Chapter 4: The Emperor's Feast
The green dress felt like a betrayal. It was soft jersey, the color of deep moss, and it hugged the curves Lurren had always loved to trace with his hands. Standing before the reflective panel in her quarters, Isabella felt like she was dressing for her own execution. She smoothed the fabric, her hands lingering on her hips. This was the dress she’d worn for their twentieth anniversary dinner, the one he’d peeled from her shoulders later that night with a reverence that felt like a lifetime ago.
She emerged from the sleeping alcove. Lurren was by the viewport, talking in low tones to Mateo. Sofia was carefully braiding Leo’s hair, her small fingers surprisingly deft. They all stopped and looked at her.
Lurren’s eyes traveled from the dark waves of her hair, over the dress, down to her bare feet, and back up. A slow, familiar smile touched his lips, one that didn’t reach the worry in his eyes. “You take my breath away,” he said, his voice rough.
Isabella felt a blush warm her cheeks. He always said that when she least expected it. She cleared her throat, the intimate moment brittle under the weight of everything. “Vamos,” she said, her voice firm. “Let’s go.”
The banquet hall was nothing like the sterile corridors or the warm clutter of their old home. It was a cavern of polished obsidian, so glossy the floor reflected the dizzying array of holographic maps that glowed on the walls—constellations, star systems, planets marked with pulsing crimson glyphs. A single, monstrous chandelier hung above a table that seemed carved from a single slab of milky crystal, casting hard, fractured shadows. The air hummed with a sub-audible frequency that made her teeth ache.
A steward in severe gray gestured silently. The children were led to one end of the long table, where places were set between Xylar and a severe-looking woman in scientific robes. Isabella and Lurren were directed to the center, closer to the head. The seating was a lesson in power: her family, separated, surrounded.
They sat. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the soft hum. Leo’s lower lip trembled. Mateo stared defiantly at Xylar, who ignored him, studying a crystal goblet as if assessing its tactical weaknesses.
Then, the massive doors at the far end of the hall slid open without a sound.
The Emperor did not enter with a parade. He walked in with three advisors, his footsteps echoing in the vast space. He was not what she expected. He was young, perhaps appearing no more than twenty-five, with sharp, elegant features and hair the color of winter wheat. He wore simple black, the only ornament a silver band on his brow. His eyes were a pale, luminous gray, and they scanned the room with an idle curiosity that felt more dangerous than any glare.
He moved directly to the head of the table but paused beside Isabella’s chair. He extended his hand, not to Lurren, but to her. Stunned, she placed hers in his. His skin was cool, his grip firm. He bowed, brushing his lips against her knuckles.
“You must be the famous wife of my Commander,” he said, his voice a pleasant, melodic baritone. “Now I understand why he was so desperate for there to be peace on Earth.”
Isabella was speechless. The charm was disorienting. He was handsome, yes, but it was the practiced, effortless charm of a predator that didn’t need to roar. He released her hand, his luminous eyes laughing at her stunned silence as he took his seat at the head of the table.
Servants emerged from hidden panels, placing shallow bowls of clear, fragrant broth. The Emperor lifted his spoon. “So, Isabella,” he began, as if resuming a casual conversation. “Tell me. What did this poor fool do to lose your favor?”
The question, asked with such genuine, amused interest, hung in the air. Lurren went rigid beside her.
Isabella took a sip of water, buying a second. She set the glass down carefully. “Aside from lying to me for our entire marriage, using me, and delivering my planet into slavery?” she said, her tone light, conversational. “Oh, I don’t know… he left the dishes in the sink before going to work. I think it was that.”
A beat of silence. Then the Emperor threw his head back and laughed, a rich, surprisingly warm sound that bounced off the obsidian walls. “She is savage! I adore it.” He wiped a non-existent tear from his eye, his mirth vanishing as quickly as it came, replaced by an expression of scholarly interest. He leaned forward slightly. “Now. Explain that part to me. The ‘slavery.’ Why would my Imperium do such a thing?”
Isabella arched an eyebrow. “I believe the conquering army gives that impression.”
