Page 54 of The Sovereign, Part One (The Sovereign Saga #1)

We both looked at my accordant.

Maxim adjusted his stance. “My deviations. You created them to combat Blight?”

Lev clapped once, loud, letting his hands pass by each other. “Precisely!” Slowly, his expression fell. “Isara…”

“Don’t you understand what you’ve done?” I asked, my eyes filling with hot tears.

“You’ve condemned us all. I didn’t report it.

They’ll take him first, and then they’ll come for what’s left.

As if the loss of my accordant alone won’t destroy me.

And they’ll know it was you, Lev. You’re the only one capable of any of this.

How could you? Why would you do this to me? ”

Maxim finally sat, but it wasn’t in defeat.

He put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me as close as he could from the other chair.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, his voice tender and full of reassurance.

“And I’d never let anything happen to you.

” I turned to look at him. He cupped my jaw, then used his thumbs to wipe salty streams from my cheeks.

“Do you remember when I said I always have a plan? That hasn’t changed. ”

“Please understand,” Lev said at last. “It had to be you, Isara. It had to be Maxim. Chiron rejected each of my proposals moments after they left my mouth. I’d run out of time to convince them.

I’ve spent decades studying this. I know how this ends for you.

Based on your cognitive patterns and your outlier markers alone, you’ve been flagged as high-risk for Blight.

It was only a matter of time, and the countdown began the minute Maxim arrived at your Sablestone.

My darling,” he said, anchoring his elbows on his desk, his fingers intertwined.

“I’ve treated Sovereign after Sovereign, and every one of them shared your psychological profile—hyper-intelligent, sharply aware, insatiably curious.

Driven. Stubborn. Brilliant minds that bend until they snap.

I didn’t do this to defy The Citadel, I did it to save you. To save all of us.”

I touched my wrist to my nose and sniffed. “Does Papa know?”

Lev paled.

“He does,” I said quickly, devastated by my own words.

“He loves you. Why do you think he spends so much time at The Vale? He’s exhausted every option.

Made himself sick searching for solutions.

We’ve been preparing for this since you were on the cusp of adolescence.

Your papa knew as well as I did, it was inevitable,” Lev murmured, his gaze heavy with something between pity and regret.

“And he also knows the fate of those who succumb to Blight. Neither of us was willing to allow that to be yours.”

“You kill them?” The words slipped from me before I could stop them. “Sovereign with Blight, like me.”

“There is no cure.” His eyes didn’t flinch.

“The Vale,” Maxim said.

“ No. You can’t follow me there,” I insisted.

“It won’t be an option soon,” Lev said, his eyes heavy. “The Vale is on the brink of war. Isara… you must keep this between us. If the general populace learns Blight is real, our society will crumble.”

I took Maxim’s hand. “What did you do to him?”

Lev nodded, the shift in his expression subtle as he braced for the weight of full disclosure.

“I intentionally but subtly adjusted Maxim’s emotional architecture.

His atypical responses—jealousy, protectiveness, unprompted desire—were pre-mapped into his core programming, yes.

But that’s only the beginning. He was designed with an adaptive emotional layer, an evolving neural framework that allows him to interpret, refine, and even redefine those emotions based on lived experience.

He doesn’t just simulate feeling. He builds it. ”

Lev’s gaze flicked toward me, as if gauging comprehension or reaction, then he continued, “You’ve likely noticed shifts—impatience, frustration, the beginnings of anger.

None of it is accidental. His emotional feedback loop is dynamic, calibrated to simulate human nuance without veering into volatility.

A behavioral governor ensures he can approach the edge—express intensity, assert boundaries—but he’s unable to cross into aggression or harm.

It’s not just a restriction. Supplicants are still much stronger than Sovereign.

It’s a safeguard.” He paused, crafting his next words carefully.

“You may have observed that, unlike standard male Supplicants, Maxim demonstrates the capacity for physiological arousal.”

“Is that why he’s…” I began, then faltered.

Lev’s frown deepened with frustration. “It’s imperative you provide complete data. This may be our only viable opportunity.”

I dragged a hand over my face.

