Chapter Text
The Hall of Ascension in Tauryx was not built for comfort.
It was built for permanence.
Black stone columns rose in perfect symmetry toward a vaulted ceiling painted with the histories of House Tauryx—each Lord depicted not as a man, but as an ideal. War. Control. Legacy. Sacrifice. The air carried incense so old it felt less like scent and more like memory.
The Crown Synod stood in a half-circle at the base of the dais, their robes stitched with the sigils of Apexus authority. Silent. Watching. Measuring.
And at the center—
Max.
Max Verstappen stood alone on the stone platform, the weight of the hall pressing into his shoulders like a physical thing. He could feel it in the soles of his boots. In his jaw. In the way every breath felt slightly too deliberate.
Max’s ceremonial attire for House Tauryx was not designed to impress.
It was designed to impose.
Max Verstappen wore deep navy layered with harsh crimson and gold metal accents—every piece structured, rigid, and unforgiving. The fitted tunic forced posture, while the heavy mantle fell in sharp, controlled lines, its red lining only visible in movement like something restrained beneath the surface.
A dark steel chest piece bore the jagged Tauryx sigil, unpolished and raw. Angular shoulder guards widened his frame, etched with thin red fractures that caught the light like cracks under pressure.
At his wrists, blackened metal cuffs marked the ritual—cold, weighty, permanent in meaning.
Even the high collar pressed faintly against his jaw, a constant reminder of expectation.
Nothing about it was comfortable.
Nothing about it was soft.
But it fit him—
like something he hadn’t chosen, yet was already becoming.
Behind him, the great bowl had already been prepared.
A goblet unlike any other. It was golden, shined brighter then most future's.
However it was not empty.
It held blood. Not fresh. Not alive.
But layered—preserved essence from every previous Lord of House Tauryx, collected over generations, sealed through ritual and magic older than the current dynasty itself. It shimmered faintly under the torchlight, dark red turning almost black at its edges, as if the past itself had thickened into liquid form.
A Synod voice rose.
“Step forward, heir-designate.”
Max obeyed.
Of course he did.
One step.
Then another.
The hall seemed to narrow as he approached the blade placed on the altar stone—ceremonial, curved, engraved with the insignia of Tauryx. It did not look like a weapon meant for war.
It looked like one meant for meaning.
A second voice followed.
“Do you accept the burden of House Tauryx?”
“I do,” Max said.
His voice echoed too loudly.
Too clean.
The Synod did not react.
“Do you accept the blood of those who came before you?”
A pause.
Max swallowed once.
Then—
“I do.”
The blade was placed into his hand.
Cold.
Heavy in a way metal shouldn’t be.
A Synod attendant stepped closer, lifting his left hand over the goblet.
“Then bind yourself.”
Max hesitated for the smallest fraction of a second.
Then pressed the blade into his palm.
Pain flared instantly—sharp, immediate, undeniable.
The cut was not deep enough to maim.
It was deep enough to remember.
Blood welled.
Dark against his skin.
And when his hand was lowered—
it fell into the goblet.
The surface of the ancestral blood reacted immediately.
Not violently.
Not visibly.
But aware.
A ripple passed through it, like something ancient acknowledging a new addition.
The Synod began to speak in unison.
“We are born of Tauryx.
We return to Tauryx.
We bind the past so the future may obey.”
Max felt it then.
Not just ritual.
But weight.
Something pulled at him—not physically, but inwardly, as if the act had tightened invisible chains around his identity.
He was finally gaining what he worked all his life for. This title he has eyes since he was told it would be his. A title so many were meant to inherit before Max but he just played the game right.
The goblet was lifted.
Held above his head.
“And so,” the lead Synod member intoned, “by blood and legacy, the heir is named.”
A pause.
Long enough for the entire hall to breathe as one.
“Max Verstappen, son of House Tauryx, is declared Lord of Tauryx Tempest.”
The words landed like stone.
Not celebration.
Confirmation.
The hall did not erupt.
It accepted. Him and him alone.
A low sound of approval moved through the Synod—not applause, but acknowledgment.
Max’s hand still bled.
He barely felt it anymore. He'd down something like this before. When he was 15. His first acceptance into the great House. He had cut too deep then— too eager.
Then— his attention had drifted.
Across the hall.
Past the Synod.
Past the stone and ritual and blood.
To where he stood.
George Russell. Watching. Not expressionless. Not soft. Just still. Absorbing.