The Emperor’s brow furrowed, not in anger, but in sincere confusion. He glanced at one of his advisors, then back at her. “Your people do that? When you conquer a territory, you enslave the inhabitants?”
The question, so innocently posed, knocked the wind from her. She felt dislocated, the foundations of her righteous anger turning to sand. “I… that’s what conquerors do.”
“I… that’s what conquerors do.”
The Emperor stared at her, then slowly leaned back in his chair. He murmured, “How barbaric.” He swirled the wine in his glass, the dark liquid catching the cruel light. He looked at Isabella, his pale eyes sharp. “Did your husband not tell you the plan?”
Isabella glanced at Lurren. He was staring at his own plate, his jaw muscle jumping. He looked carved from the same stone as the walls. She shook her head.
A slow, knowing smile spread across the Emperor’s face. It didn’t touch his eyes. “I wonder what else he hasn’t told you.” He set his glass down with a definitive clink. “Well, for you to understand the plan, I must give you a history lesson—but I promise it will all be relevant.”
He laced his fingers together, his gaze drifting to a holographic map of a spiraling galaxy. “Thousands of years ago, I believe around 4,000 years ago, our race only inhabited two planets: our homeworld and another nearby uninhabited one. Space exploration had just begun, but a far more advanced race found us.” He paused, letting the simplicity of the statement sink in. “There were 500 years of war. But they defeated us.”
The hall was utterly silent. Even Leo had stopped fidgeting.
“Our race was enslaved for 1,200 years.” His voice was matter-of-fact, a professor lecturing on ancient pottery. “We were pets. Expendable soldiers. Gladiators—we were their dogs, as they would say here on Earth.” He picked up his fork, examining its tines. “When we began dying faster than we were being born, they forced us to reproduce within our own families. Inbreeding.”
A soft, involuntary sound escaped Sofia. The Emperor’s eyes flicked to her, then back to Isabella, as if checking for comprehension.
“To this day, we cannot reproduce among ourselves because of this. Which is why we depend on external races.” He said it like mentioning a food allergy. “One day, fed up, one family rose up alongside slaves from many races—my family. They led a revolution and won. They took control of the Empire and ruled.”
He took a bite of the now-cold food, chewing thoughtfully. “But as in every story, there is always an idiot. An emperor—an ancestor of mine—wanted to be remembered in history, so he began conquering planets. He claimed that because of our abilities we were superior.” A dismissive wave of his hand. “He had the resources to conquer, but he failed to account for rebellions. He caused such devastation and bloodshed that his brother overthrew him and took the throne.”
He leaned forward again, his intensity pinning Isabella in her seat. “This brother was remembered as a savior. He brought an era of peace, prosperity, and stability. Since then, his descendants—my family—have sought to be remembered like him. Because those three things are what truly keep you in power.”
Isabella felt the words slither around her, trying to find a place to stick. “Peace. You call this peace?” She gestured weakly around the hall, at the maps of subjugated worlds.
“This is the prelude to peace,” he corrected, his tone patient. “If the people are content, if you rule well and justify your position, they will not want to remove you from the throne. As a ruler of my Empire, it is my duty to ensure that Earth prospers.”
He let that hang for a long moment. Then his voice dropped, becoming almost intimate. “So tell me, Isabella. Does this feeling of freedom justify the hunger in Africa? Does it justify the exploitation of women in the Middle East?”
The questions weren’t rhetorical. They were weapons, aimed with precision. They landed in the silent space between her heartbeats, conjuring images from news reports she’d helplessly watched for years. The hollow-eyed children. The markets where girls were sold.
Her mouth was dry. She couldn’t look at Lurren. This was his mitigation. This was the horrible, logical math.
“Your… system,” she began, her voice unsteady. “It fixes that?”
“It eliminates the inefficiency of suffering,” the Emperor said smoothly. “No one starves under my watch. No one is bought or sold. Order is not kind, Isabella. But it is fair. And it is permanent.”
He finally turned his gaze to Lurren. “You didn’t explain any of this to her? You just let her think we were monsters come to burn the village and steal the grain?”
