S01E01 · Attack on the High Priestess (Meyn) is the Prologue from Legacy, Book One of the Orriona Universe.

When High Priestess Nienna's ceremonial fleet is ambushed by an ancient enemy, her last surviving Warden must witness her final moments—and a desperate sacrifice that will rewrite the timeline itself. As boarding craft rip through the hull and reality begins to fracture, Meyn faces a truth his oath never prepared him for: some acts of devotion transcend death.

Meanwhile, the sentient starship Orriona receives Nienna's distress call—breaking centuries of exile to save an old friend. But to mount a rescue, she needs a crew. Her search leads to Edgepoint Station, a decaying frontier outpost where she finds an unlikely group: a doctor with a theatrical partner, an engineer haunted by her past, a con artist with dangerous skills, and a disgraced pilot trapped in his own tragedy.

This is the prologue to LEGACY—a character-first space epic set in a queer-norm galaxy where no one needs to come out, found families are forged among the stars, and hope burns brightest in the darkest corners of the galaxy.

WHAT TO EXPECT:

1. Audio drama adaption of Legacy with cinematic sound design
2. A queer-norm galaxy (no homophobia, no coming-out angst—just space adventures)
3. A found-family in a queer-norm galaxy.
4. A mysterious sentient ship with a will of its own.
5. A tender, slow-burn M/M romance.
6. Heists, ancient mysteries, and epic space battles.
7. Grand, hopeful adventure with a massive heart.

CONTENT NOTES:

Space-battle peril, some violence, grief, telepathy/mental pressure

WHERE TO PURCHASE THE BOOK:

Currently in Kindle Unlimited.

Visit https://www.orriona.com/ and subscribe to the newsletter for more information about wider availability and free content.

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Welcome aboard. The Driftline awaits.

#QueerSciFi #AudioDrama #SpaceOpera

A muffled boom rattled through Meyn’s boots as yet another boarding craft clamped onto the freighter’s hull. Through the towering viewport of High Priestess Nienna’s chambers, he watched the swarm of attack ships emerge from their cloaking fields like predatory insects, their mandible-like docking claws ripping into the freighter’s armor plating, tearing metal with mechanized savagery that reminded him of the carnivorous beetles from the southern forests of Axratha.

You needn't hover quite so close, dear boy.

Nienna’s voice carried its familiar lilt as she adjusted the folds of her ceremonial robe. Her weathered fingers traced the ancient patterns woven into the fabric, the same way they had every evening for the twenty years Meyn had been a part of her guard.

The end of my life hardly requires an audience.

Faint golden luminescence pulsed across Meyn’s twin wristlets, broadcasting his inner tension. Each bracelet housed a Tesseract Dagger held in stasis, long seen as mere symbols, but now buzzing at the threshold of their true power.

“The Wardenhood’s oath doesn’t vanish just because the battle has turned, Revered One.”

Scarlet emergency lights flashed through the chamber, setting the crystal mosaics on the walls aglow and washing Nienna’s white hair in crimson.

Outside, a silent flash erupted against the void. Alarms howled in an offbeat accompaniment to the distant roar of weapon fire and twisted metal as intruders forced their way through each successive deck.

The Oath? Seven years old when they brought you to me. Such a serious child. I still say you should have stayed on Polarion 7 a bit longer. How old were you then? 17.

You showed the first hint of something other than duty when that young prince started making eyes at you. And truly his cheekbones were spectacular. You would have made a striking pair of I had such hopes you'd finally have your rebellious phase.

Storm into my chambers, declaring your undying love for him. But no, My shadow stayed faithful to his oath instead. A disappointment to my romantic sensibilities, yes, but even more so to the old songs.

They do so love a warrior that chooses love over duty at least once in their life.

Meyn’s grip on his bracelets tightened. His thoughts drifted to that diplomatic trip.

For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself to remember the stolen hour in the Pellarian gardens, hidden among luminous blooms. The prince’s lips against his, tentative at first, then bold. Fire rushed through his veins as strong hands drew him closer, shattering years of practiced control.