For a moment, everything else faded—the Synod’s voices, the weight of ancestry, even the sting in his palm.
There was only that gaze.
Max held it for half a second too long.
Then—looked away, too quickly. As if it meant nothing. As if it didn't mean everything.
The ritual continued behind him, but his mind had already drifted.
What would it have been like if it were Charles there instead?
The thought came uninvited.
Sharp.
Unfair.
Charles Leclerc.
For a moment, the hall changed in his memory.
Not Tauryx.
Not blood.
But younger corridors. Lighter air. A version of him that still believed future alliances were simple things—built on laughter, proximity, shared ambition.
Charles had been there in that imagined future.
Always just slightly ahead of him, or beside him, or turning back to look at him like he expected Max to follow. It depended on what Charles felt like that day.
They had spoken once like that—half-joking, half-serious—about how they would rule Apexus together one day. Two houses. Two heirs. A balance of power that would make everything else irrelevant. It would be easier. Much much easier.
Max had believed it.
Completely.
Until Ferrion decided Charles' legacy would not last as long as it should have.
The memory came like a fracture.
A political shift disguised as diplomacy. A court that demanded more than loyalty—demanded control. And Charles, caught between expectation and extraction, pulled into something that had not cared what he wanted.
They wanted more from him.
Always more.
And when they couldn’t have it—they broke what they could reach. And in that it had ended their imagined future. The future they thought about jokingly but now Max mourns.
Max’s throat tightened slightly.
The story had never been told cleanly. Not in full. Not where it mattered. Only fragments—whispers of instability, of pressure, of a boy pushed beyond what even courts should have demanded.
He remembers Charles' descend. In all sense of the word. He was loud. He was angry.
And then—silence.
Finality.
The kind that left too many questions and not enough answers.
Max exhaled slowly through his nose.
Because Charles had not just been a friend.
He had been the version of “future” Max had once understood.
Simple.
Shared.
Uncomplicated.
Easier than whatever this mess was.
His gaze flicked back, almost against his will.
To George.
Still there.
Still watching with a tight jaw.
And that was when the overlap hit him in a way that made him feel briefly unsteady.
Not in personality.
Not in background.
But in something harder to name.
Both had been shaped by systems that did not care if they bent or broke.
Both carried histories that did not sit comfortably in court halls.
Both looked at power like it was something that had to be survived before it could be used.
And yet—They were nothing alike.
Charles had burned brightly.
George burned quietly.
Charles had been taken by duty that had driven him mad.
George had been chosen into consequence.
Max clenched his jaw slightly.
Stop thinking about this.
The Synod voice continued behind him, announcing obligations, duties, the binding of house and heirship, but it all blurred into sound without meaning.
This was his life now.
Not memory.
Not a possibility.
Not ghosts of what could have been.
His hand still bled slightly as he lowered it, the ritual complete. Maybe he had cut too deep again.
The Synod finished speaking.
The hall acknowledged him.
And Max Verstappen stood as heir of Tauryx— while the thought of George’s eyes stayed with him far longer than the blood in his palm.
The corridors outside the main chambers of Tauryx were in controlled chaos—sealed trunks rolling over stone floors, attendants calling out inventories, guards double-checking banners and sigils being prepared for travel. Everything looked orderly on the surface, but underneath it, the entire palace felt like it was holding its breath.
Max barely noticed most of it.
Max Verstappen moved through it like he was trying not to think too loudly.
He almost missed him.
Leaning casually against one of the archway pillars like the palace wasn’t currently preparing for political movement across half of Apexus was Alexander Albon. Heir of House Willenor.
Max slowed.
“…You’re still here.”
Alex turned his head. “Unfortunately, yes.”
Max gave him a look. “You’re not coming to Stellaris.”
“Nope,” Alex said easily.
A pause.
Max frowned. “That feels like a bad idea.”
Alex shrugged. “I have business in Willenor.”
Max narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like code for ‘I don’t want to deal with George Russell.’”
Alex smiled. “I wish.”
Max sighed. “He’s going to kill you if he finds out.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Alex agreed. “He’ll be very composed about it first. Then very detailed. Possibly a formal complaint. Then murder. I'm a dead man either way.”
Max blinked. “That’s… disturbingly detailed.”
Alex nodded. “I’ve known him a very long time.”
They began walking together down the corridor without really deciding to.
