by Addison Cain
Upturned, inky Tessan eyes looked into hers with so much joy.
That expression sat on his face in the instant of his death. The hum had yet to cease, but pain tore through Sigil’s right lung, the boy in her arms sagging forward, a gaping hole in his back.
“Jerla...?” Blood came from Sigil’s mouth.
His mind was gone from her reach, the broken thing cradled at her shoulder shot straight through. Though the child had taken the brunt of an assassin’s fire, the attack had been well aimed. Wheezing through a collapsing lung, through the fire of torn skin, Sigil stumbled backwards.
The sky was still beautiful.
Chapter 10
The Adherents were buzzing frantically in the antechamber of the family wing. “She walked back to her rooms with the Tessan child’s body in her arms. She walked the entire way bearing a wound that would have claimed the life of any human. The court saw! Those who sought to help her, she harmed.”
Another voice broke through the din. “She refuses to give up the body. She won’t let Corths attend her.”
High Adherent Corths spoke up, focused on his projections, face drawn by concentration. “Sigil knew how to drain a collapsed lung herself. My help was unnecessary and unwanted. If you try to take the boy from her, she will rampage. Allow her to mourn.”
“The corpse will begin to rot...”
Tiburon approached with his faction, indisputably furious. It was he who shouted, “Get out!” to the chattering priests. “Go into the city and do your fucking jobs before Sovereign slaughters the entire population singlehandedly!” While his orders were followed, that scarred face went to Corths. “Ballistic reports offer little information. Shards of the missile broke apart on impact. I need them.”
Corths looked to a projected scan. “They’re still inside her and the boy. I suspect the pain is keeping her brain functions level. The readouts from her implant... she is calming slowly.” Impressed, the male added, “It’s a brilliant approach, really.”
Tiburon rolled his eyes and marched forward. “I’ll take them out of her myself.” The second his hand went to the access panel, The Lord Commander found it would not move, the mechanics unnaturally twitching. “Open the door, brat!”
One of the lesser Adherents, a low ranking Brother explained. “Her psionics have been holding that door for twenty-seven hours.”
“She has been alone in there all this time?”
Corths shook his head. “The emperor swore to her he would lay the one responsible at her feet. Neither he nor Karhl have returned. But she is not alone, Dryden followed her in.”
Tiburon laughed, the sound hollow and cruel. “Then she’s killed him.” Measuring the younger Brother, the one who held great power in his title yet preferred his lab and experiments, the Lord Commander sneered. “Looks like you’ve been promoted.”
Muted by her implant, wounded and tired, the Imperial Consort could not continue her mental grip against the onslaught once Tiburon put his hand to the door. One violent burst of psionics and he broke her thready hold.
Shoving busted mechanics out of his way, Tiburon stormed in.
It was dark, but he could see her lying on the bed next to Jerla’s stiff body. The boy’s eyes were open, sunken, and the smell of his open chest cavity, repulsive.
She’d been sick, the floor spattered with blood and vomit.
Tiburon’s contempt rolled off a sharp tongue. “Get up.”
“When a Tessan pilgrimages, it’s known as going to the sands. The same term applies to their death.” Sigil turned her head, matted hair crusted to the pillow. “Jerla was afraid of the sands.”
Tiburon scowled. “What have you done with Dryden?”
A filthy finger pointed to the far corner. The shadow of a body lay crushed into the dark.
“That was unwise, Sigil.”
Voice flat, Sigil sighed. “He might be alive...”
No way was that lump alive. Just to make sure, Tiburon toed it with his boot. Dryden was indeed, very dead—already decayed into mush. “He was your Brother, Sigil. You’ve murdered one of our family.”
Sigil ran her fingers over the skull of her boy. “Dryden was the unwise one, forcing his way in. He would not leave me alone.”
Approaching the bed, Tiburon folded his arms over his chest. “That body needs to be incinerated.”
Sigil did not agree. “Not yet.”
“When?”
