by Addison Cain
Her mouth moved before her brain could stop her. “Is that why Arden is not here? Jerla is still very upset?”
It seemed for a moment Karhl would not answer. His face and demeanor unchanging, the Lord Commander finally asked, “Do you desire his company?”
Which he Karhl referred to was left vague. Either way the answer was simple. “No.”
Karhl had more to say. “Are you unhappy that tonight I will attend you? You wish Sovereign would return?”
The tactile oddity of separation from Sovereign’s presence was a clear sign he was having some deeper effect on her. Separation would clear her mind. “I do not.”
No hesitation came with the justification of what Karhl wanted. “Then you understand that regression is likely and will need to be seen to.” A male that had never shown intonation let his voice grow husky, Karhl’s vivid eyes moving to her mouth, “But, beautiful young one, I long greatly to take you willingly to bed, and would hate to force you should you slip and grow dangerous to yourself.”
“My psionics have been repaired. How dangerous could I be?”
An infinitesimal smile came to the corners of Karhl’s mouth. “I think you have proven this morning just how dangerous you can be.”
Cocking a brow, Sigil grew brazen. “I warned him on Pax that if he didn’t kill me, I would make him pay for all the years he’s hounded me. You were there, you heard my words. He’s lucky I only took one eye.”
His vast internal amusement didn’t show, and Sigil was not sure if it was due to his Axirlan nature or the presence of the other Brothers. Remaining deadpan, Karhl agreed. “You are a woman of your word, which is why I asked our Brothers to join us for dinner and act as my protection.”
God help her, but Sigil chuckled before she could stop herself. In response, he gripped the seat of her chair and pulled her closer. “Your Brothers have come to cheer you, and should you encourage it, some may wish to watch our mating, others to enhance it. But that is entirely up to you.”
Ignoring how Karhl’s great hand began to stroke her thigh, Sigil grew blunt. “And if I don’t want to fuck you or serve as the night’s entertainment?”
“Then you won’t.” Steady, the Lord Commander removed his hand and offered her a modicum of space. “You are not a pleasure slave and I meant every word. No Brother here would touch you, and I would only move against your wishes if I had to. Should you not accept me, that time will come—maybe not tonight—but I will have to overcome your compulsion should you become dangerous to yourself.”
The man’s statement confused her just enough for Sigil to say, “So you are not going to force me now? Sovereign would not have waited.”
Karhl countered in favor of his Brother. “Sovereign had no choice when you refused to communicate and were difficult to read. You needed structure and a schedule. My actions would have been no different. Everything he did was done to keep you as comfortable as possible.”
Hums of approval and outright agreement came from the collected Brothers.
It all felt like some great test. Some invisible carrot dangled before her face, a secret prize that was waiting—all she had to do was engage in sex with the large white-haired warrior whose emotions sang to her even though he eyed her with placid curiosity.
She had her own test for them. “If you say I can choose, then I choose not to.”
Nodding that he understood, Karhl agreed. “As you wish.”
“And now that it’s settled,” Parnisu, still unsmiling, interjected, “perhaps you will relax and allow us the honor of getting to know you.”
They wanted her to speak. Fine.
The meal was lengthy, Sigil easing into the strangeness of sitting with so many survivors of Project Cataclysm. Remembering to eat was sometimes tricky when she was too busy calculating escape routes, or deciding whose neck she would have to break first if they were to attack her. Not a one made advances, they only wanted to know simplicities: her opinion on climate, food preferences, what colors she favored. Mildly intrusive questions into her history followed, focused on time periods the Brotherhood had evidently collected detailed intelligence on. Had she enjoyed the society of Desvop Outreaches? Did she favor Tessans or Sudenovans? How is it that she had never been to any Axirlan cities? What did she think of feral humans? Was it true she hated Converts?
