Page 45 of The Sovereign: Part One
“What was that about?”he asked, his voice even, though an unmistakable tension threaded through it.“Is he the inappropriate second-date topic?”
I set my napkin down carefully, smoothing it against the table.Discussing Joss with Maxim felt like crossing a boundary I hadn’t known existed until that moment.But there was no avoiding it.I drew in a slow breath and met Maxim’s eyes.
“Yes,” I admitted.“Joss is my ex.”
A brief shadow of frustration, maybe even jealousy if that were possible, crossed Maxim’s face before he smoothed it away.“Not someone you casually dated.Someone you were in a relationship with?It was serious?”
“There were feelings, yes, but I ended it because I wanted a life here, with you.I knew what I wanted.It wasn’t him.”Saying it aloud made Joss feel even further behind me, like a panel that had already closed.I glanced at Maxim, his expression unreadable, but there was something in his eyes.Something quiet, something waiting, that urged me to hesitate.His questions and responses to my answers were a deviation from anything I had ever expected from a Supplicant, and the last thing I wanted was to make this harder for him while he was still trying to reconcile instinct with logic, emotion with programming.
“What family is he from?Is he a Vanguard?”
“He’s Vale-born.”
This rattled Maxim in a way I hadn’t anticipated, even after my prior revelations.His expression remained composed, but there was a shift, something churning beneath the surface as he struggled to navigate emotions he wasn’t designed to feel.
“Is that what he came here to talk to you about?A reconciliation, fully aware that you’ve started your Vesture?”
“It’s… complicated,” I said.It was all I could manage in such a public place.“Maxim…”
“He wants you to return to The Vale with him.”It wasn’t a question, it was recognition.
He seemed wounded.In a moment, he’d gained an understanding of what it meant to have something to lose, something beyond his control.He was already designed to be perfect for me.If I chose to leave, Maxim could do nothing more to convince me to stay.That truth carved itself into his expression, his jaw tightening, eyes darkening.It was something unvoiced, something dangerously close to pain.
“Can wepleasetalk about this somewhere more private?”
He exhaled.“You haven’t told him no.”
His voice held no accusation, yet there was a vulnerability in his tone, an ache that hadn’t been there before.Earlier, there had been only a trace of hurt, and that alone had the power to crush me.The pain in his eyes lingered as he waited for me to deny what he feared most, pulling me into a tide of guilt I wasn’t sure I could surface from.
I hesitated.“I did.I did tell him no.But I’m not going to lie to you, I considered it.But that was before I met you.”
“Was this before your Veritas?”
I swallowed, the truth feeling like a stone in my throat.There was no way to soften it, no way to frame it in a way that wouldn’t cut him further.I knew how it would be perceived, how it bordered on betrayal, and that knowledge made it even harder to push the words past my lips.
“He asked me a few days ago.”
He only offered a single nod, but I could see turmoil just beneath the surface.
Joss’s presence had displaced him.A physical threat would’ve been a quick and easy resolution.I could see that what Maxim was struggling with went much deeper.Sovereign were strictly barred from dating during their Veritas year, making this a uniquely cruel revelation.He was plagued with thoughts of losing me to another man, something that was, by law, supposed to be outside the realm of possibility.
I reached for his hand, a futile attempt to help him regulate the onslaught of emotions he had no means to process.His response wasn’t just a personal struggle, it was a liability.If Cygnus Mercier, the Chief of Operations and head of the Office of Synthetic Oversight, was alerted to it, Maxim’s deviations from standard programming could mean, at best, a disruption in our Vesture.Cygnus could even recommend termination.
“My love,” I said, echoing the tenderness of the endearment he’d used with me before.
He loosely held my fingers, despite the dissonance that was never meant to exist within his construct.He’d just learned that after I’d spent a year composing him, after we’d stolen a glance at the Eidolon, I’d considered running away with another man—a devastating blow difficult for even a Sovereign to navigate.His willingness to let me in had to mean something.Perhaps it was evidence that hope, however delicate, wasn’t lost.
Maxim’s fingers curled briefly over mine before he let them relax.“I apologize,” he said, though the words felt scripted.“I shouldn’t have reacted so strongly.”
“It’s not your fault.”
It was my hope that with understanding, he’d let it go.That if I remained calm, whatever anomaly in his programming allowed him to feel this deeply would also help him make sense of what had just happened.
But that was only the first hurdle.If I alerted anyone to even the possibility of deviation now, I would have little control over what happened next.And the truth was, I wasn’t sure what that could be.If I was right, then I had to keep it to myself.Maybe even from Maxim.At least until our Oathbond.Until then, I’d have no say-so over whatever procedure The Citadel and the OSO determined to be the necessary course of action.
I took another sip of my drink, sorting through the thoughts piling in my mind.“Let’s talk about our next outing.You mentioned a service project?”
Maxim exhaled, his shoulders loosening as the rigid line of his posture relaxed.His fingers drummed once against the table before stilling, his eyes shifting to me, searching for reassurance.“Yes.I have a few ideas.”
