Page 75 of The Sovereign, Part One (The Sovereign Saga #1)

I moved on, combing through the clause regarding assignment cycles. “Strike ‘as determined by supervisor review’ and insert ‘in collaboration with self-governance audits.’ We’re not pretending Hiven aren’t capable of some level of agency. Not anymore.”

Feeling the main body was complete, I stepped back. “Now read it aloud.”

Calyx’s smooth, neutral voice filled the room, reciting the entire legislative text.

As it rolled through my office, I listened not just for accuracy, but for tone—for the subtle signals of intent, the way the words would land on the ears of the Forum.

I needed this to hold up not only under scrutiny, but under sabotage.

When Calyx finished, I nodded slowly. “Save as final. Pin it to the Forum grid for Monday’s docket.”

A moment of silence passed before Maxim slipped his hand into mine.

“All good?” he asked gently.

I nodded. “It is now.”

The Ascens glided to a silent halt, a hiss rising as the threshold panels gave way. Maxim’s fingers were wrapped around mine, stealing glances as if he’d already halfway undressed me in his mind.

He leaned in to speak softly in my ear. “About how long, in your opinion, is too long to stay in bed?”

I smiled—half giddy, half relieved. We’d survived the Tethering, the Oathbond, the countless hellos and goodbyes, congratulations, even an impromptu finalizing of a bill I considered my baby, all in one weekend.

Finally. We would be alone as often as we wanted for the next thirty days.

“Senior Advisor Poeima!” a syrupy voice cooed from across the atrium.

I didn’t even need to turn around. My spine recognized her before my eyes did.

Constant Remus, Senior Marketing Liaison and honorary president of the Smiling Assassins Club, clicked toward us on blade-thin heels, dressed in something just a shade too tight for a Saturday before sunset.

Her copper pink pixie cut was lacquered to perfection, her voice three octaves below an insult.

“If it isn’t the Dominion Princess. On a weekend. In Oathbond attire. Not inappropriate at all … if you were worried.”

I rotated slowly, schooling my face into something diplomatic. “Constant. I didn’t expect to see you working today. Or at the Dominion. At all.”

Her lips twitched. “I’m getting an urgent sign-off on a press release going out in the morning. Marketing is around the clock, Isara. We work for a living.”

Maxim straightened slightly beside me, a subtle flex of his posture. Not aggressive, just enough to reassert that he could lift our transport with one arm and pin Constant between it and the exterior walls of the Dominion if she kept talking.

Constant’s eyes raked over him. “And you must be Maxim,” she said, as though tasting the word and finding it overly seasoned.

“I’ve seen the renderings, of course, when they came across my desk.

But seeing him in person…” She smiled at me.

“What can I say? He’s exquisite, and you’re…

well, your self-esteem is truly inspiring. ”

“Why would renderings ever come across your desk?” I asked. “Never mind. We were just leaving, actually. Thank you for your input, Constant. I’ll be sure to give it the consideration it deserves.”

“I’m just curious,” she said, just as we began to take a step. “Why are you here? In that?” She gestured to my dress.

“Isn’t she stunning?” Maxim asked, squeezing me to his side.

Constant uttered a half-laugh, half-groan, her smile seeming crooked and pained.

I was about to respond—politely, but with teeth—when I felt Maxim go still. Not physically tense, not visibly alert. Just… frozen. His gaze was fixed beyond Constant, toward the wide entry panels. I followed it, scanning the crowd.

And then I saw him. One man. Alone. Walking past us from the Ascens bay toward the entrance. At first glance, he seemed like he belonged there but was in a hurry to leave.

“Maxim?” I said, barely hearing the blur of Constant’s underhanded comments in the background. A distant drone beneath the sudden weight in the air.

Everything seemed to be in slow motion, Fio greeting a small group of Tier One children, the Hiven cleaning crew moving to the next office, colleagues stopping in for the weekend to check a project like I just had.

But something was off. The passing man’s posture was wrong—shoulders hunched, head down, gait uneven.

His beard was full but patchy, an oversight no Sovereign would ever allow, and his eyes were too alert.

He seemed to be scanning for the kind of danger that didn’t exist here.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, just loud enough. “I can’t…” His brow pulled tight as if he were deep in deciphering a difficult calculation. His gaze tracked the seams of the floor, the walls, the vents above, and then everyone around us.

