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Cleon—the fourteenth of that name—called on his ancestors. He knew they weren’t listening, that all but two of his genetically identical forebears had been reduced to their component atoms in an ignominious puff. A whole life raised up in the palace, grown and ended there as molecules sucked into the air recyclers.
All but three, rather, if he counted the First. Forever slumbering one step ahead of disintegration. An exact replica of the heart stilled in that noble breast was currently slamming in a cage of bone as poor, broken Brother Dawn returned to the palace.
He sniffled, drawing another dagger-filled look from Spymaster Obrecht. The man was made of knives. One of those blades had cut Dawn’s throat, spilled his hot blood in meat-smelling pulses on the floor.
Brother Dawn had watched himself die.
Not himself, but the better version. This young man—this boy—sitting with sweaty palms and tear-stained cheeks in the transport pod was no more than a flawed likeness. A simulacrum. One who, Dawn knew with increasing certainty, wouldn’t live to imprint his legacy on the palace walls.
Would he be atomized before they awakened the reserve clone? Or would he face himself yet again before he died, a cracked mirror’s reflection to the truer whole?
As for Brother Dusk, the eldest of the three and the calm architect of genocidal horrors rendered so beautifully in the Mural, he had not once looked at his youngest self since boarding the pod. Dawn felt the disdain rolling off him in waves. It had a scent to it, like a poisoned cup.
Through his twenty years, Dawn had never been able to imagine those stiff, regal shoulders as his own. Even watching Brother Day mid-transformation, he could never project his own selfhood onto that template. Now, of course, he knew why.
Again, the tears stung and slipped free, humiliating. Dawn let them fall, let his vision cloud and his nose drip. A sniff or sob would only draw attention. Maybe he’d have time in his own chambers to bury his face in the bedcovers and weep for all that was taken away: the brief taste of freedom, a love lost.
No. Even the love had been a clever imitation.
Maybe if he were right, if he weren’t fundamentally damaged, he’d have been immune to Azura’s temptation. The fact of his brokenness was tied up in his transgressions, and no one could separate one from the other.
In that dim room, in a modest home nestled in the cradle of the Scar, Dusk had condemned him for flaws outside of his control. His color blindness, his dominant left hand. Things that could be altered by external means. Or internal—if the Imperium had cloning and nanotechnology, surely a palace physician could edit his DNA to make him whole. Even so, it would still be a patch, stitched in place. His inborn faults had already led him astray. Dawn was tarnished, no matter the measures taken to scrub the stain away.
Worse, Empire was stained. Shown to be fallible and human, and that could not stand. Word would spread like disease through the teeming underworld of the Scar. Soon, the contagion would reach the upper levels, whispers durable enough to float through the open palace windows.
False Emperor.
False God.
He braced himself to face the wrath of Brother Day. Let him roar his fury, belittle him, even strike him. A part of Dawn thought he could more easily stomach that rage than Brother Dusk’s silent, superior disapproval. All he could hope was that Day—unlike Dusk—would put the blame on things that could be changed. Dawn could be taught suspicion, drilled in that essential otherness until he and the palace’s gamekeeper and gardeners spoke different languages altogether. He could learn to remove himself from mortal things like conversation or laughter, or a lover kept for more than a night or two. No doubt Brother Day would do the teaching, and oh, it would be a hard and painful lesson.
Observing Cleon XIII over the years, Dawn knew he preferred to demonstrate the power of Empire using his own fortitude rather than the strength of the Imperial fleet. This iteration of Brother Day was keen and cunning, training his mind and shaping his words as meticulously as he trained his body. Though he was not the one who had rained fire on Anacreon and Thespin, the slim blade of his calculated resentment could strike far deeper wounds. The kind one failed to notice before the bloodletting turned fatal.
Obrecht hauled him by the arm to the seldom-used throne room, Dusk trailing behind. His judgment bored holes in Dawn’s back as they walked. Strangely, it was only because of the spymaster’s rough grip that he remembered he’d lost his Aura.
Given it away, actually.
Before the middle throne, crowned with a sunburst, Obrecht let him free at last.
Brother Day sat with one long leg slung over the throne’s carven arm. He wore a sleeveless tunic and loose trousers; his feet were bare. His skin had always had a golden undertone, but his days on the sun-scoured Maiden had left him gilded. Warm light chased over the deeply tanned skin of his bare arms, waterfalling down the ridges of muscle that had somehow grown more defined.
He’d lost weight.
The angles of his face were sharper—jaw line, chin, cheekbones. Deep-set under still-dark brows, his eyes shone with feverish brightness. It seemed no part of him had been spared from the Maiden’s pitiless sun; even his hair had lightened to the color of polished bronze, falling around his lean face in unkempt hanks.