Lurren lifted his head. The conflict in his eyes was a open wound. “I was following protocol. Cultural integration through lived experience was deemed—”
“—a catastrophic failure in your case, clearly,” the Emperor finished for him, not unkindly. He shook his head, a master disappointed in a gifted student. “You made it personal. You fell in love with the sample population. It’s a fascinating data point, really.”
A servant approached to refill Isabella’s wine glass. Her hand, resting on the table, trembled slightly. As the servant leaned in, Isabella “accidentally” jerked her elbow.
The deep red wine arced through the air, a sudden, shocking splash of color in the monochrome room. It hit Xylar square in the chest, darkening the silver of his ornate armor, dripping onto the pristine floor.
Xylar shot to his feet, chair screeching. His hand went to the weapon at his belt, his face a mask of instant, pure fury. For a split second, the polished courtier was gone, replaced by a predator ready to strike.
“You clumsy breeder—” he snarled, the word vile and guttural.
The Emperor did not move. He simply watched, his head tilted.
Lurren was halfway out of his seat, a warning growl forming in his throat, his body angling to put himself between Xylar and Isabella.
Isabella didn’t look at Xylar. She kept her eyes locked on the Emperor, her own face a picture of flustered apology. “Oh! I’m so sorry. How clumsy of me.” Her voice was all earnest distress. “This dress… it’s always been a little tight in the elbows.”
The Emperor’s eyes drifted from Isabella’s performative regret, to Xylar’s vibrating rage, to Lurren’s protective stance. That small, cold smile returned. He had seen everything he needed to.
“Sit down, Xylar,” the Emperor said, his voice soft. “It’s just wine. Not blood.” He looked at Isabella, his gray eyes gleaming with undisguised appreciation. “Though the effect is remarkably similar.”
Xylar froze, the command slicing through his anger. He slowly, stiffly, resumed his seat. A servitor drone scuttled from the shadows to blot at the spill.
The Emperor raised his own glass toward Isabella in a silent, mocking toast. “Your husband failed to mention you were this interesting, too. A fortunate oversight.”
A fortunate oversight.”
The Emperor set his glass down, the crystal ringing softly in the heavy quiet. He studied Isabella, his head tilted like a biologist observing a fascinating new specimen. “You were informed about the problems on Earth,” she said, the statement feeling weak even as she voiced it.
“Of course.” He took a leisurely sip of his wine. “I must be informed about the problems I need to solve—and let me tell you, there are many. The planet is heavily polluted with plastic; across much of the galaxy, plastic is banned for that very reason. Then there’s the position of women in many regions—it’s terrible, and that must be fixed. The biggest issue, I believe, is the concentration of power in more advanced countries that take advantage of those that are not.”
He leaned back, spreading his hands in a gesture of weary responsibility. “There’s a lot of work to be done. I need to be aware of all this to create a plan that is executed perfectly, without bloodshed—but without making us seem weak.”
Isabella felt the argument she’d carried for weeks—the righteous anger, the certainty of their evil—begin to crumble at the edges. He was naming real wounds, the ones that kept her up at night watching the news. “And why invasion instead of diplomacy?”
“Oh, because if they are frightened first and then discover that being under the Empire’s protection is better than their previous governments, revolutions will lack popular support.” He gave a small, almost affectionate shrug. “Your species is very interesting—extremely passionate, for better or worse.”
He paused, his pale eyes drifting over her, then to Lurren, then to the children at the end of the table. His gaze lingered on Sofia’s delicate braids, on Mateo’s defiant scowl. “Do you know that your species is the first we can reproduce with without the need for in vitro fertilization?” he asked, his voice dropping to a conversational murmur. “That makes you unique.”
A cold dread, deeper than any fear of soldiers or ships, coiled in Isabella’s stomach. The medical scans, the interest in the children, it clicked into a horrifying new configuration. “We will not be breeders,” she said, her voice low and final.
The Emperor looked at Lurren, then back at Isabella with a smile that was almost pitying. “Nah, I don’t think you will be.” He held her gaze, the amusement gone, replaced by something calculating and immense. “I think you will be something much more special than that.”
