Flour, a light dusting, was on everything. Sigil traced a finger through it, writing the name Jerla over and over. “We must leave soon for the square.”

The weather was almost uncomfortably cold, small bits of ash still raining down outside. When it grew time for the fracturing, those who survived Sovereign’s initial purge would be eager to gather in the open air. Human Converts would want to huddle, wrapped up in their silly faith to cheer the woman who’d found them worthy to save from the cleansing.

Sovereign leaned against the wall, his pilgrims’ rags concealing his beauty and rank, but his charm, his persuasive abilities, were openly applied upon their hostess —as if Elba were the queen and he the peasant. “Your bread is delicious. I can see why the Imperial Consort favors it so highly.”

Under her customary layer of flour, Elba’s freckled cheeks blushed scarlet. “I’m honored, emperor.”

As if they could be casual with one another, Sovereign held out a crust of bread to his pensive female. “Beloved, would you like to try it.”

Sigil’s icy eyes did not abandon the childish drawings on the window. “No.”

“Are you still feeling unwell?”

“Yes.”

Elba was not offended. Reaching for a pitcher, she filled an earthen mug. “Would you like something to drink?”

That caught the Imperial Consort’s attention. Peeking over her shoulder she found the woman smiling and serene. She saw the stoneware cup. She wanted that water. “Yes.”

Leaving her corner, Sigil padded to the counter. The cup was taken and brought to her lips. Once drained she held it out so Elba might refill it. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Elba...”

The baker set her work aside. “Yes, Quinn.”

Hearing that name softened the severity of Sigil’s brow. It softened her heart. “While you are at the palace there is a high ranked woman charged with your care. Her name is Lady Belloy. My Jerla favored her. Do all she says, but watch what takes place around you. There is something about her...”

“I’ll serve you as best I can.”

Sigil picked up the nearby offering basket, handing it over to the older woman. “Now go to the palace, Herald Mathias is expecting you. He will oversee your transformation.”

Elba was serene, as if all they conspired to do was nothing. She was tranquil; she was content.

Before the shop’s door closed, Sigil added a troubled, “Don’t die.”

The baker smiled, and the door closed.

Sovereign put his arms around his female. He turned her head with a light touch. “She will be under the same guard charged with protecting you.”

There was a brief shadow on Sigil’s brow. “I was struck in the chest with a missile.”

Forehead to hers, the emperor cupped her cheek, tracing her bones with his thumb. His voice came strained. “I am sorry your Jerla was murdered, I am sorry you were harmed. It will not happen again.”

There was no point in resisting, not after what had passed between them the night before.

She let him enfold her in a far too familiar scent, the heat of his body, and the immensity of his mind. Sigil even closed her eyes, almost enjoying the way he could separate her from everything else—outside emotions, her own feelings—until she was just a pinpoint—one speck in an empty universe.

Before she might respond poorly to his less than subtle emotional manipulation, the emperor pressed his lips to her temple and let her go. She pulled away, put distance between their bodies, and she turned her head back to the window so the man might not see her expression of uncertainty.

Delight was rich in his voice, his temper even. “Even with all this, with the loss of your Tessan boy, there is cause to be happy today.”

Heartbreak lay heavy in her chest no matter how much Sovereign might think to dilute it with his feelings. Sigil was plagued with sorrow for Jerla, with loss, and personal culpability. Her fingers slid from the glass, the woman puzzled. “What do I have to be happy for?”

“Because the thing you desired most, I have given you. You’re pregnant, beloved.”

Her sigh was loud, it was aggravated. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

And there it was, a blooming smile, a grand thing shining delight. “Come now, precious Sigil.” He reached out to toy with a strand of her hair. “Don’t you feel the shift in your chemistry? Have you not wondered why you do not feel well? It is as Karhl hoped. You were fertile when we shared you.” He dared to palm her stomach, to box her in with muscled arms. “The pregnancy has been confirmed.”

