To agree to meet, though, would make it seem as if I wanted his forgiveness. “Why? There is nothing for us to say.” I spoke, but not aloud, my current form not possessing a tongue capable of emulating human speech.

“You must go because it is the only way to get what you want.”

I stiffened. “Is he willing to help? Has he found a way to fix…” I couldn’t say it aloud.

“No.” My advisor tucked his hands behind his back. “However, meeting with him is the only path with a chance of success.”

Hope wanted to blossom. “You’ve seen it?” My advisor had an incredible gift to foresee the future.

He nodded. “Yes, but I should warn, it requires you being imprisoned.”

The very suggestion had me brisling and the quills on my body uncoiled into stiff spikes. “This isn’t reconciliation, but a trap.”

“Yes.”

“And you think I should simply allow it to happen?” I didn’t mentally yell, but my tone had my advisor wincing.

“You could ignore but know that doing so means giving up your only chance.”

“Still… intentionally allowing myself to be captured?”

“Necessary for this to work.”

“And how long will I be a prisoner?”

“Hard to tell. But does time really matter to one who is immortal?” my advisor countered.

It didn’t. Nor did time heal all wounds.

In my pondering pause, my most ardent disciple added. “I have already begun devising the key to your escape.”

I didn’t need to eat him to know he spoke the truth. He’d ever been loyal.

“I am not taking a ship.” A vessel could be compromised or destroyed. I needed a more flexible option.

The Cthulhu sleeping in the planet’s largest volcano provided the perfect alternative. A mighty creature of many tentacles and fearsome fighting ability, it was the only organic shape left in the universe capable of traversing it without being encased in a vessel.

It also offered a fearsome mien to those witnessing the meeting with he who cast me aside.

He met me on the tallest mountain, his body small and frail in comparison to mine. His expression inscrutable, his mind closed to me, but I could feel his anger. The burning heat of it made my greeting harsher than I’d planned.

“What do you want?”

“To stop you.”

“Why? I thought you didn’t care what I did.” A sour reminder of what he’d said to me.

“Killing won’t fix anything.”

“No, but it sure makes me feel better.” Every death made me stronger.

“Still selfish, I see. You’ll never change.” He, who I once called friend, shook his head, but worse? The dripping pity in his tone.

As if I were defective.

Broken.

A failure.

All true.

My tentacles lashed out and missed, for he’d risen in the air, arms spread, his cape rustling as his eyes glowed.

“Thank you for making this easy.”

The attack came from every direction. The humans, with their piddling missiles and energy bolts tickling my shape. The nukes, however, did sting a bit, but they were only a distraction.

I noticed he abstained from the fight and I sought him out, only to realize he tried to leave. He rocketed for a vessel orbiting the planet, and I chased after him only to abruptly halt as a concussion shook me to my very core.

I sensed no new injury, yet, suddenly, I found myself deafened. My senses dulled. A glance at he who invited showed him furious.

“What treachery is this!” he yelled, staring upward at the blurry stars and hazy sun.

It turned out, I wasn’t the only one caught in the trap.

And that exile lasted much—MUCH—longer than I would have ever agreed to.

Meaning I had a reason, when my cage finally opened, to want to kill humanity.

Every single last one of them.

Chapter 1

Astrea

Droplets of blood flew and my brother’s head snapped as a fist, encased in a gauntlet, clipped his jaw. It must have hurt—his cut lip already swelled—but Afonso didn’t say a word. Never uttered a single complaint as a Xemplar knight proceeded to punch him in the gut, doubling him over. I winced at the distinct crunch as the knight then proceeded to break his nose. A stream of red flowed from a cut over my brother’s eye, swollen shut and purple. The bruising on his body might be covered by clothes, but that didn’t erase their existence. Afonso held himself straight, and yet I suspected he had a few broken ribs, possibly something ruptured.

As to why he took the abuse so stoically? To protect me. And, as I stared at his wan expression, I suddenly couldn’t handle it anymore.

“Stop it. Enough.” I broke my vow of silence, part of the requisite for becoming a nun of the church. Unable to stem my sobbing, I rushed for my brother. A soldier caught my thrashing form before I could reach him. Before I could beg his forgiveness.

Before I could demand he just let me go…

“It’s okay, Rea,” Afonso managed to whisper his nickname for me through swollen lips.

“It’s not okay. They’re monsters,” I screamed, whirling on the man responsible.

The Grand Master tsked. “Does no one take their vows seriously anymore?”

“Do not attempt to fall back on the church. There’s nothing holy about this,” I protested. I’d learned that lesson the first day I walked into the convent and been subjected to my first whipping for scuffing when I walked. My hatred of the Xemplar had only grown since.

“How else can we remind the captain of his duty?”

“His duty is to fly ships, not spy on his crew,” I spat.