For those few sacred moments, duty had vanished like morning mist against the rising sun; he’d glimpsed a life where he might belong to himself first. The raw possibility terrified him more than facing any army. He had wondered how much Nienna had seen in his eyes when he returned.

“The Wardenhood demands concentration, Revered One,” he said, falling back on the same line he’d used before.

Tell me, in all these years protecting an old soul, have you ever allowed yourself to truly live? Meyn?

He had no time to answer. The ship's intercom chimed.

High Priestess, they have reached the sanctuary level. We don't know how long can hold them off.

Lock down the vault. It won't keep them from taking it, but it'll slow them.

Her voice softened a touch.

And, my dear, it has been an honor.

The channel went dead. Revered one, we need to get you to-

To where? The vault? No. I believe I'll meet what comes next right here, surrounded by the history of of our people.

She gestured to the text and artwork, then to the stars beyond the viewport.

But you, my faithful Shadow, you can still make a different choice.

Another explosion rocked the ship, closer now. From the corridor came the distinctive song of tesseract daggers phasing through space time. As his brothers fought to hold the line.

The energy coursing through his own blades urged him to join them. They were buying a few more moments with their lives.

He might have rushed to fight in his younger days, but two decades at Nienna's side had taught him the power of waiting.

Before they breach these doors, Speak freely to me,

nienna said, smoothing a crease in her robe.

Set aside tradition and duty. Ask me anything, my serious shadow. Let me hear your true voice one last time.

A luminous glow pulsed across Maine's twin wristlets as he summoned deeper questions. For 20 years to too had orbited the edges of his thoughts, never spoken aloud.

Now, with time slipping away like sand through fingers, he broke his silence at the Temple of Spheria when the Second Quadrant sent their envoy. I remember the tension in the Council chambers. The Kethroc were threatening war, demanding concessions they knew we would never grant.

To appease them, you offered an audience in the most sacred place in the galaxy. He paused, letting the true puzzle take shape. The conclave answered your great honor with a profound insult.

They sent a junior diplomat with no real power. Yet you treated him as if he were that emperor, our greatest rival. Yet you gave him a gift.

You've been holding onto that one since the day it happened, haven't you?

Meyn leaned forward, his question an intimate confession of shared history. I understood part of the strategy, Revered One. You bought us Time. But I've never understood the risk.

Why reveal such crucial intelligence to an enemy preparing for war? Her gaze grew distant as the memory hung between them, delicate as starlight. Beyond the viewport, another silent explosion bloomed.

But for this stolen moment, they were back in that candlelit chamber, the fate of thousands of star systems balanced on the rim of a wine glass.

The evening of your first formal attendance as my shadow. I remember it well, looking over and seeing you standing by the pillar, so small in your new armor, your little hands clenched into fists.

A rare, genuine laugh escaped her pure fondness as she settled back, her voice taking on the familiar tone of private lessons.

The Conclave sent that boy for one reason. To fail. They wanted him publicly humiliated by my refusal to return home with nothing. The perfect pretext to escalate their aggressions.

She touched the crystal brooch at her collar. It was a gesture Meyn had seen thousands of times in moments of reflection.

But in their arrogance, they gave me the perfect weapon. The boy himself. An ambitious, overlooked junior diplomat desperate to prove his worth to masters who saw him as expendable.

She leaned forward.

Do you remember the wine we served him? The Kethroc are notoriously secretive about their origins, possessive of their identity to the point of paranoia.

Their homeworld's location, family holdings, true names, all carefully guarded state secrets.

So when I casually requested wine from our archives and served them a vintage from the northern provinces of Kethrock prime, specifically from the vineyard that overlooks their delegation leader's ancestral family estate, well.

She laughed, soft and deadly.

The poor deer nearly choked on his first sip.

Her eyes gleamed with wicked satisfaction.

That wine wasn't just a threat. It was a demonstration that Axrathan intelligence runs deeper than the Conclave could ever imagine.

And in that moment of dawning terror when he realized how much we truly knew about him, I offered him something no junior diplomat had ever dreamed of. Not just the location of the pirate fleet, but the precise two day window in which their entire command structure would be gathered for a refit.

Their shields down, their defenses at their most vulnerable. I wasn't giving a gift to my enemy. I was handing a career making victory to my newest, most secret asset.

