Page 109

There’s no defeat in her eyes. Instead, there’s a strange triumph, a completeness.

Though it’s a warm day, I get a chill. She doesn’t regret a single one of the trillions of lives she ended. She got everything she wanted. The crown, the throne, the power, none of it matters to her anymore.

She’d do it all again in a second to save her firstborn son. Doman has ascended to his rightful place, and her designs are complete.

Queen Jasmine didn’t just want to control the strings of power for herself.

She wanted to secure the future for her blood.

Doman surprised her. She didn’t expect him to call a vote, not with my fate on the line.

She must have expected Doman and my triad to go quietly into obscurity, and she was already pining her hopes on her second-born to be strong enough to rise up and wrest power for himself.

Two triads of Elites escort the deposed Imperial triad into a Reaver, reverential, not laying a hand on their former leaders. Then, another Reaver pilots down, and we enter it, lifted up to the raised dais where the four thrones await.

The twin thrones at the forefront tower, with marble backs that rise high, overshadowing even an Aurelian. They are carved of the same marble as the entire coliseum. There are no ornate designs, no etched sun of the Aurelian sigil. Instead, they are huge, smooth seats that have stood for millennia.

The single blocks of marble that each were carved of, just like every block of this coliseum, could have been mined with Orb-Beams and transported by Reavers.

That is not the way of the alien species.

Each block is cut from the great deposits and dragged by Aurelian volunteers by rope in the same fashion as the ancient Egyptians of Old Earth who raised the pyramids that stand even today.

There is blood and sweat in these thrones, and in the coliseum, and in the city that is tightly ordered and planned around us. Men toiled to build it. Men died for it.

Doman stops me before the throne his mother sat in moments ago.

We both look at the golden crown that rests perfectly in the center of the seat.

It mocks me. I stood against monarchy. I was beholden to the people who voted for me, those same voices who now clamor for me to be put in jail for my part in the slaughter.

Doman senses my hesitation, and mercifully he picks up the crown and places it on my temples, so I don’t have to.

Then he helps me up into the throne, the cool marble against my legs, and sits next to me.

Titus and Gallien sit in the thrones slightly behind us, flanking, and triads of Elites form a guard.

As the four of us look out at our subjects, the crowd erupts into a spontaneous cheer that devolves into a guttural roar.

It’s an eruption of emotion from the hard-faced, aloof species who pride themselves on detachment.

Rage and grief, guilt and hope. I see it in their slate-grey eyes, and they hold their Orb-Blades high, activating them in unison, the hum of energy forming a chorus under their screams.

The older among them voted for the Emperor Raegan and Queen Jasmine when her imperial triad cut down the great General Asmod in these very sands. They were meant to usher in a golden age, an age of Bonding and expansion, a new primacy for the waning race.

They all watched their species split into two.

The younger may not have voted, but they fought for the Aurelian Empire, and they all believed they fought for good, even as they faced in the battlefields the same men they went to Academy with, Aurelians with brands marring their ivory flesh and fanaticism burning through their souls.

They bled. They killed their own species.

They fought in desperation, honor and chivalry stamped underfoot as war devolved.

A thousand years ago, battles between Aurelians were fought with the sword, to minimize collateral damage. Obsidian’s war turned into cities leveled by orbital bombardments, Reavers arcing down on battlefields, Orb-Beams lancing out and cutting down in an instant men who trained for centuries.

Honorable warriors were turned to dust before they could go to the cryo-bays.

Nuclear warheads were used as traps, melting entire regiments.

Reavers shifted into nothingness, ripped asunder by the winds of the Rift, and the decimated ranks were filled not with fresh-faced Aurelians out of Academy, but by metal replacements designed by a human hand.

The war was eating up their species. Now it is over, finished with such bloodshed of innocents that it will stain them for eternity—but it is over.

All of that rage, all the grief, erupting into a feral scream, a battle-cry to a war finished. It starts in the coliseum, and it spreads out, through the city where triads roar, out into the estates.

Doman waits, then as the roar wanes, he raises his hand. Instantly, there is quiet, a quiet that spreads quicker even than the roar.

