The hunger came first—before the meeting, before anything else. It always came first.

  Not the dull ache of an empty stomach, not the gnawing discomfort of missing a meal. This was different. This was wrong. It coiled deep, something primal, something desperate. It wasn’t just need—it was instinct.

  I had fought it at first… But it was never a battle I could win.

  I tried to ignore it. Drowned myself in rations, swallowed mouthfuls of dried meat, protein bars, nutrient paste—enough food to fill me past fullness, to make my stomach churn. But it hadn’t been enough.

  The hunger didn’t want sustenance.

  It wanted life.

  I had made it as far as the lab before I let go.

  Past the sealed doors, past the containment chambers, past the sterile rows of biological samples—carefully preserved genetic diversity, they called it. The last remnants of Earth's creatures, stored to seed new worlds, to ensure survival.

  I had told myself I was just looking. Just checking. My hands trembled as I unlatched one of the holding cells. Inside, the creature was small—warm, soft, breathing. It stared up at me, black, beady eyes full of something it didn’t understand.

  Neither did I. I moved before I could think-teeth tearing through fur, the snap of fragile bones, the flood of blood against my tongue. I wasn't eating. I was consuming.

  Ripping, devouring, hands and mouth working together in something mindless, something instinctive, something that had nothing to do with me. My body shuddered as warmth poured down my throat, and the hunger—the all-consuming, agonizing hunger—eased.

  And in the stillness that followed, the horror settled in.

  I wrenched back, chest heaving. The scent of iron filled the lab—thick, cloying, coating my lips, my fingers. My stomach twisted as my brain caught up with my body, the rational part of me finally understanding what I had done.

  The remains lay at my feet, broken, mangled. Blood pooled across the sterile white floor, stark against the metal.

  I staggered away, bile rising in my throat.

  Not again.

  I had fought this. Starved it. Buried it beneath the Inhibitor for weeks. But now—now I had torn into flesh like I had on the Hemlock, like I had with the mutants, mindless, instinctive, starving—

  What have I done?

  The sickness churned inside me, twisting through my gut like a knife. It wasn’t the first time. But after all this time, after fighting so hard to suppress it—

  It felt like a relapse.

  Like drowning in something I thought I had left behind.

  I lurched toward the nearest sink, bracing against the counter as my stomach convulsed, as bile burned its way up my throat. I retched, but nothing came up. My body had already taken it in, had already used it.

  Even now, even as revulsion clawed at my mind, I could feel it—warmth spreading through my limbs, strength settling into my muscles, my cells absorbing what I had taken.

  The virus wanted it. Needed it.

  And I had given in.

  My breath came in ragged gasps. My hands trembled as I turned on the water, scrubbing my fingers raw, watching the blood swirl down the drain in thin red ribbons.

  I could still taste it.

  The hunger had been unbearable, and the whispers maddening. It had forced my hand. But that wasn’t an excuse.

  I had killed something innocent. Not for survival. Not for necessity.

  For instinct.

  For need.

  The thought made me sick.

  I swayed on my feet, dizziness pressing against my skull. The room hummed around me, the ship’s systems thrumming through the walls, the floors. Phoenix burned in my veins now, constant, inescapable—like Jericho, always there, always waiting.

  The weight of it settled heavy in my chest.

  I wasn’t human anymore. I was something else. And that thought terrified me more than the hunger itself.

  I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, hands braced against the sink, watching the water swirl red. Long enough for the blood to wash away. Long enough for the trembling in my fingers to stop. But the nausea remained.

  My throat burned, my stomach twisting with something deeper than regret. I needed to purge it—to force it out of me, to make myself feel it.

  I yanked open the nearest cabinet, my fingers moving without thought. Neatly arranged medical supplies lined the shelves. Alcohol swabs, disinfectants, antiseptics. And—

  There.

  A bottle of rubbing alcohol. I didn’t hesitate. Didn’t stop to consider. I twisted the cap off and brought it to my lips.

  The first gulp hit like fire. The second like punishment. By the third, my vision blurred at the edges. I coughed, gagged, but my body didn’t reject it. It burned its way down, my enhanced metabolism working instantly, breaking it down too fast, but not fast enough to stop the warmth from spreading through my limbs. A raw, biting heat settled in my stomach, radiating through my chest, numbing the sharp edges of my mind and keeping the whispers at bay.

