by Addison Cain
One corner of Sovereign's mouth rose. He seemed entranced, emotions content. “I enjoy talking with you.”
He spoke so gently, she sighed. “I do not want to live in your palace. I cannot... it's too loud. There is too much.”
“It wasn't premeditated, not for all your threats. It wasn't your fault.” Sovereign's whisper came urgent. “You know I know that.”
“I am unhappy there, Sovereign.” And she looked vulnerable in that moment, openly admitting weakness.
The emperor seemed surprised at her words, at the melancholy creasing on her brow. He reached to cup her cheek, encouraged when she did not flinch or draw away as she usually did. “No one keeps you in your rooms, beloved. You could have left at any time.”
“Don't they? Would I be free to wander alone if I wished? No, there is always a handler, protocol. You have recreated the conditions of Condor.”
Pain lanced Sovereign whisper, a look of longing mirroring the internal burn of those words. “Please... you cannot mean that.”
Sigil's brows fell, her eyes pleaded. “Understand that I know this is forever. On a ship, how far would I get before all this progress came undone? What would happen without a guardian willing to do whatever was necessary to subdue what I became? Am I to enslave one of you—someone easy to overwhelm physically and turn into him what you would make me—a kept thing used to satiate urges? How long, how far could I run?” Her grip left the fingers of the baker, Sigil fisting the fabric of Sovereign's sleeve. “The knowledge is prison enough. I can't leave you. This is my life.”
“You're saying you would not run?”
“I want a ship. I’ll want to see the empire.” Sigil closed her eyes, and rubbed her lips together. “And when I do, it is Tiburon who must escort me.”
“What?” The question was sharp.
Sigil glanced briefly at the Lord Commander, his smirk pinching the metal scar. “I have not read so far in Arden's journals. But Tiburon has cornered me more than once, hurt me where you won't.” Icy eyes went back to Sovereign. “What's inside him, eats him—both of us poisoned by the same drive. But that is not my point. My point is this. I give you my word that I will stay. Find a Kilactarin empath to confirm my honesty, if you must.”
“Sigil, beloved, this must stop.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Sovereign did not seem so sure. Fingering her hair, closing in on his female, he pressed warm lips to her furrowed forehead.
Allowing him the intimacy, Sigil whispered, “I slept for so long, worlds are beyond my memory. I know nothing of the universe now... I hardly understand the empire. These few days outside have relieved much of my unease. Only reading of your history irritates me. I cannot help it.”
“And you've been bored.” Sovereign pulled away just far enough to see her eyes flame can you blame me? It seemed Sovereign was not so indifferent to her request. “Then let us negotiate. Send off your Convert and we will continue to talk, like you wished.”
Sigil turned her head, felt Sovereign breathe in the scent of her hair, and looked to the nonplused baker witnessing an exchange that would change the empire forever. “I thank you for the bread.” There was a moment's hesitation before Sigil added, “You're unusual, worthy of the holy ground you love. Having walked it, I'm not sure if it's worthy of you.”
Elba did not move, the baker looking to Sovereign as if the conversation was one she could not fully comprehend. Addressing Sigil, the woman seemed unsure, “Imperial Consort, do you wish me to stay?”
She couldn't help it, Sigil smiled. “You may call me Quinn.”
Tiburon was the one to move—almost too fast for human eyes to follow—to snag the arm of the Convert and whisk her towards the door.
“Quinn?” Sovereign asked, cheeks hollowed as if the name tasted bitter.
“In the city I will be Quinn. In your palace I will be Sigil.” How else was she supposed to walk amongst the population? “I will keep the residence near the bakery.”
By his emotions, by his expression, such a thought was inconsiderable. “Those pilgrim’s dwellings, beloved, are not intended for extended use.”
Of course he’d known where she’d been.
“In this compromise, my lodgings and my life outside the palace walls are mine to live.” Her throat grew hot, Sigil looking for words than might be sung as eloquently as Arden might sing. “If you will give this to me, half my time I will be a willing Imperial Consort, Sovereign. I will appear to the people, attend court...”