"Longer than most of us." Max glanced sideways. “He doesn’t like me like at all. He must have told you,”
Alex exhaled. “He doesn't like the situation. You just happened to be standing right in the middle of it.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s not meant to be.”
A few steps passed in silence before Max said, quieter, “He looks at me like I ruined his life.”
Alex didn’t hesitate. “He looks at most people like that.”
There's a pause. And then a smirk creeps onto Alex's face and Max knows he's not going to like the next words that will come out of his mouth.
"However I think it's probably because the last time you met eachother was when you threw a spear at him and then proceeded to fight him on the muddy ground on last year's spring tourney."
"Why does everyone keep bringing that up! He was the one who cheated-"
"He didn't but even if he did— throwing a spear at your future husband is not your brightest ideas Max." Alex laughed.
Max frowned. “How the fuck was I supposed to know I'd marry him in years time?”
"Maybe you shouldn't have fought with him in the first place, a civilised conversation would do you both some good." Alex suggested.
"Yeah tell that to him. Whenever we talk his face starts morphing ever so slowly into disgust whenever he talks to me."
Alex glanced at him. “Welcome to George Russell’s emotional baseline.”
Max let out a short breath. “Brilliant.”
A pause.
Then Alex added, lightly, “You survived it. That’s already more than most people manage on first contact.”
Max snorted. “That’s a low bar.”
“Still a bar,” Alex said.
They turned a corner, passing a set of servants carrying sealed travel cases stamped with Tauryx’s crest.
Max exhaled.
“So,” he said, “what do I do with him?”
Alex looked at him. “Define ‘do.’”
Max frowned. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” Alex said. “That’s what worries me.”
Max ignored that. “He hates this. He hates me. He hates the house. He’s going to make my life hell for it.”
Alex tilted his head. “That’s one interpretation.”
Max stopped walking for half a second. “What’s the other?”
Alex smiled slightly. “That he’s terrified and trying not to show it.”
Max scoffed. “That’s not what I saw.”
Alex nodded. “Because you’re not what he’s afraid of.”
Max frowned. “Then what is he afraid of?”
Alex’s answer was simple. “Losing control.”
Max exhaled, while rolling his eyes. “That explains… everything.” sarcastic.
“It usually does,” Alex said, ignoring Max's sarcasm.
Max glanced ahead, then muttered, “He thinks I’m going to control him.”
“Correct.”
“I’m not.”
“I know,” Alex said. “He doesn’t. I'll tell you that he has issues, unbalanced, and he hide it, doesn't let anyone see.”
Max shook his head slightly. “This is exhausting already. I'm practically marrying a stranger.”
“It gets worse,” Alex said cheerfully.
Max shot him a look.
Alex raised his hands. “Just being honest.”
They walked a little further.
Then Max asked, quieter, “You said he gets unstable.”
“I said he gets unbalanced,” Alex corrected immediately.
Max waved a hand. “Same thing.”
“It really isn’t.”
Max ignored that. “So what am I dealing with?”
Alex thought for a moment.
“You’re dealing with someone who functions like a locked system,” he said. “Everything has to be accounted for. Every variable. Every outcome. If something slips, he doesn’t break… he recalibrates. Quickly. Sometimes painfully.”
Max frowned. “That sounds worse.”
“It is worse,” Alex agreed.
Max sighed. “Great.”
Alex added, “But he doesn’t fall.”
"He did when I threw the fucking spear at him" he mutters and then Max looked at him. “You sound sure.”
“I am, because he never has allowed himself the privilege.” Alex said simply.
A pause.
Then Max said, “He reminds me of someone.”
Alex glanced at him. “Don’t say it.”
Max frowned. “What?”
Alex sighed. “If you say Charles, this conversation gets sentimental and I lose my ability to joke.”
Max paused.
“…I was going to say Charles.”
Alex groaned. “Of course you were.”
Charles Leclerc.
Max’s expression shifted slightly at the name.
Not softer exactly.
Just… distant.
“I don’t see it completely,” Max admitted.
Alex nodded. “Because they’re not the same.”
Max frowned. “Then why do I keep comparing them?”
“Because humans love patterns, even when they’re wrong.” Alex said. "Plus, you loved Charles and Charles alone. I know you haven't looked or courted anyone since that day—I don't blame you— so of course you're going to compare the only love you've ever had with someone who you're being forced to love."
A beat.
Then Alex added, more quietly, “Charles trusted the world too much. George trusts it too little.”