“What do you want, Tiburon?”
Focusing on the tatters of bloodstained cloth and torn skin, the Lord Commander grunted, “What you were struck with was not only cloaked, but unusual. I require what’s in your chest for further diagnostics.”
“I know what it was, a Keppling Heart-Seeker—a black market modification of Tessan design; very expensive, difficult to obtain.”
“How can you be sure?”
Disdain clouded narrowed eyes. “I lived on Pax.”
Sitting at the edge of the mattress, Jerla between them, Tiburon tore back the remnants of Sigil’s bodice, feeling around the most obvious of wounds. She let him. Some pieces he pinched with his fingers, two were wrenched out with psionics.
She was bleeding, face white under the paint and gore. After a shaky breath, she said, “There are three more buried deeper. It would be easier to remove them from my back. Just yank them through.”
Stern, Tiburon shifted to follow through as suggested. “If you don’t eat you won’t heal.”
“I’ll eat Dryden.”
She was not joking. Still, Tiburon chuckled. “He’s no longer fresh, brat.”
Before she could respond, he acted. The remaining fragments erupted from her back, shredding open three new injuries, leaving her struggling for breath.
“If you’re waiting for Sovereign to return with the ones responsible for the death of that child, your wait will be indefinite. If we knew how to differentiate the Soshiia from Converts, they would have been slaughtered already. All you had to do to find an agent was stand within fifty paces of one. If you want justice, get off your ass and find them yourself with that crazy, empathic brain of yours. Otherwise, Sovereign will continue to cleanse this entire city. He’ll kill them all, your Elba included.”
Sigil was in far too much pain to speak, her lung malfunctioning from the latest damage, but she grabbed Tiburon’s arm and sank in her nails.
“That’s right, brat. Fight back.”
She wheezed. “He wouldn’t...”
“It’s already begun. Now, get up.”
***
“There is nothing else I can do for this child.”
Corths sighed, his patience with humans having never developed to the steady acuity High Adherent Dryden had claimed. “The Imperial Consort desires for you to stay with Jerla.”
Lady Belloy looked down at the table, at the small Tessan she’d washed so the corpse might not lay so sadly. “I have done what I can for the boy, but the planet is being cleansed. I should be in prayer, preparing for the passage of my soul from this body.”
Pulling fine black fabric to hide exposed rib bones and the boy’s hollowed chest cavity, Corths said, “You might survive the draught.”
Lady Belloy gave a tired smile. “I’m an old woman, High Adherent. It is merciful for wives to be given an opportunity to transcend by swallowing the serum of the elite warrior class. But it will kill me.”
It would kill them all, Corths was certain. “You lack faith.”
“No,” Lady Belloy tucked the blanket around the body, just as she had tucked her children to bed when they had been small. “I have every faith that the Soshiia infection must be stopped. At any cost.”
“Agreed.” But Corths was not content. A full scale cleansing of a Convert world had not been required in sixty years. The fact one was taking place on the capital planet was a blow. Perhaps that’s why he spoke to a human of things better left to the Brotherhood. “Our lady would see the cleansing stopped. It seems her mercy extends beyond what she imagined.”
Now Lady Belloy intrigued Corths, the man raising an arched brow. “You would die, see millions dead, to assure the removal of what might be only one Soshiia agent?”
“The Imperial Consort was struck before the entire population, almost killed the first night she gave herself to us. And what of my children, my future grandchildren, on other worlds? Should I allow this villain to make an escape, to flee and spread his disease through our great empire?”
“And the children dying in the city right now?”
The old woman nodded, her face one of anguished acceptance. “It is unspeakable what must be done in the name of peace. All Converts know that.”
***
No one stood in her way because no one walked the streets. Soldiers sectioned off the city by region, stood at posts highly armed. Sigil did not allow them to see her. Irdesi Prime, by all appearances, suffered under occupation. But it was by their own kind—humans were the soldiers aiming weapons at civilians, at people who might be their sister, their son.
