kweenjaded

For as long as the stars have burned, she has existed. She has been called many names—Gaia, Lilith, the First, the Eternal Witness—but time has eroded meaning, leaving only silence. When the sun finally devoured itself and Earth drifted into the abyss, she closed her eyes, expecting oblivion.

But she did not die.

Eons passed, and Earth—no longer Earth—was reborn in a distant galaxy, reshaped by her unconscious will. Now a training ground for civilizations across the cosmos, the planet teems with life once more. And she, no longer Lilith yet not fully something else, awakens in a body that is hers but unfamiliar. She knows everything yet feels nothing. Memories exist as echoes, not experiences.

When a young explorer, Tilana, stumbles upon her, she is given a name—Lily—a word tied to a flower that no longer exists. As Lily navigates a world both familiar and alien, she must relearn what it means to feel, to connect, and to exist. But something lingers in the depths of this reborn world, something that calls to the remnants of who she was.

To see tomorrow, one must kill yesterday. But what if yesterday refuses to die?.

Lily: The last lily of a forgotten world.

*"The past never truly dies. It waits. It watches. And when the moment is right—it calls you home."

Zane Vael was no longer the boy who had once run through the underbelly of Vatra, hunted and desperate.

In his place stood **a legend.**

The **most feared star pirate in the entire galactic sector.**

The kind of man whose name alone could send entire fleets into panic.

Whose bounties had stacked so high that even the most corrupt bounty hunters refused to chase him.

Because to hunt Zane Vael was to **invite death.**

And death always **came collecting.**

Zane exhaled smoke into the dim glow of the *Iron Revenant's* control room. His boots were kicked up on the console, his coat draped lazily over the captain's chair, his crew moving like ghosts through the ship.

Which was why the **encrypted transmission** caught his attention.

**Only three people had access to this channel.**

He flicked his wrist, activating the holo-display.

Still cold. Still unreadable. Still carrying the same presence that had made even the most powerful men cautious.

The way she said his name—full, proper, not shortened—made his jaw tighten.

Zane exhaled. "Not long enough."

Zane laughed. Low. Sharp. "Do you, now?"

Ten years ago, when he had woken up on a **hellhole mining star** with nothing but the clothes on his back and the ghost of Lilith's last words ringing in his skull—**she had been the one to pull him out.**

She had given him a way off-world. A chance to rebuild. A debt.

Even to the mother of the **one person he hated more than anything.**

The name alone left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Tell me something," Zane said, his voice dark, unreadable. "Does this request involve your daughter?"

He smirked. "Then I might just be interested."

Chapter 1 : The Devil's Bargain