Meyn's eyes widened as the final pieces clicked into place. You didn't strengthen the Conclave. You created a dissident. He took a step closer, the full, breathtaking scope of her gambit unfolding in his mind.

And they weren't just any pirates. They were Pellarian dissidents. By pointing the Keth'rok at them, you didn't Just create an asset.

You stabilized the crown of our oldest allies without ever firing a single Axrathan shot.

The boy returned home a hero,

Nienna said, a flicker of wicked satisfaction in her eyes.

He used the intelligence to lead a successful campaign, earning him the respect of his rivals. He became one of the Conclave's most prominent senators, and has been a quiet but unshakable voice for de escalation with Axratha.

That single conversation, maine said softly, brought not just Axratha but the galaxy years of peace. It did, she agreed, though something deeper existed in her gaze.

It also bought us time to fortify our people, to prepare them for the day when my one quiet voice in their senate would no longer be enough.

From the hall came the groaning of doors under heavy impacts. For a flash of time, Maine could see her not just as someone he was sworn to protect, but as the heir to an immense and fearsome legacy.

She had transformed the raw power of their heritage into artful diplomatic strokes so subtle that even he who stood as her constant shadow hadn't fully grasped the depths of her strategy. In her, the legendary fire that once made star systems tremble now manifested in something far more potent.

The slight tilt of her head during negotiations, or the calculated moment she offered an enemy their own prized wine.

She stood as living proof that true power transcended brute force, that the greatest victory wasn't in destruction, but in making adversaries grateful for peace. Her eyes found his penetrating and intent.

Was that your only question, my shadow?

Between tremors, Maine's thumb traced the edge of a wristlet. I've wondered about something else. You visited the ancestral sanctums in public, yet the attendants say you used to stay there long past midnight.

Alone. Nienna's expression turned reflective, slipping free of Her diplomatic veneer,

wondering if your high priestess truly communed with the divine, or if it was all just another performance for the masses.

She settled into her favorite chair, the one positioned to catch the light of distant stars.

The truth is less grand than any performance.

The freighter groaned as yet another attacker latched on. Despite the urgency, she continued in a tone more personal than Meyn had heard in years.

I dreaded that stillness. Can you imagine the great manipulator of galactic politics trembling before an empty room and the weight of hundreds of centuries?

Her fingers traced patterns in the chair's arm that matched the ancient texts on her desk.

My predecessors left such beautiful writings about their communion with the Ancestral Mother, their certainty, their clarity. When I knelt in those chambers,

She paused, watching the stars.

I felt nothing but the crushing responsibility of preserving her legacy.

One night, after decades of formal prayers and rigid rituals, I simply spoke like a child to her mother, pouring out my fears, my regrets, and the guilt of sending people like you into danger for the sake of duty.

Another explosion so close the walls shook.

Still, our ancestral mother said nothing. I grew tired of the darkness that never spoke back.

The sound of forced entry grew louder, but Nienna crossed the space and took Meyn's hands in hers. Thin skin stretched over fragile bones, brushing against the lethal bracelets at his wrists. In that gesture, protocols of rank instantly fell away.

Seven hundred years as high priestess. I've done my share of political maneuvers, turned entire star systems upside down. But you. 20 years in my shadow.

Yet your life story is only beginning.

She gave a brittle laugh sharp as winter frost.

We were both sacrificed to tradition before we knew better. My dear boy. The difference. I've had centuries to gild my cage and call it a palace.

But you, you're still standing at attention inside yours, polishing the bars. Pity they've never given you room enough to discover who you might have been without all that dutiful standing about.

Her grip tightened, and for the first time, Maine truly studied her face. Not as a leader, but as someone who had watched him grow from a solemn boy to the protector he was now. Her eyes searched his features.

I see him sometimes, you know. The artist you might have been. The way you arrange your guard positions like dance steps. The poetry in how you move.

She regarded him with a thoughtful scrutiny, as though envisioning a universe in which he created things instead of destroying them. He remembered the small hints she'd dropped over the years. Paint sets left on his desk. Invitations to sculptors studios during diplomatic events.