A god of legend, yes: beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
One before whom Dawn planned to throw himself and beg for mercy. Having sunk to the depths of the Scar and below, he wasn’t above trying. He’d crawl on the crushed obsidian walkways of the gardens until his palms and knees were scraped raw and bleeding. He’d kiss Day’s feet if that’s what he wanted. Anything to save his pathetic skin.
“Thank you, Spymaster Obrecht,” said Day. There was a roughness to his voice, its courtly polish sandblasted away. The note of weariness in it made a startling contrast to his appearance. Brother Day sounded as painfully mortal as Dawn felt.
His heart leapt, even through the fear. Maybe his brother had come away changed. From his studies, Dawn knew people from almost every star system made pilgrimages to the Maiden, as if a place absent almost everything could give them something they lacked. He’d scoffed at the idea, but that was before. Back when he was safe (Coddled? Probably.) and wasn’t staring at certain death through the flimsy curtain of Brother Day’s judgment.
“You may go,” said Day, and set both bare feet on the cool marble of the dais.
“Empire.” Obrecht made a sharp bow before leaving the throne room.
Day turned to Dusk. “Thank you, brother. I regret being away for the rescue, but I’m grateful you were able to bring our dear Brother Dawn back to us.”
Dusk nodded, serene. He didn’t so much as glance at Dawn.
Brother Day stood and held out his arms.
His panic spiking, Dawn hesitated, eyes wide. Like a cornered rat. But when he moved forward, Day stepped from the dais and enfolded him in strong arms. The dam broke, leaving Dawn clinging to the soft cloth of his brother’s tunic, sobbing into his shoulder. Although they were the same height, Dawn felt dwarfed in that embrace.
Once, he would have mused that it must be close to what their subjects felt: the arms of Empire surrounding them, buoying them up when they were weak and afraid. But now he’d seen firsthand the “gratitude” of these subjects, their loyalty to Empire extending no further than the breath they spent lying about it. He thought of Azura, blaster in hand, leveling it at his unlined brow. They were not weak or afraid.
He’d been such a fool to stray from this shelter, to think anything anywhere else could offer the same assurance. His misstep had been just that—a brief departure from the dynastic path. Now, poised to be set right again, comfort and relief flooded his chest.
“Come on,” said Day. “I expect you want to clean up. Afterwards, we’ll have the physician restore your nanobots and get some food in you. How does that sound?”
“Perfect.” Dawn had never spoken a more sincere word in his life.
He followed Day through the halls, trying not to look to either side at the Mural and its not-quite-right shades.
Dusk trailed after for a while. Both Dawn and Day stopped, turning when he cleared his throat.
“I need to settle my mind,” he said. “I think I’ll work for a while, if you can do without my company.”
Day nodded, gracious. “Of course.”
Dawn studied their faces, hunting for a secret signal passing between them, but saw nothing. Later, as he replayed portions of the day over and over in his mind, he would wonder if the fault in his genetic code had blinded him not only to red and green but to an unintelligible cipher shared between the unblemished brothers of Empire. Just then, though, all he felt was relief. It passed through his bones, softening them, making them sag.
“You’re tired,” said Day.
Dawn huffed, rueful. “I am.”
“We won’t keep you too long from your rest, but it’s very important that you tell Brother Dusk and me every detail you can remember about these insurrectionists. These traitors.”
Although he saw Azura’s fear-stricken face in his mind, Dawn said, “Of course.”
“Brother Dusk knows quite a bit, but I’d rather hear it in your words.” Outside the door to Dawn’s suite of rooms, Day stopped and turned, regret scrawled on his face. “You understand what has to be done, of course. It might help you, when things get difficult, to remember that every word she spoke was a lie. And that she and her comrades will probably tell many, many more lies before we get to the truth.”
Imagining what might be done to Azura and her comrades made Dawn feel dizzy and sick. He breathed deeply, trying to focus. Empire would have no guilt. They are traitors, to be treated as such. Their lives were forfeit the moment they dreamed of acting against us.
Thinking that way didn’t give much comfort, so Dawn tried instead to center his enormous relief in his mind. In spite of it all, Brother Day would protect him. Would set him on the right path again.
“Go,” Day told him. “Wash up. I’ll tell you about my journey to the Sisters while you dress.”
Nearly weeping with gratitude, Dawn nodded.