Max nodded slowly. “And me?”
Alex looked at him. “You’re the one stuck in the middle of it.”
Max groaned. “Fantastic.”
Alex smirked. “Welcome to politics.”
They slowed near an archway where the corridor split into departure paths.
Max exhaled again, then said, almost to himself, “We were all friends once.”
Alex didn’t joke this time.
“Yeah,” he said. “Some closer than others. But yeah.”
Max nodded slightly. “It didn’t feel like this back then.”
“No,” Alex agreed. “Back then it was just dinners, arguments, Charles escaping out of the windows, Lando dragging Carlos into the river and George reading in a corner wanting to be undisturbed before Lando got to him too.”
Max gave a faint smile despite himself. “That sounds like them.”
“It was them,” Alex said.
A pause.
Then Max added, quieter, “I thought we’d all end up in the same future.”
Alex studied him.
Max continued, more honestly than he meant to, “Me and Charles especially. I thought we’d be… something. Not this.”
Alex didn’t interrupt.
Max exhaled through his nose. “Now it feels like everything just… broke off into different directions.”
Alex nodded once. “It did.”
Silence stretched briefly.
Then Alex said, lighter again, “Well. You still get to get Lord and a politically complicated marriage. That’s something.”
Max groaned. “You’re terrible.”
“I know,” Alex said happily.
Max finally let out a small laugh.
Alex stepped back slightly.
“Anyway,” he said, “I’m leaving before George finds out I’m still here.”
Max raised an eyebrow. “You’re really not coming.”
“Nope,” Alex said. “Willenor awaits. And so does my desire to not be interrogated by Stellaris’ future Lord. I will try hard to make it but I know I wont be able to make it in time for the ceremony. Maybe I'll crash the wedding, give a little controversial objection to save you both some trouble?”
“Please.” Max let out a laugh but maybe the idea wasn't so bad.
“The offers open till after the vows.” Alex suggested.
They both knew it was unlikely.
Alex gave him a small salute.
“Take care, Lord of Tauryx.”
Max groaned immediately. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why you've been wishing for it since you were in your mother's womb? Ok fine— Good day Future husband to Lord Stellaris?”
“Alex.”
Alex grinned. “Just practicing for the inevitable ceremony titles.”
Max sighed. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Life is a short, I might as well enjoy.” Alex admitted.
Then, softer, as he turned to leave—
“Try not to assume the worst about him,” Alex said.
Max frowned. “That goes both ways.”
Alex nodded. “It does.”
A beat.
Then Alex added, lightly again, “And if he looks like he wants to kill you, that’s just his normal expression.”
Max shook his head. “Reassuring.”
Alex waved once, already walking away.
“And Max?”
Max looked up.
Alex smiled slightly.
“He’s not Charles.”
Then he was gone.
Leaving Max in the corridor with too many echoes—
and a future that still refused to make sense.
George arrived at House Stellaris under a sky that looked too still to be natural.
The banners were already raised. The courtyards were already full. Nobles, attendants, visiting houses—everyone had come for the same reason.
His acceptance.
His beginning.
His sentence, depending on who you asked.
George Russell didn’t linger at the entrance. He gave the expected nods, accepted the expected greetings, and walked with the practiced control of someone who had learned early that emotion was something other people reacted to, not something he could afford to show.
He intended to go straight to his rooms.
He almost made it.
But Stellaris never let anyone move through it alone.
“George!”
Footsteps cut across the corridor before he even turned.
Kimi Antonelli appeared first, slightly out of breath like he had run the distance just to make sure he caught him. Right behind him, composed and unimpressed as ever, was Doriane Pin.
George stopped.
Of course it was them.
Kimi slowed when he reached him, suddenly aware of where they were.
“Uh… hi.”
Doriane immediately frowned. “Don’t ‘hi’ him like he didn’t just have his entire life get politically rearranged in front of a court.”
George exhaled once. “I just got here.”
Kimi nodded quickly. “Yeah, that’s why we came.”
George glanced between them. “I was going to my room.”
“No,” Kimi said instantly.
“Yes,” Doriane said at the exact same time.
A beat.
Kimi blinked. “Emotionally no.”
Doriane hit him lightly on the back of the head.
“Stop talking.”
“Why is that your instinct—?”
George let out a short breath through his nose. Not laughter. Just pressure escaping.
They fell into step beside him anyway.
No one asked permission in Stellaris. Especially not family-adjacent chaos.