Sigil went stiff, not only from his touch, but from that feeling again. Like all the other emotions he’d purposely projected to influence her, she was saturated in his exaltation. Though Sigil had known peace with Que, she had not known anything near what Sovereign held for her and for this baby he claimed lay in her womb. His overzealous pleasure was so vibrant it was like an pestilence chewing at the edges of her rage.

It was slithering its way inside.

“It’s okay.” Sovereign kept his voice low and sweet. “I know you believed no child would be possible.  So, until you accept that a perfect life is inside you, I will carry the joy for both of us. I can show you how to feel it.” He kissed her dirty fingers, a lingering soft thing before flooding her with an ocean of emotion. “This is love. This is what it feels like.”

The idea of allowing such a consuming thing in was appalling. Emotion of that nature was unreliable, compulsory on Sovereign’s part, the very thing that controlled him and all the Brotherhood.

Que’s species had known better.

...but, the Axirlan had once told her that if he could love her, he would have. Que would have loved her. Sovereign did love her—chemically mandated love forced on the Brotherhood when they’d willingly swallowed her serum over a century ago.

Karhl loved her. Arden loved her. All of them loved her.

Except perhaps Tiburon... the one who helped her escape Condor. The one she’d scarred when they’d clashed in the Durazgabi system almost 70 years ago. The one who’d given her vials of his semen just so she might take a private tour of the capital. The one who promised he’d never lie to her.

“Beloved?”

Sovereign smelled of running water, of cooling ice, and night’s sky. He was hauntingly beautiful, perfectly sculpted, with eyes Sigil had openly admitted were pretty. So close, she looked over that face, over the face of the father of what he claimed might be growing inside her.

He wanted a child, wanted it almost more than he wanted her.

Sigil did not mirror his delight. Under his infectious wonder she felt her own itching dread.

Sovereign’s hand slipped over her robes, fingers spreading to cup where their baby grew. “Now, our daughter is a small, delicate thing. In order to keep your word to me and save the Converts in this city, you must be careful with her. You’ll have to control yourself.”

“If I was really pregnant, you would never let me out of your ugly palace,” Sigil was certain he must have thought she was incredibly stupid to think so obvious a trick might work, “especially to prance around in a sea of possibly hostile Converts.”

Embracing her a little too tight, Sovereign trilled his fingers against her belly. “It’s safer for you if the Soshiia have no idea where you truly are. And I trust you to keep your word.”

She wanted to bang her head against the glass, to shove him away and just think for a minute, but the man would not stop talking.

Sovereign nibbled her neck; he kept her focused on him. “There is no reason to be scared.” The palm of his hand wrapped the back of her skull, the man’s expression gentle. “Imagine what our daughter will feel like moving inside you. Imagine how she’ll look at you when you hold her to your breast. The empire will nurture her, your Brothers will love her. We will raise her, and with every subsequent sister you birth, her life will only grow more fulfilled.”

She pushed him off, breaking Sovereign’s hold and shattering a good deal of the painted pottery Elba had hanging from her wall. Once clear of him, Sigil’s hands fisted and pressed to her temples, her breath uneven. “Why are you telling me this now? Do you think I will give up my hunt? Do you think I will forget what you promised me?”

Sovereign was prepared for such an outcome. “You can be reckless with your body, Sigil, and there is great danger in the capital now. Our agreement stands. So long as you give me a child, I will not cleanse the city.

And there was the crux of his ploy.

Sigil stilled, she pulled her fingers from the mess of her hair, and faced a warrior far stronger than she was. “Our agreement was that I would end the ones responsible for Jerla’s death myself.”

Sovereign shook his head. “You asked for the city to be spared in exchange for giving me a child.”

“Don’t do this to me, Sovereign!”

“You cannot go near them, precious Sigil. You have no idea what the Soshiia are capable of, what they might do.”

“Of course I don’t! How can I when not one of you will tell me what they are!”