He thought to catch her another way. “What of Jerla?”
The boy's name lessened her tension. “Children need stability. The palace will offer what I fail to supply. When I am there, I will see him. He is not to know how I spend my days outside.”
Sovereign had so much more to gain from this than she did. They both knew that. It did not mean he liked it. “I can't trust you, Sigil. We must be honest with each other.”
“Do not make me desperate.” And there it was, her violence flashing deep in those chilly eyes. “Next time I might kill you.”
“I'm going to give you what you want.”
Sigil released her breath.
Sovereign had more to say. “But, for now, there will be no ship—no Tiburon to escort you through the stars. When the day comes, that will be my honor.”
The scarred Lord Commander was still far across the room, standing at the Cathedral's gate. Sigil found herself staring at him. “Fine.”
Sovereign drew her face to his, made her meet his eyes, and drove home a very important point. “Be cautious with Tiburon, beloved.”
“We're the same thing, you know that. Dr. Saniel made us the same.”
The emperor was not going to elucidate, only warn. “She made him something else.”
Chapter 9
A wall of windows framed the bland cityscape carved out of Irdesi’s mountain range. Sigil stared absentmindedly at decrepit, beige flotsam, at black banners snapping stark in the streets, distracted by the feel of another’s hand carding through her tangled hair.
Warm at her back, the emperor asked, “Might we talk a little longer?”
That was the third time Sovereign had made such a request since she’d willingly followed him into the palace. Every time silence came, every time he lost her attention, he would ask again and she’d respond with, “We can talk.”
“Who is the Convert—”
Sigil’s shoulders stiffened. “You know Elba’s name, her rank, her history. Do not insult me, Sovereign, by pretending otherwise. Tiburon told you where I was.”
Strong fingers tangled near her scalp, Sovereign pulling just enough to draw icy eyes to meet his. “What is it about her that drew your attention?”
Finally, a good question. “The baker’s mind is...” she paused, choosing her words carefully, “...soothing to be near. Enough that I can ignore all the Convert babble your Adherents polluted her with. She’s friendly. She showed me kindness, having no idea who I was—wanting nothing in return. The only other person who’d treated me that way was Que.”
Sovereign’s fingers went to the knots binding a pilgrim’s rags to Sigil’s shoulder. He began to pull at the laces, completely ignoring her mention of the dead Axirlan. “Adherents merely exist to see you protected. You imagine enemies out of accomplices.”
Feeling the knot give, the slide of her dirty cloak being pulled aside, Sigil turned her attention once again out the window. “They exist to assure your godlike stature through a pseudo-religion based on lies.”
Mouth warm on Sigil’s exposed shoulder, Sovereign asked, “And which part is lies?”
Talking was less appealing if he was going to play games. Sigil’s annoyance grew obvious. “If you have a point, Sovereign, make it.”
Teeth grazing her nape, an arm circling her middle to warmly palm a breast, Sovereign created an embrace that could become a restraint should his next words anger the female. “If I were to tell you Adherent preaching is not untrue—at lea
st in the basic sense—I am convinced you will not take it well.”
Sigil curled her lip and cackled. “I am not the compassionate savior of Converts.”
Sovereign’s hold tightened. He spoke as if serious. “Your part in their creation is greater than you realize. At the Cathedral, Elba told you—in so many words—that you reside inside them all. Her claim was not an Adherent lie. Conversion serum is a virus created from your fetal cells. It attacks its host and alters key parameters in human DNA, making them susceptible to herd dynamics and suggestion from beings they recognize on a cellular level as their superiors.”
His hold tightened fractionally, in a strange blend between a hug for comfort and a reminder he was stronger should she think to fight. “Some Adherents would argue they are your offspring—a subspecies edging towards a hive mind that can be further conditioned to mimic our race. Though your virus is milder than those created from males of our kind, our influence—should they survive it—is much more direct and consuming. It serves us all.”