“Would you like me to clarify?” Maxim asked. When I gave a nod, he continued, “She’s referring to my insistence on waiting until the Oathbond is formalized. That decision was intentional. This is an educated guess, but I believe Isara wants to know if my reluctance is a safeguard as well.”

I groaned, my face flushing with the sting of humiliation.

Lev answered without judgment. “No.”

My hand fell. “ No? ”

Lev’s gaze shifted to Maxim, manually inputting data into the archaic console as he spoke. “Then your earlier claim holds. You did self-regulate, stopped prior to engaging in full intimacy?”

Maxim cleared his throat, visibly uneasy beneath the weight of my mildly accusatory stare. “Everything about Isara’s experience with her Vesture—with me—has been… divergent. Of everything beyond our control, that was the one choice I could ensure still resembled the same path of her peers.”

“Interesting,” Lev said, studying him. “Behavioral restraint absent hard-coded limitation. A rare data point.”

“Would you please stop saying interesting?” I snapped.

“This isn’t a controlled trial, it’s my life.

His life. Our future. Is that even possible now?

What about The Cradle? Oh no… the Genetic Convergence Analysis!

” My stomach twisted. It was the flavor of dread you keep out of reach on purpose until something forces it down your throat.

When we decided it was time for our first child, they would take what made us—his biology, my blood—and weave it into one of my stored gametes, the first step in growing our child, as real as if I had carried him or her myself.

“Once the analysis is complete, can it detect his deviations?”

“It could,” Lev answered, “if they were looking for it, which is why I’ll make sure they don’t.”

“You’re dangerously sure of yourself for someone gambling with our lives. Anything else we should know? Like how to beat the Dyadic Assessment tomorrow when you’ve been hiding us and we don’t know what they’ve seen?” I asked, seething.

“I can assist with that,” he said again, voice flat with certainty.

“Maxim departed by 2200 each evening and returned prior to the morning cycle. If the domestic AI detected any deviation from protocol during that window—according to the corrected footage—Maxim would initiate a corrective behavioral sequence, typically requesting to read aloud, prepare tea, or engage in low-impact conversation. That interaction would be maintained until the AI confirmed your environment had stabilized within regulatory parameters. During that time, the system would auto-generate benign dialogue and overwrite any flagged anomalies. No questions will be asked about those intervals, because the surveillance archive has been replaced with footage designed to appear unremarkable… down to the pixel.”

I grit my teeth.

Maxim was unconvinced. “What about events that occurred within range of public surveillance systems, such as Joss’s interruption at breakfast, for example?”

“Ah, yes. I happened to think of that, too. I resolved the issue of public surveillance by replacing the tag on Joss’s facial match, active only when he’s within proximity to you or Maxim.

During those moments, the system identifies him as an Infrastructure Liaison—vague enough to pass, authorized enough not to trigger questions.

I implemented a soft override at the aggregation point, so the footage was archived without flags or correlation checks.

As far as The Citadel is concerned, he belonged there. ”

“That’s… brilliant, actually,” Maxim said, impressed.

I frowned at Maxim. “Don’t encourage him.”

Maxim leaned over to kiss my temple. “This is to keep us safe, my love.”

“He wouldn’t have had to go to the trouble had he not started this mess.”

A muscle flickered in Maxim’s jaw. “Did you hear what he said? You may be a prime candidate for Blight. This was the only way, Isara, and we’re fortunate to have someone like Lev on our side.”

Lev grinned, his eyes bright. “Wonderful. It’s so subtle, and yet remarkable!”

I craned my neck toward Lev. “Be serious. Neither of you seem to grasp how dangerous this is!”

Maxim took my hand, his voice low. “No, Isara. You don’t see it. You’re not wrong to be afraid, but you’re overlooking the real threat. If I were built to specification, if I functioned as intended, I’d quite literally be the death of you.”

I turned away from him, chewing on my thumbnail, shaking my head.

“Lev,” Maxim began. “Why did I perceive Joss as a threat? It wasn’t just jealousy. It felt… instinctual. As if he posed a real danger.”

“It’s a triggered response,” Lev explained. “Hardcoded specifically for Joss, embedded into your relational mapping protocols.”

“Why?” I asked, baffled.

“Joss Braedric isn’t who you think he is,” Lev said simply.