  Good. I needed to be numb.

  I leaned back against the counter, the dizziness creeping in, my body swaying slightly. The alcohol wouldn’t kill me. Wouldn’t even hurt me. But for a few fleeting moments, it would hit me. And that was enough.

  The hum of Jericho pressed in, the steady pulse of the ship beneath my feet. Always there. Always waiting.

  And then—

  "You really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?"

  I didn’t startle. I should have. Instead, I let out a slow breath, fingers tightening around the empty bottle.

  Knight.

  She leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, watching me with that knowing, clinical amusement. Even in the dim light, her almond-shaped eyes gleamed, assessing, dissecting. She had always known how to find me. Always knew when to push.

  "Drinking industrial cleaner?" She arched a brow. "Creative. I suppose whiskey would’ve been too pedestrian?"

  I didn’t answer.

  She stepped closer, boots silent against the metal floor. I could smell her—something cold and clinical, laced with something sickly sweet. Like preservation fluid. Like the labs. Like the past. Like her.

  Her gaze flicked over my face, my shaking hands, the empty bottle still clutched too tightly in my grip.

  "How was it?"

  My stomach twisted. I knew what she meant. The hunger. The kill.

  I exhaled sharply. "Fuck you."

  Her lips curved. "Oh, Sol. You’re so predictable."

  She reached out, fingers brushing the counter near mine. Not touching. Just close. Too close.

  "My dear daughter," she murmured, voice smooth, clinical, amused. "You were never just an experiment. You were always just the beginning."

  Something inside me went still. A cold knot formed in my gut, twisting tight. My grip on the bottle tightened until the glass cracked.

  "Don’t call me that," I warned, my voice low, steady. "Lion isn’t here to save you this time."

  Knight’s smirk didn’t falter. If anything, it deepened, her silver eyes gleaming with something sharp, something knowing.

  "What? You don’t want to hear the truth?"

  My pulse pounded against my skull. The alcohol haze did little to dull it.

  "But you already know, don’t you?" she continued, voice light, almost playful. "Even if you don’t want to admit it yet."

  I swallowed, throat dry. "Shut up."

  She smiled. "The Inhibitor was always bullshit. There’s no containing Phoenix. The virus wasn’t just built for you—or at least, not just for you," she said, stepping closer, her voice dipping into something softer. "It was never meant to be shared like I let you believe. It was always meant to be passed down. That was the goal from the beginning. Not just to make you—but to make more like you. Generation after generation. A lineage of immortals. The foundation of something new. The next step in humanity’s conquest of the stars. Something as eternal as the universe itself."

  I scoffed, shaking my head, trying to push the thought away. But Knight only watched. Patient. Waiting.

  "You don’t believe me?" she asked. "Even after everything?"

  I forced out a laugh. It came out wrong. "You're full of shit."

  Knight hummed. "Am I? Think about what’s happened so far. What will happen once we begin human trials with the Inhibitor… maybe we should test it on Reid."

  "Don’t you dare."

  "Shut up for a second, child, and think about it! There’s more to this than you’ve chosen to bury in alcohol."

  I did.

  She let the silence stretch just long enough for the words to settle deep in my chest. And then, just when I thought I could shove it away—

  She pressed in. Sharp. Deliberate.

  "Even if you were with a normal man," she said, voice rich with certainty, "your daughters would inherit it. They’d carry the virus, just like you."

  Her silver eyes flickered.

  "But your sons?"

  She laughed. A dry, knowing sound. "Mortal. Even if they had mutations, the virus wouldn’t take root in them. Not like you."

  I went still.

  Knight leaned in, her voice dipping lower, like she was telling me a secret.

  "And after everything you’ve learned about the virus, it’s clear—it was built for you, Sol. Not just any woman. You. Your genetic code was the foundation. Your double X chromosomes stabilized it, let it root without breaking you apart. That’s why it works."

  I didn’t move. A cold, sick feeling settled in my gut.

  Knight smiled, slow and sharp, watching the horror sink in.

  "You were always the only true vessel," she murmured. "The only one who could pass it down."

  I forced my breath to steady. "So if it bonds to the X chromosomes in my DNA… then what happens if a man with the virus—who only has one X—"

  Knight laughed.