“What they are doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are pregnant. Think of the future of our child, I am begging you.”

“Jerla was my child... and the Soshiia murdered him.” Once the words were out of her mouth, Sigil stood stunned. Hearing it, seeing the little Tessan’s ruined body at the moment of his death—the hole right between his shoulder blades. In the madness on the balcony, in her pain and shock, she had not noticed it, but he had been murdered. They had never been aiming for her heart. The Soshiia had been aiming for his. Otherwise he would have only lost an arm and the grisly hole would have broken through her chest.

Why?

Sigil took a seat on Elba’s wooden bench. Gathering herself, she took a deep breath, and she looked deep into the growing dusk outside. The fracturing would begin soon, it would seep through all survivors in the city, open them up and fold them together...making her pain disappear for only a moment.

Just like it had when the Soshiia had employed the distraction to shoot a missile right into Jerla’s heart.

Sigil was not going to stand for it. “Do you remember what I did to Drinta? Did you see how easy it was for me to rip out her heart, tear off her head, and crush her bones into nothing? That is what I will do to the Soshiia.”

Sovereign fell to his knees before her, gathering her hands in his. “Jerla is gone, Sigil. Our daughter is here. It is she who deserves your devotion now. He was a kind boy who would not want you to harm a baby on his behalf. Let your Brothers handle the Soshiia.” He thought to be gentle by stroking her arms, by softly smiling. “We can go back to the Water Palace, you and me. No humans will trouble you there. We can spend our days in the seasons, making love, talking... our baby could be born there.”

“And who will run the empire you built in my name? Who will herd your courtiers, the Brotherhood? Who will stop the Soshiia from continuing their corruption of your human drones?” There was no argument, no quick furious passion to strike him. There was only Sigil and cold honesty. “You can’t find them, you can’t sense them, and you can’t track them. But I can. I will.”

Sovereign was not to be moved. “What can I give you? I’ll do anything.”

Sigil put her hand to Sovereign’s cheek, touching him as if not quite sure how to do it properly. “Anything?”

“Yes.” Though his voice was controlled, his answer was abrupt, hinging on frantic. “Anything you want.”

From her periphery, Sigil could see the beginning dazzling light of the fracturing. The Converts began their chant, the rich hum vibrating through the very stones of Irdesi Prime. Out in the square, far from where they sat, Elba stood in the place of the Imperial Consort, her people glorifying her, moved by the sight of their risen queen. But in the bakery it was only Sovereign and Sigil, a familial image polluted by too many agendas and too many years of accumulated loss.

“All I want is an answer.” Sigil looked inside the man who loved her to the point of madness. It was like staring into the sun. Under all Sovereign’s artifice Sigil made herself see: hidden like a stain on dark clothes, at his very core, Sovereign was absolutely wretched with guilt. “Sovereign, who are the Soshiia?”

The man’s lips parted, his face one of dread. “Stop.”

The tenor, the color, of his emotions, for a few precious seconds, he could not hide from her. Sigil knew his pain, because it was hers. She knew the kind of history that scarred a soul that deeply.

Seeing him bared, she felt her eyes prick, vision distorted by gathering tears. “You raped me on the floor of the home I shared with the man I loved. Karhl watched. That is how the Soshiia were created.”

“You misunderstand...” Sovereign pressed his hand to where hers sought to leave his cheek. He held his face to her palm, eyes desperate. “We did not know you had conceived on Pax. We did everything we could to save them once your body began to abort. High Adherent Corths, in all his brilliance, is not Dr. Saniel.” The emperor looked openly despondent, his voice unsteady as he confessed. “It would have been better to let them go, but you were so damaged there was no assurance you would survive. You have to understand. What was done, was done out of love.”

Sigil was hardly able to speak. “What was done?”

Sovereign rushed to explain. “Everything was provided for the twins: a loving home, safety, education. They wanted for nothing.”

