The strongest poison ever known came from Caesar’s laurel crown.
—WILLIAM BLAKE
AT NIGHT, the sky ignited in stark crimson. It forewarned of the threat approaching them from space.
Few in the galaxy had heard of Anagnoresis, a small planet on the frontier of the Empire. Its nearby patch of malignant space had been growing slowly, unnoticed for decades. That malignancy was the forgotten, glowing gravestone of a long-ago vessel that had been lost while trying to enter hyperspace.
The start of the rupture had been small, a virtual splinter. It would have remained there forgotten if not for the existence of Eros.
Eros was a gas giant that had sheltered Anagnoresis from incoming asteroids. Over the course of three hundred years, it swept around the Anagnoresian star—until its orbit rammed it straight into that pinprick malignancy.
Eros’s clouds swallowed the hint of light, and like that, the malignant space seemed to vanish.
Until weeks passed, and then the light swelled from within Eros’s clouds, steadily devouring more and more of the gas giant’s atmosphere. Within months, there no longer was a planet called Eros. In its place spread a massive and vibrant band of white and purple light—the gravestone of a gas giant, expanding with every second that slipped past.
On Anagnoresis, the tiny population of human settlers gathered to survey the new light in their skies. Distorted by atmosphere, the vibrant ribbon resembled a small moon or an asteroid. The locals were anxious—but they did not yet know to be afraid.
The boy noticed only after the malignant space swelled into a secondary sun in the sky of Anagnoresis, one that lit the night.
He was the only one on the entire planet who knew the truth: they were already doomed.
* * *
The citizenry of Anagnoresis had never faced a crisis of such proportions. They didn’t properly fear it because they didn’t understand what it was. Their response was misdirected. Without Eros, they worried about asteroids and comets. They gathered together to organize a new defense grid to protect Anagnoresis’s skies from astral assault.
Secrecy was necessary. They’d heard stories of decadent Domitrian Emperors who used any pretense to strip planets from their citizenry and gift them to favored sycophants. So they agreed not to speak of the strange happenings in nearby space. “We’ll deal with it on our own. The Empire can’t learn of it, or it will be used against us.”
They didn’t know that among their number was one of the very Domitrians they feared. Tyrus Domitrian had sought refuge on Anagnoresis. He’d planned to escape his true identity and become just another eight-year-old among the Excess.
It had felt at first like a game—a deadly game, but a game regardless. How to become invisible, here, at the edge of the known universe? He had studied the mannerisms and speech of the local populace. Had learned to slur his consonants and mimic the lilting rhythms of Anagnoresian speech. The people here were gentle, not like any he’d known on the Chrysanthemum. He learned how to fake gentleness like theirs, and in faking it, he discovered that it actually existed within him; it had existed there all along. He could be a good kid like any other. He could play games, and think of small matters, and worry about nothing under the safe guardianship of his father.
It had seemed a wonder to the heir to the galactic throne: that life could be so simple, and so kind.
Until today, when he had realized what it was that he saw in the sky.
Malignant space!
He tried to explain to his father, Arion, why this was a catastrophe. “Your Viceroy clearly knows nothing of it,” he said. In his fear, he sounded like himself for the first time in months, his accent that of the Grandiloquy, the vocabulary of space dwellers infiltrating his speech. “Father, he’s afraid an asteroid might hit us? He’s insane! Don’t you see, that’s the least of our worries! That anomaly will keep growing until there’s no escaping it. We have to leave this planet. Speak to him. He must order an evacuation.”
Growing up at the center of the Empire, Tyrus had taken for granted that those near him had the power to effect change. But his father, Arion, was not a Domitrian. He was a mere worker, a mechanic who maintained the service bots for local mining machines. He’d been chosen arbitrarily by Tyrus’s mother for her child’s DNA.
He’d taken Tyrus in anyway and had done his best to understand the boy. But now, confronted by his son’s demand for action, Arion was reminded of the difference between their worlds. Arion knew he had no power to issue orders. Nor would he wish to have such power. Unlike his son, he had no clear view of what should be done. He trusted the judgment of his rulers, that they knew more than he did and could be expected to act in the best interests of all.
But he saw his son’s anxiety and wanted to relieve it. “There is an entire committee of experts with the Viceroy at this very moment,” he told Tyrus, “and I promise you they’re working on a way to save us. They know what they’re dealing with.”
“How can they possibly?”
“Tyrus,” Arion said firmly, “remember which of us is the adult here.”
“But…” Tyrus’s voice faded.
Arion caught Tyrus’s chin. It was a trespass none would dare do to an heir to the throne, but to Arion, he was a child. Tyrus found it more comforting than he should. His father held his eyes firmly. “Think about this: you’re a smart boy, you grew up in space. You’re seeing that malignant space through our atmosphere. Don’t you see how that changes things? The clouds distort the light. It’s not as close as it looks.”
“Is that… is it true?” Tyrus was desperate to believe him.
“You see the same thing at sunrise, don’t you? The light is everywhere, not just in one spot. The atmosphere amplifies and spreads it. Same thing is happening here. We have far more time than you think.”
Later, Tyrus would hate himself for the hope that had shivered up within him. He’d wanted so desperately to believe his father’s claims.
And so he did. He put his trust in this beautiful idea that there was someone else who held answers, who would act on them, who would protect them all. He wanted to have faith that other people could be right.
Two days later he awoke early to a distant buzzing sound that had disturbed the morning birds into noisy protest. Tyrus peered out the window to see supply transports launching themselves back up into the clouds. Later he learned that their captains had been bribed into keeping the star system’s secrets. A mandatory evacuation still seemed the worst outcome of all to the people of Anagnoresis.
When Tyrus heard those whispers, he could not help but think, If we had a chance to survive, we lost it when those ships left.
He forced away his doubts. They did not return until the worst way doubts can come—far too late.
* * *
Anagnoresis was supposed to be safe.
His mother had implored him to find his way there if anything happened to her.
“Leave the Empire. Leave the sun-scorned throne. You do not want it,” she’d told Tyrus, again and again. “Our family is radioactive. The power we hold will cost you your soul. Swear to me that if anything happens, you will flee. Never return to the Chrysanthemum.”