by V. K. Ludwig
While the cabin remained silent with only the hums of the fusion panels offering variety, my mind near cracked with remnants of Eden’s voice.
You can’t love. And I want you to leave.
The memory ached around my temples, making my eyes burn until tears threatened to break free. Had I ever cried in my life? I couldn’t say. I must have — as a child, perhaps.
For dozens of solar-cycles, Nifal had taught me in the ways of negotiating in my favor.
Ridiculous.
I had everything I wanted. Everything I had asked for.
I had a mate, a child, a family.
And yet, I had nothing at all.
I had negotiated myself out of their lives.
“Call for Nifal,” I ordered into my com, my chest so tight I barely managed in another breath. “Tell him to come to my quarters, for I am very unwell.”
The moment the pilot docked my stargazer, I made my way to the transportation tube and back to my quarters. Instead of holding comfort, it wrapped another chain around my ribcage.
Silence stalled my breath.
No crying greeted me at the door and demanded a bottle. The powdery scent of Eden had long disappeared as if she had never been part of my life to begin with.
“It is quiet,” Nifal pointed out with humbling soberness, suddenly standing behind me. “And I cannot help but wonder why you are here and not with your family.”
I jutted toward my office and set into motion. “Our home is too loud. Too noisy. I cannot concentrate on my responsibilities while everything around me screams.”
Except that Eden no longer screamed.
My mate had gone mute, crippled into silence.
And I was the one who’d done it.
“I am unwell.” I let myself slouch into one of the armchairs, tugging on the collar of my uniform. When had this piece of fabric grown so tight? “You will scan me and tell me if I am falling ill. I… I cannot breathe properly. Perhaps an Earth virus or something we have overlooked.”
The old male pulled the other armchair toward me with mocking patience. Eventually, he managed to scram the scanner from his white robes, slowly hovering it over my chest.
“Your vitals are excellent, as always.”
“It is impossible,” I snarled, hitting fist against chest. “I can feel it in here. My lungs refuse to expand as if my ribcage is overloaded with… with…”
“Heartache?” He patted my shoulder, his eyes dimmed with the weariness of age and pity. “I cannot measure the ache you are feeling, as it belongs to a different realm entirely. Which I assume is why you are here. Alone.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and pressed my eyes shut. So much pain in my chest. So many screams in my head. “She asked me to go away.”
“Ah. And it is not what you expected? What you… offered?”
Anger flared my nostrils. “Do not mock me! How can this happen when we are fated to be together?”
“Fate is not a convenient replacement for hardship, Torin. Love is never easy, no matter if it was fated or not. It makes you rise as high as it makes you fall deep the very next moment, for love is no constant. It is a changing current that traps us, and we either swim with it or drown.”
“What do you know of love?”
He gave a sad chuckle, resonating with worn-out agony. “I might be old, but I have loved. Oh, how I am counting the cycles for when I can finally join my anam ghail in the afterlife. And that son who died trying to struggle out of her…” He slumped into the armchair himself, his gaze hooded with pain. “I am not your father, Torin, but you are the closest thing I ever had to a son.”
“And when you gave me to the stratum, did it pain you?”
“Yes, yes, it did,” he said. “But not nearly as much as it pained you. I will never forget how you clung to my robes with tears in your eyes. Is this the issue? That the children continue to go to strati?”
A nod confirmed his assumption.
I was not above begging.
Was not above being commanded.
And the moment a single tear rolled down my cheek, I knew I was not above crying either.
“I cannot lose her,” I breathed. “Cannot lose them.”
“And what are you going to do about it?”
I wiped the back of my hand over my cheek, the sensation a strange one. “When was the last time our Empire created something beautiful? Where did our art go? The sculptures? The paintings? The music? We borrow everything we have from other species’.”
A gasp rippled through his chest. “We lost everything beautiful the moment our last female died, Torin. Lost the beauty of everything that is soft and caring. Strong and fierce. Kind and forgiving.”
“What am I supposed to do? We need to replenish the numbers of our warriors and cannot afford to compromise on their training. How else am I supposed to save this empire from falling apart?”
“And once that has been done, and the Vetusian Empire is back to its glory, will it still be an empire worth saving?”
My answer came with unexpected clarity. “No.”
Nifal grabbed his cane and pushed himself up. “Do you remember what you asked me when I brought you to the warrior stratum?”
I shook my head. “I remember little of my childhood.”
“Do you not love me? Those were your words. Giving you away was not nearly as painful as knowing that you thought I did it because I had no love for you. Because I did. In my own way. In the only way I was allowed to love that child destined for leadership.” He smiled, and for the first time, I might have recognized something loving in it. “Once the time comes, do you wish for your children to believe that you did not love them? That you sent them away at such a tender age because nothing kept you from holding on to them?”
The outline of my office blurred. “Why have you never told me these things?”
“Because I gave you away a boy, and you returned a warrior. My Warden. My superior.”
