I can’t feel it. Can’t feel them. All of us on the web - prey, predators; worse things. Interconnected. But for the first time I just… Can’t.
“The sedatives. You’re wondering why you can’t see, I imagine. With your eyes, or.” A pause. “Other sight.”
Father. What his eyes must look like now. Always so… Cold. Even on the surface - with our star so dim, and ice under foot? When he looks at me. That’s when I shiver the most.
“Needn’t struggle. Not now. You have for three decades: unworthy of title, of name. You were meant for less. I realize that now.”
Another pause. How often does he practice this? Letting the words hang. Just long enough to bury me under their weight.
“… But not him. He was your brother, Fein. He was Chiss. His death leaves a wound in our family. His absence ripples throughout the Ascendancy.”
Funny he would describe it that way. That’s how it was for me, too. When I cut his strand. That gentle tug - always present, always pulling. Now limp, like him. Lips a sneer. His last moments spent feeding on my misery. I coiled my hate, my envy, my failures into a fist and tore him from the web. Felt it reverberate in the threads around me. Felt his life ebb in my hand. So much spite turned to silence.
“Would that I had those years again.”
Would that I had another brother.
“To spend them more wisely.”
To kill him a second time.
“I can at least put the rest to use. See him buried. But not you, Fein. You will go on.”
I’m ready. Tear me apart. Diminish my every achievement. Even though, for once? I won. Look at me. …Please.
“You could have lingered. Forsaken that thing inside you to be one of us. Instead, you will go on. No longer Naraldri, not a daughter of Chaf.”
Something whirrs beside me. Heat. The sensation of steel pinning my fratricidal arm in place.
“You will live. Forbidden from Csilla. Forbidden from Chiss space. Now, and forever. I give you a new name.”
I rage, I strain, I beg my body to listen. Just a look, a gesture, a last try. Vision comes. Lips part. I hear the desperate croak of my own voice. “… Father -”
The words catch in my throat. Now I see it. He was never here at all: only a hologram. A recording. A last formality. His voice goes on, uninterrupted. Judgement delivered by twin eyes crimson staring through me.
The metal arm comes down - begins to stitch. I smell the laser cut into skin, muscle, bone, evaporating blood into mist. I scream. Not from the butcher’s calligraphy - but what I know it spells. Thick machined letters carve out my name.
“Exile.”
