Chapter 453: An Old Clan, An Old Debt

The Ebon Meridian vessel crossed into the Crimson Vital Sect's headquarters star system after Hestia authorized its passage. A Crimson Vital escort guided it to Sanguis Prime, where it descended onto a landing platform beneath the Crimson Spire and opened without ceremony.

A single pale-skinned humanoid emerged in dark elder robes bearing the insignia of the Ebon Meridian Sect, submitted to the required verification, and allowed the Crimson Vital guards to lead him into the structure that had become the governing heart of Andromeda.

The ascent through the Spire ended at its highest occupied floor. Lara received the visitor outside the head chamber and brought him through the golden-crimson doors.

Hestia was seated at the dark-crimson desk, her gaze fixed upon the oncoming figure. The moment she saw the pale face, Hestia could not have mistaken him. "Caldris," she murmured.

Caldris's mouth curved. "Which part surprises you more, Hestia? That I am still alive, or that the coward who refused to follow you now stands before you as an elder of the Ebon Meridian Sect?"

Before answering him, Hestia turned her attention toward Lara and gave a small motion of her hand.

Lara understood immediately. She inclined her head and withdrew without objection, leaving through the same golden-crimson doors, and the doors sealed behind her.

She then looked at Caldris and could feel the unmistakable Astral Stage aura emanating from him. "Ebon Meridian allowed you to reach the Astral Stage," she said. "That is farther than I would have believed they permitted anyone from our clan to rise."

"I reached it with the resources they offered, and I awakened my Chime afterward," Caldris stated the accomplishment with pride. "That was when they named me an elder. They permitted each step because I proved useful, and you never understood how much could be preserved by becoming useful to the right people."

"What is the value of living like that?" Hestia asked. Her hands remained resting upon the desk as she refused to allow the familiar face before her to drag her backward into the helplessness of the clan leader she had once been.

"They measured our land, our labor, and even the lives of children who had not yet been born according to whatever value could be extracted from them. We were treated as slaves regardless of what terminology their covenant used. I chose to leave because remaining beneath that structure would have erased us one generation at a time."

Caldris took another step into the chamber. "You are still the same after all these years, huh?" he said. "But tell me something, Hestia. How many of the people who trusted your courage actually survived?"

His voice hardened as memories of his own rose beneath the accusation.

"We warned you that the journey would become a graveyard. We told you our vessels were not prepared for intergalactic passage, and even if you reached another galaxy, there was no guarantee some other sect would not simply place us beneath another form of rule. You called us frightened and spoke as though fear made our judgment worthless."

Caldris stared directly at her. "And what happened? Nearly half of our people died during the journey itself, and almost none of those who followed you are still alive today."

For an instant, Hestia saw her sister again. She remembered the corrosive cloud, the scream, and the hand reaching toward her while flesh disappeared from it.

"We fought so every generation after us would not inherit the same chains, Caldris," Hestia said. "While we were bleeding through the void, you were bending your knees and allowing our descendants to be placed in debt before they were even born."

"And what of it?" Caldris demanded. "Yes, I bent my knees to them. I learned when to lower my head and when to make myself valuable. But does the situation now not prove which path was stable?"

"I still remember what you told us before you left. You said a world was not our home merely because we happened to be born upon it. You said our home was wherever our people could stand together."

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Caldris spread one hand toward the chamber around them. "Then answer me now, Hestia. Where are our people? Where are the clan members who entered those vessels because they believed you would lead them somewhere better? Understand this much, at least. Freedom means nothing if our children never live long enough to possess it."

Caldris continued to speak without allowing Hestia to interrupt, "When Ebon Meridian assessed what remained of the clan after you fled, I made myself necessary to its officials. They recognized that I had talent and provided cultivation resources. As I rose, I used whatever influence I gained to keep resources flowing toward our people and to ensure the clan became difficult to ignore. You may call that submission if you wish, but it is one reason our descendants are still alive."