In the next moment, the answer clicked into place, and his eyes widened.

Without warning or hesitation, he scooped me into his arms, sprinting for the main entrance.

“Hold on… hold on… hold on,” he repeated, his voice strained.

His arms tightened around me as he pushed his body to full capacity, his cheek crushed against my forehead as if he were shielding me from monsters no one else could see.

We blurred past the cleaning crew, the Hiven working the atrium, the children.

I wasn’t sure if he was running from danger or toward safety—maybe both—as he burst from the main entrance, only to build momentum as we passed transports parked in the porte-cochère.

“Hold on to me!” he yelled, leaping as the building exploded behind us, a fireball chasing our shadows.

He wrapped his body around me to absorb the impact as the shockwave pushed us further and we rolled to the ground.

Once we stopped sliding, Maxim dragged me to a safer spot behind a pillar, covering me once again with his body.

The detonation ripped through the atrium with a roar that was less sound and more event —a pressure wave that cracked marble composite, shattered transpane, and turned elegance into ruin.

The blast still echoed, but beneath it, I could hear the sharp edge of screams. I looked up for just a moment from the support column, feeling Maxim’s hand on my head as he pressed me toward the ground, folding around me as if he were living armor.

Shrapnel sang past us, the curated grass convulsed.

Then, dust filled the air. Heavy. Suffocating.

The world was ash and silence. My ears screamed with static, and every breath scorched my lungs.

Maxim’s hands were already furiously searching my face, panicking as he examined my arms, my hips, abdomen, and legs, checking for blood, burns, bones out of place.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice faltering.

He stood up and brought me with him, again using his hands to complete a second check over every inch of me, turning me away from him and then back again.

“Isara, are you hurt? Isara, look at me! Are you…?”

“I’m okay,” I croaked, my voice hoarse from the dust and debris. “You… Your jacket…”

His coat was scorched straight through. The back of it was blackened, the seams blistered open. Beneath it, angry red welts crisscrossed his skin. He’d been burned. Badly.

“You’re burned,” I whimpered. My fingers trembled as I touched his shoulder. I helped him peel it off, his once crisp, white shirt now scorched at the edges of the large holes created from the fire.

His hands framed my face, thumbs brushing the dust from my skin like it hurt him to see it there.

He pressed his lips to my forehead—fierce, lingering—not in comfort, but in desperation.

As if he held me still enough, breathed me in deeply enough, he could convince himself I was whole.

“Don’t worry about me. I need you to focus.

” He held me at bay. “I’m not sensing any injury, but I need you to run a quick self-check.

Can you bear weight on your legs? Arms moving freely? Any pain in your head?”

“I’m okay,” I said, moving my arms to prove it. A cough rattled from my chest, but I froze as the unholy wail of alarms rose in staggered bursts, followed by the shrill approach of drone sirens.

Then came the screams. Even on a weekend, the Dominion housed dozens, sometimes hundreds of Sovereign, Hiven, and exponents.

My fingers threaded through my hair, coming away with grit and the fine weight of dust, tangled with fragments of something sharp— small, brittle—that snagged between my fingers. Debris, I told myself. Just debris. I didn’t look. I didn’t want to know.

“Maxim,” I whimpered. “The children in the atrium…”

He moved like he was about to go after them but stopped short, his eyes sweeping the devastation around us.

We had somehow found ourselves at ground zero of a warzone.

The pristine marble lobby was unrecognizable, swallowed in smoke and jagged ruin.

Columns had cracked in half, their decorative veneers splintered as if it were brittle bone.

Twisted beams jutted from the rubble like exposed ribs.

Overhead, chunks of the ceiling had collapsed inward, leaving gaping holes where light streamed in, highlighting the carnage below.

Bodies were strewn across the ground, some still, others trying to rise with trembling limbs.

Those who’d survived stumbled aimlessly, draped in a fine gray powder that erased color, status, and the illusion just moments before that we would always be safe.

Blood mixed with ash streaked down the faces of Sovereign.

A woman sobbed behind a fractured bench.

Another man limped barefoot over shattered transpane, unaware it was slicing through his skin.

“I see them,” he said, voice tight as he homed in on what was left of the building. “There’s nothing we can do,” he choked out.