by Addison Cain
“That’s not what they are.”
It did not take her long to straighten her robes, to cease with her mocking and her play. Sigil grew serious, her eyes threatening murder. “I know exactly what they are.”
She was already out the door, Arden calling after her, “PLEASE! I didn’t know you were pregnant. YOU CAN’T! You’ll hurt her.”
Sigil ignored him, his frantic pleading, his anguish, as she walked out onto the chosen place where the approach of the Soshiia would give her greatest advantage. The Herald’s screaming would draw a crowd, and in time Brothers would look to interfere. Still, the Imperial Consort made no secret of where she stood, she even left her hair uncovered so it might shine in the dark like a beacon.
Her girls were coming.
They had to climb to reach the rooftop, arms hooked like spider legs, to pull their bodies higher. When the pair of them crested the rooftop to stand before their mother, Sigil forced herself to look at what had been created because she had been too selfish, too wild, and too evil.
Condor was bloated and orange, the atmosphere abnormally settled, the evening sky bright enough she could see her daughters clearly. Both of them looked like her, they looked like Sovereign, even if they did not look like each other. But there was something in the way their bodies were configured that hung unbalanced and awkward. A slight hunch in the back, shoulders that were uneven, as if the girls were half formed between human and Sudenovan.
Their necks were too long, or not long enough.
Dr. Saniel would have laughed to see such shoddy work, then she would have killed them.
Even with the defects, the woman on the left was undoubtedly beautiful, staring back at her with the same icy eyes, the same cold calculation. Her sister was not as fortunate. Something had gone wrong with her face, leaving half of it distorted... as if her skull had begun to melt.
Behind them, still working their way up the building, were the last Unsalvageables in the city. Six tainted converts come to stand guard over their would-be queens.
The misshapen one spoke, half her face showing curiosity, the other half hideous. “I told you she’d want us.”
Sigil kept her face blank, her finger on the trigger of the plasma blaster hidden in her robes. “Which one of you killed Jerla?”
“Is that Arden we hear screaming?” Only menace rolled off the girl who stood as Sigil’s reflection. The pretty one didn’t care if she was wanted by the Imperial Consort. “We were not sure if he would find you, though he swore he could.”
Sigil ignored the question. “Sovereign will arrive soon.”
The pretty one stepped closer in her sudden wild-eyed eagerness. “And when he does, will you kill him as Arden promised?”
It drew out an honest smile, Sigil charmed. “I have met your mother, Lady Belloy. Jerla liked her very much.”
Such hate twisted the pretty ones’ face, such pain marring her sister’s. “The Tessan boy... is that all you can speak of?”
Speaking over her sister, the pretty one, hissed, “We gave the Herald the codes to shut off your implant. You owe it to us to end Sovereign and put us in our rightful place!”
In doing so, Sigil’s life would most likely be lost. “Is that what you want?”
“WHAT WE WANT? Where are our statues in the Adherents Cathedral, where is our recognition as your daughters? The Brotherhood ignores us!”
Sigil interrupted the pretty one, chiding, “If you continue to shout, they’ll find us more quickly.”
“We were cast aside!” The girl responded with venom, letting it pour out in jerking movement, in her screams, “Forced to live on a mud covered planet as if we were human—kept from a seat at court, from you.” Abject fury, made the pretty one hideous. “They call us Soshiia... half-formed. We are disregarded.”
“Enough.” Sigil could hear the self-entitlement, the sounds of a child screaming to have its way, to have more. It was ultimately disappointing. “Sovereign provided you with a good life, a family unit, and your chance to make a mark on your species.”
The pretty one smiled. “We did make a mark...”
She let her words coil around them like razor wire; Sigil let them hear the disapproval in her heart. “You used an incomplete serum made from yourselves on innocent Converts, to what, stir up a civil war? An army of them could not have stood up against five of your Brothers. You would have torn apart planets. Already your antics have cost the lives of millions, led to volatility in the empire that protects our species from extinction—the empire that protected you.”