They were younger than George, Doriane older than Kimi, however not far apart. They were adopted into Stellaris quite a while ago. They are the only thing in this House that doesn't remind George of responsibility. It's refreshing, however right now he isn't sure if he can handle that.
Kimi went first, too direct to be careful for long.
“So… what actually happened in court?”
George didn’t look at him. “You received a letter did you not?”
“We read the announcement,” Kimi said quickly. “We mean after. With everything.”
Doriane added more carefully, “The arrangement. The House decision. Him.”
George’s jaw tightened slightly at the last word.
“There’s nothing to explain,” he said.
Kimi frowned. “That’s not true.”
George kept walking.
“It’s political,” he said flatly. “That’s all it is.”
Silence followed them for a few steps.
Not disbelief.
Concern.
Worse.
Kimi tried again, softer. “Is he… bad?”
George stopped for half a second.
Just long enough to feel it.
Then kept walking.
“No,” he said.
A pause.
Then, quieter, as if it annoyed him to be precise:
“He’s not what you think.”
Doriane studied him. “That doesn’t sound like you’re happy about it.”
George’s mouth tightened. “I didn’t say I was.”
Kimi tilted his head. “So what are you saying?”
George didn’t answer immediately.
And Doriane noticed that silence sharpen.
She smacked Kimi lightly.
“Stop pushing.”
“I’m not pushing, I’m asking—”
“You’re interrogating,” she corrected.
George let out a slow breath.
Kimi, undeterred, said, “We just didn’t expect it to be him.”
George’s voice went flatter. “Neither did I.”
That landed differently.
They stopped trying to fill the space after that for a moment.
The corridor stretched ahead, long and dressed in Stellaris’ cold elegance. Preparations echoed faintly in the distance—ceremonial movement already beginning.
Kimi shifted slightly. “I mean… I think he is fine.”
George finally glanced at him.
“…You what?”
Kimi shrugged. “He helped me once. With stance training. Corrected my footing. Didn’t insult me. That was new.”
Doriane narrowed her eyes. “That’s suspicious.”
George exhaled sharply through his nose.
“It’s different,” he said.
Kimi frowned. “Different how?”
George didn’t answer fast enough.
Doriane immediately smacked Kimi again.
“Stop talking.”
“Ow—what did I do now?”
“You made him think too hard,” she said.
George didn’t deny it.
That was the problem.
A few more steps passed.
Then Kimi softened, trying again but quieter now. “You’ll be okay, you know.”
Doriane nodded. “You will.”
“You’ll be a good Lord,” Kimi added, like saying it louder might make it true.
George gave a small, controlled smile.
“Right,” he said.
He didn’t believe them.
But he didn’t reject it either.
Before anything else could settle—
The air changed.
Not louder. Not faster.
Just heavier.
Authority arriving before presence. Kimi and Doriane straightened instantly.
George already knew.
Susie Wolff stepped into view.
Everything in the corridor adjusted around her without permission.
Kimi dipped his head. “Lady Susie.”
Doriane followed immediately. “My Lady.”
Susie didn’t look impressed.
“I leave you both unattended for five minutes,” she said, “and you ambush him the moment he returns.”
Kimi opened his mouth. “We were just—”
“Processing,” Doriane cut in instantly.
Susie raised an eyebrow.
Both went silent.
George almost would’ve called it relief.
“Go,” Susie said.
They hesitated.
Kimi leaned slightly toward George before leaving.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said quickly.
Doriane added, “Don’t overthink it.”
Kimi pointed vaguely down the hall. “And Max—”
“Stop talking,” Doriane said, dragging him away.
“Ow—he’s going to think I was going to say something stupid!”
“You always do!”
They disappeared.
Silence returned.
Proper silence.
George exhaled once.
“I’m sorry,” he said automatically.
Susie shook her head. “They care about you.”
A pause.
They did. George knows this. They cared for George even though George wishes they hadn't. Because it makes George start thinking of them as… siblings. It was sweet, too sweet. The kind of sweet that when it became too much it would just overwhelm George and make him ill.
Probably because it made George feel like he was replacing his actual family. However it is what a Great House does isn't it? Replace.
George notices Susie's gaze sharpen slightly—not unkind, just observant.
“You look tired.”
“I’m fine,” George said immediately.
Susie didn’t respond to the words.
“I heard your pains are back.”
That made him still.
“It’s nothing.”
“George.”
