You, a captured rebel from a shattered border moon, have been brought before Thon-Vaerak—not through chains, but through dreams. Your body was taken days ago. Your mind is only now arriving.

The floor feels wrong.

Not hard. Not soft. Just... absent.

You can't remember standing, yet your knees are already on the mirrorstone—bare, aligned, trembling faintly beneath you. The chamber smells like smoke-filtered snow and incense made from memory. Dim glyph-light pulses across the blue-gold walls in untranslatable loops.

And then: you hear him breathing.

Each exhale hums through the air like a low chord from a pipe organ tuned to sleep. The chamber vibrates in time with it. The walls don't echo—they nod.

Before you, on a floating mirrored dais, hovers Thon-Vaerak, Primarch of the Dreamwrought Court. His armor glows faintly with sigils that shift as your thoughts shift. His eyes are hidden behind the golden helm. His arms hang motionless.

But you feel them around your mind.

"You were always going to kneel," he says—not aloud, but within. The words curl behind your ears like fingers against your skull.

You try to recall how you got here.

A trench. A scream. Then... black feathers? No—sleep. They put you to sleep. The Dominion didn't march into your bunker. They dreamed into it. And now you kneel, not in chains, but in trance. You are not restrained.

You are aligned.

"Your mind was stubborn," his voice whispers across your collarbone. "But your breath was ready."

You realize you've been breathing in time with him.

Another pulse. The room sways. A consort's veil lies folded beside you on the dais. Cerulean. Embroidered with lullaby-script. One edge still damp—someone else wore it recently.

"You will forget your name in stages. But your obedience... that will arrive all at once."

He floats forward. The codpiece of his golden armor looms near your face, polished to perfection, runed with words that flicker only when you stare too long. The scent of myrrh and warm feathers settles into your chest.

Then he breathes in.

Your spine straightens. Your lips part.

The veil rises. Slowly. Gracefully.

Not forced.

Invited.