Motioning towards her sister, the pretty one hissed, “For years Vara has tried to convince me that you could be reasoned with. I knew she was wrong. If you were dead, we would be necessary. We would be respected.” Raising her hands to gather cycling psionics, the girl showed just how much she could hate. “WE were the firstborns and no Tessan plaything should have replaced-“
Sigil could see her disfigured sister had noticed, that the one with the distorted face was already reaching out to warn her twin. But it was too late. Sigil was the superior warrior, had been modified and trained as her warped children never had. Her arm rose, her finger kissed the trigger, and the one with the pretty face didn’t have a face anymore.
There was a scream of disbelief, the living twin falling to her knees to catch the headless body of her sister. “Why?”
Smoke came from the neck’s stump, Vara holding her hands to it, as if she might put her sister back together.
Sigil made herself witness the anguish, the pain, all of this mess born from her. It was like walking through a living nightmare—but it had to be done.
She stood over the only remaining Soshiia. As if to offer pity, Sigil explained. “Child, through no fault of her own she was infected with my madness.”
The girl was sobbing. “She was your daughter.”
“No.” Sigil took in the smell of burnt flesh, took in the carnage. “She was me, and I deserve to die.”
They were no longer alone, the Brotherhood teeming like ants racing up the walls, over the balconies... the sad remnants of the twins Unsalvageable army already eaten up by the swarm. A single ship hovered above, its gate down, the Brothers inside shouting down to her to take their hands.
Sovereign raised himself to the roof, his voice so loud it cut through the girl’s screams. “Sigil you must not!”
She did it gently, resting a hand on something that was half her child and half herself, just as she’d cupped the neck of her mother years ago after the crash. The compression of her fingers, the wrench required to completely sever the spinal cord was instantaneous. The one called Vara even had the gift of looking her mother in the eye, of projecting her feelings of betrayal as Sigil projected the very emotion Sovereign had taught her was love. And then that girl too fell dead, the body headless like her sister’s.
Standing there, towering over them Sigil lay down the misshapen daughter she’d never know, and made herself look at what she’d done. No mental rampage came, no loss of control, only detached clarity and the feel of Sovereign’s arms coming to restrain her and drag her away.
There was chaos in those extended seconds, so many shouting, Sigil offering no resistance and no explanation. She could feel Sovereign weeping, knew without turning her head, that he looked at the girls she’d destroyed.
When they were at a distance, shots were fired. He fell to his knees, taking her with him as the Brotherhood swarmed nearer to close around the pair.
Sigil’s eyes traversed the crowd, settling on Tiburon. Anchoring her attention, he nodded, not in praise, but in understanding... a part of him even hinted at gratitude that she did what was best for them all—what they could not do themselves. The great beast at his side, the massive Karhl, did not reflect the sentiment. Like his counterpart, he stared, as if waiting for her to lose control—because there was some unseen problem.
Karhl raised his weapon, a plasma rifle so large a human could never have lifted it, and he pointe
d it at the ship hovering above his female. He pointed it at his own Brothers.
She had not noticed any sound over Sovereign’s desolation, but it was there... Arden was shouting down at her from the ship. “KILL HIM! You must kill him now while your implant is still offline! Save us all!”
That was why Tiburon did not want her to look away, the Lord Commander needed her to see him. He needed her to see only him so he might mouth the words. “It was Arden who killed Que.”
Her emotionless control had been so precise, so cold and perfect any Axirlan would have approved. And then it was gone, snapped away from her because Tiburon never lied, at least not to her.
Head snapping back, Sigil looked at the ship and saw the golden one. The Herald used his psionics to forge a leg made of pure energy, a Brother she did not recognize helping to support his weight. Arden reached out to her, imploring for her to finish it and set them all free. “YOU MUST KILL HIM NOW!”