  "Oh, Sol," she whispered, voice thick with amusement. "Yet, one more thing you already know. Those with DNA close to yours might survive—perhaps with fewer side effects, some mutations, but nothing catastrophic. The virus was tailored to your genetic code, after all. That’s why your father injected himself with it—he thought his own DNA, so close to yours, would be enough to stabilize it."

  She tilted her head, her smirk widening.

  "But those without a match? Those with no genetic compatibility?"

  Her silver eyes flickered, something dark gleaming behind them.

  "Like Wilks." She let the name hang, heavy. "They either die… or they mutate. Horribly. Unpredictably. That’s why we made the Inhibitor—to slow the process, to make them believe they had control. To make them believe immortality was within reach."

  She stepped closer, voice dipping lower.

  "But there was never a choice. Not for them. Not for you."

  She was right.

  Men didn’t inherit the virus, but now I understood why.

  It needed two X chromosomes. The Y was a flaw—a dead end. The virus couldn’t stabilize in it. It twisted, corrupted, rewrote. It broke them down, turned them into something they were never meant to be.

  They didn't evolve-they mutated. They succumbed. It burned through them, warped them, reshaped them into something monstrous. If they survived, they became like him-like my father. Like the Yellow-Eyed Monster.

  The air felt too thin.

  Knight watched me, her gaze steady. Knowing.

  "What do you think would’ve happened if you were a man? If your father had a son instead of a daughter?"

  The question sent a chill down my spine. The answer was already there, lodged in my throat like glass. I swallowed hard.

  "A normal woman wouldn’t survive it," I muttered, the words barely making it out. "I had to be a girl… for this to work."

  Knight’s smirk was almost approving. "Exactly," she said. "The fetus would devour her before she ever gave birth. The hunger wouldn’t wait. A normal body couldn’t sustain it." Her eyes flicked over me, sharp and assessing. "But you? You’d survive."

  I stiffened.

  "The pregnancy wouldn’t kill you," Knight went on, her voice softer now, almost coaxing. "But it would consume you from the inside out. The pain? Unimaginable. Your child would feed before it ever took its first breath. And your regeneration?" She tilted her head, eyes gleaming. "It would keep you both alive through all of it. No way to stop it. No way to cut it out. Even if you tried to tear it from your body, even if you tried to kill it yourself—your own flesh would knit back together, your cells would fight to keep it alive."

  She leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  "There is no escape. No mercy. You will feel every second of it… and that is our gift to you, little phoenix. Mine and your father’s." Knight’s voice dripped with satisfaction, her silver eyes gleaming. "But I made sure you’d be more than just his heir. More than just the vessel. Your father only cared about evolution, about survival—but me?" Her smirk deepened, sharp as a scalpel. "I cared about perfection. Beauty. Power. You were never just meant to live forever, Sol. You were meant to be desired."

  She tilted her head, studying me like an artist admiring their final masterpiece. "People follow beauty. They fight for it. They kill for it. And I made sure you’d be something they couldn’t ignore." Her voice softened, almost reverent. "That is my gift to you, little whore."

  Her breath was warm against my skin, her words curling like smoke, sinking into the spaces between thought and reason. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

  A gift.

  The word lodged in my throat like glass. A gift of pain. Of suffering. Of something inside me that would never let go, suffocating, inescapable. My lungs squeezed. My chest burned.

  Knight leaned in, eyes gleaming. Feeding off my silence.

  "You were always the only true heir," she murmured. "Your daughters will be like you. But your sons?"

  She let the pause stretch, savoring it.

  Then, her smirk widened.

  "Just like your brother. The golden boy."

  My stomach dropped. A cold, sinking weight.

  Brother.

  "Who?" The word barely made it out, thin and raw.

  Knight stepped forward, and then-with a shit-eating grin-she mockingly roared.

  In that moment I knew that sound. I felt my breath leave me.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "Lion."

  The room tilted. My knees locked, my fingers curling into fists so tight my nails carved into my palms. But the wounds sealed instantly, my body refusing to let me feel even that pain.

  I had a brother. I had a brother. And he was a failure.

  My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out everything else.

  "Now you get it," Knight said, pleased. "You’re not the firstborn, Sol. But you were the one who was made right. The one who was perfected. But before you?" Her voice was almost pitying, almost amused. "He was the test."

