Page 94 of The Sovereign: Part One
“It wasn’t meant to be,” he said, a sudden tinge of sadness in his voice.“This… utopia.”He swept a hand overhead with exaggerated, sarcastic awe.“Grieving our children, so often, was too much.And not just our own.Our nephews and nieces, our grandchildren, our neighbors’ children.So, I constructed a system where no one argued over the little love we were allowed to keep.Where there were no betrayals, no cold beds, no guesswork.No crime, hunger, stress.Every detail accounted for.Every discomfort removed.”
He looked past me, toward nothing, as if his eyes had settled on the rusted bowels of Hyperion, beneath its polished surface.
“But in all my calculations, I didn’t account for the flaw in the design: Humans weren’t made for unbroken contentment.Eliminate friction, and the mind doesn’t relax, it stagnates.The neurocognitive centers of our brains are shaped by adversity—the areas that foster grit, resilience, and meaning go quiet.The Birth Crisis was too much.It also wasn’t enough.When nothing hurts, nothing grows.And we were never meant to live untouched by pain.”His gaze found mine again.“Blight isn’t a myth.Not a malfunction.It’s a rebellion.You give someone a life and love so perfect it can’t be questioned, and the mind will do whatever it must to survive the certainty.It will find the cracks.And if it can’t, it creates them.”
Maxim spoke, still behind me.“You meant to create a cure, but it came with teeth.”
“Yes.Yes!”Lev sat forward, waving away Maxim’s words.I knew he was only angry with himself, but I’d never seen that expression on his face.“What I’ve built didn’t soothe the human mind.It triggered something worse than grief: Blight.”He paused, then his expression brightened a bit.“So, I engineered a countermeasure to the intervention.And that correction… is Maxim.”
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 societywillcrumble.”
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?”