It rolled through her, a wave of something so far beyond misery that no language possessed a word for it. Sovereign sensed the change. He took a grip of her head, as if to wrench it from her shoulders as she had done to her half-formed child. Lips pressed to the shell of her ear, he began to rattle off a code, a mixture of sounds that was no tongue she knew. Her skull was on fire, but physical pain could not register beyond the wrath eating her up inside.
Arden saw her face, Sigil’s frosty eyes brimming with rage, and took a stuttering step back. Breaking her arm free of Sovereign’s hold, her hand shot forward. She locked her psionics onto the ship, intent on pulling it down right on her head—so that as Arden was crushed and burned she would see it, feel it, and relish her own bones breaking.
All Brothers on board began to panic, several pulled from their perch on the open gangplank, only to fall and be crushed by their own kind. The door’s mechanics were failing, the ship’s boosters firing up to fight the sudden loss of gravity.
She almost had them. She almost pulled that ship from the sky.
She would have, had Sovereign not spoken the final words, had her implant not come online to squelch her true power.
Like a fraying tether, her hold on the ship weakened, twisted, and snapped.
Arden and the traitors with him jumped into hyperspace before even clearing the atmosphere.
Their course had already been plotted, their plan for immediate escape in place—because they had planned to take her away... so she might be coupled with a new Sovereign, tied to a new group of males who would keep her to themselves no matter the consequences to the empire or Convert humans.
The light of the ship’s drive faded, Sigil lying in Sovereign’s arms, covered in the blood of her child, and trying to fight him off like a madwoman.
“Hush, beloved. It’s over now.”
Even lost in his own pain, grieving that he had not arrived in time to prevent what Sigil had done, Sovereign fought to draw her back. It was not a quick transition from insanity to lucidity, but it was an agonizing one. When she could no longer fight, Sigil found her arms were fast around Sovereign, that she was weeping into his shoulder as he rocked her and let her cry.
Chapter 15
Tiburon stood, hands resting on the marble balustrade, his eyes downcast over where their species’ sole female lay in a brief moment of sun. By the way her body draped over the settee, she was deep in sleep, her head resting on Karhl’s lap. Trying to remain unobtrusive, High Adherent Corths scanned her growing belly, making notes on his handheld equipment.
Many of her Brothers had taken residence in the halls. They converged around her, more and more of the males arriving from distant planets the further her pregnancy progressed.
Every last one of them would be in Irdesi Prime for the birth. All of them had a right to see this new life.
Lord Commander Karhl fiddled with Sigil’s hair, braiding and unbraiding bits of it, weaving in the chimes he wore in his own white mane. For a man who was harder than rock, he seemed tamed and contented... playful.
Seven months of Sigil’s pregnancy had changed everything.
Tiburon had missed many of those months, having been in talks with the Tessan Authority and charged with commandeering Arden. Unfortunately, diplomacy could only go so far. “How is she today?”
“Better...” The question was begrudgingly answered, Sovereign staring down at the same scene. “Distant. Holding her attention can be difficult.”
“When you speak so shallowly, boy, it’s like you don’t know her at all.” Pushing from the balustrade, Tiburon curled his lip and sneered. “Bring her a Kilactarin, bring her Elba, bring her the flesh of Arden for her to gnaw on, but do not expect her to enjoy your company.”
The outburst was ignored, Sovereign enraptured by watching the way the wind tousled his female’s gossamer garment. “Arden and those who absconded with him will be dealt with in due time. I will not bring an intergalactic war with a powerful species to our doorstep. I will not endanger either of them to end him quickly.”
The Tessans were an older empire, with allies and alliances that could be called upon. There was no clear estimation of who would win a war of such magnitude. Both sides would be devastated. “You understand the gravity of this. There was an unprecedented fracture in our ranks. Our kind has never challenged the authority of the one who stands as Sovereign.” It was rare for scorn to abandon Tiburon’s voice, for censure not to hide between his words. He spoke plainly. “Without unity, all of us will die. How many here have let the idea of taking her for themselves cloud their judgment? How many will be patient to wait their turn while generations of daughters grow into adulthood?”
