With Solenne joining the operation, Aurelian felt more comfortable about the hunt from the start.

He did not wait for her to finish her transfer work and catch up before moving out, because that would have defeated the point.

Her engines were better suited for making up time than Lysara’s or Rhoswen’s, especially after everything she had just been doing.

If he delayed for her, then the three of them might have ended up reaching the Mournveil Nebula later than he wanted, and that would have been a worse trade than simply trusting Solenne to arrive when she said she would.

Once the final coordination was complete, he gave the order to continue.

The ship accelerated out toward the dark edge of Haven’s control zone, with Lysara and Rhoswen moving in formation under his direction.

Behind them, Larkspur Haven slowly disappeared into the distance, its scattered reconstruction lights fading into a pattern of small signals against the black.

Ahead, the route to Mournveil stretched through a region few people in this frontier would have bothered mapping in detail. That did not matter. He already had the route he needed, and that was enough.

The farther they moved from settled space, the quieter everything became. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

The usual traffic noise fell away first. Then the scattered markers of patrol paths and resource lines. Then, even the sense of moving through a region that belonged to anyone at all.

By the time the first traces of the nebula appeared ahead, space had taken on that old frontier look again, the one that always made Aurelian feel like he was standing at the edge of something unfinished.

Mournveil was beautiful in the cold way only space phenomena could be. Vast dust layers and veils of ionized light stretched across the dark in pale blue, violet, and dim silver, turning part of the void into something almost luminous.

From a distance, it looked soft. Up close, it was not soft at all. It was interference, hidden mass, broken visibility, and enough noise to make ordinary exploration slower and more irritating than it was worth unless someone already had a reason to go in.

Aurelian watched it through the main display as the ship crossed the outer threshold.

"It would be easy to miss things in here," Rhoswen said, standing a little off to one side and looking at the veil of light ahead.

"That is the point of places like this," Lysara replied. "They hide many unknowns that could either make you rich or destroy you and those close to you."

Rhoswen glanced at her but didn’t say anything against it.

Because what Lysara said made sense in a weird way, as this is how many of the special items that have been hidden have been found.

Aurelian let the exchange pass without comment and kept his attention on the route.

Once inside, the nebula made everything feel more distant than it was. Sensor returns came slower, cleaner only in narrow bands, and the visual field shifted every few minutes as new clouds of particulate drifted across the path.

It would have been annoying without the route lock. With it, it was simply something to move through.

Hours later, the first star came into view.

It emerged from the dust, a blue-white giant hanging in the dark, with enough radiance to wash the surrounding haze in cold light.

Several worlds moved around it in wide, orderly lines, some little more than dark stones, others large enough that Aurelian briefly wondered what they might hold if someone ever bothered to check them properly.

Rhoswen stared at it openly.

"That’s bigger than I expected."

"It usually is, the first time," Lysara said.

Aurelian studied the system readouts for a moment, then said, "Mark it."

He did this because these kinds of areas are important for future travels.

This far out, names became another way to turn the unknown into something that belonged on your map rather than in the void.

Rhoswen looked at him. "What are we calling it?"

Aurelian thought for a second, eyes still on the star.

"Velis."

Lysara glanced toward the system marker as it updated. "Simple."

"It doesn’t need to be anything else."

She accepted that easily enough.

They continued deeper.

The radius of the first system was broad, and even with the new drives, it took time to move cleanly through its pull and out toward the inner route indicated in Aurelian’s plotted approach.

Eventually, the next stars appeared ahead, and these were the ones that actually mattered.

The twin stars of the pocket were impressive even before they were close. One burned blue-white like a sharpened blade, the other darker and redder, more swollen and heavy-looking even from a distance.

Together they hung in the dark like two opposing fires trapped in the same piece of sky.

Rhoswen leaned slightly toward the forward display.

"So that’s where we’re fighting."

"If all goes well," Aurelian said.

"And if it doesn’t?"

"Then we adapt."

That answer satisfied her enough.

Lysara had already pulled up a local tactical projection and was tracing over the broad shape of the system with calm concentration.

"You should mark this one too," she said. "If you plan to come back later, it will be easier to think about the place properly if it has a name."

Rhoswen immediately said, "Call it Twinfire."

Lysara’s expression shifted by only a fraction. "That is terrible."

Rhoswen looked offended. "It’s accurate."

"It is obvious," Lysara corrected.

Aurelian looked at the twin stars again, blue and red burning across the black, then said, "No. We’ll call it Redglass."

Rhoswen blinked. "Why?"

"Because from a distance the light looks like stained glass broken across the dark."

There was a brief silence after that.

Then Lysara nodded once. "That works."

Rhoswen folded her arms. "Mine was still good."

"No," Lysara said, "it wasn’t."

The mapping finished a few moments later, and once the naming was done, they turned back to the more important matter.

The question was where to fight.

At first glance, the obvious choice was to use the stars themselves.

Heat, radiation, and gravity could all be turned into weapons if the enemy was foolish enough to chase too far inward, and Voidshade Fenrir were not known for caution.

But after thinking it through, Aurelian rejected the idea.