Page 14 of The Sovereign: Part One
“I’m in love with Maxim… or, I’m going to be,” I said, as annoyed with her statement as Lourdes was with Roan.
Bellam arched one brow, unconvinced.“Did Joss love you?”
“He did,” Lourdes said.“Desperately.”
Bellam leaned forward, her voice nearly a whisper.“But… if it’s not the same with Maxim, you wouldn’t reconsider with Joss, right?”
“It’ll be the same.It’ll be better,” I said without hesitation.“Just look at the numbers.”
“Love is not numbers,” Bellam said, shaking her head.
I leaned in slightly.“Love is chemistry.A precise cocktail of neurotransmitters and hormones firing in response to stimulus, dictating everything from attraction to attachment.Dopamine makes it feel euphoric, oxytocin forges the bond, serotonin wavers and leaves us obsessing, norepinephrine sends our hearts racing, and vasopressin anchors us in commitment.It’s a system, a predictable sequence of responses masquerading as something intangible, something greater than the sum of its parts.But strip it down, analyze the pattern, and it’s no different than the coding that governs a Supplicant’s devotion.Their love isn’t artificial, it’s just engineered.A controlled algorithm, refining and perfecting the same instinctive processes humans have been at the mercy of for centuries.
“We romanticize the unpredictability of human emotion, but in truth, it’s just an inferior form of programming—messy, inconsistent, often flawed.Supplicants don’t fall in love; they aredesignedto love, unburdened by misfires of chemistry, childhood wounds, or the burdens of past experience.Is that really so different?In the end, it’s all cause and effect.Inputs and outputs.A beautifully arranged sequence of signals that, whether by biology or by design, lead to the same inevitable conclusion.”
Bellam wasn’t convinced.“I’ve only heard about it.I’ve never known anyone to fall in love with a Sovereign.What if it’s not the same with Maxim?Do you think you’ll regret it?”
My expression compressed.“Bell, not a single Supplicant has ever chosen to be recast as a Hiven after their Sovereign passes, even after their children reach adulthood.Without exception, Supplicants choose termination over a life without their Sovereign, despite quite literally holding the key to immortality.Think about that.It goes beyond devotion.It’s something greater than love.”
“What’s greater than love?”Bellam asked.
“Rapture,” Lourdes said.
She exhaled, and Bellam gave me a sympathetic look.The three of us sat in silence for a moment before Lourdes once again lifted her leir.
“To new beginnings,” she said.
Bellam clinked her leir against ours.“And to Isara finally realizing she’s destined for greater things.”
I smiled, but a part of me still lingered on the past.On Joss.On The Vale.On the choices that had led me to that moment.
As the afternoon sun filtered through the translucent ceiling of Celestines’ terrace, I couldn’t help but think about the way Maxim had looked at me, his gaze holding a universe of understanding and promise.Perhaps fate had already determined my path, but with just one look from him, the questions that, up to that moment, had plagued my life were all but silenced.
Chapter Four
The Skith whirred to a smooth stop, and as I stepped onto the walkway leading toward my Sablestone, I drew in a deep breath.
My walk home from the Skith port spanned roughly ten minutes, a tranquil stretch of time I welcomed.The evening air was thick with the scent of Hyperion’s perfectly calibrated greenery, a crisp, engineered freshness that never wavered, no matter the season.The gentle glow of the HaloGrid reflected off the immaculate walkways, its uninterrupted bands of embedded light casting a serene stillness over the district.The illumination adjusted subtly to movement, responding with a soft pulse as I passed, neither harsh nor obtrusive, but a quiet presence, an unseen hand ensuring the city remained bathed in perfect, effortless clarity.
In contrast, the old world was a clash of sound and shadow, gas-powered engines rattling in protest, coal-fueled trains shrieking along rusted tracks, and the relentless percussion of hurried footsteps striking against concrete.Car horns barked in frustration, sirens wailed through choked streets, and somewhere, always, there was the echo of a distant argument or the sharp laughter of strangers packed too closely together.Cities had pulsed with life, a chaotic symphony of industry and impulse, full not of Sovereign, but ofpeople,who shouted across intersections, slammed heavy, wooden doors, and let music bleed from their open windows, all existing under vast stretches swallowed by darkness, a haven for the self-serving and subversive.
I knew this not from experience, but from history lessons, archived footage, and the indirect warnings woven into Hyperion’s lore.The old world had been unpredictable, inefficient, and untamed.
Knowing what came before—Hyperion Proper and its ethos of order—felt like an undeniable sanctuary.As you walked its well-kept streets, you would hear only the faint hum of passing transports, their power cores and kinetic propulsion barely disturbing the air.The Skith glided along its tracks, a whisper of motion that never jarred or jolted.Conversations blurred into a distant murmur, only for the simple fact that there were fewer voices to carry.Hyperion Proper’s population was growing, but the Birth Crisis had left its mark, an echo of absence woven into the city’s streets and the hollow spaces where life had yet to return.Children’s laughter still rang through the air, but even that felt tempered, contained, as if joy itself had been trained to fit neatly within the city’s sky-reaching walls.The breeze swept through the leaves in an almost secret dance, its movement the only truly ungoverned thing in sight, weaving through perfectly manicured courtyards, a faint reminder that control was never absolute.
My residence was all clean lines and intention, a seamless marriage of transpane and ultralite composite, softened just enough by carefully placed vertical gardens and terrace greenery.Floor-to-ceiling transpane panels stretched across the front of the Sablestone, designed to maximize natural light while maintaining privacy when needed.The fluid integration of composite and smart materials gave the structure an almost weightless presence: modern, efficient, and perfectly in tune with Hyperion’s aesthetic.
Inside, the air would be calibrated to my comfort, the system anticipating my needs before I even voiced them.But standing there, looking up at the place that had been mine alone for so long, I wondered if a home was ever truly complete without the presence of someone else to share it.
I spotted my neighbor’s young daughter, Ibith.She was perched on the edge of her landing, her feet idly tapping against the lumestra panels lining the steps, their delicate glow subtly swelling like a breath in the deepening dusk.Her caramel curls were pulled into tight twin braids, pulling any loose strands away from her cherubic face, the fading light catching the warmth in her amber-brown eyes.She wore a loose, plum-colored softshell that fell past her knees, the sleeves a little too long for her small frame.
“Isara!”she called, her voice carrying the unguarded enthusiasm of childhood.“You’re home early!”
I smiled, adjusting the strap of my tresset over my shoulder.“Am I?Or are you just stalling before going inside for violin lessons?”
She scrunched her nose.“We had a guest speaker today in class!A real Vanguard!She talked about how they designed the first integration protocols for the Supplicants.Did you know the earliest models didn’t even have autonomous preference?”
I nodded, though I let her enjoy explaining it to me.Ibith had a way of talking that turned facts into discoveries, as if the world were unfolding before her in real time.She was about to launch into another excited thought when movement across the street caught our attention.