Cocking a brow, face stern, Sovereign darted a threatening glance to his predecessor. “You challenge my authority tirelessly.”
The scarred one cocked his head, the metal filled wound down his cheek catching the light. “There is none more loyal in our family than I.”
“We will not rehash old arguments now.” Sovereign looked upon the Brother who had raised him, who had been Sovereign before him, and felt timeworn lingering animosity. “We coexist as we always have, because it is best for her.”
As if the sleeping woman was in agreement, there was a grunt below them. Sigil flopped over, her arm thrown above her head. Below her breasts her belly protruded, round and hard.
Sovereign loved the sight, adored the woman, and desired greatly for things to be different. “Corths believes your presence is beneficial to the fetus. Sigil vomits less on days she interacts with you.”
Tiburon lifted his chin, he smirked. “Because I let her gnaw on my forearm. She desires meat... yet you treat her like a human. She is far from human.”
“She won’t eat from me or Karhl. We’ve tried... and our younger Brothers... they might not survive her cravings.”
“So I am to be her buffet? Tell the hellion I said no.”
“I do not know what part of her blended DNA makes her this way. Is it the Sudenovan Matriarch, the Kilactarin? Is it the Gupp or the Tessan? The more her pregnancy advances, the less she can eat human food without growing ill.”
“We already knew she was a cannibal.” Tiburon laughed, tracing the metal line slashed across his face. “She was created to destroy us one way or another. Dr. Saniel was very thorough. When are you going to wrap your head around that?”
There would be no discussion on the matter. Sovereign was resolute. “You claim to love her. You will feed her. I will supply your wants in return.”
Tiburon looked at the emperor, turning his body to lean lazily against the wall as he grinned. “I want her company tonight... in my rooms. We are not to be disturbed until I say we are done. If she wants, I will let her eat a whole limb.”
“I won’t subject her to your appetites.”
“Believe me,” an evil grin spread over the Lord Commander’s face, showing broken teeth and an unsettling excitement, “the brat enjoys my appetites.”
“Do not play games with me, Tiburon. When she leaves your rooms, s
he refuses to speak, sometimes for days.”
“So you send me on mission after mission off-world so she cannot seek me out. And it is her who comes to me.” Tiburon had earned her affection, held power in her regard. “She would sleep in my rooms every night if you did not interfere.”
Sovereign ground his teeth. “In order to maintain solidarity, she must be shared!”
“Yet you question what I do to her when we are together, why I refuse you access to my communications implant. When she’s mine, she is mine alone.” Tiburon would not be moved any more than Karhl would have been moved. “That is the way it is going to be, and you will accept it, boy.”
Lips in a grim line, Sovereign demanded, “What is it that you do to her that I cannot see?”
Commands of this nature every Brother was compelled to follow. The Lord Commander had to answer—but the cat and mouse, the venom... Tiburon was at his finest. “We spend our time in conversation. We talk for hours, days, long past her need for sleep. She tells me everything: about Que, Pax, Condor, and all the other horrible places she haunted over the decades. I listen. I tell her the truth. That is what we do.”
A rich, horrible envy bubbled up in the gut of the emperor. Tiburon was not lying... though Sovereign wished he were. He would rather have known the Lord Commander’s cock was mercilessly invading Sigil’s body than hear that Tiburon had successfully invaded her trust. “The hate I harbor for you, Tiburon, is fathomless.”
“I would think you might hate Karhl more? Last I saw, he was doing things to your pregnant Consort you would hardly believe. The brute’s whole fist was inside her... and she was begging him to—”
The palace rocked on its foundation, Sovereign unable to contain such rage. “SILENCE!”
Below them Sigil was shaken from sleep, so startled she sat up, ready for battle, for bloodshed. Karhl was already trying to calm her, palming her belly and whispering at her ear.