He stood, the movement fluid and abrupt, signaling an end to everything. “Well, dinner is over.” He glanced at Xylar, who was still seething, the wine stain a dark blossom on his chest. “Xylar, stop being an idiot—consider that an imperial order.”
He turned to leave, then paused, looking back over his shoulder. “Oh, Isabella, if you need anything, just seek me out.” His eyes found Lurren, who hadn’t moved from his rigid posture. “Lurren, for the love of the stars, get on your knees if you must—but win your wife back.”
He left, his advisors gliding silently after him. The massive doors sealed shut.
The silence they left behind was thick and choking. It was broken by the sound of Leo’s shallow, frightened breathing. Xylar stared at the closed doors, his face a stone mask, the insult of the wine and the command burning in his eyes. The scientific advisor quietly gathered her data slate and slipped away.
Sofia’s voice, small and strained, cut through the hum of the ship. “Well… uh, can we go now?”
The sound of his daughter’s voice, so ordinary and scared, seemed to unlock Lurren. He pushed back from the table, the legs scraping harshly against the polished floor. “Yes,” he said, the word rough. “We’re going.”
They moved as a unit, Isabella shepherding the children away from the table. Xylar didn’t watch them go. He remained seated, staring at the Emperor’s empty chair, one finger tracing the rim of his stained glass.
The walk back to their quarters was a silent, hurried blur. The blue-lit corridors felt like a trap now, every shimmering archway a potential mouth. Leo clutched Isabella’s hand, his small fingers icy. Mateo walked ahead, his shoulders hunched, vibrating with a fury he couldn’t articulate. Sofia kept glancing back, as if expecting the Emperor to reappear behind them.
Lurren palmed their door open. The moment it closed, sealing them in the bland, safe room, the tension didn’t break—it shattered.
“What does that mean?” Mateo whirled on his father, his voice cracking. “‘Something more special’? What is he going to do to her?”
“Mateo—” Lurren began, raising a hand.
“No! What did he mean about breeding?” The word was a snarl. “Is that what this is? Is that why you had us? Some kind of… experiment?”
“Mateo, stop it,” Isabella said, but her voice lacked force. She was staring at Lurren, waiting for the answer herself.
Lurren looked at his son, and for the first time, Isabella saw not a commander or a husband, but a man cornered by his own life. “You were never an experiment,” he said, each word measured and heavy. “You were a miracle. You are a miracle. The fact that you exist… it was considered biologically impossible.”
“But he knows it’s possible now,” Sofia whispered from where she’d sunk onto a bench. She was hugging her knees to her chest. “Because of us.”
The truth of it settled over the room, cold and suffocating. They were a blueprint. Isabella was the key.
Lurren crossed to Isabella. He didn’t try to touch her. “You provoked him on purpose. The wine.”
“I wanted to see what Xylar would do,” she said, her eyes not leaving his. “I wanted to see who he really was when he wasn’t being polite.”
“I wanted to see who he really was when he wasn’t being polite.”
Lurren chuckled softly, a dry, hollow sound. “Of course you did.” He ran a hand over his face, the weariness settling into the lines around his eyes. “And you saw. He’s a proud weapon, ground sharp by tradition. He believes in the Empire’s destiny like it’s a physical law.”
Mateo stepped forward, his body blocking the soft glow of the viewport. “So that’s it? He’s going to conquer our planet under the excuse of good intentions? And we’re just supposed to… what? Applaud?”
Lurren looked at Mateo, his expression shifting from exhaustion to a focused intensity. “Son, it’s not that he has good intentions—he loves power, but his strength lies in common sense.” He gestured toward the ceiling, toward the unseen flagship. “If he proves that everything improves under his rule, he won’t have to worry about resorting to force. Stability becomes its own justification.”
“At what cost?” Mateo shot back, his voice rising. “Our freedom? The right to choose our own mess?”
Lurren looked at him, irritated. “Mateo, you grew up under a roof with air conditioning and heating. Your stomach had food every time you were hungry—or even when you just had a craving.” He ticked the points off on his fingers, his tone grating with frustration. “You have access to education and healthcare. You can buy clothes when yours get old or worn out. You have the chance to just study without needing to work.”