In the tiled shower area, a sheet of hot, fragrant water poured down from the strip of rainfall nozzles in the ceiling. As steam filled the room, Dawn stripped off and studied himself in the mirror. Bruises were rising on his too-pale skin. On his back, underneath the shoulder blade on the left side. On both elbows. An enormous one, already purple as a storm cloud, darkened the right hip where he’d landed after leaping off Azura’s balcony.
Could he force the malleable hurt and betrayal into another shape? Let it cool and harden into spite, or the tough thorns of distrust Brother Day used to armor himself? It didn’t feel possible at the moment; the wound was too raw even to scab over.
Dawn scrubbed down, taking care around the bruises but otherwise determined to begin the process of scouring away his shame. Maybe once he’d healed and regained his strength, he’d make his own journey to the Sisters, take part in whatever ritual or rite Brother Day had. It wasn’t a genetic edit, but if a man believed his heart changed, who could prove otherwise?
Refreshed, he walked out swathed in a soft wrap, clean hair bouncing up into ringlets.
Brother Day, who’d been perched on the edge of one of the lounge chairs, rose with his usual leonine grace. Smiling, he tousled Dawn’s wet hair. “Feeling better?”
“Very much. Thank you, brother. I...I owe you.”
“Yes. Yes, you do.”
Dawn started to turn his head when all at once Day’s long fingers tightened in his hair. He winced and cried out, his hands flying up to pry those fingers away.
Day gave his head a jaw-rattling shake.
Dawn felt a few hairs separate from the scalp. Tears of pain welled in his eyes.
Hauling him close, Day spoke in a vicious hiss against his ear. “You sniveling brat. Did you honestly think you could come back, that everything would be just as it was before? You’re more pathetic than I imagined.”
Another shake.
Hot tears slid free of Dawn’s eyes, burning trails down his cheeks. His scalp was on fire. “Please, brother!”
“No,” said Day. “You’re no brother of mine. You’re a fraud. A pretender to the throne. A viper in the nest.”
Day hauled him along, stumbling, below the window high above, beaming down a projection of some other world’s sky. At last, he let go of Dawn’s hair, throwing him down to the rug, where he landed on the bruised hip and crumpled, sobbing.
“I didn’t know! Please.” Dawn struggled to rise, prop himself up on shaking arms. His knees wouldn’t hold him.
“You knew,” Day spat. “You understood enough to conceal your defects from us. For a while. You really should give more credit to Brother Dusk for his spycraft. It’s quite formidable. He found you out before I did, and concocted this elegant plan. A carefully crafted trap for the rats of Trantor’s underworld. And you made for exquisite bait.”
Weeping freely now, his skin tingling, Dawn raised swollen eyes to look on a face that would never be his own. He wanted to tear at his skin until all resemblance disappeared in furrows of blood. “It wasn’t my fault.”
Day crouched next to him, his voice gentler now. “No.”
Dawn flinched when his brother reached out to brush a damp curl away from his forehead.
“You sweet, naive boy. It wasn’t your fault.” Day seized him by the back of the neck, unyielding fingertips digging into the tender flesh, and forced his face onto the scratchy carpet. With his free hand, he pinned one of Dawn’s flailing arms by the wrist. “But it was your responsibility.”
Leaning close, his chest to Dawn’s heaving back, a warm and unwelcome weight, Day pressed his head harder against the rug.
It was all he could do to keep from breathing the fibers.
“When I was younger than you are now,” Day said, “I watched the fiery death of millions of souls when the Starbridge fell. Heard the cries of pain and loss in the city. Those continued long after the bridge went down. A chorus rising out of the newborn Scar every night until I was sure I’d go mad. But my suffering was nothing compared to what Brother Day endured. Suffered for deaths that were no more his fault than your shortcomings are yours.”
Leaning even closer, a fine mist of spittle dotting Dawn’s cheek as he hissed the words, Day said, “But he was Empire. He is. And their blood was on his hands. He had no choice. That day, I learned a brutal lesson. And I made the decision to set childhood aside and rise to the station into which I was born. I had no choice, and neither do you. The fact that we allowed you the illusion for so long is unforgivable. I’ll pay for that mistake, as will Brother Dusk. And so will you.”
The hold on Dawn’s neck eased, and he pulled in a stinging breath. Terrified tears soaked the crinkled pile of the rug below his cheek. Instead of letting him up, though, Brother Day grabbed the sash of the bathrobe and hauled him to his knees. When Dawn fought—arching his back, rearing up—Day grabbed his hair again and slammed his forehead back to the ground.
Pain seared his skin from his brow to the base of his neck. He writhed, the agony keeping his cries lodged in his throat.
He did gasp, though, when Day snaked a hand below the hem of the robe, around his waist, wrapping long fingers around his fear-shriveled cock.