The month she insisted he practice calligraphy to improve mission reports. Each time he'd sidestepped her suggestions, returning to the rules he knew, the chamber doors began to glow white hot around their edges.

Nienna's hands remained steady on his.

You will survive this day, my shadow. Perhaps the only one who does. Axratha stands at the edge of a blade, and the galaxy will bleed with her.

She released one hand to touch his cheek, a boldness she'd never permitted herself before.

When I'm gone, they'll look to you, the last guardian standing in the wreckage. But listen carefully. If life offers you even a sliver of something real, something beyond all this tedious devotion to duty.

A smile hardened with conviction.

Don't stand there analyzing it like some holy text. Seize it with both hands. No hesitation. I've watched you refuse joy for far too long. I forbid you to make that mistake again.

The doors screamed under assault. Nienna stepped back, but not before pressing something into his palm. The crystal brooch from her collar. She whispered,

I never had children of my own, but had I been blessed with a son, I would have wished him to be half as remarkable as you.

Meyn secured the brooch into an inner pocket close to his heart. He bent in the ceremonial bow of the Wardenhood.

But then, for the first time, he took her hand and pressed his lips to her weathered knuckles, a gesture that bridged the space between what they had been and what they had become in these final moments. Nienna's smile carried all the warmth of a thousand unspoken embraces.

But the imminent sounds of the door's breach steeled her gaze, eyes awakening something ancient.

The fools have forgotten what we are.

The doors exploded inward.

Remind them my Shadow.

Meyn moved in a series of lethal forms, hands guiding energy through ancient motions. Tesseract daggers materialized, ripping through space time and seeking their targets as though drawn by a magnetic pull.

Each blow dropped an armored foe to the deck, unstoppable. The first soldiers tumbled like leaves in a storm, their armor useless against the primal power of Axratha's oldest blades.

The chamber became a gallery of his lethal artistry, each strike a brushstroke in crimson. In the heartbeat that followed, only the subtle ripple of his daggers sliding back into their dimensional sheaths disturbed the stillness.

A small device rolled across the blood spattered deck, smooth and metallic, its surface wavering as if uncertain whether it belonged to this dimension or another. Meyn's daggers swept forward, intercepting the barrage that followed.

Energy bolts splintered against dimensional barriers, light fracturing in impossible angles.

His wristlets blazed as he maintained the defense, each strike deflected with knowledge inherited from generations of Wardens before him, ancient expertise flowing through the biometal into split second reactions. Then searing agony tore through his shoulder. The sphere had never been where his blades were protecting.

It had phased through the space behind his guard, emerging from dimensional stealth only after bypassing his defense entirely. The detonation came at point blank range, directed energy that overwhelmed his personal shielding before the barriers could even register the threat.

He felt hot agony tear through his shoulder, then his leg, and in a flash he saw Nienna collapse. He caught her before she could strike the deck, her silver white hair spilling across his arm.

Blood seeped through her ceremonial robes, staining ancient patterns dark beyond the viewport.

Their crippled ship drew more boarding vessels as the corridor echoed with the approaching thunder of boots, another wave coming to Finish what the others had attempted. Yet there was no panic in Nienna's eyes, only a sparkle with that familiar mix of defiance and calculation.

Our enemies never could understand it, could they? Thousands of years, yet none ever managed to. To land that final blow.

Her lips curved into a knowing smile.

Fascinating things, those tales in our oldest songs. Catastrophes that level cities. Yet there she stands in the ashes, serene as morning frost.

She drew back her sleeve, revealing a band alight with a power so intense it made his tesseract daggers seem like mere trinkets.

Another of Ashara's clever secrets.

Amusement lacing her voice, much like it had on that night she made ambassadors tremble with a bottle of wine. Boots thundered closer as Meyn's daggers flared to strike. Nienna's fingers caught his arm with surprising strength.

Consider this my final command.

Her trembling fingers found hidden catches in the band's biometal. Crimson emergency lights catching on its surface as she slipped it around his arm.

The stars are about to sing a song of endings, my shadow. But that song is not yet yours to hear. That fight is not yet yours to wage. I am sending you beyond this moment, beyond this ruin.

What you do with that time is your own.