Segments that had already felt the hand of the emperor were just... gone, only craters of burning rubble left in their wake. The smell of smoke burned in Sigil’s weak lungs, drove her closer to the frontline. The white head of Karhl she saw first. He stood taller than the elite surrounding him, than the Brothers taking orders to lead their own squadrons.
She was not a pretty sight. Not when blood caked the crushed design of her hair, not when the white makeup was smeared into a blur of grey foulness. But Sigil wore the uniform, one Tiburon had pulled on her limbs. For that reason alone the soldiers did not shoot her on sight when the female revealed herself.
The night was stygian, smoldering remains doing nothing to increase visibility, but Sigil’s voice carried over the tramp of marching boots, over shouted commands. “Stop this, Karhl!”
Turning so fast his hair flared, a provoked Lord Commander glowered to see her where she should not be. “Young one.”
She cried over the crowd again. “I do not condone this!”
Pushing through the men that separated them, the Lord Commander charged forward. Limpid eyes took in the uniform, the dried blood stain running from her mouth down her neck. “You should not be here. It is obvious you are still wounded.”
She was, but she was also strong enough to start a fight if she had to. “Where is Sovereign? I need to speak with him.”
The Lord Commander put a heavy hand on her shoulder, careful to keep the touch light. “I suggest that you do not.”
The last thing Sigil desired was to be coddled. Forcing his hand off, she threatened him with every ounce of intimidation she could produce. “You cannot annihilate an entire population in hopes you might ferret out one Unsalvageable. What justice is there for Jerla in genocide?”
The man who possessed the patience of the sea, growled. “None of this is for Jerla.”
Her throat grew tight, icy eyes wet. “I know.... I know he was only a tool in the eyes of your family-”
“It is our family, Sigil.”
Speaking over the interruption, Sigil continued, “-but Jerla was mine. I will be the one to hunt those responsible. I will destroy all they love. Do not take that from me!”
“So what would you have us do? Offer rebel agents who successfully and publicly shot our Imperial Consort time to regroup? I can see the entire planet cleansed in less than five days. There will be no escape for them, not with warships orbiting, ready to shoot down any vessel.”
“Would you not rather gather intelligence through interrogation?”
“Torture is ineffectual against Soshiia.”
Every mind could be broken. After all, look at her. “If you are responsible for the death of one more Convert in this action, Dryden won’t be the last Brother I murder today.”
Face blank, Karhl stared down at the female. He calculated, waited. When her fingers twitched and began to spark, the Lord Commander turned, calling over his shoulder. “Come with me.”
He led her farther up the field to where fresh fires burned and bodies were stacked for incineration. Women and children, young and old, it made no difference; all their minds were silent.
Wasted life, not one her enemy—not one of them anything to her. “Why do you kill the children? How can they be considered responsible for an assassination attempt?”
Karhl had stopped by her side when Sigil hesitated near another pile of corpses. “Children become adults.”
The thought turned her stomach. “And the empire is concerned they will grow up drunk on the desire for revenge.”
“It is better to remove the potential problem than feed a latent uprising.” Karhl’s logic was cold and pragmatic, the way he eyed the dead as unfeeling as the Axirlan he resembled.
“You’re wrong...”
Another spoke. “Our history proves he isn’t.”
It was a voice that sounded nothing like the emperor who had taken her from Pax.
Sigil had sensed him, the rage and the violence so harsh it had a physical effect on her. But when she turned to face him, what stood against the smoke wasn’t Sovereign. It was a breathing demon.
Walking over a pile of broken bodies, blood dripping from his fingers, Sovereign’s eyes burned. “This is not for you to see.”
No. The fixed agony, the faces locked in dead screams called out to her—they judged her.
Sigil had committed atrocities, murdered on a whim, wallowing in her madness when it descended. She had played with the bodies of the dead, eaten them, tossed limbs about and reveled in it. She had done those things because she was a monster. “You’re no different than me...”