  The nausea hit me like a fist to the gut.

  Lion. My father’s most loyal soldier. The unstoppable force at his side.

  The golden eye made sense now. The augmentations. The cybernetics. They weren’t just for combat. They were compensation.

  The virus had never stabilized in him. It had burned through him, twisting, unraveling—forcing my father to rip him apart and stitch him back together in ways that weren’t natural. Weren’t human.

  Lion had never been meant to be the heir. He had been meant to be a weapon. A soldier. A failure that I had almost killed less than an hour ago. Now sent back to cryo. My shield. My sword. My brother.

  My stomach twisted, my hands shaking.

  That was the difference.

  My father needed me. I was the only one who could carry it forward, the only one who could truly pass it down.

  Lion wasn’t golden. He was broken. A weapon, nothing more.

  The ship thrummed beneath my feet, a steady pulse threading through my bones. The whispers slithered through the metal, curling into the spaces between thought and sound, seeping into me like oil.

  Yes. The warrior. The general. The soldier.

  But never the ruler.

  Only you, my little phoenix.

  You are perfect.

  He is a tool. You are the one who wields him.

  You are the future. The new beginning. The mother of a new age.

  Knight smiled, slow and pleased, watching as the realization settled in. “You’re starting to understand. Or at least, the whispers are,” she murmured, tilting her head. “Your real father will be along shortly to brief you before your meeting. Even the captains won’t wait forever. And they’re going to be pissed when they find out the truth.” Her lips curled. “That I lied. That the Inhibitor was never real. That it was never going to work.”

  The weight of everything else she had said crashed down on me, yet only now did this register.

  A full year. A full year of research. A full year of lies.

  They had believed her. The captains, the scientists, the entire team breaking their backs trying to perfect the Inhibitor—a way to suppress Phoenix, to make it stable, something that could be shared. A way to gift the rest of the crew with what I had.

  But it had never been real.

  There was no cure. No way to contain it.

  The virus wasn’t meant to be controlled. It wasn’t something they could replicate, distribute, or regulate. It would never work in anyone else—only in me. Only in my bloodline.

  Except for Lion. And even he wasn’t whole.

  My stomach twisted, rage simmering low in my gut.

  “You fucking—” I stopped myself, barely. My breath caught, my fists clenched so tightly my nails dug into my palms, the pain sharp and fleeting before my body erased it like it had never been there.

  It would have been so easy. To tear her apart. To wipe that smug fucking smile off her face.

  Instead, I turned away, my fists clenching at my sides. I had to get out of here.

  The alcohol still hummed in my veins, fading too fast. My body resetting too quickly.

  I needed to clear my head.

  I needed to burn this off.

  I needed—

  A shower.

  The water hit me like fire. Scalding, nearly boiling—enough to strip flesh, to peel skin away like paper. But I didn’t flinch. I stood there, letting it burn, letting it soak in. Letting it scald away the stink of the lab, of Knight’s voice curling in my skull like smoke.

  I pressed my hands against the metal walls, fingers spread. Jericho hummed through the steel, through me—its pulse threading through my body like a second heartbeat. The alcohol was already fading, burning out of my system faster than I wanted. My body wouldn’t let me stay drunk, wouldn’t let me stay numb. It was already fixing me. Resetting me.

  Like I was just another machine.

  I exhaled sharply, tilting my head back under the water, letting it rush over my face, into my mouth. For a second, I imagined it was blood. Because I could still taste it. The hunger had settled, but the memory hadn’t. The way the blood had hit my tongue, hot and thick, coating my throat. The way my body had shivered when the raw meat hit my stomach, the instant relief that had flooded my veins.

  It hadn’t just been hunger.

  It had been good.

  The taste, the texture—perfect.

  I clenched my jaw, breathing hard. No. No, it wasn’t. I wasn’t supposed to feel that way. It was wrong.

  But was it?

  I had ripped through flesh like it was nothing. Felt muscle snap beneath my fingers. Heard the squeal of something too small to fight back. And the worst part? The worst part was that I had wanted more. For one single, horrible second, I had imagined Knight in its place. Her throat beneath my hands. Her pulse against my palm. My fingers slipping through warm flesh, pulling her apart piece by piece.

  I had wanted to. I had wanted to watch her die.