Sovereign had expected an outburst; Sigil’s silence inspired even greater wariness. Asking no questions, making no comments, she stared forward out the window, chewing her bottom lip.
Sovereign’s sigh warmed her ear. “What are you thinking?”
That not once in her existence had her body belonged to her. When she was small, it was a weapon of despots and psychopaths—a toy to torment and train. Left to her own devices, it became a vessel for madness. Sigil could not find herself surprised the Brotherhood had been using her all along. “I am thinking of nothing.”
“I had hoped to discuss this after you’d grown comfortable amongst your family. But you have chosen to seek information, and I will not deny you.” Sovereign kept the words light. “Your friend, Elba, is content. She is content because Conversion saved her from a life of slavery. It gave her purpose, satisfaction to pursue a future she found appealing, while still serving the greater good.”
Sigil breathed, took her time formulating her words. “There are holes in this story, Sovereign. You said fetal cells. How did you have access to such things, yet failed to clone me?”
“Our genetic architecture was constructed in such a way that should we be captured or our corpses recovered, a failsafe assured Alliance enemies would not be armed with Commander Dimitri’s magnum opus of military strength. Our bodies degrade almost immediately at death, tissue samples rendered unstable. When our creator, Dr. Saniel, died on Condor, our secrets died with her. But even if it could be done, I would never clone you. Do you understand that, beloved?”
She understood he was circumventing her question. “Answer me. How did you create the virus?”
There was no artifice Sovereign might employ that would hide from Sigil his discontent in saying, “What we now call the Serum of Conversion existed before the Alliance fell. Dr. Saniel created the original infection. It was fed to every member of Project Cataclysm. As all your Brothers have been exposed, you could say that we were the first Converted—the virus switching on a dormant condition so we might recognize our only female should we come into contact. We were predisposed to insulate our designed killer when she was sent to thin the ranks.”
Sigil turned her head to look out the window. “I remember you in the hall on Condor. I didn’t like the way you looked at me.”
“You were conditioned to suffer detachment when you naturally felt a bond. It’s the only way they could have inspired you to kill us. But when you looked at me that day, your lip shook.”
Lies. Sovereign was telling lies and she didn’t have to listen. “That is not what I remember.”
“It is fact, Sigil.”
“Fact,” the word was spat. “What is fact in this circus?”
The pressure of his body at her back increased, Sigil crushed against every line of him, every muscle. “You would be surprised at how much fact is layered into our myths.”
“Then tell me. Who are the Soshiia?”
What vibrated from him, what hummed through and around her, was dark. “They are your only real chance of escaping the Brotherhood. And should you be foolish enough to pursue them, what they would do to you would be beyond any nightmare you survived on Condor.”
Sigil’s neck craned over her shoulder, her fingers tangling in Sovereign’s black hair. One yank and they were eye to eye. “Enlighten me.”
“No. I won’t tempt a child into snatching up poison she believes are sweets.”
He could be so infuriating! Releasing her clutch on his hair, she took a deep breath. She swallowed. And she forced herself to look away from eyes so gripping it almost hurt to see that depth of blue. He refused to discuss the Soshiia, fine. There was something else —so blaringly obvious—she could sink her teeth into. “It’s the serum that made you think you love me.”
“No.”
Tongue sour, Sigil wondered aloud, “I’m unaccustomed to feeling pity.”
He took her chin and turned it so she would have to listen. “Don’t imagine we were unaware of what the draught was before we swallowed it. Decades of intel, of watching, of plotting... we knew practically every last Alliance secret. Swallowing your virus was willingly done by each of us—planned for. Days later, I entered the labs and changed you just enough.”
She understood what he’d really done that day. “With a serum made from you...”
It was to be a two way addiction. That was the reason his physical release had such power over her, why she craved him.
Sovereign tightened his arms and spoke with confidence. “We were all reborn together, made new.”
