Others displayed live feeds from places he did not recognize. Still others showed abstract readouts that resisted imdiate categorization, information clearly aningful to soone, just not to him.
The sheer density of it made the space feel alive, as though the room itself were thinking.
Yuri looked around, squinting, then leaned back on his heels. “Yeah. This is it.” He nodded once, satisfied. Then he tilted his head. “I think.”
His expression tightened slightly. “Maybe not.”
He raised his voice without warning. “Hey, room ghost. Are you in here?”
“I am not a ghost,” the room replied calmly. The voice ca from everywhere at once, evenly distributed and entirely unbothered. “I am the room’s artificial intelligence.”
“You don’t have a body and you talk,” Yuri said. “You’re a room ghost.”
“Sir,” the voice responded, “you have reiterated that classification multiple tis. You were also the one who designed and constructed . You are aware of the location of my central processor. By your own definitions, how does that make a ghost?”
“You’re a voice,” Yuri said simply, as if that settled it. “You don’t have a body. You’re a ghost.”
There was a brief pause, just long enough to suggest the system was choosing not to argue further. “Whatever you say, sir,” the voice replied placidly. “How may I assist you?”
Yuri snapped his fingers, the sound sharp in the layered hum of the room. “Ah. Where was that going?”
“I do not know, sir,” the AI said. “You did not provide an objective.”
Yuri sighed, shoulders slumping just slightly. “Then what use are you, room ghost?”
“I ask myself that every day,” the voice answered without missing a beat.
“Yuri,” Grace said, her voice flat and precise, “if you don’t figure out what you were about to tell him, I’m going to tell him first. And you wouldn’t like that.”
Yuri froze where he stood, shoulders locking as if the words had physically pinned him in place.
Then he exhaled, long and dramatic, the sound almost theatrical. “Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay,” he said, hands fluttering briefly in front of his chest as if trying to physically catch a thought that was darting just out of reach. “I’ll figure it out. I will. I just need a second. Just one second.”
He stared at the ceiling, then the floor, then at nothing at all. Finally, he stopped and turned toward Grace with visible reluctance. “Could you… whisper it to ?”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
He grimaced as he said it. The request clearly offended him on so personal level. But the hesitation in his eyes told the truth far more clearly than his pride ever could. He had genuinely forgotten.
Grace leaned in without comnt and whispered into his ear, her voice low enough that Vaeliyan could not catch a single word.
Yuri’s eyes lit up imdiately. “Oh. The face.”
He straightened as if soone had flipped a switch, energy snapping back into him all at once. “Right. That one’s easy.” He turned toward the room, already talking to the air. “House ghost. Room ghost. Whatever you are.”
“Yes, sir?” the room replied calmly, the voice evenly distributed through the space.
“Bring room CL47K2–36LM to coordinate Z742R9.”
“Acknowledged,” the voice said. “It is on its way. Please wait but a mont.”
Vaeliyan felt the vibration before he heard it. Sowhere beyond the walls, hydraulics engaged with a deep, resonant thrum. The sound traveled through the floor and up into his legs, heavy and deliberate, and he had the distinct impression that the building itself was shifting to accommodate the request. Behind closed doorways, spaces rearranged themselves. Corridors slid. Rooms traded places with careful, chanical precision, as if the structure were solving a puzzle only it understood.
Yuri wandered to another door as if all of this were entirely routine. He punched in a code, paused, frowned, then tapped it again, just to be sure.
The door opened.
Inside was… sothing.
Vaeliyan stopped at the threshold, unable to imdiately tell what he was looking at. The room contained structures and equipnt arranged around a central holo projection, its contents inactive for the mont. Racks of unfamiliar devices lined the walls. Suspended fraworks hovered in fixed positions, waiting. The shapes suggested purpose, but not one he could na, and the longer he looked, the more uncomfortable that uncertainty beca.
Yuri stepped aside and gestured him forward. “Vaeliyan,” he said lightly, as if they were discussing the weather, “I’ve seen every one of your pit matches in the Night Lair.”
Vaeliyan stiffened despite himself.
“And the face you used,” Yuri continued, turning his head just enough to watch the reaction, “it’s not one of Ryan’s.” He glanced back at him. “You made it yourself.”
Vaeliyan said nothing.
“I keep wondering why it looks so real,” Yuri went on, circling the projection space slowly. “So let ask you sothing. What’s the difference between a Ryan Ryan original face and a real face?”
“Flaws,” Vaeliyan said imdiately, the answer coming out before he had ti to reconsider it.