“Our own males are interfering with the draft, which is something I will have to investigate,” I said. “If we are not careful, we will have a revolution.”
“While you investigate, ask yourself which side you will be on. The one fighting it. Or the one leading it.” His lips pinched into a thin line. “I am tired.”
At that, his slow steps dragged away.
“The Wardens will never agree to change something so established,” I called behind him.
“No, they will not. For once, you might have to leave your honor behind.” His voice trailed off into the hallway, but his parting words rang clear in my head. “You need to find Zavis, for he is the only hope you have now.”
Chapter 29
Torin
I stepped out of the skycar, my gaze immediately falling onto the colorful drawings decorating the exterior of the habitat. A small building, but efficient with its windows facing south for solar exposure, and the cistern collecting the gentle rainfall.
The wait at the door seemed endless but was paid for in full the moment the gap let out the happy giggling of a child.
“N’each, Torin da taigh L’naghal,” healer Airos said with wide eyes, his outstretched arm holding back a female child. “I… I have not done anything wrong ever since the incident.”
He kept babbling apologies and assurances, but all I paid attention to was the girl. The very first I had ever seen in my life, her innocent smile melting the boundaries of galaxies.
I ripped my eyes off her and straightened my posture. “I came to discuss the incident, for I very much want to understand the reason behind it.”
The healer nodded and opened the door wide, asking me inside with a wave of his hand.
I followed behind them, the healer uneasy, the girl oblivious to the tension as she skipped along the hallway. She patted the couch by the window, shoving an arsenal of toys aside.
“Please have a seat.” Airos pointed at the spot the girl had cleared for me and lowered himself onto the smaller couch across.
“Sweetie, why don’t you go play something while I speak to the Warden?”
“Okey-dokey,” she said in a singsong voice, skipping away as if walking wasn’t even in question.
“What is her name?”
“Sophie. She’s seven.”
“And Miguel is her younger brother?”
Airos sunk his head and nodded. “Yes, n’each.”
The moment I leaned against the back rest, a pointy object poked against my lower spine. I grabbed behind me and pulled out a doll dressed in a white gown and placed it onto the pile next to me.
“My apologies,” Airos said. “My mate is still very unwell. I have requested leave but cleaning up behind one child is no less work than doing it behind two. Children have the tendency to disable every math equation proven true by the universe. Did the Three Suns bless you with a family as well?”
“My mate and I adopted a Vetusian child, and she is carrying my heir.”
“Yes… I…” He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “I forgot I saw the hologram. You adopted a male from the last crop.”
I glanced into the small corridor across from us, where darkness waited behind a narrow gap. “Where is your mate?”
His thumb pointed in the same direction. “Resting. She’s… lightly sedated.”
“Healer Airos,” I said, folding my hands into my lap. “Please tell me why you interfered when they came to transition Miguel into his stratum.”
“I shouldn’t have interfered, Warden,” he said quickly. “It was wrong of me, and nothing the like will ever happen again.”
“Sophie will be assigned to a stratum as soon as we have overcome the obstacles of mixed-gender education,” I said. “What will happen the day they come?”
His eyes flicked toward the large window beside us, the rain sideways drumming against the glass before it ran down in wild rivulets.
“Let me shed more light on my visit.” I leaned forward, waiting until his eyes focused on mine. “Nobody knows I’m here. I want to understand the impact the draft has on families because I believe the concept might be creating political turmoil the Empire can’t currently afford nor contain.”
A tug on my pants. “Would you like some tea?”
“Sophie, not now.”
The girl ignored Airos and handed me a small plastic mug, a playful grin coming from a lowered head. “Here you go, sir. You have to hold it like this. With two fingers.”
I clasped the undersized handle between thumb and index finger just like she showed me, staring at the empty pink bottom in confusion.
“Drink it! It’s rainbow sparkle with a drop of lemon.”
My eyes flicked back and forth between the girl and her adoptive father. Then I placed the rim against my lips, Airos’ nods encouraging me to drink the pretend beverage.
“Good?”
My heart stopped for the duration of her smile. “Delicious.”
“Want more?”
“Maybe later, sweetie,” Airos said. “Warden Torin is a very busy man, and I’m sure he wants to go back to his own family soon.”
Another disabled beat, making me suck in a sharp breath. Yes, I wanted to go back to my family.
Airos watched Sophie hop away, his eyes unfocused. “Children are easy to love. Something I hadn’t thought possible when I first came to this planet. Garrison Earth promised me a mate, a child, family. Nobody told me it would last four years or less. They took my child. They ripped apart my family. And let me tell you, there isn’t much left of my mate.”
He sunk his face into his palms, rubbing those tears from his eyes I only knew too well now. “What kind of male am I in the eyes of my mate, if I can’t protect my family? If I can’t spare her the pain? Not kissing Miguel goodnight tears my soul into shreds, making me wish I’d never come here. I’d rather not have a family at all than see it suffer.”
