Waves broke against rock, the crisp rumble of vast water stealing through dreams of ripping metal and hissing gasses. It was not easy to wake, to find each breath smelled slightly of salt and not of stale recycled atmosphere.

Brightness muddled sight when lashes parted and Sigil found the proverbial vision of heaven.

The side of her face pressed to cloth the same color as Que’s flesh, facing open gates of glass offering blue sky, she felt nothing but the torment of hell. A growing sob crushed her heart, and she shut her eyes so tight her skull ached.

Long ago, before her name was Quinn, she had cried like that—like a dying animal. She had been alone, cut off from sentient life after she’d eaten the last of her attackers on that wild world she’d crashed into as a child. She’d howled so pitifully after ages of solitude. Now, that emptiness returned.

The only life that mattered to her was lost.

There was no Que to guide her. She was alone, in a palatial room with walls that glowed as if carved from opal. There was no Que because his battered head had been cut off and placed in a cryobox.

There was no Que because Quinn had not been shrewd enough to check Pax’s holding cells...

There was no Que because she had utterly failed him.

This was all her fault.

Her cries distorted into muffled screams against the soft, foreign mattress, each breath more painful than any blow she’d ever taken. Howls built until she could hardly breathe, until the pressure behind her eyes brought piercing pain.

Blood dripped from her nostril. She ignored it. After all, the covers had already grown damp from her outburst. The whole of that great bed may as well have been broken glass. Quinn bawled until there were no more tears; exhausted numbness deadened a bit of the grief.

Staring dumbly out those huge open doors to a balcony drenched in sun, she willed her heart to stop beating.

Her body denied her. Sleep came instead.

The next time she woke, what had been almost blinding whiteness had altered to a soft golden sunlight, setting the walls aglow. Aching as if she’d slept too long, hungry, confused, she pressed up from the vast bed.

Her wrists were circled by etched gold, the bracelets’ decoration of ancient design jingled when she moved. Her nails had been shaped, cleaned. There was no crust of dried blood on her face or the salty remnants of tear stains grainy on her cheek. Someone had cleaned her, dressed her.

Ignoring the odd decoration, disinterested in ornamentation, she untangled her legs from the pleated, translucent gown knotted at her throat and stood.

The ground was warm as if it had been heated by sunlight. Her feet, painted gold up to her ankles, a similar shade.

Stiff, stepping towards the nearest gaping view, all that was to be seen was ocean. Vast, endless turquoise lapped at the side of the rounded cliff her gilded cage had been carved into. There was nothing to swim to, no sign of hovercraft or spaceship, only birds circling, and water creatures playing near the milder break.

A single interior door was the only other available route.

There was no electric panel or vid display to help her navigate its unbolting, only an archaic lever. Under her fingertips, ancient mechanics etched into the wood gave when she pressed down. The door was not locked. Sliding it open, she found a circular anteroom as bizarre as any one might imagine.

The visual curio was segmented into quadrants depicting the seasons of old earth. She was standing in Summer, gazing up to find a fresco painted on the ceiling above her—cartwheeling gods from a culture she did not know smiled down in their glory.

In the center of the room sprouted a fountain, but that was not what drew her attention, it was the walls of gilded mirrors and the stranger reflected in them. Gone were the dyed lavender eyes, and in their place the icy vibrancy of a glacier. Gone was the sheared skull; instead, waves hung past her waist. All pigments Quinn had used to alter her hair into any shade but her own had been leached away, displaying the ethereal brilliance of pale silvery blonde—a shade she had not seen herself since she was a child.

That woman was a ghost, an alien. She touched the glass.

“Is it so strange?”

Red rimmed eyes glanced to the reflection across the room. She nodded slightly, her attention returning to her image. No sound accompanied his approach, only the growing size of the uniformed male dwarfing her figure in the mirror—Sovereign was so much taller, boasting a body that spoke of great strength, while the pale thing in the mirror was lissome, a wraith with a face of misery and disorientation.

Where she was fragmented, he radiated wholeness, authority.

Eyes full of that same unwelcome tenderness she had first seen years ago slid over her reflection. Sovereign spoke. “Is there any lingering pain?”

Voice low and lifeless, she muttered, “Not in my head.” Tears slipped over her cheeks. “Where am I?”

