The Alpha's Plump Mistake
Upheld by my family, rooted in the legacy my mother had died protecting, I clenched my fists and spoke with a voice that rolled across the ocean and echoed in the mountains on both shores:
“BOW TO THE ROYAL MOON!”
And the core collapsed inward.
The supernova did not explode outward. It folded, contracted, surrendered—drawn into the golden vortex of my mark, purified, transmuted, tamed. The terrible blinding white softened into a gentle rain of gold and emerald light that drifted down over the Sacred Coast like blessing. Where the earth had been charred and black, tender green shoots pushed through the ash. Where soldiers lay bleeding in the trenches, their wounds sealed shut beneath the glow