by Addison Cain
Irdesi Prime was nothing more than one big stage.
But above palace and city loomed Condor. That was the moon the shifting, angry sky concealed —once the seat of Alliance military innovation. That was reality hanging fat and ugly on the other side of a dim atmosphere.
Sovereign had been born there.
Sigil had been born there.
They may have even shared the same womb.
Maybe that was why her eyes darted up hungry for a sight of it. Maybe that was why she wanted to reach past the clouds and crush that unseen spherical mass—so lies that led to happy, simple bakers might keep.
If this place was how life churned on in the Empire, it was nothing like any life she’d known. The humans, every soul around her, had been something else before the Imperium smashed down on their existence. And now they were happy? The Unsalvageable made more sense, seemed more honorable. At least they fought back.
And what would Unsalvageable cities look like?
Probably like Pax.
The thought made her homesick even as it turned her stomach. Overthinking, paying little attention, Sigil bumped into the man walking before her. He stopped, and it wasn’t only him. All around her humans paused in their strides, standing still, and looking up at the sky.
Ready to bolt, assuming she’d been found, Sigil felt it before the sound registered. Rich, melodious, noise crawled up the soles of her feet, through bone, over skin, saturating every cell until she vibrated in time with that note.
Sigil’s world became quiet, like the mind of the abandoned baker.
There was no pain.
She felt no sorrow.
And that harmony, it came from all the humans pressed about her, beyond her, filling the city to stare up, just as the sky fractured into a beauty of prismatic light. Jaw agape, she too stared into the cracked canopy, into the flashes breaking up the dark. As if frayed pieces sought out their broken ends, for the briefest moment, Sigil felt whole.
She belonged, felt connected to everything around her.
The sensation was alien, exotic, outlandish—like a memory of her mother singing in her thoughts.
That sound, that balm, ended too soon, leaving her gasping for air as if some invisible hand had squeezed her throat.
The sheep around her began to move, each Convert continuing their path as if no interruption had taken place. The stranger at her side said nothing about how she’d gripped his hand and unconsciously threaded their fingers together. He just let her go, so he too might move on.
Frightened, backing away, Sigil sought refuge from the crowd in the first open door she found—a tavern, empty but for a few Converts wandering back to their seats after the song outside. Sigil sat, ordered a drink, and swallowed the first cup so greedily the knot in her throat was forced to relax.
And then he sat, taking the bench across from her, grinning meanly.
As she had failed to find an escape, it was inevitable one would find her. He’d probably tracked her all day, laughing from shadows when she didn’t notice how close he really was.
Lowering the cup from her lips, Sigil wiped the back of her hand over her mouth and admitted recognition. “I’ve wondered why I hadn’t been forced to look at your ugly face yet.”
Settling his armored mass, smirking as if everything he saw before him could not be more droll, Lord Commander Tiburon asked, “And just what do you think you’re doing?”
“Exploring.” The fizzy drink went back to her lips, the clay cup hiding her answer. “This is the capital after all—the seat of the empire.”
The Lord Commander sat quietly, watching her, that unshakable smirk delighted. When her gaze slipped over the metal filled scar running across his face, he audibly purred. Waiting for her attention to slip back to his eyes, waiting for Sigil to see the brilliant green so she might remember it was his eye she’d swallowed first, Tiburon took the waiting pitcher and filled a cup for himself. “You look exactly as I expected you would. Pathetic.”
“You look the same.”
His finger traced the tip of the scar. “More or less.”
Sigil breathed, “You were ugly before I tore open your face.”
“Brat.” A dry laugh stressed that the room had grown utterly silent, every human having left on some unseen order. “You really are impossible to please. It’s fucking entertaining watching them try though.”
The thought had crossed her mind once or twice. Bracing for calamity, Sigil asked, “How long until Sovereign shows up to drag me back?”
