WHAT IZANARA REFUSED TO FORESEE

The seven dead systems ignited one by one.

Orison supplied planetary power. Meridia turned the broken bell into a resonance engine. The Uncounted aligned their moons into a celestial circuit. Worlds Ren'ō had barely visited added what they could: a starship core, a choir of mages, a city grid, a thousand candles held by people who possessed nothing else.

The route to the Throne began to open.

Izanara stood at the center of the Astra Noctis, reading the flow of probability. Futures shattered around Ren'ō. Every path involving him ended in white space.

He leaned against the doorway, arms folded. "You are making the face."

"What face?"

"The one that means reality is behaving badly and you intend to blame me."

"Reality behaved badly before I found you. You simply encouraged it."

The first lock opened. A dead sun burned gold.

Izanara's staff trembled.

A vision forced itself through the blankness.

Ren'ō standing over the War God's body.

Ren'ō holding the architecture of the multiverse in his hands.

Ren'ō turning toward her as everything collapsed.

Then nothing.

She severed the vision.

Ren'ō was beside her immediately. "What did you see?"

"A possibility."

"Which one?"

"One I refuse to make inevitable by naming."

He studied her face. "That is suspiciously poetic."

"I am an oracle. Allow me one professional indulgence."

The second and third locks opened.

The vessel shook. Beyond the windows, extinct galaxies appeared as pale outlines.

Izanara reached into her sleeve and removed a narrow chain set with a blue crystal.

"Wear this."

Ren'ō accepted it. "What does it do?"

"It anchors identity across temporal reconstruction."

His gaze sharpened. "You think the multiverse will be rewritten."

"I think the Throne is built into its foundation. Destroying one may damage the other."

Ren'ō fastened the chain beside Laana's pendant. "And yours?"

Izanara showed him an identical crystal beneath her collar.

"If reality changes, we remember."

"You made these before asking whether I planned to rewrite reality."

"Experience has taught me to prepare for your worst ideas."

He smiled faintly. "Good policy."

The final lock opened.

A corridor of black and gold stretched beyond the vessel. At its end sat a distant throne surrounded by the silhouettes of dead gods.

The War God's voice entered every connected world.

REN'Ō KAGENAMI.

The sound carried satisfaction.

YOU FINALLY LEARNED TO BRING AN ARMY.

Ren'ō stepped toward the forward window.

"No," he said. "I learned to trust people."

He looked back at Izanara.

"Stay with the ship."

"Absolutely not."

"I was required to try."

Together, they entered the corridor.