He took a step toward his son, his blue eyes blazing. “All of that, on this planet, is a privilege. In the rest of the Empire’s planets, it’s the bare minimum. I’ve already seen two annexed planets, and both prospered under the Empire’s rule.”
He paused, letting the weight of his experience sink in. “Just because you have those comforts, does it justify putting your desires above those who don’t?” His voice dropped, becoming dangerously quiet. “Ask someone from Syria what they would choose. Ask a woman from Iran what she would prefer.”
The room was suddenly very cold. The names, Earth names, hung in the air like ghosts. Mateo opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The righteous fury on his face faltered, replaced by a confused, sickened realization. He looked at his mother, seeking an answer she didn’t have.
A heavy silence fell between them, thick enough to feel.
Isabella moved. She placed a hand on Sofia’s shoulder, another on Leo’s back. “Children, go to sleep,” she said, her voice calm but leaving no room for debate. “I need to talk to your father.”
Leo, exhausted by fear, simply shuffled toward his alcove. Sofia hesitated, her eyes wide and wounded, but followed. Mateo stood his ground for a moment longer, a statue of conflicted anger, before turning sharply and retreating to the partitioned space he shared with his brother.
The privacy field hummed to life around their alcove, muting sound. They were alone.
Isabella walked to the viewport. The Emperor’s flagship dominated the starfield, its crimson lights like a predator’s steady pulse. She didn’t look at Lurren. “You never mentioned the inbreeding,” she said. “The slavery. Your own history.”
“It wasn’t relevant to the mission.” His voice came from behind her, closer than she expected.
“It’s relevant to you.” She finally turned. He was leaning against the bulkhead, watching her. The green dress felt like a costume now. “It explains why you never talked about your family. Your childhood.”
“There’s nothing to tell. It’s a clinical record. Generations of genetic repair, trying to undo what was done to us.” He crossed his arms, a defensive gesture. “We are a people born from a cage. It makes you… wary of chaos.”
“And we’re chaos.”
“Yes.” The admission was blunt. “Beautiful, passionate, unsustainable chaos. You burn too bright. You’ll consume yourselves.” He pushed off the wall, taking a step toward her. “I saw it. For twenty years, I filed reports on your wars, your genocides, your stupid, greedy waste. And then I’d come home to you. To Leo’s laughter in the kitchen. To the smell of your perfume on my shirts.”
He stopped, an arm’s length away. “You were the only thing that made sense in the madness. You still are.”
“But you’re helping them box the madness up.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “You’re using what you learned at my table, in my bed, to do it.”
“To save lives!”
“To control them!”
“Is there a difference?” The question hung between them, brutal and simple.
She had no answer. The Emperor’s logic was a slick, dark oil coating everything. She thought of the wine, of Xylar’s instant, vicious reaction. “He called me a breeder.”
Lurren’s face hardened. “Xylar is a traditionalist. He sees your fertility as a resource to be managed. The Emperor… sees something else.”
“What?” The word was a whisper.
“I don’t know.” He looked truly helpless. “But his interest is a threat. I can manage Xylar’s contempt. I cannot predict the Emperor’s fascination.”
A soft, incongruous chime echoed from the room’s terminal. A notification glowed on the screen: a request for archived personal data. The subject field read Cortes, Isabella – Pre-claiming Psychological Baselines.
The request was from the Imperial Science Directorate. It was flagged as ‘Priority – Emperor’s Eye.’
They both stared at it. The cold, metallic fear from the medical bay returned, but deeper now, settling into her bones. He wasn’t just interested in her body. He wanted her mind. What made her tick before Lurren’s ‘claiming’ had softened the edges of time.
Lurren moved first. His fingers flew over the interface, denying the request with a commander’s authorization code. The screen blinked red: ‘Denied. Insufficient Clearance.’
He tried again. The same result.
“He’s locked me out,” Lurren murmured, disbelief in his voice. “Of my own wife’s file.”
The terminal chimed again. A new message, text-only, from a secured channel.
Overprotective, Commander. I only wish to understand the remarkable vessel that houses your loyalty. Stand down. – E.