“Heretics hide among us,” hissed the Grand Master. “They must be ousted.”

“And killed,” my muttered addition.

“For the good of the empire.” A noble claim so tarnished by what I’d seen and experienced it had me clenching my fists. The Grand Master waved two fingers at the knight. “Again. I know he’s not told us everything.”

The punches swung fast and furious. Afonso didn’t even try to defend. What would be the use? They’d tie him up or start on me, which would hurt my brother even more.

Tears rolled and I couldn’t help but yell, “I know who the heretic is. It’s me. Kill me. Now.” I held out my arms ready to sacrifice myself so long as it spared him.

“Rea, no.” Afonso lifted his head to peer blearily at me through his one eye. I hiccupped at the sight of his mottled face. No longer the handsome mien the girls all used to swoon over. Knowing he would be given the best medical care didn’t ease my anguish because I already knew they only kept him alive so they could repeat the torture. Why us, though? I never understood why the Grand Master chose to abuse me and my brother when they had so many fanatics in their ranks. Had to be some sort of sadistic pleasure at seeing our suffering.

A misery I could no longer bear. “Kill me.” I continued to hold out my arms. “End this.”

“If you insist.” To my surprise the Grand Master smiled wide.

“Rea!”

“No. I’m done.” I couldn’t look at my brother.

“We’ll see about that,” cackled the Grand Master. “Bring them to the temple.”

Temple? What did he speak of?

A soldier gripped my arm, his fingers tight and likely bruising. Afonso tried to follow and fell to his knees, head hanging low and dripping blood.

“Get up.” The knight with the tarnished gauntlet gave him a kick and Afonso fell over, gasping for air.

“Carry him,” the Grand Master ordered.

With a scowl, the knight slung my brother over his shoulder. With the Grand Master leading the way, we exited his suite and trekked downward. Those we passed—servants in white, chaplains and bishops—averted their gaze, not daring to acknowledge, because if they did then they’d have to confront the grand lie being perpetrated on a universe. The Xemplar didn’t do God’s work, and I wasn’t just talking about the corruption that went right to the top. The Xemplar’s entire basis for a religion was built on a lie. There was no God. No Xolomon.

“Xolomon will damn you for this,” I’d stated the first time I’d been beaten for refusing to orally service a chaplain.

The chaplain, a portly man with small eyes and even smaller character had sneered. “Stupid like all the other station-raised brats believing in a myth.” A myth I, and countless others across the universe, had been forced to believe, lest we be labelled heretic and executed.

Our small party reached the main level of the Cathedral and, to my surprise, veered for the rarely used library—knowledge and our history not something the corrupt cared about. We entered, and the Grand Master marched to the Xemplar symbol carved into the wall between a pair of sparsely populated shelves and placed his hand upon it. A brief mauve glow radiated, but my attention swiveled to the floor that suddenly receded to show steps going down. More than just the temperate rose from the opening, an ominous foreboding escaped as well.

A shiver went through me and I dragged my heels as they forced me forward and then down. The steep and long staircase brought us to a network of tunnels, radiating heat so intense my skin almost sizzled. Relief came in the jarring coolness of the subterranean chamber past a door that required the Grand Master’s handprint once more.

The plain room, with smooth walls of red stone, held nothing but a pedestal taller than most men, and twice as wide. Above it floated an orb, but not one of glass. The red sheen of it glimmered and pulsed.

“What is this place?” I whispered as a growing dread suddenly made me wonder if there might be something worse in death.

The Grand Master clapped his hands. “This is where you’re going to die. But first, how about a demonstration?” At his signal, the knight dumped Afonso, who hit the floor without a sound.

My gaze kept straying to the floating sphere. “What is that thing?”

“The secret to protecting the universe.”

“From what?”

“Annihilation.”

A rather broad statement to make. How could one floating ball of energy be so dangerous?

The knight who’d dumped my brother returned, accompanied by a nun. The silent robed figure floated ahead and curtsied in front of the Grand Master, who wore a small, tight smile.

“Time for you to serve. Stand in front of the plinth and place your hands on it.”

A bob of her head and the nun, not even attempting to protest, glided into position and pressed her bare palms against the pedestal.

Without warning, whiplike strands emerged to wrap around her wrists, pulsing wires that dragged her against the column of tarnished metal. It split open, and the nun finally found her voice and screamed. Not that it saved her.

Me? I couldn’t utter a sound as I stared in horror at what lay within. A machine, but one somehow filled with flesh. Cancerous and pustule-ridden, the wet meat of it glowing a sickly red.

I couldn’t blink or breathe until the machine closed around the shrieking nun, the abrupt silence adding to the terror filling me.

“Tell me I’m sleeping and that piece of furniture didn’t just eat that woman,” Afonso whispered from the floor.