“That implant wired through your brain,” Tiburon cocked his chin, eyeing her forehead. “I was the one who demanded the Brotherhood mesh a tracker into the circuitry. Sovereign refused, claiming the risk was too great should your enemies harness technology that could trace you... And you do have enemies, Sigil.” He took a long drink, a drip spilling down a strong chin. “My point is this. Sovereign doesn’t know you’re here. Subsequently, he doesn’t know I’m with you. Take advantage of that.”
Sigil leaned nearer. “And why, of all your bastard Brothers, do you think I would believe a word that comes from your mouth? I’ve read Arden’s histories... they are full of your lies.”
“That’s not to say Sovereign won’t descend eventually.” Tiburon rolled several slender vials across the table, their contents a familiar murky white, Sigil found almost as disgusting as she found them valuable. The Lord Commander smiled, two teeth chipped, marring his beauty even as the metal scar enhanced it. “I offer you time. If you’re wise, you will take it.”
Sigil snatched at the semen filled vials to stuff into her cloak. “Why?”
A parcel was tossed to plop before her. “And there you have currency. You can run free, brat. Walk the surface of the planet, take in the sights.”
Pulling the coarse sack to her breast, Sigil eyes went wide, her psionics snapping as she waited for the trap to spring and crush the spark of hope in her ribs. “You think I’ll tell him the truth? Is that why you do this?”
Amusement bent the scar, twisted Tiburon’s lips. He refilled her glass. “Tell Sovereign what you will. Tell him how we stood face to face on Condor, and how I told you the path to escape the compound. Tell him I have hunted you, found you, and how you ripped my face apart when I last had you pinned to the floor. Tell him how you let me live after gorging on my eye and tongue. Tell him that afterward you rubbed yourself against me until you orgasmed.”
Unsure, Sigil ran her finger over the rim of her cup. “You were already in the room where they kept my mother. The human doctor I’m remembered for murdering, you killed.”
“The human? You would call that human? Dr. Saniel was your architect, Sigil—my creator, your creator. Every piece of you was chosen to glorify her. You even vaguely bear a resemblance. And there you stood all those years ago, crying over a limbless, alien lump you called mommy while the nearest genetic relation you ever truly had screamed for you to save her from me.”
A scream Sigil had ignored. “You slaughtered that human.”
“I did.”
“And told the Brotherhood I was the one responsible for the death of the scientist who designed and implemented Project Cataclysm.”
“True.”
Watching that face, the clean cut of his jaw, the shaved smoothness of Tiburon’s skull, Sigil demanded. “Why?”
“Every last one of us subsists on lies; the Brotherhood glorifies fables. You heard your own today, magnanimous saint of the people. So I offer you this. I will always tell you the truth. They won’t. Sovereign lies to you. Karhl lies. Arden lies. They lie to each other.”
“And you lie to them.” Just like his Brothers, he had not answered her question, simply shifted conversation to enhance his agenda. She asked again, “Why did you tell them I murdered Dr. Saniel?”
Lord Commander Tiburon shrugged. “Because I wanted to. Your madness on Condor gave me a perfect opportunity to further my interests. Her death I found very interesting.”
“Did yo
u know her?” Sigil’s only interaction with the doctor had been purely clinical—tests, torture, the resetting of limbs.
When his smile disappeared, Tiburon seemed far more dangerous than even Sovereign. “I knew her.”
The door was fifty paces to her right, a window twenty paces to the left. All those measurements taken without Sigil moving her gaze from those moss green eyes. “There are things you want to tell me—Brotherhood lies, you claimed—what are they?”
Head cocking, Tiburon frowned. He watched her; he calculated. “It doesn’t work that way, brat. I can’t read your mind and we don’t have all night. You must ask specific questions. Or do you anticipate I will throw the right answers at your feet, as I have tossed you money and my ejaculate?”
Frustrated with a man that was obviously playing with her, Sigil hissed, “Who are the Soshiia?”