Stepping down, heedless of mashing skulls or crunching bone, Sovereign closed the gap between them. “I am much worse.”
He went to embrace her, affection from something so horrid, so blood thirsty, unexpected.
Sigil startled, froze, breath hitching when he pulled her against him and nuzzled her hair.
It was the feeling coming from inside him, the perversion of it choking her. Sigil was frightened of Sovereign—the fact that she was scared, that she recognized her feelings as such, petrified her further.
When his mouth worked a path near her lips, Sigil whimpered. “Stop.”
“Stop?” Sovereign’s grip tightened, his voice razor blades. “It is always stop, isn’t it? I give you gentleness, you fight. I build you an empire, you hate me for it! I could take you here, on these very dead right now. I could make you, and you couldn’t stop me—just like you couldn’t stop me on Pax. I could push into your body anytime I wanted.” He bit at her mouth, lapped her lips before he shoved the startled woman away. “There is no STOP! There is only wait—wait while you fuck my Brother. Wait while you mourn a being that never loved you. And I will wait, Sigil. You would be surprised how far my patience will extend. But there is never, ever going to be a stop. I don’t even think the grave could keep me from you.”
She’d tracked his movements, hearing each layer of the monster’s shouted threat, and found it was only the two of them left in the circle of the dead’s judgment. Karhl had gone, all soldiers having followed.
Smoothing back the tangled black that hung over his eyes, Sovereign straightened to his full height. Even furious he was beautiful, flawless... no matter the corruption of blood or filth. For some reason, that frightened Sigil more.
She felt small, defenseless in the face of so much power.
Like crashing waves, his eyes narrowed dangerously. Sovereign took a step towards her.
Sigil backed a step away. “You promised to bring me the ones who hurt Jerla. They are mine to kill. The massacre of millions is not what I want.”
Sovereign looked incensed at her words, at the way she shrunk from him. “First there was the Soshiia agent on the ramparts upon your arrival to Irdesi. Then, a coordinated attack against our only female that must have involved many, considering all the possible unknowns a sniper had to counter and prepare for. Yo
u could have died! The infection permeates this entire planet and it ends now!”
A little jerk of the head—left to right—a slight negation, was all she could offer when Sovereign’s emotions seared through her and sent her brain to pounding. All she wanted was to put her hands to her ears, as if the internal screams, the roaring crash of too much fury, might be shut out.
Seeing her brow crease, seeing her concentrate, Sovereign growled. “The implant, Sigil, is it malfunctioning?”
The space behind her eyes boiled. A drop of blood fell from her nostril. “You’re hurting me.”
Something in the man changed. He pulled on majesty like a cloak. In the blink of an eye, his mannerisms altered, and there he was, the fabrication she’d come to know—the thing he’d pretended to be so the demon might appeal and draw her in.
The real Sovereign was far more terrible, beyond her, and Sigil was lost in the magnitude of him. “How did Commander Dimitri think I would have ever been able to kill you...?”
“You kill me every time you turn away, every time I have to force myself not to make a grab for you.” His lip curled in an expression very similar to the one Tiburon favored. “You kill me when you look at me as you are now.”
“Sovereign.” Sigil swallowed, the burn in her throat scuffing her words. “Please.”
He reached out as if to touch her. Sigil closed her eyes, bracing. The bloody hand paused mid-air, fingers curling as the arm was dropped.
His voice was toneless. “Ask yourself why you are afraid right now.”
“I killed Dryden.”
“I know you did. I was monitoring you through his communications implant. I am always watching you, always with you even when you share the company of the others.”
“If you are trying to ease my anxiety, you’re failing at your goal.”
At that he touched her cheek, palmed it to wipe the trace of blood over her mouth. “Perhaps my approach has been too indirect. I’ve let you formulate and misconstrue. You do not respond well to cautious handling and subtle manipulation. Should I force you? That is what you were conditioned to appreciate.”