“Secure, in a place where you can find rest. There was damage to your brain from the psionic burst that even your rapid healing could not fully counter. You’ve been asleep for forty-seven years. During that time there were operations, gene therapy, augmentation.”

Large eyes burned, filling with hate. “Trying to rectify the mistake you made while I was in gestation?”

The man reached out and brushed the back of his fingers down her long tangle of silvery hair. “Yes.”

She could sense his intention. He was goading her on purpose, testing to see how close she might be to losing control. But he was not completely false. She could feel the oddest heat against the left side of her skull. They had put something inside her. “It’s a pity you could not cut out my memory too.”

Sovereign’s emotions projected agreement, though he did not voice his opinion aloud. “The psionic centers of your brain have been fitted with suppression technology that will disperse overload. With practice, tailored psionic ability will be available to you now.”

Looking to the warming line atop her skull, she imagined where a long circular scar would have developed had she been human. Unimpressed, numb, she said, “I have never slept longer than five years... I don’t feel as if so much time has passed.”

Sovereign tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I felt every hour.”

In a way she understood. With Que dead, she would feel every last painful crawling hour as well.

The heat of his hand settled on her shoulder, a thumb dipping under her hair to gently stroke her nape. “I would never have killed him. I want you to know that. I would never have willingly given you such pain.”

The sincerity of the emperor’s soft spoken words was unwelcome. Visibly cringing, wanting to dump the blame at his feet, she accused him of his greater slight. “You should have let me die.”

“Quinn did die. Sigil was reborn—the past burned away.”

Heart breaking, she whispered, “I don’t want to be Sigil...”

Softly poisoned words were Sovereign’s only rebuke. “Do you want to be Quinn without Que?”

It felt as if he’d ripped straight through her ribcage, as if Sovereign squeezed her heart as she’d once squeezed Drinta’s. “No.” Her face contorted into one of pain. “Quinn could never survive without him.”

The rich compulsion in his voice made the answer seem simple. “Then they both must be mourned and set aside. As it is now, you have so many reasons to live.” He applied more pressure to part her vertebrae, Sovereign purposefully fostering her comfort until the female’s shoulders relaxed. “All these years, your Brothers have kept vigil. All the love you seek awaits your recognition.”

“Had I the energy, I would kill you, Sovereign. I would move room by room through wherever you’ve stashed me, slaughtering every remnant of Project Cataclysm that crossed my path.”

A gentle smile came, Sovereign seemingly gratified with her threats. “I have a gift for you, something that will require a gentle hand.” He turned towards the segment of winter. “Come forward, child.”

Another mirror displayed the shy flash of yellow scales. The boy, her Tessan boy she’d left in the cryotube on Pax, ambled nervously forward.

He had heard her words; he feared her.

Guilt found a way to spoil her grief. Memories of Pax, of her outburst... of all the life she’d squelched bubbled up.

Sovereign explained, “Karhl ordered the cryotube be removed to our ship once your request was made. The boy was protected and has been sleeping, waiting for you to wake and decide his fate.”

Sovereign gestured for the child to come closer.

Mincing steps of a born slave obeyed, his obvious terror softening the horrified expression on Sigil’s face.

She whispered, “Do you know me, boy?”

There was no answer. He was cautious, more than unsure, his tail making little flicks behind him against the cool Winter floor. The young male looked up at her and she sense what he truly desired. He wanted his mother.

And Sigil had killed her… had been the cause of the deaths of tens of thousands on Pax.

“The Imperial Consort asked you a question, Jerla.” That was not a tone Sigil had ever heard Sovereign exercise. It was the tenor one used to guide children. It was a voice of reason and comfort.

The Tessan child shook his head no.

Grief of another sort welled until Sigil felt pinpricks behind her eyes. “I know you, Jerla, son of the slave Ragi.” Sovereign dared to slip an arm around her as she spoke, as if to restrain her, to hold her, all the while his terrible mind echoing feelings of reassurance while she spoke. “I have known you since you were birthed. I was the one who hid billop eggs near your sleeping mat when you were good.”

His vertical eyelids blinked, the child excited by the mention of his favorite treat. “I liked that game.”

“So did I.” Another touch from the emperor, gentle fingers threading into her hair. Sigil wanted to retaliate, to shove him off, but was preoccupied trying to offer a comforting smile for Jerla. “Have you been happy since you woke?”