During questioning, her Brothers held various offerings forward, the men behaving as if eager for her to learn the names of dishes. It was a game, Sigil found. To varying degrees they all tried to make physical contact with her—touching her when passing food, trying to feed her with their fingers—as if they fed off the exchange. Karhl was the most blatant, moving her hair to run a single stroke down her nape each time strands fell forward to mingle in the gravy on her plate.
Each of the men were so very different, yet exactly alike underneath their beautiful faces and alternate genetic gifts.
They were all one hundred percent committed to their cause.
The meal ended.
On some unseen command both Dryden and Corths stood. The High Adherents—the ones she looked at with the greatest suspicion—bowed, but wisely kept their distance. Though Corths paused, let his eyes shine with childlike innocence and asked softly, “May I, just once?”
Stiff, Sigil said nothing. The High Adherent took silence as acceptance, running the backs of his fingers down her cheek. The moment was short, and he left the instant his touch receded.
For her behavior, Herald Mathias grinned, teasing, “If I ask for a kiss will I get one?”
Her narrowed eyes, the Herald was wise enough to understand, was negation. Chuckling, Mathias winked, stood, and followed his Brothers out.
Parnisu and Gethman remained.
During the meal they had been the quietest—watching, strategizing. It matched their design, and simplified their place in her estimation: warriors, third rank, who lacked the charisma of a Herald or the pseudo-religious fervor of High Adherents. And there were three more Admirals just like them somewhere in the Empire waiting their turn to sit at her table.
Gethman seemed to speak for them both. “I have two male charges under my name, my human wife’s sons from her previous marriage. Familiar with youths, I suggest that after you wake and are attended to, your Jerla may enjoy showing you his favorite places outside. Neutral ground will simplify reestablishing unification.”
There was a deeper suggestion under Gethman’s advice, because in order to follow it, she had to be attended to. The Admirals were enticing her to mate with Karhl, giving her an opportunity to assure she was free of her compulsion, and offering what they deemed might be a worthy temptation for her effort.
Looking him dead in the eye, Sigil challenged, “Do you love your convert wife?”
Expanding the tenuous conversation, Getham said, “To maintain the Imperial hierarchy, most of your Brothers have taken spouses from what had been the strongest human houses or conquered monarchies. As such, we have absorbed them into our influence, permeate their old and new rivalries, and enforce compliance to authority. The majority are political unions.”
A polite way of saying no.
Grinning at her obvious distaste, Getham ran a hand through his hair and admitted, “I am saddled with a difficult wife. Others are less lucky. Arden, for example, has three from three rival houses.” As if sharing something comical, he lifted his glass. “It is fairly common for his ladies to try and assassinate one another.”
“How many wives does Sovereign have?”
The Admiral hesitated, as if choosing his words carefully. “Your position was designed and honored from the moment the Empire formed. Imperial Consort is above any human concept of wife.”
Seeing three warriors seemingly uncomfortable by a subject so mundane brought the smallest of smirks to her face. “How many concubines?”
“Do you understand what you are?” Parnisu answered for his Brother, still watching her to the point it was unsettling. “Other females cannot threaten your posit
ion.”
She didn’t know why she found it amusing. Perhaps it was the awkward defensiveness buried behind three warrior-still expressions. Or maybe it was the nature of what they all seemed to expect of her. “Other females can have him.”
The two Admirals did not seem to understand her feelings on the subject, looking to one another in silent communication. Where Gethman was baffled, Parnisu was annoyed, his feelings on the topic made clear when he grunted, “Until your Brothers are given true mates, how long do you really think we would keep him from you?”
What had been a mischievous smirk faded into a sneer.
“Sigil,” It was the first time Karhl had spoken since the topic began. “Admiral Parnisu did not mean to offend you.”
Cold eyes snapped to the Lord Commander. “And just how many of you are queued up for my theoretical offspring?”
Tangling thick fingers in her hair, Karhl eased nearer, “I desire only you, and no daughter of the Emperor would change that.”
