Men may deem their fellow men to be stronger, better informed; even smarter. But no man thinks their peer wiser than themselves, for this would require fathoming the extent of what they don’t know. 

And yet Illyria had been confronted with its own stupidity. A civilisation which has fallen can no longer pretend wisdom when the fallibility of its people is made so plain for so long. Illyria was a planet which had long lived in the ruins of its own glory, and the current mood resembled a party at the end of Times just as the music turns sour. 

Aglaia was pacing through these thoughts as she looked outside the window of an abandoned office tower, a spire of simmering silver against the dark skies of the capital. Dust flickered in shades of gold in the weak sunlight of winter. Light and sounds streaming from the outside and into the thick atmosphere of this empty office, concealing the chaos unfolding outside. She looked into the crowds far below at street level and her stomach tightened at the sight of so many children. They were running, playing, singing, partying; but this scene betrayed the reality that they had been abandoned by their parents upon hearing the great news that had wrought commotion to Illyria.

A notice had been picked up by a comms buoy long presumed dormant. The language was clear: Empire would soon be checking on its subjects. The author wasn’t so obvious. The concept of Empire seemed so archaic so as to be poetic. 

Aglaia was living through the state of general hysteria with Vasily. Vasily had moved to the house next to hers right before chaos exploded and they immediately fell for each other. He lay naked besides her, his skin impossibly perfect and eternally exposed. The end of times weren’t the occasion for modesty and caution. Most of her friends had immediately quit their jobs to live through what was widely presumed to be their last months of freedom. Some had left their children behind. Many disappeared without a trace.

Ultra Terminum had been the name of the Illyrian sector of the cosmos since times immemorial. ‘Beyond the borders’. What borders? 10,000 standard years ago they had been a colonial outpost of the Empire, isolated from it by the Line, a dark matter filament which made interstellar travel to Ultra Terminum incredibly expensive and time-consuming. Many believe it was the hubristic and entirely unsustainable decision to maintain colonies beyond the Line what sealed the fate of the Empire. The first colonists never expected to return to the core of the Empire they had emigrated from, and their pioneering character had long made the fiercely independent Illyrians at peace with their isolation.

The only inhabitants of Illyria were robots for the first 1,000 years after an expeditionary vessel from the Empire Standard started terraforming it. An atmosphere was first synthesized and enough water was melted from the poles and surfaced from the vast underground oceans to provide for a future human population. Planet x38h9(i) became a mining center for centuries in order to support its own terraforming, until the Empire Standard transferred the world to the imperial administration for civilian use, renaming it Illyria. 

Illyria thrived. The planet thrived through millennia as exemplary subjects of the Empire, contributing taxes and rare earths at a slow but constant pace while requiring little in the way of defence. These were the hallmarks of existence beyond the Line. A slow but peaceful existence. As civil wars and religious conflict roiled Empire over millennia, Illyria developed into a prosperous society, undisputed master of its barren corner of the universe.

Chapter 2

The message had arrived precisely seventeen days ago. Aglaia remembered because she had been celebrating her thirty-third birthday when the city-wide alert system, unused for generations, had blared to life. The sound had sent glasses crashing to the floor and conversation into stunned silence as everyone's devices simultaneously flashed the same text: "Imperial Inspection Imminent. Prepare for Assessment."

Vasily stirred beside her. Unlike most Illyrians, he seemed strangely untroubled by the news. "Still watching the children?" he asked, his accent carrying the musical cadence of the southern archipelagos, “you can’t save everyone” he quipped without waiting for an answer.

"Someone should," Aglaia replied, unable to tear her gaze from the scene below. "The Ministry for Resettlement hasn't sent anyone in days."

She felt Vasily shrug as he rose from their makeshift bed—a collection of antique furniture arranged on the office floor. "They're resourceful. Illyrian children have always been independent."

"Not by choice," she countered, finally turning to face him. Vasily's beauty was disarming, even after two weeks of spending every second together. His features held a perfect symmetry that seemed almost manufactured, though he had assured her he was natural-born, not gene-crafted.

The abandoned office tower had become their sanctuary. One-hundred floors above the increasingly chaotic streets, they had found peace in the corporate relics of a bygone era—empty desks with outdated terminals, conference rooms with dust-covered chairs still arranged in perfect circles, still waiting for the meeting to start.

"Why now? After ten thousand years?" Aglaia said, breaking their comfortable silence. 

Vasily approached, wrapping his arms around her waist and joining her at the window. "Maybe Empire never truly forgot us. Perhaps they were simply... occupied."

"With what? What could possibly occupy an interstellar civilization for ten millennia?"

Aglaia’s thoughts strayed. Illyria's history was a long series of rises and falls, each generation building upon the ruins left by their predecessors. The current decline had been gentler than most—less a collapse than a slow, inexorable ebbing, like a tide retreating imperceptibly hundreds of metres on the flat beaches of Vasily’s home islands, so gradually that most citizens hardly noticed until they found themselves stranded on dry land.

"I need to visit the Archives," she said suddenly.

Vasily's embrace tightened slightly. "Why? What would thousand-year-old records tell us about what's coming?"

"Maybe nothing." She disentangled herself from his arms and began gathering her clothes—practical garments that had once been her work uniform at the Ministry of Culture. "Empire sent us here with purpose. They invested centuries in making this planet habitable. There must have been a reason beyond mere expansion."

"Maybe the fact that they milked our planet core to the point of structural instability? Just guessing" Vasily said dryly.

"Ha," Aglaia. "Those deposits have been depleted for centuries. No, there is something else." She fastened her jacket, its departmental insignia still gleaming. "And I think the answer might be in the Resettlement Directives. I’m heading to the Archives."