“To all those with the brand. My first decree is mercy. Come to Colossus. Put down your swords. Find your redemption in work rebuilding what you have destroyed. You will never wield a weapon again. You will not own land. But you will be spared. Your lives will have meaning, and when you are finished, you will find the release of the cryo-bays, that a new generation can be born. Those who do not surrender will be hunted down. There will be no safe haven for you. For the Priests, I offer the same mercy, but you will be exiled, never to fraternize with another of your ranks.”

I know I look a sorry sight next to Doman. The drab robes of the Administration cling to my skin, covered in dust. Doman and his triad may have fought in mortal combat, but their robes are unstained, pure white, and the three of them have their heads high.

I feel like an imposter on the throne, while the three of them look born to them.

“My second degree. Remove the rings from your fingers. There has been too much death. Now, it is time for life.”

In unison, the Aurelians rip the rings from their fingers.

They are flung, into the sands, thrown with all their strength.

Those rings severed them from the connection to their Mates, so they would not be pulled from war.

Triads stare out in different directions, drawn to the woman they sense deep in their blood.

But while most of the triads have hope painted on their faces, others sit down heavily, their legs weak.

Raw grief stains them. My heart breaks as I realize they sense nothing—their Mates were killed in the war, many of them probably slain in the very moment when Queen Jasmine used the Planet-Killers.

If they had just ripped the rings from their fingers a day earlier, they might have sensed her, and they might have saved her.

Now it’s too late.

Triads file out of the arenas, and Reavers take off. The war is over, and now they go to hunt down their Mates. The sky is filled with white attack ships piloting away.

Most of the triads leave. The ones who stay, some few of them Elites, in their blue-black orders, all have the same dull acceptance.

They sit, in silence, until a triad stands with their heads down, trudging towards the exit.

Another triad follows, then another, until they are a long line leaving the coliseum.

With a jolt, I understand—they are heading to the cryo-bays, to let their body be burned to dust in the final replication process, to create the next iteration of their DNA.

Their last thoughts will be that of hope, that their clones will succeed where they failed.

Other triads, though clearly grieving, leave with heads high, hands near their blades.

They will live on, even without hope of a Mate.

Someone has to defend the Empire while the mate-mad triads hunt, after all.

Finally, the last of the triads has left.

It’s just the four of us, sitting in towering thrones overlooking the pure white sands of the arena, dotted with the gleaming, ominous darkness of the Orb-Rings.

I look down at those stands, then up to the sky, the warm glow of the sun cascading over me, and I ache for Virelia.

I want to walk in the lush green fields, stroll under the canopy, hug my sister again.

Doman reaches out, taking my hand in his, slowly rubbing his fingers against the back of my hand as his aura flows into mine. Titus and Gallien enter my mind, gentle, comforting, sensing my longing for home, and though I’m galaxies away, I’m no longer alone.

I look up at my men, my kings, my protectors.

Doman is a flawed, beautiful alien emperor who now sits at the head of the greatest dynasty in the universe.

He’s led a triad his entire life. Now he’ll be leading millions of fierce alien soldiers, soldiers who have been let free to hunt their Mates and forge Bonds.

It’s the quickest way to reward the men who voted for him, and to ensure the loyalty of his soldiers, but it will put the Empire into turmoil as the great fighting force is preoccupied with their ancestral hunt.

He’s ruling with the leader of his foes in his prison, with branded enemies who will not all surrender, and who will now have nothing to lose as they fight for their lives.

He’s up against Priests who have tasted of power and will not easily let it go.

And in the darkness of the Rift, an even greater evil lurks, an evil that all the prophecies claim will plunge us into an age of darkness if the War-God is not on the throne to protect us.

I pray that Gallien was right and that no predictions could be accurate anymore, not after the explosion of energy that blotted out so many innocent lives, staining the victory for eternity.

A million questions of what’s to come rush into my mind, and they all evaporate as I stare into his diamond blue eyes, eyes that look deep into my soul and answer them all in an instant.

Whatever comes, we will face it together.

A new age is here. An age born of endless death but not wedded to it.

An age of life, of families formed, a golden age of Bonding that will strengthen the Aurelian Empire in the face of whatever is to come.