Yuri nodded, clearly pleased. “Go on.”
“Not intentional flaws,” Vaeliyan continued. “Not beauty marks. Not stylized scars ant to look interesting. Unintentional damage. Marring. Wrinkles. Things no one chooses. Things that happen when a body lives.”
“Exactly,” Yuri said, satisfaction threading through his voice. “Did you know Ryan’s faces don’t degrade? They never age. They never soften or sag. They always look exactly like the day you bought them.” He waved one hand dismissively. “Ignoring physical damage, of course, which is usually corrected with d gel or nanite repair. But that’s not my point.”
He turned back toward the projection. A holo lit up between them, light folding in on itself until it resolved into a face.
“Vaeliyan,” Yuri said quietly, the manic edge gone from his voice for once, “why does this face look so real?”
Vaeliyan’s breath caught, sharp and involuntary.
“Whose face is this?” Yuri asked. “Because it’s clearly one you know as well as your own.”
Vaeliyan froze.
“I’m not your enemy,” Yuri said, his tone level now, almost earnest. “I know you probably think I should be, given my position. But I’m not.”
He stepped closer and tapped his own cheek. “Look at my face. What do you see?”
Vaeliyan looked at Yuri’s face and noticed the difference imdiately. He did not need ti to analyze it, did not need to compare mories or references. The answer arrived fully ford, sharp and undeniable.
It was the face of the Emperor, yes. There was no denying that basic truth. The structure was right. The proportions were right. The bone beneath the skin followed the sa lines that had once commanded armies and bent the world into obedience. But it was not the sa face the Warlords had worn.
The Warlords had carried Gregor in his pri, the perfected image of authority, the Emperor’s will made flesh. That face had been immutable. Preserved. A symbol rather than a body. It had not aged. It had not softened. It had not degraded, because it was never ant to. It was the idea of the Emperor, not the man.
Yuri’s face was different.
It had been lived in.
It was aged in ways that could not be fabricated without deliberate effort, and even then, would have failed under scrutiny. It was thin, slightly sunken in places, as if the man beneath it had gone long stretches without caring whether he slept or ate properly. There were fine lines at the edges of his eyes, not arranged for symtry or appeal, but earned through exhaustion and repetition. His skin carried uneven texture, small scars, subtle discoloration that spoke of old injuries and poor habits rather than violence or vanity.
His beard had been shaved recently, Vaeliyan could tell that at a glance, but not carefully. The shave was uneven and rushed, the kind done out of obligation rather than pride. A faint shadow lingered along his jaw where the blade had not quite bothered to finish the job. It was the face of soone who did not maintain himself for others, or even for mirrors.
There was too much wrong with the face for it to be a forgery.
Not intentional wrongness. Not stylized flaws. Not the curated imperfections sold to make sothing look real. This was the kind of imperfection that only ca from a body that had existed day after day inside its own skin, accumulating neglect and fatigue in small, irreversible ways.
That eliminated almost every possibility Vaeliyan could think of.
Which left only one option that made any sense at all.
“You’re his twin?” Vaeliyan asked.
“Yes and no,” Yuri said.
Vaeliyan frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Yuri did not seem offended. If anything, he looked mildly pleased by the confusion. “I’m not his twin,” he said calmly. “But I’m also not not his twin. And this is my real face.”
Vaeliyan studied him again, slower this ti, letting the details settle. The posture. The neglect. The quiet certainty beneath the erratic behavior. The way the face fit him too well to be borrowed.
“Then what’s the other option?” Vaeliyan asked at last. “If every reasonable explanation is off the table.”
Yuri smiled faintly, the expression thin but genuine.
“If all other possibilities are proven false,” he said, “then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Vaeliyan looked at Yuri again. What Yuri was saying was insane. It ran directly against every rule he had been taught, every explanation the Legion, the System, and the Citadel had ever offered. It should have been nonsense. It should have been dismissed out of hand.
And yet, Vaeliyan understood with uncomfortable clarity that it was also the only possibility left.
There was no other explanation that accounted for all of it. The face. The knowledge. The way Yuri existed half inside the rules and half outside them. Even the smallest details lined up in ways Vaeliyan did not like. The inconsistencies were consistent. The gaps pointed inward instead of outward. Every attempt to dismiss the conclusion only strengthened it, tightening the logic until there was nowhere left for doubt to hide.
Everything else collapsed under scrutiny, leaving this answer standing alone, ugly and unavoidable.
He opened his mouth slowly, choosing the words with care. “You’re a clone.”