Vasily's expression changed, suddenly tinged with genuine concern. "The First Archives are restricted. Even before everything fell apart, they were off-limits to everyone except the Resettlement Council."

"I have clearance," Aglaia replied, not meeting his gaze. "Or I did. Before..."

"Before you were dismissed." It wasn't a question. Vasily had never asked why a historian of her reputation had suddenly been removed from her position three months earlier. Now, his eyes narrowed with newfound curiosity. "What did you find, Aglaia?"

She hesitated, her hand instinctively moving to touch the small data cylinder hanging from a chain around her neck—her most precious possession, containing the culmination of her life's research. "Nothing conclusive. Just... patterns. Inconsistencies in our historical record."

"Such as?"

"Such as the fact that the Empire didn't abandon us," she said quietly. "We abandoned them."

The silence that followed her words felt heavier than the dust-laden air of their temporary home. Vasily's expression was unreadable.

"History is written by those who wish to shape the future," Aglaia replied, reciting the first principle of her former profession. "I believe the original colonists cut ties with Empire deliberately, using the Line as their excuse."

"And you think this... inspection... is actually a reckoning?" Vasily moved to dress himself, his previously languid movements now quick and purposeful.

"I don't know. But I intend to find out." Aglaia checked her personal device—one of the few still functioning after the communications network had begun to collapse under the weight of panic-driven usage and an ever more unstable magnetic field. "The Archives should be empty. Everyone who matters has already fled beneath the sea."

Vasily was fully dressed now. "I'm coming with you."

She studied him for a moment, this man who had appeared in her life at precisely the moment everything else began to fall apart. "Why? You hardly know me."

His smile returned, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm a history wonk myself."

They descended through the abandoned tower, passing floors that told the story of Illyria's decline in reverse chronological order—the more recently abandoned offices still bearing personal touches, plants not yet completely withered, forgotten mugs with remnants of drinks long evaporated. Lower floors showed progressively greater decay, until they reached the lobby with its cracked marble floors and tarnished directory listing companies that had ceased operations generations ago.

Outside, the capital was transformed. What had once been orderly streets now resembled the chaotic aftermath of a festival that had spiraled out of control. Abandoned vehicles cluttered the main thoroughfares, many still humming with residual power. Shops stood open and unattended, their contents spilling onto sidewalks. The children Aglaia had observed from above darted between these obstacles, their games having evolved complex rules that incorporated the new landscape of disorder.

"They're organizing themselves," Vaasily noted as they watched a group of older children distributing food to younger ones. "Creating their own society."

"Out of necessity," Aglaia reiterated, although she couldn't help feeling a spark of admiration.

They made their way through the transformed city toward the Central Administrative District, where the Archives occupied an imposing structure resembling a windowless slab of black stone—a building deliberately designed to appear both ancient and timeless. Unlike the surrounding government buildings, no signs of abandonment marred its perfect façade.

At the entrance, a solitary guard remained at his post, his uniform immaculate despite the collapse occurring around him. He straightened as they approached.

"The Archives are closed by order of the Emergency Regents," he announced, his voice betraying no emotion.

Aglaia stepped forward. "I have clearance." She displayed her identification, the embedded chip still glowing with authorization codes. "Ministry of Culture, Special Research Division."

The guard's eyes flickered over her credentials, then to Vasily. "And him?"

"My assistant," Aglaia lied smoothly. "Recently appointed."

The guard hesitated, but nodded after Vasily flashed what looked like a large amount of credits. Aglaia winced and pretended not to see. "The main systems are operating on emergency power. Most terminals are non-functional. You have two hours before I have to remove the breathable atmosphere for the night."

"That should be enough," Aglaia replied. They passed through the imposing entrance into the hushed interior of humanity's oldest continuous repository of knowledge beyond the Line.

Inside, the vast atrium stood empty, the usual bustle of researchers and administrators replaced by an eerie silence broken only by the faint hum of essential systems. Aglaia led Vasily past the public research areas toward a restricted elevator at the far end of the hall.

"The First Archives are below," she explained, placing her palm against a scanner. For a tense moment, nothing happened. Then, with a soft chime, the doors slid open. "They contain the original records brought by the colony ships, along with all communication with Empire prior to the Severance."

"The what?" Vasily asked as they entered the elevator.

"The Severance. The moment when Illyria unofficially declared itself independent from Empire." The elevator began its descent, smooth and silent. "We also call it the 'Protocol"

The elevator stopped with barely a sensation of movement, opening onto a dimly lit corridor lined with doors of what appeared to be actual wood—an extravagance on a planet where no native trees grew since the advent of sentient life.

"This is... not what I expected," Vasily said, trailing his fingers along the ancient paneling.

"The original colonists brought these materials from Earth," Aglaia explained, moving confidently down the corridor. "They believed in physical preservation of the most important knowledge, not just digital. Especially after what happened to the homeworld."

"And what was that?" Vasily asked, his voice oddly tense.

Aglaia stopped before a door marked simply "Origin." She turned to face him fully. " Every reference to Earth's fate is deliberately vague or contradictory, by design. The founders of Illyria want to hide what happened to Earth, but we could never glean why. The communications blackout beyond the Line made it easy to implant conflicting stories.”

The door swung open silently, revealing a room that seemed to belong to another era entirely. Physical books lined shelves from floor to ceiling. Display cases contained artifacts labeled with handwritten tags. And at the center, a single terminal glowed with soft blue light.

"This is it," Aglaia whispered, her historian's heart racing at the sight of such perfectly preserved antiquity. "The First Archive. Everything we know of Earth and Empire, decorated by the tellings of the Council, collected in one place."