By the way Tiburon leaned back into his chair, Sigil had obviously asked the right question. “Karhl is the oldest of us—a century older than me. The fact he still lives is testament to his unprecedented design. He’s all that’s left of the original batch. And there have been others who failed, who lacked perfection, who died in service—each of us ultimately replaceable... until I disemboweled our creator,” his face, his beauty grew ruined with a hateful snarl, “and crushed her brilliant brain to mush. The expertise in grafting whatever it is we are was lost that day. We cannot be recreated.”
The Brotherhood would have cloned her had they been able to... that is what his words implied. She would have been free, worthless. His actions made her life necessary to the group. “The Soshiia are... more of you... outside your Brotherhood? Soldiers who absconded before the Alliance fell?”
At once Tiburon’s nasty mask snapped back. “They could be. Considering that the Soshiia are capable of overcoming the biological alterations of Conversion by replacing it with something else, considering their training and resistance to interrogation. Who taught them? Who meddled with their chemistry? Maybe they are pawns of faulty Brothers who seek to slither in and steal what is not theirs. Maybe they are something else.”
It could not be possible. “Was there another Sovereign? One that led before this one?”
One eyebrow cocked. “Once, I was Sovereign.”
And Karhl was the oldest...
“How many?”
“Seven.” As if disappointed by her indifferent reaction, Tiburon changed the subject. “Why have you not asked me how many children were bred from your sleeping body?”
It caught in her throat, that first eruption of beer fizzed vomit she choked down. The possibility Sovereign had committed such a horrible act was one she’d not allowed herself to consider. Hearing such an atrocity spoken aloud sent her instantly past caution. Had her psionics been unhindered by whatever mess those bastards had jammed into her brain, the entirety of that lounge would have been blasted apart. Instead, all the furnishings rose and trembled, her cup shattering in her grip.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t suspect?” False pity shown on Tiburon’s face; he pouted his lips. “Almost fifty years you slept, suffering brain damage that required more surgeries than I can count, and you woke in a state of psychosis. Did you really expect Sovereign could respect your... womb? An entire species depends on your genetics.”
In a fury, she launched herself across the table. Raking her nails over Tiburon’s throat, biting him until she tasted blood—all she did only roused laughter. The Brother that had come close to catching her so many times, she knew his face, his scent, the workings of his mind, and shattered his nose... and still he laughed.
In her rage, Sigil did not see Tiburon’s strike, but she felt her cheek break, the flesh of her lip split.
They stilled, Sigil mounted over the smiling snake.
In a shaky breath she demanded, “How many daughters have the Brotherhood stolen from me?”
Under her, the bloodied man offered another truth. “None. While you slept, your body refused to ovulate, and the circuitry of your reproductive organs is too alien to be manipulated safely. If we were to inadvertently damage you...”
Snarling, she gripped Tiburon’s throat. “But it was attempted.”
“No.” Shoving away the nonplused woman, Tiburon scowled and stood. “You should know your Jerla woke this morning. He asks for you.” Sigil made no move to rise, crouched at the feet of a madman who knew just how to mindfuck her. The Lord Commander sighed. “There is no exit from this planet—no ships, brat. The best you can do is hide. Maybe pass your hours baking bread.” His eyes went to a vial of semen dropped amidst their skirmish, his toe kicked it towards her. “I have given you the means to be left alone. Use the opportunity to reason like an adult. Your tantrums bore me. Gratitude for my effort would be appropriate.”
Gratitude? Face red, jaw swollen, she glared at the armored warrior. “And the price for this miraculous help?”
That cruel smile snapped back to pretty lips. He reached out to ghost a touch over her ruined cheek. “Consider it foreplay.”
She bit off two of his fingers.
Chapter 8
Fluid filled vials rattled each time Sigil rolled her palm. Staring down at the sorry collection, her tongue wiggled a loose tooth, the knitting bones of her jaw painful.
Each capped vessel was self-contained, frozen by an unseen power source, and could prove to be ultimately useless—or much more dangerous to the Brotherhood than even the worm, Tiburon, intended. But which one?
Seven cycles Sovereign claimed she'd endured without his liquid contribution. Seven cycles from the time he'd left her on the water planet until she'd asked Karhl to deliver her to Irdesi Prime.