Those damaged little creatures who had been mangled by her violence and the Brotherhood’s hurried attempt to patch them back together had not been raised by their own kind. Unsalvageable, the Brotherhood did not see them as complete...

Sigil knew who it was, the human who’d been granted offspring with a remnant of project cataclysm—the old woman who’d worn a blue sash. The old woman Jerla had favored. “Lady Belloy...”

Cutting in, Sovereign assured, “Was a good mother. They had many happy years.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“That you ruined our firstborn children with radiation and lead?” Sovereign released a false laugh; he looked like he might weep. “I love you too much.”

They were surrounded by bread, baskets and baskets Elba had made ready so Sigil might search the square for the agents responsible for the death of her boy. There was no point in that plan now.

“Why did they kill Jerla?”

Sovereign could only conjecture. “Jealousy? Anger? They are not sound, Sigil. We don’t know why they turned.” He tried to wipe the tears from her face, but she wrenched her neck back no matter how he thought to soothe. “Understand that they are dangerous, that they are capable, and that they are here to perpetrate harm. Do not repeat the mistakes of fifty years ago by risking the little life inside of you.”

Sigil was sobbing, despondent. “Everything I touch rots.”

“None of us blame you.” Eager to end her crying, her expression causing him great pain, Sovereign implored, “You must know that.”

Guilt, shame, were not foreign feelings. Guilt and shame are what Sigil was crafted from. “Of course you do. That’s why you’ve done all of this. It’s why you lock me up, why you watch me. It’s why there is an implant in my brain.”

“You did not know you were pregnant. Even we didn’t notice until you began to bleed.” Sovereign needed her to understand and accept. “You are free of the compulsion now. You are healing from the effects of Condor. You are where you belong, and the Soshiia will be put where they belong.”

“Back with Lady Belloy? Locked in a palace?”

Sovereign shook his head. “No.”

“In prison?”

“You’re missing the point. They are not your children... they never were.” He watched her, kept his arms around her, and let her feel that all he said was true. “Too much was done when your womb forced them out. They are too different. They are not one of us. They were not even born of your body.”

“Does Lady Belloy know what she carried? What she raised?”

“No. Matron Delphine is under the impression her daughters thrive serving the conversion effort galaxies away.” Sovereign gripped her waist, holding her eyes as he promised, “Believe me when I tell you that she is a good woman, that she loves them.”

Looking at the man kneeling at her feet, at the indomitable master of the empire, Sigil found Sovereign’s pain endearing in the most awful of ways. “Which is why you had the old woman dragged here. The Soshiia twins are fond of her. You don’t believe they’d harm the one who raised them. So you kept Lady Belloy near me, near Jerla...”

“Do not fault me for taking precautions against an insidious enemy. They prey on our people, manipulate and destroy. Decades ago, one of them made it near enough to disturb you in cryo. They cut off your hands, Sigil. Took your eyes, your hair. They broke your jaw, knocked out several of your teeth...”

Her question was little more than a breath. “What are their names?”

Voice thick with feeling, Sovereign put his head to her chest, the man looking for comfort just as much as he was looking to hold her still. “I love you... this changes nothing.”

Beyond the pressure of his embrace, there was this weight on her chest, this great horrible feeling. “I know you do.”

He put a hand to the back of her neck. He pulled her in for a kiss, promising, “I will make this right.”

Sigil closed her eyes when their lips brushed, she felt the slide of his mouth over hers, his regrets, and how much pain he could no longer hide behind his mask.

Before he might sense her intention, the meat of her palm shot straight up and caught him under the chin. She struck with such force his neck snapped back, bones broken, her momentum taking them both to the floor.

They fell in a heap, and just like the last time she’d brought him low, Sigil carefully laid him down and met his frantic eyes. “You cannot make this right, but I can.” Silently, efficiently, she shattered his legs, his arms, before pulling her pilgrim’s hood over her hair and face. “Goodbye, Sovereign.”