That was not what she’d asked and he knew she was an empath, altering his phrasing to distract or lie by omission. Far more direct in tone she asked again, “How many of you are there?”
Karhl took a deep breath, studied the way her hair ran through his fingers, and said, “Less than two hundred remain.”
It seemed impossible. There was no way an entire species could have been dominated by so few. Trying to find the words led to false starts, but eventually she blurted “On Condor... I was taught Project Cataclysm’s leadership and Special Forces numbered in the ten thousands.”
“We did.” Holding her eyes, Karhl stroked that soft bit of silvery hair between his fingers. “When Condor fell and we openly defended you, the Alliance moved to immediately eradicate us all, expediting our insurgency four years ahead of schedule. Victory required great sacrifice. In the beginning, gaining a foothold in the universe, plowing through human populations, was inelegantly accomplished. The remaining losses were accrued in further campaigns, assassinations... the lower ranks lacked the elites’ genetic enhancements and expired as humans do. If you wish to know the details, Arden has a written account he prepared while you were sleeping. The volumes are in your Autumn room.”
She’d seen the journals shelved near the fire. Once or twice Sovereign had read from them while she’d napped. Looking from the Lord Commander to the one who seemed most aggressive, Sigil asked Admiral Parnisu, “And what if I birthed only boys?”
Resting his elbows and folding his hands, Parnisu explained, “Sovereign has been altered to suit his purpose as the progenitor of the first true Irdesian house. He can produce only female gametes.”
Her captors had always said daughters... and she should have known the Brotherhood would have calculated the intended course of their species expansion, strategizing to obtain best results. “And when these daughters are born, they will be handed out based on rank to be used to further your agenda.”
Karhl could see the discussion had taken a dangerous turn. “Your children are our children. We would not see them traded as the humans barter their offspring in search of favor or power. They will be worshiped, not subjugated.”
Shaking her head, Sigil dislodged her hair from Karhl’s fingers and sighed. “And should they choose another path other than the one you will lay out so prettily before them, you will hunt them through the stars and drag them home...”
Gethman smiled and explained the failing in her understanding. “It is natural for a species to seek the comfort of their own kind. Some may stray. Most will desire the embrace of family.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
The smile grew sad. “Then all our people will die, the human worlds will fall back into chaos, and all our sacrifices would have been for nothing.”
Chapter 4
Everything was coated in a soft, spongy moss. And it smelled like... something Sigil could not put her finger on. Running her hands over the ground, she found the sensation calming, friction releasing enough fragrance she could taste it on her breath. Sun warm on her face, wind teasing the strands of hair fallen free from the rope Karhl had woven, tangled, and were continually smoothed by the large male keeping her planted with an armored arm around her middle.
Before them, Jerla slept, curled up on the ground with Arden at his side.
The Herald stared openly, smiling to himself as he surveyed the woman resting pliant against the Lord Commander.
“All is well now. Your little Jerla is content.”
Twisting fragments of that strange moss between her fingertips, Sigil looked up to meet golden eyes. Unsure if she should comment on the residual sadness infecting the Tessan, she only hummed.
The child had not been expecting her first appearance days ago, oblivious to the amount of high-rank officials congregated when he came out to play on the palace’s forested terrace. His spirits sank at the sight of her. After the first moments of their awkward reunion, after the boy’s hesitation and a smiling Arden’s assurances, Jerla told her again that he didn’t want to go to the sands, that he would be good.
It hurt her to hear him so worried he might be cast away. So Sigil behaved exactly as Gethman had suggested—aware that very Admiral watched keenly from the sideline. Eyeing the wooded space, Sigil found it as detailed, even in its wildness, as her rooms. The garden, if it could be called such, was staged as a primeval forest, made to look as if sprouted from the palace itself. Treetops competed with the roof, vines hung, verdant moss creeping up plant life and veiling rocks.
