Interlude: Glass and Gold

The office overlooked the city like a throne room without the extravagant chair. Golden towers pierced the clouds below, their faceted surfaces catching the light of a distant star and scattering it into blinding brilliance. Highways braided through the skyline in slow, luminous currents—lanes of hovering traffic flowing in perfect, obedient arcs. Cargo skiffs and private cruisers drifted between buildings like lazy fish in a sea of glass, their navigation lights blinking in precise harmony. Far beneath it all, Grand City churned—endless, immaculate, alive.

Khi’larh Voss stood at the window with his hands clasped behind his back.

From this height, the city was quiet. Controlled. Beautiful in the way only something ruthlessly managed could be. No disturbances. No chaos. Just motion and profit and order, stretching to the horizon.

It pleased him, almost enough to take his mind away from the news report about his son.

But not quite.

The doors to his office swung open behind him.

“Un-fucking-believable,” came the voice of a young male.

“Do you have any idea what they’re saying about me?”

Rylan’s voice cracked through the room, sharp with fury and wounded pride. He was tall and slender, pale skin stark against the pristine lines of his attire. Straight golden hair was neatly combed back, cascading down his spine like a polished waterfall, never a strand out of place. Emerald-green eyes burned with indignation beneath the controlled exterior. A long white coat trimmed in gold hung from his shoulders, immaculate and perfectly fitted—every inch of him curated, orderly, and precise. Footsteps crossed the polished floor in fast, uneven strides.

“I’m a fucking joke out there,” Rylan continued, breathless. “Every feed, every back-channel—people are laughing. Laughing!”

He paused, realizing his father hadn’t so much as turned to look at him.

“Do you hear me? I’m the heir to the Voss Corporation, am I not? Something has to be done about this.”

Khi’larh did not turn.

Rylan stopped a few paces behind him, fists clenched, waiting.

Silence stretched.

“Father?” Rylan snapped. “Are you even listening to me?”

Khi’larh sighed—softly, as if mildly inconvenienced—and finally turned just enough for his profile to be seen against the city’s glow. His expression was calm. Remote. The kind of calm that had ended hostile takeovers and erased competitors without raising its voice.

“What an embarrassment you’ve become,” he said.

Rylan stiffened. “Excuse me?”

“You want me…,” Khi’larh continued, voice smooth and precise, “to broadcast weakness to the entire sector because my son couldn’t hold onto a FUCKING ship.”

The words landed hard.

Rylan opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“You expect me,” Khi’larh went on, “to involve authorities? To mobilize corporate assets? To make a spectacle of the fact that the Voss heir decided to slum it in a backwater dock and paid the price for it?”

He turned fully now, eyes like polished steel.

“I’ll do no such thing.”

“But Father,” said Rylan as he took a step forward, “that ship is worth more than—”

“That ship,” Khi’larh cut in, “was entrusted to you. And because you only care about impressing those beneath you… you’ve been made a fool.”

Silence again—thick, suffocating.

“You will retrieve the Starcutter,” Khi’larh said evenly. “By any means necessary. Quietly. Privately. Without the use of the company’s resources.”

Rylan stared at him. “Without— Father, that’s—”

“Non-negotiable.”

A pause. Khi’larh studied his son the way one might assess a failing investment.

“This is adulthood, Rylan,” he said. “Cleaning your own mess without crying for someone else to do it for you.”

Rylan’s voice wavered despite himself. “You’re just going to… do nothing?”

“I’m doing exactly what I should,” Khi’larh replied. “I’m seeing whether you’re worth the name you carry.”

He turned back to the window, dismissing him without another glance.

“If you succeed,” he added, almost casually, “you’ll have proven you can defend what’s yours.”

“And if I don’t?” Rylan asked hesitantly.

Khi’larh didn’t answer.

The city reflected in the glass—gold and motion and distance. A world that did not bend for failure.

Rylan stood there for a long moment, jaw tight, hands shaking—not with fear, but with something colder taking root.

Then he turned and walked out.

The doors swung shut behind him without a sound.

Voss remained at the window, watching the city move exactly as it was meant to.

The theft of the Starcutter was more than just a petty shipjacking. It could potentially embolden the common folk. It could not be allowed to go unanswered, yet he could not risk showing concern for the matter. His son would just have to manage without him…

—Or drown into nothing trying.

End Chapter—