Page 1 of The Sovereign, Part One (The Sovereign Saga #1)

Perfection is a prison, and I was about to lock myself inside.

In the words of one of my beloved Tier Four professors, Dr. Aja Eloi, the future had arrived with a whisper.

I’d always taken that to mean it rarely announced itself, that change slipped quietly into the seams of life until you only recognized it in hindsight.

I repeated the idea often, maybe even championed it.

But as it turned out, the week that would change the trajectory of my life began not with a whisper, but with the soft hum of the chicory dispenser in a Hyperion breakroom.

Not to be confused with Hyperion Systems, the tech giant, but the city-state its board of directors had carved from what was once Central North America nearly two centuries before.

Most used the terms interchangeably, but they weren’t the same.

One governed. The other ruled. And every Sovereign understood the difference.

Specifically, I was on the forty-second floor of the Dominion Building, home to my office, the civil sector, and a rotating cast of idealists trying to improve Sovereign-Supplicant relations. Also, the only floor where breakroom chicory didn’t taste like despair.

Once the cycle finished, I clasped my cresk, the heat radiating into my palms as I took a long sip. The chicory was flawless—rich, smooth, and perfectly calibrated. Yet somehow, that perfection made it feel hollow, a carefully crafted imitation of the coffee once cherished in the old world.

I lowered the cresk to the counter, its faint clink punctuating my thoughts.

“It’s not as if you haven’t dreamed about this week your entire childhood,” Bellam said, her normally serene blue irises flickering with concern. She leaned against the counter, her tightly coiled caramel tendrils framing her face.

“I’m allowed to feel nervous, Bell,” I said, mildly defensive.

“After eleven months of cataloging every nuance of your psyche, every instinct, every flaw, and every preference just for it to all come down to one final result—one that you live with for the rest of your life. We’ll see how calm you are when your Veritas is ending. ”

“It has to begin, first,” she sighed.

I chuckled. “It’s less than four months away!”

“Three months, three weeks, and three days, to be exact. Not that I’m counting.”

“No, of course not,” I said with a wry smile.

Like every Sovereign, Bellam’s Veritas Protocol would begin on her twenty-ninth birthday, July 13.

I, however, was an hour away from closing the last week of my inquisition, from the moment where every choice I’d made was solidified, edging me closer to the life I had meticulously designed.

It had been both exhaustive and deeply personal, an almost year-long odyssey of surveys designed to uncover everything from psychometry to dialogue mapping.

Everything I had ever entertained about life, companionship, and love had been dissected and compiled by Hyperion’s most advanced AI.

Spending most of my first twenty-eight years preparing, the answers came easily for me.

I’d been awarded nearly every enhancement selection possible for a Sovereign, earned by meticulously working toward high standards for my credit, social, and health scores.

I’d never taken a single vacation day or sick day, never been tardy, or guilty of even a common minor infraction like idle overuse of public seating—all so I could spend my Veritas year crafting the life partner I’d been dreaming about since my first day of Tier One.

He had always existed for me. While I could’ve created him with somewhat lower scores, I refused to chance it. Every Sovereign in Hyperion Proper was granted a basic Supplicant, but Maxim was extraordinary, someone I had to earn, and I woke up every morning working toward his actuality.

Bellam studied me for a moment. “How are you so composed? In six to ten days, you’re going to meet your Supplicant.”

I breathed out a laugh. “It’s Maxim,” I repeated, savoring the name I’d chosen.

“Trust me, Isara, we’re all aware,” Bellam deadpanned. “Didn’t we learn in Vanguard Genealogy that Renzo Ashcroft’s grandfather was named Maxim? Is that where you got it from?”

“It’s a familial name. Have you never been intrigued enough to read about the old world? Russia? Ukraine? Romania?”

Bellam shrugged.

“It’s an Eastern European form of Maximus , traced back to ancient Rome. It’s… timeless.”

“It’s archaic,” she teased. “And no, I have no idea about those places. The old world doesn’t matter anymore.”

I rolled my eyes. The name could be considered outdated.

Vintage, even. But it was also strong yet unassuming, sophisticated yet approachable.

It had taken years to settle on, much to Bellam’s amusement.

She knew as well as I did the face that would go with it: warm, brown hair, green eyes, a smile that could be both disarming and kind.

Yet, the image felt distant, unreal, a sketch waiting to be colored in.