Those shining black eyes blinked at her. “I get to eat whenever I am hungry.”

A slave’s version of bliss.

“When I was only a little older than you, I was trapped on a world alone for many years, very hungry.”

Innocent, Jerla asked, “Why?”

Sigil’s smile faded, sadness returning. “My ship was shot down by bad men. Do you know the difference between bad men and good men?”

How could he? All he had ever known was Pax, drudgery, and neglect. Even so, Jerla nodded in agreement.

“I killed all of these men, lived in the ruins of their outpost until a stranger found me… a good man. The first I had ever met.”

The boy’s tale swished in interest at her tale. “How did you know he was good?”

Sigil swallowed. “He was the opposite of me in every way.”

“You were not good?”

“No,” Sigil shook her head, expression grim. “I was not good.”

Fear crept into those pitch eyes again.

Sovereign held her tighter, a warning that she must desist from her path. “And she seeks to atone, Jerla. That is why she saved you from the destruction of Pax.”

That is not why she had saved him, but Sigil was not going to damage the friendless thing further.

Gentleness leached from Sovereign’s voice and was replaced with deep-voiced authority. “Thank her quickly, Jerla. The Imperial Consort requires rest.”

Shifting foot to foot, his bare little toes clicking on the stone floor, Jerla looked unsure. “Thanks.”

Already pulling Sigil towards the Spring segment of the circular anteroom, Sovereign instructed, “Off with you now. You can play with her when she is feeling better.”

Where the Tessan child went, Sigil did not see, but she was glad he was gone. It had been too much, she was too empty, and so she let Sovereign lead her through an open arch into another room.

The sleeping chamber had been Summer, but the dining hall—walls laden with edible growing things and latticed windows overlooking that same endless sea—was clearly Spring.

Food already waited on the table, the dishes beyond Sigil’s experience to recognize. After placing her in a chair, Sovereign offered a goblet of water. “What made you chose that child over all the young ones on Pax?”

She didn’t answer. Cup at her lips, she swallowed, eyes locked on a round, deep purple fruit growing nearby.

“That is a mangosteen. According to old earth legend, inside the shell is something soft that tastes of extinct berries. It is an extreme rarity in these times.”

Resigned, Sigil sighed. “With all your planets, you could find a climate to host forests of any fancy fruit you wanted.”

“Ecosystems, like politics, are tricky things. New plant life can unbalance whole worlds in less than one human generation.”

“So can Irdesian forced Conversion.”

Sovereign had the gall to laugh. “True.” Reaching past her, he plucked a mangosteen as if the table before him was not ripe with food.

There was an art to opening the fruit, to revealing the soft pale flesh hidden behind its thick shell. He demonstrated. “Here.”

The odd segmented pieces smelt of nula milk, a thing she’d once craved. “No.”

Shrugging, Sovereign took the flesh and ate it, leaning back in his chair to watch his female pretend she was not crying. “You have to eat to stay strong. You need to eat so you might guide Jerla’s path.”

Her imaginings for the child had been simple: a warm home in an outlying Tessan colony where fresh life was needed. Not this. “He doesn’t belong amongst humans.”

“Why? They have shown him more care than any creature on Pax did.”

Insulted, Sigil’s head swung towards the irritation snacking at her side. “I cared for him on Pax.”

Meeting her eyes, Sovereign conceded. “You did. And he will see to you here in return.”

She knew what he was about. “Jerla is only a baby. It is wrong for you to use him in such a way.”

The man shook his head, his dark hair shifting like the waves outside. “You killed his mother. You exterminated every last lifeform on Pax. He’s all that’s left.”

She thinned her lips to stop them from trembling. “I didn’t mean to.”

There was a trace of pity reflected in the hardness of Sovereign’s expression. He held up what remained of the fruit in offering. “I know.”

Sigil took a slimy sliver, chewed and swallowed, tasting nothing. “I know what you’re doing.”

Any creature who has survived torture understood the stage where their assailant built rapport. Sovereign nodded. “I know.”

“Are you going to rape me now?”

Those eyes, those deep, strange eyes looked unbelievably sad. “You were not cured of your compulsion. Such a thing was ingrained into your very thinking and chemical response to various stimuli. Do you want to be left feral in a cage with no future? Or do you want freedom and life?”

She let him see how weak she’d become. “I want to go home...”

“Que is dead. You have no home.”