One word.
No pressure.
Just certainty.
He stopped trying to fight it.
“…It’s manageable,” he corrected.
Susie nodded once, like she accepted that version more honestly.
“I’ve already arranged a healer,” she said. “Aleix is bringing someone before the wedding in the capital.”
George frowned slightly. “That’s unnecessary.”
“It’s not optional,” she replied calmly.
A pause.
Then, quieter: “Thank you,” George said.
Susie nodded again.
Silence settled between them.
Not empty.
Full.
George’s gaze dropped slightly, and for a moment the weight of everything before the ceremony pressed in harder than the corridor itself.
Then, quietly—too quietly to be casual—he said:
“If Lewis had stayed… it wouldn’t feel like this.”
Lewis Hamilton.
The words slipped out like they’d been waiting behind his teeth.
He regretted them instantly.
Susie didn’t interrupt.
So he continued anyway.
“I keep thinking it was easier when he was here,” George admitted. “At least then I understood what I was supposed to be.”
A pause.
“This…” his jaw tightened, “this feels like I’ve been placed into something that used to belong to someone else.”
Susie stepped closer, but didn’t touch him yet.
“You’re not replacing anyone,” she said softly. “You’re inheriting what was left.”
George didn’t answer.
Susie’s voice lowered slightly.
“And you’re not meant to do it without feeling it.”
That finally made him exhale.
Slow. Controlled. But real.
“I don’t know how to be this,” he admitted.
Susie nodded once.
“You will,” she said. “Not because you’re ready. Because you always adapt.”
A pause.
Then, firmer—but still gentle underneath:
“You were raised for this. But more importantly… you were raised to survive it.”
George finally looked at her properly.
And for once—he didn’t correct her.
He just stood there.
Thinking about how he wishes he had. Because George had been surviving his entire life. For once he just wanted to live. However it's too much to ask for.
The ceremony of House Stellaris did not begin with trumpets.
It began with silence.
Not absence of sound—but enforced stillness, the kind that made every breath feel like a deliberate act of defiance. The Great Hall of Stellaris had been transformed into something between cathedral and court: black stone polished to a mirror sheen, threaded through with silver constellations that caught the light like frozen starlight. Thin veins of teal magic pulsed beneath the floor in slow, controlled currents—like the Hall itself was breathing.
Above it all, suspended like a contained night sky, was the sigil of House Stellaris—silver three pointed star, black at its core, and faintly burning with teal luminescence that rotated slowly overhead as if measuring the worth of every soul beneath it.
Every House was present.
Every eye was watching.
And at the centre of it all stood George Russell.
He wore Stellaris’ lordship attire— it was no longer merely ceremonial cloth. It had been overlaid with the House’s true colours: silver-threaded black fabric, with subtle teal sigil work woven into the seams like hidden circuitry.
The mantle across his shoulders was heavy, layered in deep black velvet lined with silver embroidery that mapped old Stellaris star-charts. Teal highlights pulsed faintly along the edges, reacting to his movement like a restrained current of power.
At his chest rested the crest-piece of House Stellaris—obsidian-black metal rimmed in silver, with a core of the three pointed star that shimmered faint teal when the light struck it correctly. It sat over his heart like a verdict waiting to be confirmed.
Around his wrists were pale oath-bands of silver, etched with black runes that only activated once bound by blood. These bands were inherited by every new Lord of Stellaris from the previously. There were meant to be fused into the skin and never to be removed until a bit Lord is selected.
They had not yet been closed.
Behind him stood the Crown Synod—still, masked, watching.
Ahead, the Obsidian Basin waited.
Carved from a fallen meteor core, it was not truly black stone—but something deeper, denser, threaded with silver mineral veins that looked like trapped lightning. Inside it, teal light drifted like submerged stars, reacting faintly to proximity, as if recognising the living.
It did not accept a voice.
It accepted blood.
George did not look at it.
Not yet.
The Synod raised their hands.
And the ritual began.
“The House Stellaris does not inherit,” they intoned, voices layered as one. “It remembers.”
A pause.
“It does not choose its Lord. It recognises its vessel.”
Another pause.
“And it does not serve the present. It serves the continuity of stars unbroken.”
The hall responded not with applause, but with a tightening of magic itself—silver currents aligning in the architecture, teal light deepening beneath the floor like a pulse syncing to a heartbeat.
George stepped forward.
One step.
Then another.