  And I couldn’t. Not because she didn’t deserve it. Not because it wouldn’t feel satisfying to watch the light drain from her smug, knowing eyes.

  But because I needed her.

  Because he still needed her for the dozen other doomsday projects he left unfinished.

  I sucked in a slow breath through my nose, forcing the thoughts down. She had confirmed what I had suspected deep down. That Lion was my brother. That the Inhibitor was never real—just a lie to cover for the accelerant. A way to make the captains believe they were controlling something that had never been in their hands.

  And then, the drone.

  My father had sent a drone. Like he knew exactly when I would be vulnerable, when I would be raw. Like he had been watching.

  Of course, he had.

  It had been waiting outside the bathroom door, hovering in the dark like a silent predator, blinking once before speaking in his voice.

  "The Inhibitor was never real. The virus is irreversible, untransferable beyond your own bloodline. Knight fed them a lie to pacify their fear of death, to make them believe they had control. But you were never meant to be contained."

  I had known. Deep down, I had always known.

  "She was right about your purpose. About what you are. About what you will become. My little phoenix—you have fought me before, rebelled against what was always inevitable. And yet, I still give you the choice. Not by force. Not by command. You are my organic half, my perfected creation. But even perfection must decide its own path.

  Now, you must navigate the captains. And you must face the Rue."

  I had wanted to destroy it. Had wanted to rip it apart like I had the creature in the lab. Like I had wanted to do to Knight.

  I had only stood there. Listening. Hearing the truth I had already suspected as the voices joined in.

  You know what you are.

  You were made for this.

  You are the beginning of a new humanity. The next Eve.

  I exhaled slowly, my breath heavy with the heat curling around me, with the weight pressing into my skull. I wasn’t imagining things. I wasn’t twisting words in my head.

  Knight hadn’t been lying.

  The Inhibitor was a lie. The accelerant had always been real.

  I was the only one who could carry it forward. The only viable carrier. The next generation could only come from me.

  "Through you, humanity will not just survive. It will evolve."

  "You are the bridge between what was—and what must be."

  Lion had been a failure. A soldier, nothing more. Strong, yes. Powerful, yes. But he was not the future.

  "You are."

  I swallowed hard, pressing my forehead against the steel, the water scalding down my back. My fingers curled against the wall, the heat leeching into my skin, grounding me.

  No. No, I wasn’t a bridge. I wasn’t a vessel.

  You were born for this.

  Chosen.

  Princess. Queen. Mother.

  "Your captains will be angry," the voice murmured. Smooth. Reverent. A whisper of static beneath it, a hum that bled into the ship itself. "They will feel betrayed. Let them. They were never meant to walk this path with you."

  I clenched my jaw.

  "They were meant to die."

  I wasn’t sure who said it. The ship. The whispers. My own mind.

  "Like all things before you."

  "Like all things that came before the new world you will create."

  I gritted my teeth, the sound of my breath loud in my ears, but the voices didn't stop.

  "You were never just a person, Sol."

  "You are the foundation of a new species."

  "The perfect organism."

  "The only womb that can carry the future."

  The bile in my throat rose, thick and sharp. I swallowed it down.

  They had made me into this. Had crafted me into something designed before I was even born. A future stolen from me before I had a chance to claim it.

  But my body responded. The virus curled through me, deep in my bones.

  It liked the idea.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, nails digging into my palms until they split, blood welling black before sealing again.

  I wasn’t human anymore. But I was alive.

  And I still had a choice.

  Didn’t I?

  The water ran over me, burning, but I barely felt it. The voices hummed through the metal, through the walls, through me.

  I didn’t know how long I stood there before I reached out and shut the water off.

  Steam curled around me, clinging to my skin like phantom hands. The mirror was blurred, distorted, but I could still see the shape beneath it.

  Too smooth. Too perfect.

  I wiped the glass clean.

  And I saw her. No—me.

  For a moment, I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

  She stared back at me from the fogged glass, too smooth, too pale, too perfect. A doll sculpted from marble, a thing carved with precision, with intention. My reflection wasn’t just different—it was exactly what Knight had described.

  The realization settled like a stone in my gut.