Seven was a grand improvement over those first days on Pax—days when one cycle had sent her on a mindless rampage.
But this was Lord Commander Tiberon's sperm, potentially less potent.
Furthermore, he wanted her to use it. He wanted it badly.
As he'd claimed, the sack at her shoulder held a great deal of money—enough, to see Sigil through for months in the capital.
None of that mattered.
Because he'd also told her Jerla was awake.
Sigil was many things—most of them bad—but when her mind was unconsumed, she was not unintelligent. She'd been designed to be brilliant, possessing neural pathways eons of evolutions beyond that of a human. But even the most foolish Convert could see Tiburon wanted the Imperial Consort to run amok. And from what she'd sensed inside him, the Lord Commander believed strongly in what he hoped to inspire in a newly acquired volatile resource.
Calculating, having dealt with him in the past, Sigil assumed nothing and questioned everything. Whatever he was up to was not some artless conspiracy—not when it felt as if centuries were folded into Tiburon's doings.
He, unlike his Brothers, was rooted in intention she could not grasp—like what he'd done to Dr. Saniel on Condor. There was a patience in the man, an ancient, crawling endurance, unhurried to render its goal. But Sigil had seen what happened when Tiburon found his moment. What he'd done to the doctor was beyond even her vicious moments of weakness.
He'd tormented that horrid woman, killed her slowly enough the doctor's nerves appreciated optimal suffering.
Weary of the taste of blood in her mouth, Sigil reached two fingers between her lips. The loose tooth was not going to mend; a new one would have to be grown. Pinching it, she yanked. A squishy hole gaped in her gums. Sigil held up her fingers, the bloody incisor jagged and uninspiring.
Tiburon had hurt her, intentionally inflicted damage with each swing after she'd bit him... so unlike Sovereign. The emperor was always cautious when they'd tangled. He conquered, he didn't crush. He never broke one of her bones or rent flesh.
But Tiburon... both of them took pleasure in giving the other physical pain. They had fought like cats—scraping and biting—until each grew bored, slinking away to their respective corners to lick bloody wounds. She had enjoyed it. He had enjoyed it—his bliss broadcasted so violently
, Sigil had laughed at the familiarity of such raw sensation.
It had been... fun.
He echoed her insides. Had she ripped him open and crawled through his guts, it would have been her own entrails poked, yanked, and savored.
Whether or not Tiburon understood the effect his actions had on her mattered little. What did matter were facts.
Fact One: The Lord Commander had claimed there were no ships, no way off the planet. Sigil believed him. But after a century of escape, she knew one thing to be true above all others. There was always a way out.
Fact Two: Even if she ran, there was nothing but the promise that madness would return no matter how far she fled. Secondly, without Que, what she'd do once possessed by that madness would be terrible.
Fact Three: Que was dead. He wasn't coming back. Ever.
Que was dead. He was dead. He was dead and she was alive. That was not going to change. The money in her sack would not change it. The vials in her grip would not change it. Rampaging through the Convert's capital would do nothing to alter what had come to pass.
Every urge she ached to satisfy would ultimately prove pointless.
Killing puny, little humans who had been chemically mutilated by the Brotherhood seemed... redundant. She could break even the strongest Convert specimen with a flick of the wrist. She could hunt them, play with them, they could even serve as her food.
But how strange Converts were.
Her history with humans had been... uncomfortable. Memory of her long-dead handlers, of the outlaws who'd shot her ship from the sky, a cold reminder that—as a collective—the species was very dangerous. Humans had designed Condor and enabled Dr. Saniel to experiment on sentient beings. Humans had wielded dominion over Project Cataclysm against their own kind. Humans had tortured a little girl so she might be a better killer.
Sovereign believed them dangerous—so much so, he had conquered every last feral he could reach, firm in the notion they posed a threat to her. Now, this new breed was his weapon.
They sang at the sky when day became night. They baked bread.