“You’re grumpy,” I muttered.

“Ignore me. I’m just nervous about my Veritas. Watch. I’ll end up with someone who likes thermal engineering debates and hates the smell of peanut butter.”

My brows pulled together. “How would that happen? You love peanut butter.”

“With my luck it would,” she said, already frustrated with her imaginary crisis.

The breakroom panel slid open with a muted hiss, admitting a soft flood of corridor light.

A Hiven glided in, its smooth, humanoid frame carrying a tray of replacement cresks.

He acknowledged us with a polite tilt of his head before silently completing his task and retreating.

The air stilled again, leaving the faint scent of hot chicory hanging in the air.

In the background, the auric interface had been streaming Hyperion’s morning cycle broadcast at a low volume, mostly ambient wellness cues and updates I’d learned to tune out. But just as Bellam reached for her cresk, the tone of the voice adjusted slightly.

“…brief signal disruption overnight prompted a temporary lockdown protocol near Hyperion Proper’s Eastern Perimeter.

Officials from Hyperion Perimeter Oversight have confirmed the anomaly was purely environmental and unrelated to external interference.

Citadel Command assures all citizens that containment protocols functioned precisely as designed, and that there is no cause for concern.

As a reminder, verified Hyperion sources remain the only trusted channels for updates.

Report unlicensed streams immediately. Harmony begins with trust.”

Bellam’s gaze didn’t shift toward the interface, but her brow twitched ever so slightly.

I took another sip, eyes fixed on nothing, and then glanced at Bellam. “Do you ever think they’ll listen to me about identical Hiven? Hive mind, all the men look the same, all the women, too. The only difference, their uniforms. It’s unsettling.”

“Honestly? No.” Bellam’s abrupt answer lingered.

“You’ve been working on the IRDAA bill for two years.

I think,” she said carefully, “that’s the point.

They say the standardization is to decipher Hiven from Supplicants, which makes sense.

The goal is to make us forget our Supplicant partners aren’t human.

How do you achieve that when Hiven—essentially service Supplicants—exist? ”

“I’ve seen the memo. All of them,” I said with a sigh.

I’d been promoted to Senior Advisor for Social Integration Strategies the year before.

My superiors said it was because of my work on the Individuality Recognition and Design Autonomy Act, and yet, it was the only pending legislation proposed to The Forum that consistently fell on deaf ears, despite my efforts to bring the topic to the highest committees.

“That they worry about deciphering at all shows that the rumors of Bligh—”

“Don’t,” I said, turning to her. My eyes flitted to each camera in the room. I shook my head, watching as Bellam covered her mouth, nodding in gratitude.

We waited. When no one came, when our comms didn’t buzz with a summons from The Citadel, we both sighed in relief.

“Holy Aioli, I can’t believe that just happened,” she said, her shoulders falling.

I tried to reset, staring into the depths of my cresk, the dark liquid reflecting the sterile light of the Dominion’s breakroom.

My pulse quickened, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the caffeine or the close call.

We weren’t allowed to mention Blight, the rumored psychosis affecting a small number of Sovereign after prolonged habitation with a Supplicant.

It was a myth. A calculated campaign Hyperion’s closest competitor, Icarus, began once we left their technology in the dust. It was forbidden to acknowledge, particularly by Hyperion employees.

It would be just my luck to be issued an infraction for one of Bellam’s flippant remarks just one week before the final phases of my Veritas. Suddenly, its completion—and every choice I’d made over the past year—felt unbearably delicate, like a sliver of light poised on the edge of a blade.

“You are nervous.” Bellam’s voice held a rare softness, one that caught me off guard. She leaned against the counter, the steam from her tea curling around her face. Bellam rarely showed concern, which made her discovery sting more.

“I think it would be weird if I weren’t,” I said, aiming for lighthearted but failing. “I mean, I understand asking if I tend to gravitate toward inebriated sons of the Vanguard… I don’t see the point in knowing what time I first urinate in the morning.”

Bellam spat out her tea. She looked around. “And you say I’m a bad influence.”

I checked the time, then dumped and rinsed my cresk. “I have to be at the Enclave building in twenty-four minutes.”

“Take the Skith. The blue line is quicker than the Sky Walk.”

“Not my first day,” I called back to her.

“No, but you insist on doubling your daily step count, so you need a reminder!” she yelled after me.