Then, Dawn cried out. Indignant, humiliated.
Day clenched his fist in retaliation.
White-hot sparks danced in front of Brother Dawn’s eyes; the pain was nauseating. He swallowed back sour bile, letting out a thin wail.
The punishing pressure eased.
“Did you fuck her?” Day asked.
“Wha—what?” The question bounced in Dawn’s reeling, hurt-strained mind.
“Your dark-haired girl. Did you fuck her?” He carefully enunciated each word, growling in Dawn’s ear.
A sob punched free from Dawn’s chest, making his shoulders rise and his scalp burn where Day clutched his curls in a torturous grip. “Yes. Yes.”
“Did you like it?”
Another sob. His lungs burned. “I did.”
Instead of simply holding his cock, Brother Day began to stroke slowly. A gentle touch, riding the echoes of agony. Dawn felt him shake his head; a weary sigh ruffled the hair at his nape. His tone was soft, pitying. “Your blood is soiled. The name of Empire is soiled. You disgust me.”
Dawn could only whisper, his lips mashed against the rug, forming a litany: “So sorry, so sorry, so sorry...”
“Tell me how she felt,” Day went on. “Was her skin soft? It looks soft. I see she has small breasts. How did they feel in your hand? Firm?” All the while that he crooned question after disgusting question into Dawn’s ear, he stroked.
Even in his pain, his terror, Dawn couldn’t help but remember the silken smoothness of Azura’s skin—pink-pale against his gold. Long arms, slender but with lean muscle strung below. Her lips, and behind them a tongue she curled into his mouth, tasting and searching.
To his shame, Dawn was growing hard inside the circle of his brother’s fingers.
A fact Day could hardly fail to notice.
“Good,” he said, running the pad of his thumb over the sensitive head.
It took every scrap of restraint Dawn had left not to push into that tantalizing grip.
“Very good. Was she wet when you first touched her? I’d imagine so. Slick and swollen and ready. Am I right?”
Dawn managed a pained noise, his willpower breaking apart into brittle shards. Perhaps it had never been strong.
“How did it feel to be inside her? I’m sure it was tight and smooth. Must have been sweet. It’s a shame you only got to have her the once. Or so Brother Dusk’s spy drone informed me. Don’t be afraid, little brother. I won’t hurt her. Not that way, at least.”
“But you’ll hurt me.” Dawn hated how whining and weak his voice sounded.
Again, the agonizing hand clenching in his hair. Bony knuckles dug into the thin skin, pressing on his skull.
“As I said, responsibility. Her sins are on your hands, and so you suffer for them.”
Dawn gritted his teeth. “You don’t seem to be suffering.”
The firm stroke and twist of Day’s clever hand on Dawn’s cock made him shudder and groan. “Oh, this is a lesson I learned long ago.”
Terror, loathing, and want swirled together, becoming indistinguishable. Brother Dawn grabbed handfuls of the rug, tearing at it. When he could no longer hold out, he let the breath leave his lungs in a hopeless rush. With a sob of release, he pushed his hips forward, seeking more pressure from his brother’s hand, chasing the rising heat in his belly.
Day sighed, as well, indulgent. “That’s it. Give in. You’ve earned it.”
If a threat lurked under those words, Dawn was unable to care anymore. There was a tempting kind of relief in this surrender, a completion of the circle. Proving himself the very puppet that Azura and Brother Dusk—and now Brother Day—had branded him. His fall, like his color-sapped vision and his left-handedness, had been written into his DNA long before his birth.
“Brother…” There was a naked plea in his voice.
“No. Not ‘brother.’ Use my name.”
Dawn clenched the carpet with numb fingers. “Cleon.”
“Not quite.”
He groaned, moving his hips in useless pulses, finding no satisfaction. “Empire.”
“Good. Now, beg me for it. Beg for what you need.”
“Please. Empire. Don’t stop.”
“More.”
“Touch me. Help me. Please. I need...to come.”
“More.”
“I…” Dawn tried to turn his face away, hide his shame. “Please. Fuck me.”
The rumble of approval that emerged from Brother Day’s throat began deep in his chest, echoing through Dawn’s own ribcage. At last, thankfully, he pulled his fingers free of Dawn’s hair, though only to ruck up the sweat-soaked fabric of his robe. The air of the room was cool on his naked skin for a moment before Brother Dawn pressed in close, sliding the length of his cock along Dawn’s cleft.
Dawn had never been taken this way, but he tried to anticipate, given the familiar contours of his own cock, which he’d taken in hand more times than he could count.
