title: The Younger Son
author: Wolf, Nikita
description: It's been over 800 Earth years since the fall of the Solar Empire, over 1200 Venusian days. On a terraformed Venus, the inhabitants of a dark age society struggle to rebuild civilization, only to be attacked century after century by a mysterious enemy, that abducts entire nations, in the long, frozen night. Now, the word has come that the last nation on the Isle of West-Istya has fallen in the night, and the President of the Istyan Union has invited the long-banished Solar Legion back from exile on the continent of Afrodyti. He is amassing an army on the eastern shores to West-Istya that will march into the nightfall and destroy whatever is lurking there, and in the process, conquer the vast empty island into the Union.The vanguard of the Legion has arrived in the Fortress of Tsehkaon, the capital of Zankoan, the easternmost state in the Union, and the governor has held a tournament to celebrate the occasion as his army amasses, preparing to sail to the west. The victor of the tournament will get to join the Legion, and the governor's youngest son, Mao Tsung desperately wanted to compete, but his father forbade it, and now has ordered him to stay in Tsehkaon, and oversee the fortress' militia as he and Mao's older brother sail west to glory. Will he follow his father's wishes, or will he find a join the largest war in the history of the Union?