Before anyone could reply, light burst from the top of the pedestal and engulfed the floating orb, deepening its color.

The Grand Master spread his hands. “Praise be. The universe is safe for a few more days. At which time it will be your turn to feed the forcefield that protects the empire.”

Swallowed by that unholy monstrosity… a death so horrific—

I woke with a cry caught in my throat, the nightmare vivid and traumatizing. How dare my mind keep replaying that horrid memory. Did it not realize we’d escaped?

A glance at the bunk below showed Afonso slumbering, safe and whole; we both were, a miracle, but not one bestowed by a god.

I swung my feet over the edge of the bunk and slipped to the floor of the interceptor, the ship my brother stole during our escape. A small craft that had the misfortune of being sucked into a black hole. The first of many we passed through. It still seemed impossible that we’d emerged from that first terrifying conduit through space into a galaxy empty but for a pentagram of black holes surrounding a planet.

I’d not been the only one who thought we were gonna die, but somehow, by some miracle—again not provided by god—the black holes that kept sucking us in and spitting us out disappeared one by one. With them gone, we managed to land on the planet, which proved more than viable. We didn’t arrive alone. Another ship, containing rebels wanted by the Xemplar—making them automatic allies—had also succeeded in surviving, albeit at the cost of their vessel. Miles, the name of the strange craft they travelled in, had used the last of its power to keep them alive.

The hatch to the outside whirred as it opened, and I cast a glance at Afonso, wondering if he’d wake. When he remained breathing evenly, I slipped into the cool evening air, inhaling deep of its freshness. No contaminants tainting it. As a matter of fact, the parts we’d explored since we arrived all appeared pristine and untouched. No signs of civilization, which Dex kept claiming was impossible because this had to be the mythical Earth, the supposed origin of humanity. It certainly matched the fantastical descriptions: blue skies, green plants, a single sun and moon. But if this was Earth, where had everyone gone?

That question didn’t seem to bother the others as much. They worked on fixing the broken ship, gathering edibles, sending off their drones to scout. They all had a purpose. Me? I didn’t know what to do with myself. The interceptor that Afonso stole didn’t need any work, and even if it did, I’d be the last person asked to help. I did go off to try to find things we could eat. Ended up stung by a yellow and black striped insect and breaking out in spots, which thankfully faded within a day after Afonso injected me with a much too large needle.

Despite that incident, I kept trying to forage. I might have had better success if I didn’t always seem to find myself heading in the direction of a distant mountain, the peak of it reaching into the clouds. Great big, white and fluffy things in the sky, that sometimes turned gray. Since no one controlled the weather here, we’d gotten rained on, a clothes-drenching experience that brought my first almost smile until it turned into a storm that lashed with lightning and boomed with thunder. Terrifying for a girl who’d grown up on a climate-controlled space station. Moving to the convent hadn’t broadened my experience. On the contrary, it had stunted my future.

I blamed Billie Mauditon for that decision. He cheated on me and broke my heart. Since I’d been convinced I could never love again, I’d chosen to serve Xolomon, the Xemplar god, as a nun.

What a bad decision that turned out to be.

A half-moon glowed, letting me see the grass I kicked as I walked. The fronds pushed up from the ground in a vivid green that still startled. The space station didn’t have public gardens, just endless metal and tile. From there I’d gone to a cloister situated on a planet of razor-sharp sand. Nothing living dared the surface lest the winds scour flesh clean from bones. Life existed below ground, in the rocky tunnels and caverns where we harvested the moss that grew on walls and used it to fuel our food generators. We gathered and spun spiderwebs into silk, selling it to afford repairs to the few amenities we had. Things I’d taken for granted, like water, had required the squeezing of grayish spongy leaves fed by roots deep enough to reach the liquid trapped far below. Yet here, on mythical Earth, water existed in abundance.

I lifted my face to the sky and closed my eyes, basking in sensation. It felt strange to feel wind on my cheeks. Once I became a nun and put on the veil, the rules demanded no one see my face, meaning it only came off when I was alone and bathing. We even had to wear it when sacrificed. Not something I had to worry about anymore. That room, that machine, even the Grand Master, were gone. I’d escaped death.

For now.

But I didn’t trust this paradise. Beauty always came with a price.

As I strolled, I couldn’t help but wonder at what kind of future I’d have here. Certainly not one based on intimacy, seeing how everyone already had a partner, leaving only my brother unattached, and I’d never be that desperate. But that was fine. I’d already forgotten any dreams of a future with a partner. Did I really want to feel love only to inevitably suffer when it betrayed me?

“Nice night for a stroll.”

The voice, unexpected and most definitely male, startled. I turned slightly to my left to see a man approaching me, his features indistinct in the starlight, but his bulk unmistakable, as was the fact he didn’t appear to be wearing any clothes.