Mocking, Sigil asked, “And you just knew how to make a serum?”
“We had a mole in her labs. But there is no point pretending our version wasn’t flawed. No living mind in over a century has been able to match the genius of Dr. Saniel.” He wasn’t sorry, but he was unhappy his strategy had been less than perfect. “High Adherent Corths did his best.”
“You told me he was only a child when the Alliance fell.”
“A brilliant mind is a brilliant mind.” Seeing her concentrating, knowing each developing conclusion was incorrect, Sovereign added, “You were created to tempt me, Sigil. We cannot prove it was the draught that inspired my adoration for the female secluded from us. I had years to think on it as you grew. In the hall, all my previous aspirations for our attachment solidified. Love at first sight is a concept hailed by even the ancients before the humans destroyed Earth. Why can the same not apply to us?”
Sigil could see through sentiment, because she felt none. “Because Dr. Saniel’s draught was designed to inspire that feeling. When Karhl saw me in the yard, when he tried to help me, I felt it from him too—that obsessive infection. Arden was the same...” running through a century of memory in the blink of an eye, one difference stood out. “...Tiburon.”
“Was... immune to any feeling, draught or no. Before you were designed, he was altered to belong to someone else, and she didn’t want to divide his affection.”
What Sovereign hinted at, Sigil found all too easy to believe. “He belonged to Dr. Saniel.”
“Not originally. But by then, he’d been reassigned.”
Because Tiburon had been the leader of Cataclysm once, usurped by an improved model and made into some type of pet by the very woman Sigil watched him massacre. From esteemed soldier to sex slave, the parallel to her life was too familiar. “And because, unlike you, he isn’t compelled to adore me, you question his intentions despite his history of loyalty. He isn’t one of you...”
“He can’t love you. He can only love her... and you killed her.” Sovereign’s hand slid to Sigil’s hip, giving her the opening to shift away should she choose to. “His purpose now is less refined than what the rest of us desire.”
The more she heard, the less Sigil wanted to know. Tiburon’s history wasn’t her business—just as the way he’d tried to help her escape Condor long ago was not for Sovereign to know. And what of their other dealings, the few times he
’d hunted her down? Had he ever intended to catch her, or did he just enjoy the fight? Was his motivation displaced because he felt alone?
“I hear you telling tales.” Smug, smiling like a shark, Tiburon leaned against the archway. “Think to scare her from me, do you Brother?”
The disfigured Lord Commander did not hesitate to approach, to wrap a callused hand in a tight grip around Sigil’s upper arm and pull her from the Emperor—just enough so she was caught between them.
“Unsalvageable. That’s the slander Sovereign won’t use.” Charmed eyes flashed towards his leader, Tiburon smirking. “A harsh title used to label broken Converts. Considering the same applies to our little slut, here, maybe a sweeter word can be found. How about transfigured? That sounds pretty, doesn’t it? After all, Sovereign’s imperfect serum was unsuccessful in doing anything more than damaging Saniel’s greatest masterpiece.” Those deadly eyes went back to the female measuring his every breath. “You hear that, Sigil? What a mismatched pair we make, and how very threatened they are by it. Whatever we feel for each other... is genuine. I can’t tell you the amount of delight this situation has given me over the last century.”
Sovereign was covering Sigil’s bare shoulder, projecting his temper like a blaring trumpet. “Leave.”
“Let go of your emperor, Sigil.” Tiburon yanked her, his eyes fixing on the mass of Sovereign’s uniform Sigil unknowingly clung to. “I cannot contest a direct order, none of us can—each of us were designed to obey the chain of command. So release your hold on him and come with me. I am eager to have my turn in your company.”
There was the sound of hurried steps before Karhl’s thick arm wound around Tiburon’s throat. “Let her go, Tiburon. You’ve made your point.”
Whatever that point might be, Sigil suspected it was not the most apparent one. No other Brother had dared to enter that chamber, though Sigil sensed many edging nearer.