Her eyes shimmered with fierce tenderness.

An Axrathan soul is not meant to be a silent guardian, stoic as temple stone. Our legacy isn't found in stillness, Maine. It is written in movement. It blooms in creation.

It endures through the fires of destruction and finds its triumph in rebirth.

Her lips curled with a knowing, almost mischievous amusement.

Make a fool of yourself. Sleep with a prince, a poet, a thief. Let someone ruin you in the best possible way. Let your name slip from their lips in the dark.

Not as a title, but as something worth remembering. Do you think the Ancestral Mother wove our history so our greatest achievement would be restraint? No.

We are meant to burn brightly, recklessly, gloriously. We have never been a people who watch from the sidelines while the universe carves itself into stories without us.

Her fingers brushed a speck of dust from his collar, a gesture so ordinary it almost broke something inside him, like a mother might before sending her child into the world. Though infinitely more gentle, almost reverent, her eyes searched his golden irises, holding the reflection of a thousand victories.

When you return and I am nothing more than memory, I want to leave knowing you'll live as an Axrathan was meant to. Blazing, unrepentant, unforgotten.

Revered... Nienna.

Oh, do stop protesting. Allow this old soul her last bit of. Of mischief.

She chided Eyes bright despite the blood, she turned the band on his arm as if to seal her command, her smile fierce with a love she'd never dared name. The device tugged at him the instant it locked, warping first the air around his daggers until it enveloped him entirely.

Meyn fought against the swirling distortion, but Nienna's voice rang with authority.

The band will return to its temple sleep, waiting for the next clever girl to discover its secrets.

Her eyes shifting meaningfully toward a worn map of the early galaxy, the third.

Panel on the left.

Her gaze returned to him, though Mane felt himself being pulled further away, his body seeming to slip into dimensional stasis, like his daggers fading from this reality.

Now go, my shadow, and may the universe never tame you.

A second wave of soldiers crashed through the splintered doorway.

The warping field bent light around Meyn's position, and the invaders swept past him, Their weapons raised their eyes searching for threats they couldn't detect. They froze a single figure. Light bent around whoever it was, the artifact's distortion turning their form into something indistinct, wavering.

The footsteps stopped.

I always suspected it would be someone from the Council.

Her laugh carried sharp edges.

Step closer. We both know what this is about.

Energy crackled around Meyn as the device's pull intensified through the fracturing lens of reality. He could only watch helplessly as the figure raised a weapon toward Nienna's heart.

Then, piercing through dimensions, a melody emerged from the spaces between atoms, ancient and tender as starlight. Nienna's eyes widened, and for the first time in 20 years, Meyn witnessed perfect peace settle across her features.

There you are, she breathed, wonder replacing pain.

After all this time. Mother.

She glanced at him one last time, her eyes brimming with fierce affection, illuminated by a radiance that pulsed in time with the song. Her lips formed two words. He barely caught both hands. He never heard the shot. The sound dissolved in the tempest of collapsing reality.

Yet beyond that half formed veil, he witnessed Nienna's body recoil, the impact stealing life in one merciless instant where blood and ruin should have bloomed.

Starlight erupted from beneath her skin, as though luminescence had slumbered within her veins all along, waiting for this moment of release, of revelation.

Through shattered vision, Meyn watched her mortal form falter, but her essence rose transcendent, merging with the ancient melody that now filled the chamber. Her voice no longer the measured tone that had commanded empires, but something raw and elemental joined the cosmic song.

This was Nienna, unveiled, stripped of every layer of ceremony and calculation, returning to the stars that had forged her suspended between worlds. Meyn witnessed her transformation.

Her final smile carried both triumph and blessing as her spirit shed its corporeal vessel, becoming something divine, a constellation rising beyond the reach of those who sought to destroy her. The music enveloped him, carrying fragments of her laughter, her wisdom, a quiet recognition of the artist behind his vigilance.

The void between realities burned cold against his skin, yet these echoes of her presence brought unexpected warmth. The artifact's pull became irresistible, tearing reality into brilliant fragments.

One last strain of Nienna's melody trailed after him as the fabric of time twisted upon itself and consciousness slipped from his grasp.