Chapter Text
When Epsilon reached the top of the obsidian staircase, Sirius was there on the balcony, gazing at the desert. The room was empty, but illuminated by the radiant crown floating inches above their hands.
Sirius turned, features still as always, but Epsilon caught the slight widening of their eyes. “Prince Epsilon.”
“You thought I was Delta.” He crossed his arms.
The door far below slammed open, thudding footsteps began the ascent.
“There he is,” Sirius murmured, looking downward through layers of stone.
“But I got here first.” Epsilon took a step closer to the Corona Borealis. “I win, don’t I?” The half-hope, half-cynicism swirled in his chest like water.
“Delta defeated more creatures than you did.”
“But it’s whoever makes it to the tower first.” Epsilon’s eyes flashed, and Sirius looked at him with the same thoughtful, quiet air. “Right? Tell me I won the crown.”
“Epsilon,” they said gently, and that was enough.
“You always planned for him to win.” Something icy was growing inside him. “Were the Trials even fair?”
“Delta has been the most receptive to every lesson. He will make a powerful emperor when the day comes.”
“Were the Trials even fair?” Epsilon repeated, eyes burning white now.
Though neither of them saw it, the Corona Borealis pulsed in unison to Epsilon, shadowy tendrils reaching to him. The darkness was blinding, somehow, flashbang and midnight mixed together.
“They favored the chosen,” was all Sirius said, still clasping the Corona.
“Give me the crown.”
“It was not made for you. You are too weak to receive it.”
Then the pounding footsteps increased in volume, and Prince Delta was there with them. He had a terrible, beautiful smile.
“Of course you knew.” Epsilon felt as he never had before, rage tearing out of quiet resignation. “Of course you knew! Did everyone? Was I the only one uniformed of this?”
“Yes,” Delta said smugly. “I was always poised to inherit the throne, Epsilon. You cannot presume to take it simply because you went around every obstacle.”
Epsilon’s mouth tasted like ash. No. Like shadow. This strange, new feeling poured through him, reaching to him with power more than he thought he’d had. He welcomed it.
Sirius looked at the Corona Borealis as it slipped from their hands, drifting to Epsilon. “You do not know what you are doing, void prince.”
“Give me that,” Delta broke in brusquely, lunging between Epsilon and the floating crown.
Epsilon had been letting the growing power idly float itself toward him, but now he yanked on the figurative rope and tugged , pulled, dragged it in. His feet left the ground, and the room flickered into everything and nothing, all at once. Delta’s short-lived flames did nothing to stop it.
Sirius had been simply watching all this time, hovering unnaturally still in the cacophony. “So this is how it ends,” they said. “You summon a black hole in the middle of our empire. Not a practice one, not a contained one. A true gravitational singularity, so powerful spacetime itself breaks down.”
Wait, what? Epsilon ceased his efforts, gasping, but nothing could stop that anymore. “No- I didn’t mean to-”
Delta’s smile died into a snarl, a baring of fangs as he leapt once more against unforgiving winds.
Spacetime must’ve already been breaking, for Epsilon suddenly saw all his siblings down below, heard them screaming as they dissolved into atoms. The sand beneath them rose formless into the air, the castles in the distance twisting and pulling brick by brick.
“All of this avoided had you just stayed in your place,” Sirius said, still clear through the deafening static. “ Weakling.”
Now no one and nothing was visible except Epsilon, feeling invisible hands tear him at the core of his making, and Sirius, across from him, untouched. The desert, the tower, the creatures, Delta, the planet. All of it gone.
Sirius drew closer. “This is but a fraction of the Corona Borealis’s power, and it is enough. It ends the Empire. It scatters the Sovereigns. Can you live with this, Epsilon?”
Epsilon should’ve let the black hole eat him alive then. He should’ve surrendered to his weakness, taken the eternal punishment for damning it all in a moment.
He didn’t.
In the end, he didn’t know where he drew the power from anymore. All he knew was that he blindly took the void, all of it he could command, and said to it bring me away, anywhere but here, as far as you can.
It hurtled him light-years away, and he was able to stare up at the sky as an empire of suns went supernova, every last piece of debris swallowed by the unforgiving black hole. Even at that distance, the singularity was still growing, reaching for the land he stood on, so Epsilon drew the void to himself and warped again, and again, and again.
He didn’t even realize how far he’d run until he reached for the void once more and the stars swayed around him. He collapsed to the ground like an extinguished candle.
When he awoke, someone was with him, a nameless iron-booted peasant that explained the basics of “Parkour Civilization” and the way they jumped and moved and earned food. “You think you can make it here, buddy?”
Epsilon thought of the stars again, the world long-destroyed by now.