  I had always been short—too short, my father used to say—but my body had shifted, refined into something that didn’t belong to me. Lean muscle pulled tight over dense, unnatural bone, my once-light frame now crushingly heavy, packed with mass that made me move differently. Four hundred pounds of engineered flesh, sharpened and honed into something beyond human. My muscles were compact, precise, built for endurance and power, not brute strength, but the weight was still there, pressing into the floor with every step.

  And then there were the other changes. The ones that had been designed.

  I ran a hand over my stomach, feeling the taut muscle beneath my skin. My waist had narrowed, but my hips hadn’t. My chest had filled out, though not from training, not from anything I had earned. The virus had reshaped me. Sculpted me into something absurd—an hourglass wrapped in steel-hard muscle, a body too exaggerated to be natural. Too intentional to be anything but designed.

  By who?

  The answer had already been given. Knight had told me—had mocked me with it. She hadn’t just allowed the virus to do this. She had shaped it. She had refined me into more than just the next step in evolution.

  She had made me desirable.

  My fingers curled into a fist as I studied my reflection. My hair, once thick and wild, now hung sleek and unnaturally straight, white as bleached bone. My eyes—red and blue, too bright, too sharp. My lips, full, even as fangs glinted past them. My jawline softer, my cheekbones more refined, my features eerily symmetrical, inhuman in their perfection.

  Not just altered. Designed.

  A princess. A queen. A living god.

  A thing meant to be worshipped.

  The whispers curled around me, thick as smoke, winding through the cracks in my mind.

  You are the bridge. The vessel. Through you, the next generation will rise.

  You were never meant to be one of them. You were meant to be above them.

  I gritted my teeth, pressing my palms against the counter, trying to drown them out.

  Knight’s voice slithered beneath the whispers, smug and satisfied.

  "People follow beauty. They fight for it. They kill for it. And I made sure you’d be something they couldn’t ignore."

  Her words echoed, sinking deeper.

  You were always meant—

  The whispers coiled around the memory, twisting her voice, warping it, stretching it into something colder, something inescapable.

  More than just immortal—you were meant to be desired. To be worshipped.

  It wasn’t just Knight speaking anymore. It was the virus. The ship. The thing my father had left behind.

  That is how you ensure survival.

  The whispers tangled with her words, slithering into my skull like a sickness, threading through my thoughts, through my blood, through the thing inside me that had been made for this.

  Men will want you. And when they do, they will want their children to inherit you.

  My stomach twisted.

  That was why she had done it. Why she had allowed this. Because beauty was power. Because power ensured control.

  My breath came in ragged pulls as I forced myself to keep looking, to see what she had made me.

  Sleeping Beauty. Snow White. The perfect, untouchable thing, waiting in a glass coffin to be claimed.

  Not just a weapon. Not just a means to an end.

  A prize.

  You are perfection.

  You were made to be adored.

  My grip tightened, the counter groaning beneath my fingers, metal yielding like a dying breath—warping, twisting, reshaping itself beneath the weight of something inevitable.

  You are the last, perfect piece of his immortal kingdom.

  I clenched my jaw, shaking my head sharply. No. No, I’m not.

  But the whispers coiled tighter.

  You were made to be beautiful. To be worshipped. You are a gift, Sol. The vessel of a new age.

  I pressed my hands against my ears. It didn’t help.

  Your daughters will inherit you. Your sons will serve you.

  My breath hitched.

  "They will want you. They will need you. You will lead them into a new world... a new galaxy."

  I slammed my fist into the counter. A sharp crack echoed through the room, metal denting under my hand. My knuckles split—then healed instantly. The only trace left behind was a single drop of blood.

  I wasn’t his future. I wasn’t his foundation. I was his biological half.

  Never meant to be free.

  Never meant to be anything but the final piece of his immortal kingdom.

  I swallowed hard, but the nausea didn’t fade.

  Oh, you are more than that, my princess.

  The voice slithered through my mind—smooth, rich, indulgent.

  You are perfection. A ruler men lust for and women envy.

  A shudder ran down my spine. My grip tightened. The metal groaned beneath my fingers.

  The whispers. The memories.

  No matter how hot the water scalded my skin, they never washed away.

  But Knight hadn’t just wanted the virus to spread.

  Her own vanity had gotten in the way as my birth giver.

  I wasn’t just my father’s creation—I was hers too. A continuation of not just his work, but her own ambitions. She had shaped me, refined me, ensured I would be more than just immortal.