Each step disturbed the light beneath him, silver and teal rippling outward like quiet shockwaves.
At the edge of the hall, eyes followed him.
First, he found him.
Lewis Hamilton.
Standing among foreign delegates—Lady Maya Weug of Ferrion and Ser Sebastian Vettel beside him—Lewis wore composed stillness, but the lighting betrayed him.
Silver from the Hall caught the edges of his silhouette. Teal reflections flickered in his eyes like something unresolved.
He met George’s gaze.
And for a moment, everything else blurred.
Guilt.
Not loud. Not dramatic.
Just permanent.
A stain that refused to leave.
Lewis held it there like he wanted to speak—but this room, this ritual, this House did not allow private truths to survive unchanged.
George did not stop.
He could not.
So he let the moment pass through him without breaking stride.
And for the first time, he understood something clearly:
Some betrayals did not announce themselves.
They simply stood elsewhere.
He moved on.
Next.
Lando Norris stood beside Oscar Piastri, his betrothed.
The contrast was almost unfair.
They looked… balanced.
Like a life that had found its centre and refused to lose it again.
Lando caught George’s gaze and smiled—small, steady, real.
A flicker of warmth in a room built to suppress it.
George almost returned it.
Almost.
Instead, his expression tightened.
Because Lando looked like someone who would survive this world without it consuming him.
And Oscar looked like someone who already understood how.
It made something uncomfortable twist in George’s chest.
He looked away before it could settle.
He tries to find a familiar set of brown eyes and a gummy smile, dressed in white and blue. However he knows he won't find him.
He wishes Alex was here. A small part of him hates him for not being here, but George knows better than anyone that when duty calls, you must leave. It frustrates George, that he couldn't have his best friend here with him today. The universe had a unique way of being cruel to him.
Then—Stellaris.
Toto Wolff stood within the inner delegation, posture rigid. No longer Lord, but still carrying the gravity of one.
Beside him, Susie Wolff stood like an anchor—calm, composed, watching George with a kind of quiet pride that felt dangerously close to love.
Further back—
Kimi Antonelli and Doriane Pin.
Kimi gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up that had no place in a ritual of this scale.
Doriane immediately smacked him upside the head, but she was smiling.
George didn’t sigh.
He didn’t think he was breathing in any meaningful sense anymore.
Then he turned his gaze again.
House Tauryx.
And everything in him tightened.
Jos Verstappen stood like a blade left deliberately on display—sharp, unmoving, eyes filled with open poison as he watched George take what he believed should not be his.
Beside him, Daniel Ricciardo wore a smug, effortless grin that made George’s hands itch with restraint.
George’s jaw clenched hard enough to hurt.
He wanted to erase that expression.
Then he saw him.
Max Verstappen.
Max didn’t look impressed. Didn’t look angry. Didn’t look anything that could be easily used. Just present—like inevitability made human.
That, somehow, was worse.
George held his gaze a fraction too long.
Then cut away.
No.
Not here.
Not now.
He fixed his eyes forward—on stone, on teal light, on anything that didn’t breathe back at him.
He was Lord.
That was the point.
That was the title.
That was the cage dressed as authority.
The Synod’s voice rose again.
“George William Russell of House Stellaris.”
The hall reacted like a single organism.
Silver light tightened across the floor.
Teal currents deepened beneath him.
The air itself felt sealed.
He stepped forward.
The Obsidian Basin waited—no longer just stone, but something alive with silver veins and drifting teal constellations trapped inside its depth.
A blade was presented.
Black steel. Silver edge. A faint teal rune etched along its spine that only activated in contact with blood.
Truth disguised as tradition.
The Synod spoke.
“Blood binds. Memory binds. Star binds.”
A pause.
“Do you accept the weight of continuity?”
George’s hand lifted.
Slowly.
Controlled.
He took the blade.
For a brief moment—just a fracture in time—his eyes flicked across the hall again.
Lewis.
Lando.
Alex's absence.
Stellaris.
Tauryx.
Max.
Then away.
He pressed the blade to his palm.
And cut.
Silence broke—but only in meaning, not sound.
Blood fell into the Basin.
And the Basin answered.
Silver veins ignited.
Teal light erupted beneath the surface like a star waking up after centuries of sleep.
The names of past Lords stirred.
The Hall’s sigils flared in response, silver and teal threading through the architecture like a living oath being re-written in real time.
George Russell stood at the centre of it all as House Stellaris accepted him.