His words touched the part of the past Hestia could not deny. People had survived beside Caldris while those who followed her died, but his final admission revealed how little his rank had changed their position. "You reached the Astral Stage and awakened your Chime, but the people you protected can still be used against you whenever those above you decide it is convenient."

She rose slowly from behind the desk. "If Ebon Meridian ordered the clan onto a battlefield tomorrow, you would have to obey. Our descendants could be sent to die in a conflict that has nothing to do with them because some superior power decided their lives were an acceptable resource."

For the first time since entering the chamber, some of the anger left Caldris's expression.

"I agree," he said. "But this is still the path that allowed those who remained to survive. Ask the people who died on your road which price they would have chosen if they had known what waited for them."

"We cannot ask them now," Hestia replied, and for a moment the force within her voice softened. "And I will not pretend that I know what every one of them would choose if they stood before us today."

She moved around the desk, standing in front of Caldris. "But do not use your survival to defend the system that still holds our clan."

Caldris shook his head. "I see that you truly will never change, Hestia. Perhaps I should have expected that."

He looked around the head chamber, taking in the wealth and authority surrounding the woman who had once fled Valtheris aboard vessels barely capable of surviving the journey.

"I do not care whether you change anymore. But the sanctuary you built with these new strangers has damaged everything I spent these years building for our clan within the Ebon Meridian Sect. Your reappearance has placed all of it in danger."

"You still do not understand what is happening, Caldris," Hestia said, shaking her head in return. "Can you not see that they began using our people as leverage the moment my identity was confirmed? Do not place their decision upon me."

"I am placing upon you the portion you can still control," Caldris replied. "You can agree to their demands and preserve what remains of our clan. At least do that."

"What are their demands?" Hestia asked.

"I have not been shown the final terms, and I was not sent with the authority to negotiate them," Caldris admitted. "An authorized delegation from Ebon Meridian will arrive within several days."

"I believe they are considering privileged trade rights, formal political recognition of their standing within Andromeda, and access to routes and markets presently governed by the Crimson Vital Sect. Those may only be the beginning."

"They sent me ahead because they believed you might listen to someone you knew. I agreed because I needed you to understand what refusal might cost. Correct the mistake that began when you fled Valtheris, Hestia. Give them what they demand."

"I can't promise that." Hestia faced him across the narrow distance between them. "I will not abandon the people here, and I will not place an entire galaxy beneath the same kind of structure we escaped."

"There it is again," Caldris said bitterly. "Another people placed before your own, followed by another speech about freedom while someone else bears the consequences."

"Those who remained in Valtheris and every descendant born from them are still my people," Hestia replied. "The people who entrusted Andromeda to my rule are also my people now. One does not erase the other."

Her gaze held his steadily. "I will do everything I can to save both of them. You do not need to worry about that, Caldris."

Caldris remained silent for a long moment. The anger within him did not disappear, but something more complicated settled beneath it. Fear, perhaps, or exhaustion accumulated across a lifetime spent surviving inside the system Hestia had rejected.

"When the delegation arrives," he said at last, "please do not do anything that will cost our people their lives."

He turned before Hestia could answer and crossed the chamber. The golden-crimson doors separated at his approach, then sealed behind him with a soft convergence of light, leaving Hestia alone.

Hestia remained standing for several moments after he disappeared. Eventually, she returned to the dark-crimson desk and sat.

The chamber felt different now.

Before Caldris arrived, the Ancestral Venture Covenant had represented a legal weapon dragged out of a past Hestia had long since escaped. She had understood its financial claims, the foreclosure provisions, and the attempt to use UNI-authenticated standing as protection while Ebon Meridian approached Andromeda.

But now, Caldris had changed what those clauses meant. The coming delegation would not merely place an ancient covenant on her desk and demand wealth or political concessions. Behind every demand stood the living descendants of the clan she had once led, people whose continued security inside Valtheris could become leverage the moment Ebon Meridian decided Hestia was refusing to cooperate.

She could not answer that threat blindly.