Yuri tilted his head, watching him closely, eyes sharp despite the rest of him looking loose and distracted. He did not deny it. He did not confirm it either. He waited.
“But clones collapse,” Vaeliyan continued. “Because the soul doesn’t like being split. That’s the theory we were given. It destabilizes. It rejects itself.”
Yuri laughed.
“Ha ha ha ha.”
“That part,” Yuri said lightly, “is not actually incorrect. The soul does not like to be split. It resists it. It fights it.” His gaze flicked downward, lingering for a fraction of a second. “And yet, your ring says otherwise, does it not?”
Vaeliyan followed the look, his fingers brushing the ring instinctively, as if checking that it was still there. He frowned. “It makes sense that you would know that,” he said. “If you were part of whatever sche the Emperor ca up with.” He lifted his eyes back to Yuri. “Why didn’t you just take over the Empire?”
Yuri smiled thinly, the expression lacking any real humor. For a mont, Vaeliyan thought he saw sothing else there. As if being nad correctly mattered more than being forgiven. “Because I’m basically an aberrant.”
Vaeliyan stiffened at the word.
“I don’t have a soul,” Yuri continued matter-of-factly, as if he were discussing a missing limb. “Well. Not one of my own. And I’m quite mad. Truly mad. If I took power, I would do… enthusiastic things.” He waved a hand vaguely. “The Empire would not survive . So, I let a bunch of psychopathic nobles run both sides of the forr empire instead.”
Vaeliyan paused, recalibrating. “You’re an aberrant?”
“In a very specific way,” Yuri said. “You see, the process to make a functioning clone is extraordinarily difficult. Most attempts fail catastrophically. The body rejects itself. The mind fractures. Or the soul simply leaves.” He tapped the side of his head. “The Emperor’s Soul Skill made it possible, through a combination of exhaustive research and a degree of brilliant madness that only worked because he died.”
Vaeliyan’s eyes narrowed. “Because he died.”
“The mont he died,” Yuri said, nodding, “his soul did not return the way normal souls do. It didn’t flow back into the river.”
“The river?” Vaeliyan asked.
Yuri winced slightly, as if he had said too much. “Ah. You haven’t figured that out yet. I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about it.” He shrugged, shoulders rising and falling unevenly. “I’m technically banned from the gas, after all. I’m not really a person.”
“The gas,” Vaeliyan repeated, the word tasting wrong.
Yuri looked at him with sothing like surprise. “The Emperor was a contender,” he said. “You know that, right?”
Vaeliyan said nothing.
“And what he knew,” Yuri went on, “I knew. I know. His knowledge was really all that I got from him other than a piece of his soul.” He tapped his temple lightly. “I also know that you are a contender. I can feel it. The sa way he could.”
Vaeliyan’s jaw tightened. “But I can’t feel you.”
“Exactly,” Yuri said, pleased, as if Vaeliyan had passed a test. “Because I’m not one. And that makes different.”
“Interesting,” Vaeliyan said quietly.
“Yes,” Yuri agreed. “And unlike most contenders, because I am not one, I can feel the difference in you. There’s sothing else beneath you. Sothing layered. Sothing older than the story you’re telling the world.” He gestured toward the holo projection of Warren’s face on the display. “I think that face is the reason.”
Vaeliyan did not move.
“You’re not who you say you are,” Yuri continued. “And that’s not just because Grace told you were different. It’s my intuition. My understanding of the gas the gods are playing.” His voice dropped, losing its manic edge. “And I want to help you.”
Vaeliyan looked at him sharply.
“Because sothing bad is about to happen,” Yuri said. “Very bad.”
He spread his hands, palms open. “I have eyes and ears everywhere. My network is the Old Empire’s network. I see into the Green Zone, into the Yellow Zone, even into the Princedoms. Old systems still talk to .”
Vaeliyan felt a chill settle in his chest, slow and deliberate. It was the feeling he got when a battlefield finally made sense, not because it was safe, but because he could now see where the killing would start.
“I usually let things happen,” Yuri went on. “Because it’s not my place to interfere. But one of the Princedom cities vanished.”
“Vanished,” Vaeliyan echoed.
“It was there one mont,” Yuri said, “and then it was as if history had erased it. Not destroyed. Not conquered. As if it had never existed in the first place.”
Vaeliyan’s blood went cold.
“I have no explanation for how it happened,” Yuri said quietly. “But I do know this.” He t Vaeliyan’s eyes and held them. “I’ve seen it before.”
“When?”
“In the old days,” Yuri said. “When the Emperor was still a blood thirsty conqueror.”
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