“And if the draft continues, where will that lead us?” I watched him shove in his seat, run his incisors over his lips with such aggression he seemed to be punishing himself. “Please remember that I’m not really here. This is not an official visit. No records. No consequences.”
Anger burned in his eyes when they caught with mine. “There will be bloodshed. The draft just now started, but once word travels, males across the planet will stand up to it.”
I held his focus and asked the question I’d come for. “Organized?”
The way he ripped his eyes from me told me whatever his lips refused to confess. There was a revolution brewing at the very base of the Empire, threatening our foundation.
“Daaad.” Sophie hopped onto his lap and handed him a small object. “Gentle, okay? And don’t make it messy like the last time. Make it pretty like mom does.”
“Excuse me, Warden.” He stroked his fingers through her dark brown hair and brought it up at the top of her head, gathering it between his fingers. Then he tied what I recognized as a hairband around it, the large colorful beads attached to it clanking against each other. “This is the best I can do my love.”
“It’s not even,” she said and pulled the ends. “You always put it too far to the left. I want mom to do it.”
“Mom’s sleeping, honey.”
Sophie huffed and slipped off his lap, and for the first time, she didn’t hop or skip but simply walked away.
“May I speak to your mate?”
“You can see her,” he said and rose. “And I would fall onto my knees if you got her to talk.”
I followed behind him along the short corridor. The gap into the dark room grew wider, the air inside so stagnant it turned my stomach. It reeked of defeat. Of rot at the very spine of Garrison Earth.
“She’s trying,” Airos said, kneeling beside her side of the sleeping pod. “Every morning she gets up and tries to be there for Sophie, but Maria is just… empty. As if Miguel had a third of her heart, and now it’s gone. You can’t live with only two-thirds of your heart intact.”
I looked over the female, a tangled mess between limbs and sheets. A look into her eyes revealed them open, passing through life one slow blink at a time. My ribcage constricted at sight, for she was nothing but a shell. Just like Eden had been the night she sent me away.
“You said you are sedating her?”
“Yes, Warden.”
“Is she aggressive?”
He let out a half-amused huff. “I wish she would hit me, scratch me, and fight me like she did when I first saw her.”
His eyes searched for mine in the dimness of the room, his voice carrying as much heaviness as the words which followed. “Females are bold creatures, as I am sure you have discovered yourself. They will fight everything and everyone threatening their family. It isn’t until they turn quiet and lose all fight that you realize you fucked up bad.”
Another stab between my ribs.
Yes, I fucked up bad.
The scenario in front of me might just as well have been Eden and me four years from now. Our shortsightedness would smash everything I loved about my mate. I was a fool to believe Garrison Earth had finally reached a state of normality, for the mission’s doom was forming right in front of my eyes.
Garrison Earth first. Humans second.
I shook my head at the memory of my words.
What did we know about families?
What did we know about love?
Humans knew. And if we didn’t start listening to them, then all efforts would end the moment our own males took up arms against the Empire.
The gray outline of Sophie pushed into the corner of my vision, making my heartbreaking future all the more clear. Eden was pregnant with my daughter. A girl whose hair I would never put into a ponytail. A girl whose imaginary tea I would never taste.
“Mom,” she whispered, climbing onto her mother’s lifeless body.
She leaned her head onto her shoulder, letting her limbs fall down her unmoving sides. And then she sang, each tune freezing the veins in my heart some more until I turned solid, unable to move,
unable to look away.
A revolution grew at my core.
I had gambled away four votes. Where a vote in favor of changing the tradition of our strati was unlikely before, it had now turned impossible. Unless Zavis of the house Broknar would agree to help at the risk of execution.
Chapter 30
Eden
I took a sip of my coffee and scrunched up my nose at the off taste. “That thing with Torin and me was bound to fail from the start, and this only proves it. It’s better like this. Really”
“Yeah,” Anna said with an eager nod.
“He might try to change it if I asked for it.” I ignored that sensation of hope welling inside me. That wasn’t what I was going for here, so I quickly added, “But I can’t be with a man who doesn’t understand for himself this is wrong. I can’t play his conscience for the rest of my life. Shit, I swear I can’t stop thinking about that woman at the NUFAC.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Who would have assumed this draft would continue? I mean… I get they had to find an alternative when they had no females to raise them. But now?” She scoffed. “I don’t wanna be insensitive, but it kinda makes me glad that I’m not pregnant.”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.”
I spent the next couple of minutes counting the crumbs on the kitchen island, which did a fair job at keeping the tears at bay. What was there to cry about, anyway? Certainly not the fact that Torin was gone. And I needed to save my tears for when they came for Gabriel, who luckily decided to take a nap in his swing.
A warm hand wrapped over mine. “You understand you can ugly-cry as much as you want, right? Don’t hold back for me.”
“No, I’m done crying,” I assured her, voice already growing thicker. “Tears won’t change anything. And I already feel better now that Torin’s gone.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Really, I mean… it’s like I finally got rid of that weight, you know?”
“Yeaaah.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Like what? I’m not saying anything like nothing.”