He took the pro’s outstretched hand and pulled himself up. “I’ll make do.”
—
“Delta,” Epsilon hissed, almost shoving Evbo behind him quickly. The centuries had changed his brother. He had a scar over his left eye now, and a golden crown- but not that crown- draped over long golden curls. The mania twinkling in his eyes was more pronounced, less stable.
“I haven’t heard that name for centuries,” Delta giggled. “I’ve been going by Prince ‘Zam’ here and there, you know. Had a few adventures.”
“Epsilon, who is this?” Evbo whispered, clutching his arm.
Unfortunately, that only drew Delta’s attention to Evbo. “You’ve picked up a little stray, I see. A backwater god from a backwater civilization, hmm? And here I thought you’d be creating a new empire with all that power-” his voice turned venomously sharp- “you stole from me.”
Yeah. Definitely unstable.
“Stay away from Evbo,” Epsilon said, drawing a void blade.
“Why? Is he precious to you?” Delta grinned, then held up a hand. “Don’t answer that. I don’t care. I’m just here for the Northern Crown.”
When you activate a beacon, Epsilon, we come calling. Even if it’s only lit for a single second. Epsilon gritted his teeth at the reminder and held the sword tighter.
“I’ve waited for so long! I was starting to think you’d crawled away with it and died!” Delta giggled again, then glanced at the sun. “But a few days ago (by this planet’s rotation speed), I felt a ghost of a pulse. Like the faintest whisper of the Corona, right from here. Strange, isn’t it?”
“Uh,” Evbo said. “We don’t-”
Epsilon glared at him and talked over him. “What do you want?”
“Epsilon, I want the Corona Borealis ,” Delta emphasized, as if Epsilon was being dense. “I know you have it.”
What if, hypothetically, it felt like a ghost of a pulse because Sirius actually did die with it? What if they only gave it to a murderous jester a few days ago, who then used it to manipulate me into possibly using it at least once… hypothetically? What if we theoretically did not have the Corona Borealis?? Epsilon did not say any of this aloud. Instead, he opted for saying “And if I refuse?”
Delta snapped his fingers. The air turned colder. Epsilon immediately turned and tackled Evbo, letting the shadows pull them a few hundred blocks away. At the top of Evbo’s house, a massive blue-pink-purple portal opened, and a hundred-foot-long space whale swam down through it, swallowing the house whole. It swam back up to Delta a few seconds later, glowing like a dozen galaxies and looking pleased with itself.
“I brought backup,” Delta smirked. “You remember the space leviathan from the last day you saw me?” He patted it fondly. “You have forty-eight Standard Hours to give me the Corona Borealis, or this creature and I destroy your world.”
Epsilon stared at the empty space where pillars of marble had stood minutes earlier, so lost in the rapid destruction that he almost missed it when a burning child’s miniature of a sun hit him. He caught it before it fell.
“Use that flare, and I’ll know,” Delta called. “I’m sure you won’t make any stupid decisions, dear brother.”
Then he was gone on that stupid whale, flying away alongside it. The leviathan brushed through another two buildings on its way out, sending chunks of stone spraying out.
Epsilon exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding, raising the small sun in his hands.
“...you have a lot to tell me,” Evbo said finally.
“I do.” Another revelation struck Epsilon. “Remember how the Jester swore to haunt my dreams forever, et cetera?”
“This doesn’t feel important, but yeah?”
“He wasn’t here last night. Was he in your dreams?”
Evbo shook his head.
“And he has the Corona, doesn’t he? Why would he leave?”
“Maybe he just changed his mind about bothering us,” Evbo suggested.
“No, he’s vengeful. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Who cares where he’s gone?” Evbo said suddenly. “Seawatt’s also disappeared, you know. We need to look for him.”
Epsilon stared at Evbo. “Who cares about Seawatt ?” He winced. “Okay, that was harsh. But right now, our priority has to be finding the Corona Borealis.”
Evbo was staring at him back. “Are you seriously going to hand it over to- what’s his name- Delta?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know, but we need to at least have it if you don’t want your civilization destroyed.”
“‘My’ civilization? You live here too.” Evbo huffed. “And you know who else does? Seawatt. Okay? We need to find him. Maybe he can help us deal with this.”
“Are you really choosing Seawatt over Parkour Civilization?”
“Are you choosing your Corona Borealis over a person?” Epsilon shot back. “This is idiotic. We can find him after we’ve resolved this.”
“What if he’s dead? What if he needs our help?”
“Fine! Go, then!” Epsilon snapped. “Go look for him while I actually hunt down the one thing that will stop Delta from annihilating your world.”
Evbo recoiled. “Epsilon-”
The shadows folded, and he was already gone.