The Architects of Eternity

José Monteiro achieved what no Montarion had accomplished since the beginning of the Great Cycles. He negotiated with the Universe itself.

He refused to become Emperor, prevented the convergence of realities and destroyed the seeds of the Artificial Intelligence that would give rise to the War of the Heirs. For the first time, the future was no longer written. But freedom came at a price.

As part of the agreement, when his human sons turned twenty, they would be summoned to the Center of the Universe. Gabriel and Daniel would gain access to the knowledge accumulated by the Council’s nine civilizations and would cease to age biologically.

They would not be immortal. They would neither fall ill nor grow old, but they could die. They could be murdered. And no Primordial Law would condemn the species responsible for their deaths.

Their mission would be to find what neither the Council, nor the Druids, nor the Universe itself had ever discovered: a way to stabilise every universe without forcing them to converge into a single reality.

Twenty years later, the summons arrives.

Prepared by Sofia through Spulve science, the history of the Universe, strategy, philosophy and combat, the two brothers enter the Council as free men. They will be required to appear only once a year and may build lives of their own. Yet the universes remain wounded.

The links between realities are disappearing, and a time will come when no union, solution or sacrifice will be able to save them.

In the Council’s archives, Gabriel and Daniel discover that the answer may lie in a conclusion they reached as children: a portal does not truly transport a person through space. It convinces the Universe that the person is already on the other side.

If the Universe can be convinced that one person belongs somewhere else, perhaps millions of universes can be made to recognize one another as parts of the same system without being destroyed or merged.

To prove their theory, the brothers must cross boundaries no civilization has ever passed, challenge the fundamental laws of existence and survive all those who prefer a familiar solution to an impossible hope.

But while time has stopped passing through their bodies, it will continue to take the people they love.

And when Gabriel and Daniel begin to defend different paths for saving existence, they will discover that the greatest danger may not lie in the dying universes. It may lie between them.

José Monteiro broke the prophecy. Now his sons must prove that a future without destiny deserves to survive.