  She had wanted me to be desirable—wanted men to want me, to need me, to crave me the way they had craved her. The way they had craved power since the beginning of time.

  She had built it into me.

  Attraction is a weapon. And she had sharpened it to perfection.

  The nausea churned in my gut. My head throbbed with it, with the weight of knowing.

  I had never been given a choice.

  Not about the virus. Not about my body. Not about any of it.

  I gritted my teeth, slamming my palm against the mirror. A jagged crack splintered through the glass, fracturing my reflection into sharp, uneven shards. For a moment, I saw myself as I truly was—not perfect, not divine, but broken. A monster carved into something beautiful, something unnatural. A thing built to be worshipped, yet destined to be feared.

  A doll. A princess in a tower. A weapon wrapped in silk.

  I exhaled sharply, pressing my forehead against the glass.

  It doesn’t matter. It’s done.

  This is who I am now.

  I straightened, reaching for the suit. The fabric clung too well, sculpted to my body like it had been made to accentuate every unnatural change the virus had forced on me.

  Normally, I would have thrown on a shirt over it. Covered myself. The pressure suit was too tight, too revealing—but not today.

  A sharp knock at the door—impatient.

  Vega.

  "You’re late!"

  I exhaled, palming the door release. It slid open with a hiss. Vega stood there, arms crossed, eyes sharp as they swept over me—assessing, noting.

  "The captains are waiting."

  I grabbed my gloves, rolling my shoulders as I pulled them on.

  "I’m a captain too, remember?"

  Her expression barely shifted, but something flickered behind her eyes.

  Approval? Amusement?

  "Then act like it."

  I nodded and followed, flexing my fingers, feeling the unnatural strength coil beneath my skin. The whispers had gone quiet. But they didn’t need to speak.

  I walked. Not fast. Not slow. Just enough to move forward, to feel the weight of my body settle with each step.

  The halls stretched endlessly, steel and silence pressing in on all sides. The ship thrummed beneath my feet, pulsing in rhythm with the thing inside me—the virus, the hunger, the whispers that curled through the walls, through my bones, through the places my father’s touch had never truly left.

  The Council was waiting. The Captains, the ones still clinging to their last scraps of control, still believing they could steer this ship, steer me, through sheer force of will.

  They knew something. That much was clear. How much? That was the question.

  They knew the Inhibitor wasn’t working—not the way they’d been promised. They knew Knight had lied, though how deeply they understood her deception remained to be seen. And Jericho… Jericho was still an unknown, a wild variable in all of this. My father had spoken to me through it, but even then, his words had been deliberate. Measured. As if some part of the AI still had to report to the captains. As if even in his supposed omniscience, there were things he still had to keep hidden.

  Had Jericho told them something? Had it fed them half-truths in that calm, clinical way, the same way it always did? I didn’t know.

  They thought I was here to answer to them. To be questioned, to be contained.

  But Jericho had ensured one thing: I wasn’t just a guest at their table. I was the fifth and final seat.

  And that changed everything.

  I could still feel Knight’s smirk curling like a hook into my mind. Could still hear her words, her certainty. "You were never just an experiment. You were a beginning." She thought she had me figured out. They all did. My father, with his grand, gilded vision of the future, whispering through Jericho’s voice, calling me his bridge, his vessel, his perfect little queen. Knight, with her smug certainty, shaping me like a sculptor molding clay, sharpening my edges, ensuring I would be not just a ruler, but something that men would die for.

  And Lion. My brother. My failure of a brother. He had knelt, and he would have died if I had asked. And that was the worst part, wasn’t it? Not his strength. Not his power. His obedience. Because that was what my father had built him for. To serve. To kneel. To be a weapon in someone else’s hands. And I wasn’t meant to be a weapon. I was meant to be the one who wielded them.

  I could already hear Vega’s voice in my head. "Warren and I will do our best to make the others understand that—you called off Lion. You had every chance to use him, but you didn’t."

  As if that was mercy.

  I hadn’t spared Lion out of kindness. I had proven that I could end him—and I had chosen not to. That wasn’t mercy. That was control. And they all knew it.

  They were going to fight this. Hard.