Behind him, Brother Day spat twice into his palm.
Absent the contact, anticipation raised gooseflesh. After a moment, the slippery, blunt head of Day’s cock began to breach. Dawn struggled to calm himself, breathing in steady tides as unfamiliar pressure became pain, roiling his gut, splitting him open. The stretch and burn withered his erection, but on it went, steady and inexorable.
Day sighed as he slipped in fully, tightening his grip enough to bring stimulation surging back. Between pleasure and pain was numbness, a crevice into which Dawn gratefully slipped.
Silent, he trembled and took what he was given.
Day thrust slowly, his motions smooth, stroking in counterpoint until pleasure surmounted the discomfort and canceled it. Riding the wave of his complete surrender, Dawn pushed back against the cock that filled him.
Maddeningly, Brother Day slowed. Dawn prepared himself to beg again when Day spoke, his already-rough voice gone ragged with power and pleasure.
“Do you want to know what I learned during my time on the Maiden?”
Dawn’s mouth refused to form words, his breath whirling with the sound of a handsaw.
“I walked the Great Spiral of their legends,” Day continued. “Wandered barefoot, almost naked under the blistering sun, for endless dry kilometers. Near the point of hallucination, drinking my own piss just to wet my lips. And of the great vision bestowed by the Triple Goddess at the end? Nothing. But there was a revelation. Do you want to hear it?”
Dawn whined, pushing back. “Please.” He didn’t know what he was begging for.
“Patience. At the end of the Spiral, in the cave, I finally recognized the purpose of faith. Religion, dear brother, is a hungry animal. It will maul, trample, tear you to pieces in its jaws. The believers, they think they’ve mastered it by trapping it in a place where they cannot see or touch it. They listen to its howling and gnashing, and their imaginations spin it into a nightmare of retribution. One far worse than reality. They fear the consequences of walking too close, of taking just one look.
“But if you understand this, you can come close. Whisper to the beast. Feed it, gain its trust. Promise the thing its freedom, but only at your hands. When you spring the cage at last, it is already your creature. You can ride it, break it, wield it. You can turn it on the faithful, and watch it devour them.”
His capacity for thought slipping away, Dawn twisted in Day’s grip, pleading without words.
Pausing a moment to draw his hips back, Day chuckled softly. Then he slammed in to the hilt, punching a tortured cry from Dawn’s throat.
He thrust, hips snapping like clockwork, lecturing on increasingly ragged breath. “Fear is the common human tongue. On the Maiden, the Zephyrs feared their Triple Goddess more than they feared me. I had to walk their path, play their game. Lead them to their natural awe by making them believe they’d come to it on their own.”
Dawn strove to listen, but the growing hum of need rose above Brother Day’s voice. A chorus, an ever-ringing bell.
“We are Empire,” Brother Day said, panting, holding Dawn by the curve of one hip bone. The power of the thrusts alone moved Dawn’s aching cock in the tight ring of his hand, drawing him closer, closer.
“We are both the creature in the cage and the master. We must be. There is no other choice.” He stilled, hauling Day toward him and against him. The fullness was overwhelming. “Come for me.”
Having no choice, Dawn obeyed. He clutched at air, wailing, spilling in hot spurts onto the ruined carpet.
No more than two strong thrusts and Day was coming, too. He bellowed his release; Dawn felt the jump and quiver of his cock, the hot flood inside him. Still hard, leaking the last of his seed onto the rug below, Brother Day pulled free and stood, righting his clothing.
Dawn pitched over to one side. He fell heavily on the bruise again, but couldn’t force himself to care. He barely had the strength to raise his head as Brother Day crouched beside him and placed a clammy hand on his cheek.
“I’ll leave you now. I need to see to the reserve clone. The true Dawn. Brother Dusk has been preparing.”
Dawn shut his eyes tight. He was too exhausted to weep. “Are you going to kill me?
“No.”
Blinking, he tried to look at Brother Day’s radiant face, the benevolent smile returned. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to send you back. To the Scar.”
“But—”
Day shook his golden head. “Your reign as Brother Dawn has ended. A new one will arise and none will be any the wiser. But I promise your fall is not in vain. You’re going to be my eyes and ears among the would-be rebels, those who question the legitimacy of Empire. You’ll walk unseen, scurrying with the vermin. You are Brother Midnight, moving in darkness, untouched by the sun.”
The former Brother Dawn lay his head down, weary, in utter defeat. “I’ll die out there.”
“You won’t.”
Midnight raised his head to see Brother Day smiling. A smile that this time did not reach his storm-dark eyes.
“Not as long as you remember one thing,” he said. "You belong to me.”