The cameras had settled into a hum that felt like a second heartbeat. A ring of floodlights stitched the sky above House Bergmann's orbital dais into daytime at midnight; the halo made every polished surface glow like a promise. StarNet nodes relayed the feed in a dozen languages. Millions watched. Houses tuned their courtyards. The Crown reserved a seat. On the dais, Marcel Bergmann stood as if he’d been carved for this exact angle—broad shoulders, silvered hair pulled back into the traditional braid, a face that had been photographed for speeches and treaty seals for a generation. In his arms was the oracle egg, larger than a man’s head, gilt with sigils that shivered when the light hit them. Reporters clustered at the edge of the dais, their sleeves flashing the logos of networks and patron sponsors. A drone camera hovered, neck flexing like an expectant bird. "It must be a predator," someone whispered near the barricade, and the word passed through the crowd, multiplying. House Bergmann bred hunters; their heirs were meant to wake as apex spirits—beastshapes of tooth and cunning that anchored the House’s name across a dozen star-spheres. The awakening was theatre, law, and lineage. Marcel smiled—controlled, deep, not the smile of a man uncertain. "We will welcome it," he said. His voice carried through the open air and into the broadcast like iron into water. "Whatever it is, it is ours. It will carry Bergmann into the next