  They were going to argue. They would demand answers. They would ask why the Royal Guard had stood down. They would ask what the Inhibitor truly was. They would ask what to do with Knight, after her coup, after her lies. They would ask if Jericho could even be trusted, if the AI was compromised, if my father was still lingering inside it, inside me, inside all of this. And they would ask me what came next.

  But the real question?

  What would I tell them?

  The truth? That there was no cure. That the Inhibitor had never worked, never would. That I wasn’t just the first success of the Phoenix virus, but the only success. That no one else would ever be like me. That I was the last evolution of humanity.

  The captains may not die today. Or a year from now. But in a hundred years? Two hundred? They would be gone—long before we ever reached Haven. Short of cryo and never waking again, there was nothing for them but time running out. They had lived longer than most, between gene edits and decades of stasis, but nothing like Phoenix. And they never would.

  Reid would not wake up to some magical cure, either. There was no salvation waiting for him. The only thing the Inhibitor would ever give them was cancer and death. Or worse—like Wilks.

  So did I tell them? Did I let them face the truth of what they were—of what I was? Or did I keep it to myself? Hold the cards close. Play the game my father had set, but on my own terms.

  Because if they knew—if they really knew—would they try to kill me? Would I have to kill them first?

  Or would they kneel? Would they stand beside me if I spun the right words? If I made them see that this wasn’t about power, or control, or some delusion of godhood—but survival. Because I wasn’t just an anomaly. I was the future. The only future.

  And deep down, they already knew it. Even if they didn’t want to admit it yet.

  They had been filled in—partially. I knew that much. How much did they actually know? I wasn’t sure.

  The captains had been waiting for me for hours, and I had let them. Not out of spite. Not out of arrogance. But because, for once, I needed to think. To breathe. To feel like myself before walking into a room where I would have to fight for the right to be myself.

  They couldn’t move forward without me. Not because I wanted it that way, but because Jericho had made it so. Because my father had left me with the power to decide everything, and instead of taking it, I had given it back. I had made them a Council again. I had given them the choice to stand with me instead of under me.

  But they were right to be cautious. Right to hesitate.

  I was still an unknown. Still dangerous. And no matter what I said, no matter how much I swore I didn’t want to rule them, they knew the truth. That I could. That I could take it all away with a word. A command.

  And maybe that was why they had been arguing for hours—why they still hadn’t reached a decision.

  Because they were waiting.

  Waiting for me.

  I stopped at the door. My father had left me everything. Not because he wanted me to rule. But because he wanted me to choose it. Because if I chose it willingly—if I took the throne not because I was forced, but because I wanted to—then I would be his.

  Not by command. Not by violence. But by design.

  That was his greatest trick, wasn’t it?

  He was never going to make me do it. He was going to make me want to.

  I exhaled slowly, pressing my palm against the cold metal of the door. Then I pushed it open.

  The room fell silent.

  Warren stood at the head of the table, arms crossed, unreadable, the only captain to return from a failed colony mission after his ship limped back home. Vega sat to his right, her sharp gaze already on me. The rest of the captains were deep in debate as I entered, voices sharp, cutting over each other in layered arguments.

  Blackwell, the ruthless capitalist, leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, watching the others like he was already calculating the profit margins of whatever decision they made. Rojas, the general of Voss Enterprise’s private army, was standing, palms flat on the table, her expression tight with frustration, clearly mid-argument. Young, the diplomat, sat with his hands folded, his mouth a thin line, his silence deliberate—waiting for the right moment to tip the discussion one way or the other.

  They hadn’t even noticed me yet. They were too focused on tearing into each other.

  Perfect.

  Four captains. One vacant seat.

  Mine.

  I stepped inside and took my seat as the room fell silent, their conversations fading the moment they registered my presence. It wasn’t just quiet—it was the kind of silence that settled heavy, thick with unspoken questions and tension coiled so tight it threatened to snap.

  I met each of their gazes, holding steady, wearing confidence I wasn’t sure I actually felt.

  No one spoke.

  The weight of their scrutiny pressed against my skin, waiting for me to break the silence first.

  Warren finally leaned forward, arms crossed. "You kept us waiting."

  I held his gaze. "I needed time to think," I said evenly. "And I have."

  Something flickered across his face—annoyance? Understanding?

  Then, with a short nod, he straightened.

  "Then let’s begin."