Unsure, Sigil had muttered, “Did you know I can climb higher than anyone here? I can do tricks and I never fall.”
The boy challenged at once, disbelief in his inky-eyed squint. “You can’t do tricks.”
“She can,” Arden whispered, leaning down to reach the Tessan’s unshelled ear. “The Imperial Consort can fly.”
Karhl’s grip on her wrist eased, even he played along. “Show him.”
Offering Jerla a place on her back, feeling a yellow tail coil tight around her middle, Sigil took flight. It may have been some time since her last performance on the silk in Swelter, but her arms knew the dance, and she was supernaturally fast. All the way to the top of the trees she climbed, taking her squealing cargo to peek out of the foliage.
It was as she assumed. The entirety of the palace was surrounded in ocean, with nothing else but endless blue to be seen in all directions.
No wonder they’d let her run free. There was absolutely nowhere to go.
Jerla’s arms around her neck tightened, the child mystified. She jumped, he shrieked in delight, and Sigil took him swinging like a monkey through the branches.
Earning the renewed admiration of a child was in parts simple and horrible. Jerla’s shining black eyes stared up with wonder, but not as he had before. It was almost as if she were no longer a real thing—as if she’d become something magical and treacherous—an idol Jerla respected and feared.
Easing down in mirror of the sleeping child, Sigil pressed her cheek to the moss. She felt Karhl follow suit to stretch comfortable at her back, and stared at yellow scales. “He’ll never love me like he did before.”
Arden sighed, though his smile did not falter. “Did you want his love after all? I thought I’d been mistaken in telling him of your wonders, how you’d chosen him—how you’d saved him.”
Gentle castigation from Arden seemed odd. It was Sovereign who loved to correct her, Arden who gave her whatever she wanted, and Karhl who strove to make her feel safe. Defensive, Sigil said low enough not to wake the boy, “You think you are very clever, don’t you?”
His grin broadened, Arden chuckling softly. “I fall short now and then.”
“So which one of you is going to slip into conversation how Jerla’s trials parallel those of Converts? That I must be careful what I say to humans?”
Arden outright laughed. “Look who is the clever one.”
“Then you will tell me adults are not as resilient or forgiving as children.
That I must act like some queen and pretend they don’t deserve my pity.”
Gold eyes darkened, amusement replaced with a shallow echo of exasperation. “Pity for what? Humanity thrives. Conversion lengthens human lifespans, makes the population resistant to disease and eager to function as a unit—an inoculation against their inborn inferiority and stimulus to their faulty evolution. We give them purpose. And let’s be honest, Sigil. What do you know of humans anyway?”
The Converts she’d come across in the past had only sent her into an uncontrollable rage. She’d killed them, or ran from them if she’d found the willpower to do so. The only Converts she’d seen close up while free of the compulsion were Karhl’s altered warriors who guarded her on Pax. They had seemed nothing more than drones lacking personality—cold-blooded and loyal to the cause the universe was wary of inciting. There was a reason free-humans fled Conversion, refused it, or rebelled.
Sigil could only express her feelings by stating the Irdesian axiom. “Convert or die...”
Shrugging, Arden sprawled and enjoyed the sun. “It is unfair that you judge a people you have never met. Irdesian society would adore you if you would let them, just as Jerla longed to adore you. It is no different, Sigil.”
***
Sleeping beside Karhl greatly reminded Sigil of sleeping beside another. The Lord Commander was warm and bulky, preferring to pull her flush against him, so his bicep might serve as her pillow. The weight of him felt so familiar that sleep came hard. Sigil had never been much of a dreamer, and what flashes she had in Karhl’s weighty embrace were mish-mashed, lacking continuity or purpose. But there was one ongoing theme that slipped in to distract and annoy—Sovereign.
More than once she’d awoken to see him standing over where she slept confined in Karhl’s bulging arms. In the muddled dark, the emperor would sigh, leaning down where he did nothing more than press a kiss to her forehead.
