“I will. I swear it, Mother.”
Tyrus found his father and vowed never to return to the Empire.
At the time, he meant that vow. He meant it until malignant space invaded the sky, until the night when he could no longer sleep because the crimson glow grew so bright it flooded his dreams. He pulled on his coat and strode out into the red-stained night.
The air was chill. His breath made pink-tinted clouds, and his boots crunched over dying grass. Overhead, the bloody wound of malignant space glowered and pulsed. As he stared into it, he saw the truth.
They were doomed.
He’d been lying to himself.
His father, the local government—they were fools, and their assurances were worth nothing. This planet was doomed. Soon, Tyrus knew with a cold certainty. We missed our escape window with the transports.
Only one person could save the inhabitants of this planet now.
He swallowed and made himself look away from the heavens, down to the living world. A soft, cold breeze was brushing through the trees, carrying with it the smells of soil and sap, of fragrant blossoms and things that could die.
His uncle, the Emperor Randevald von Domitrian, could save this planet. But who would ask him to do so?
He believed Tyrus to be dead. That was important; that was good. Only this year, at the age of nine, had Tyrus discovered how good it was to be an ordinary boy—not the Emperor’s heir, but a simple child of no importance. An ordinary child obeyed and was guided by his elders. In return, he was given the freedom to explore, to make mistakes, to ask questions, to play. An ordinary child fell asleep without fear and woke up carefree.
But an ordinary child could not ask the Emperor to save a planet.
Tyrus made himself sit on the scratchy grass, which was something he’d had to work up the courage to do when first he lived on Anagnoresis. The space dweller in him had always recoiled at the thought of the microorganisms and bacteria within natural fauna. Now he made himself lie down and stare into the bloody ribbon overhead. His awareness of the skin-crawling dirt and vegetation faded as he remained there, his gaze trained up. His eyes burned and watered, but he did not let himself blink.
I have only been pretending to be ordinary, he thought. For he could not obey or believe his elders. His father and the government had told him not to worry. But Tyrus knew more than all of them. They were the ones misguided here.
Father. Arion was a mere worker. If the Domitrians learned Tyrus was alive, they would have no mercy on an Excess man who had interfered in their affairs by daring to hide a Domitrian from them.
This planet’s survival would come at the cost of his father’s life.
At daybreak his heart felt weighted by stone, but he had reached no decision. And so the next night, and several nights thereafter, he walked through the blood-tinted darkness. His thoughts cast about for clarity, for the right decision, which he no longer believed any adult could provide him.
Until a night came when Tyrus at last made the decision the people on Anagnoresis refused to make for themselves.
That sixth night, Arion discovered his absence and found him lying again in the long grass.
Tyrus made to rise, but Arion surprised him by taking a seat beside him. “What’s been keeping you awake, Tyrus?”
Tyrus noticed that Arion had not looked up. He never looked up overlong. Once, Tyrus might have called this an example of his father’s optimism, but now it seemed deeply childish.
And so, he did not apologize. He did not put on the local accent, or adopt the sheepish, slouched posture of an ordinary boy caught breaking curfew by his dad. Tyrus the Excess had been such a comfortable skin to wear. He could not afford to be that person anymore.
Now, once more, he was a Domitrian.
He met Arion’s eyes. “I’m done with having a bedtime, Father.”
“I see,” his father mumbled.
The red-hued light deepened the lines in Arion’s brow. And Tyrus felt something in himself soften and yearn—a weakness he could not afford. But it did creep into his voice, lending it that gentleness he had learned on this planet over the last year, which no Domitrian should rightfully possess. “I have not been playacting your son these last months,” he said slowly, “or attempting to deceive you. I… I wished to be Tyrus of Anagnoresis.”
His father let out a short, almost soundless laugh. Not unkind, but somehow despairing. “And I wished it for you. Tyrus, before you do anything rash, think—”
“I owe you my gratitude,” Tyrus cut in. “I have never known peace as I knew it here. But…” He let the Grandiloquy accent slip into the local vowels, into the cadence and rhythm that his father would best hear. “Oh, Dad, don’t you see?” He pointed upward. “That’s going to devour us! Malignant space does not shrink. It will not be willed away if you close your eyes. It will decimate this star system. Every single person on this planet will die—unless they escape. And time is running out.”
Arion’s jaw squared. “You want to contact your uncle.”
“Want? No. But must—yes.” Tyrus exhaled. “And I’ve already done it.”
Silence.
He made himself say it: “He knows where I am. That I live.”
Arion reached out to grope at the grass, like a drunkard seeking some handhold for balance. “He’ll come for you.”
Tyrus tried to swallow. His throat felt so tight. “Yes. There was—there was no time to delay. Do you see? If the planet is to be saved, action must be taken now.”
Another beat of silence. “And the transports left,” Arion said dully.
Tyrus had examined his options time and again. There was no other route. And yet the guilt still struck. It pierced him through.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “The transports are gone and won’t return for months. He’ll be here well before that.”
And so he will kill you. And it will have been my fault.
Arion took a ragged breath and staggered to his feet. Tyrus did not move—but discovered that at some point he had drawn his own knees to his chest, as though bracing himself against something.
His father had every cause to rage at him.
“Here,” Arion said, and when Tyrus blinked to clear his vision, he saw that Arion had offered a hand to him.
Taking it was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
Arion pulled him up to his feet, then let go. Tyrus stood shivering. The night air felt so much colder than it had minutes ago. For the planet, he thought, but could not make himself say. For the planet’s sake, I had to—
“You go back there,” said Arion softly, “and you’re right back in the thick of it. You’ll be in the same danger that you left behind.”
The prick of tears alarmed Tyrus. He never cried. He would not cry now.
But he had expected his father to worry for himself. Instead, Arion’s fears were for his son.
Shame thickened his voice. “Of course. I’ve no doubt my grandmother will try to kill me, just as she did my mother. Perhaps I’ll manage to kill her first.”
Others might have scoffed at these words from a nine-year-old. Arion knew him better. “Perhaps you will,” he said quietly. Then, after a pause, and for the first time in Tyrus’s viewing, he looked up toward the malignancy, studying it. “How long do we have?”