Fifty people unfroze overnight. Coming out of the stillness like ghosts floating into town.
I watched as they wandered into the city streets, stumbling and confused.
Turning and walking to the door of my room. My hand met the handle, and I pull the door open.
Two guards stood outside my door.
“Will you send guards to meet the newest unfrozen group?” I asked him.
One of them nodded stiffly and left quickly.
I closed the door and went back to watching the guards meet them. They didn’t bring weapons.
They didn’t need to. These people were confused, not threats.
I leaned forward slightly in the window. Breathing in the night air.
My head began to pound.
Can I handle this? Kathera’s voice bled into my mind, stumbling backwards, I grabbed my head.
Yes, Someone responded.
Thank you, Sahora. Kathera’s voice filled my mind.
The pounding behind my eyes didn’t fade. It pulsed, sharp and rhythmic, like a second heartbeat that didn’t belong to me. I stayed on the floor longer than I wanted to admit, palms pressed flat to the cold stone, breath shaking in and out of my chest.
Kathera’s voice still echoed faintly in my mind.
And then Sahora’s voice, uninvited, unwelcome, threading through the bond like a crack in glass.
The bond had always been ours. A place no one else could reach.
Now it felt split.
I forced myself upright, bracing a hand against the wall as the room swayed. My fingers trembled. I curled them into a fist until the shaking stopped.
I had waited a century to feel Kathera again.
I had not prepared for the pain. Or the intrusion. Or the reminder that she was with someone else, someone carrying her soul, someone who was not me.
I dragged in a breath, slow and uneven.
I was Emperor. I could not fall apart on the floor of my own chambers.
But gods, I was not okay.
I pushed away from the wall and crossed to the window again. Outside, the courtyard was filling with movement, guards guiding the newly unfrozen into the torchlight. Fifty people. Fifty souls pulled back into a world that had not moved for them in a century.
Their confusion was visible even from here. Their fear. Their hope.
They needed stability. They needed answers. They needed their Emperor.
And I was standing here, shaking like a man who had forgotten how to breathe.
I closed my eyes, pressing my palm to my chest where the bond still hummed faintly, like an ember refusing to die out.
Kathera was alive. Sahora carried her.
And I was here, alone in a palace that felt too large, too quiet, too empty without the people who once steadied me.
There was no one left in these halls who knew what the bond meant.
No one could tell me if this pain was normal.
No one could tell me if I was breaking or awakening.
I exhaled slowly, forcing my spine straight.
I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart.
Not tonight.
I crossed the room, each step steadier than the last, though the ache behind my eyes lingered. The corridor outside was dim, lit only by scattered torches. Guards straightened as I passed, their expressions tight with uncertainty.
“Your Majesty,” one said, falling into step beside me. “The unfrozen are gathered in the courtyard.”
“I know,” I murmured. My voice sounded steadier than I felt. “I’ll meet them.”
We stepped out into the night air. The courtyard was alive with flickering torchlight and the soft murmur of frightened voices. The fifty stood clustered together, some clutching each other, some staring at the sky, some crying silently.
They looked like ghosts pulled back into flesh.
A guard approached. “They’re waiting for you, sire.”
I nodded once.
Then I stepped forward, into the torchlight.
Dozens of eyes lifted toward me.
“When Empress Kathera died time froze.” I stood in front of them, my hands clasped behind my back.. “You have been frozen.”
Gasps followed my words. Weeping began. “We are working on bringing her back to start time again.” I continued. “That is why you have unfrozen. You each will be given rations depending on size of house hold.”
To my right the guard had gathered carrying blankets and wrapped food. People slowly walked up grabbing their rations.
I swallowed hard.
“Emperor Lyrian.” Said a man who stopped in front of me. His long hair covered his face, and his voice shook. “I…unfroze…on the docks but my boat and...my daughter…she is gone.” He dropped to his knees and began reaching for me. “Please sire, help me find my daughter.”
Fear pulsed through me. “Your daughter?”
“Yes, please, she is all I have.” He clung to me clearly not going to release me from his grip.
I let his hands stay as I met his eyes. “We will help you find her. But I need you to try to rest and eat first. Please take your ration and we will talk in the morning.”
He nodded, pulling himself together and up to his feet. Blankets and food were pressed into his hands and he made his way to the tents we had put up a few days ago.
I watched him go, his shoulders hunched beneath the blanket, the food clutched to his chest like it might anchor him to this new, unfamiliar world. The torchlight caught in his hair as he disappeared into the rows of tents, swallowed by the quiet murmur of others settling in.
A heaviness pressed against my ribs.
How many more would wake to find their families gone?
How many would look to me for answers I didn’t have?
A woman stepped forward next, her hands trembling as she accepted a blanket. She didn’t speak. She only stared at me with wide, hollow eyes, as if searching my face for something, comfort, truth, a promise I wasn’t sure I could give.
I inclined my head to her. It was all I could offer.
One by one, they approached. Some whispered thanks. Some cried. Some couldn’t look at me at all. I stood there, hands clasped behind my back, spine straight, the cold night air biting at my skin. I held myself still and steady because they needed steadiness.
Even if I didn’t feel it.
A guard leaned close. “That’s the last of them, Your Majesty.”
I nodded, though my throat felt tight. The courtyard had quieted, the initial panic fading into exhausted murmurs. The newly awakened huddled beneath blankets, some already lying down, others staring into the darkness as if afraid it might swallow them again.
I stepped back, letting out a slow breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
Fifty souls returned to a world that had moved without them.
Fifty reminders that the quest was working.
Fifty reminders that Kathera was closer than she had been in a century.
And yet the bond still throbbed faintly in my chest, a warning, a promise, a fracture.
I pressed a hand to my sternum, feeling the echo of her voice, soft, distant, fading. Sahora’s presence lingered like a shadow behind it, wrong in a way I couldn’t name.
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the night settle around me.
I was not okay.
But they didn’t need to know that.
They needed an Emperor.
I straightened, letting the cold air fill my lungs. The torches flickered, casting long shadows across the courtyard. The tents rustled softly as the newly unfrozen settled in for the night.
Tomorrow, I would have to face the council.
Tomorrow, I would have to organize search parties.
Tomorrow, I would have to decide what to do about the bond, about the pain, the intrusion, the fear clawing at the edges of my composure.
But tonight…
Tonight, I greeted my people, I had stood, I had not broken.
I turned from the courtyard, the weight of the empire settling across my shoulders like a familiar cloak.
Kathera was coming home.
And I had to be ready.