Meresamun tumbled away from his grip. Jagged shards of brutal cold sheared through her, delving deep into her; thin, precise blades of sharp, icy fire. Agony slammed its way into her core, angry, vengeful. She screamed. No sound came. She opened her eyes. Nothing. Utter silence bore into her, oppressive, claustrophobic. Impenetrable dark saturated her vision, burrowing into her, consuming her. Another onslaught of frozen heat tore through her, shattering her frozen self into a multitude of pieces. They spiraled away, disconnected, chaotic.

In the distance, a breach in the endless dark. A glimmer of light. Escape. She surged toward it, formless, nothing more than a thought, desperate to flee the brutal forces working to negate her existence. Panic fueled her, drove her, panting, yet not panting, to excise herself of the horror of her impending nothingness.

The light bloomed, beckoning, brightening, as though sensing her presence, offering respite. She tumbled again, the weight of the light's churning vortex overpowering her desperate flight, capturing her, anchoring her. She fell again, powerless, hurtling at an impossible speed. She slammed into the light. An explosion of stars. The quiet chirp of insects. A cool breeze. Damp, soft earth against her back. She opened her eyes. Above, within the sky's black canopy, a multitude of unfamiliar stars. She sat up, slow, folding her legs under her. She caught her breath. How small they felt. She unfolded them again, and pressed her hand to her mouth, stunned. Her legs were not her own, but those of a boy. Marduk's words came back to her: You will experience my memories as though you are me. She looked down at herself, at him. She held out her hands and examined her arms. Strange. No markings. She had assumed the designs covering his flesh were a mark of his race.

Her arms moved again, back down to her sides. She tried to move them. Nothing happened.

"What am I doing looking at my arms like an addled rhevn?" a child's voice asked, incredulous. "What a dream!" he continued. "I hardly know myself." He stood, and the few heartbeats of control Meresamun had had over him ended. She tried to speak. A wall of silence slammed into her. A tide of panic threatened to overwhelm her. She fought it, seeking to calm herself, reminding herself she wasn't here, but asleep with Marduk in Perev. He had allowed her presence into his memories, granting her the role of a passive watcher. She realized somewhere within this child Marduk, her consort, would be watching too. The thought comforted her, easing her fears, her loneliness. She forced herself to relax, to accept what was to unfold. The child's thoughts slid through her, sweet, innocent, endearing: I wonder what will be my bedtime treat. I hope it is jukip. I haven't had that in a whole sar.

He sniffed and rubbed his fist under his nose as he regarded a tall, windowless, silver structure, similar in shape to an obelisk, its bulk blocking out a sizeable section of the starry canopy. It perched atop a moss-covered, rocky hill. Further away: the soft lap of waves bathed a quiet shore. The structure gleamed in the starlight, its familiar, mirror-like surface reminding Meresamun of the metal encasing Marduk's weapons. Along the structure's circumference, pulses of cerulean blue swept past, washing the hillside in a wake of pale, ephemeral light.

"Marduk," a feminine voice called, faint with worry. "Where are you, my son?"

"Here!" He cried in his high, childish voice. "Coming!" He ran, pushing his way through the soft, damp, waist-high grass, his little legs pumping hard to eat up the distance between him and his strange, metallic home, his thoughts straying between his reading lessons, to reminding himself to feed his pet akana, to wondering if there had been any messages from his father, to returning to linger on his hopes for jukip, his favorite savory sweet.

He reached the structure and surged up a wide, dark metal ramp into a soft-lit white room, furnished with a half-dozen divans, and several pieces of austere, dark metallic furniture. In the center of the large suite, a circular stairway, the same as the one in Marduk's warship, only larger and much more elaborate, the white metal railings depicting a panoply of exotic, impossible creatures, intertwined as one into a beautiful work of art. A regal, shaven-headed woman, tall, elegant, and dressed in a fragile gown of blue shot with hundreds of tiny green gems, rose from the divan nearest the opening. A quiet hiss, and the door slid closed, blocking out the stars; the night of another world.

The child ran to her, happy, expectant, into her embrace. Her gown was soft, even with the gems. She smelled of good things, flowers, the sea, sunshine. "I have news," she said, in her soft, regal-accented voice, "it is time to go home."

Marduk, the child, pulled back and met his mother's gaze, her cerulean eyes warm and doting.

"Father has summoned us back?"

She nodded, pleasure emanating from her. "He has. A message arrived saying he has taken the High Seat. The wars are over. Uribi is ours." She smiled. "Finally, Enlil and his warmongering brood have knelt to your father."

"At last, you will be the Highest Consort, Lady of All." Marduk knelt.

She smiled, gentle, and brushed a lock of his hair from his forehead. "And you will be the Highest Prince, who will spend the next thousand sars learning the arts of a warrior under the greatest instructors the empire possesses. Under your command, you shall lead the army out into the Deep, to find new worlds, and bring the resources we need home. You are our people's greatest hope. One day you will save us all, I can feel it here." She pressed her palm to her chest, over her heart.

"I will not fail you, my lady," the child said, solemn.

"You could never fail me," she whispered, as the walls of the suite shimmered and turned translucent, their home rising, making its slow and stately ascent over the empty reaches of Dseum's uninhabited moon, its swathes of volcanic soil, black lakes, and humid meadows diminishing.

Marduk went to the wall and pressed his hands against its clear surface, watching the only place he had known for five sars slip away. He would be the highest prince. That would show Dumuzi, his father's preferred second-born son, born of a favored companion and not his mother, eldest daughter of Lord Anu, over whose empty seat the wars had raged since before Marduk was born. He looked up, into the vast sprawl of the stars. Out there was home. Uribi, the capital of the greatest empire of the Deep. A world beyond imagining. At last, their exile was over.

His mother came to him and held out her hand, her fingertips tattooed with golden curlicues—the mark of the empire's purest blood. He took it, his heart aching with joy. He would make her so proud. His father would soon see he was the best son, and his mother the best woman. Never again would she weep for the man who, once Dumuzi was born, had commanded his consort to live halfway across the star system with the excuse of it being for their protection. He closed his eyes, content, happy, willing time to pass quickly so he could prove his worth.

Marduk woke and stared at the ceiling. It glared back at him in the pale cerulean light of the lamps, stark, gray, bleak. He liked his surroundings austere, plain, ascetic—a warrior's abode. It helped to focus his mind on what was important. Thirst called to him. He left his bed and crossed the room to pour himself refreshment. He drank, deep, letting the hikira ambrosia's slightly sour tang wash the staleness from his mouth. He had been dreaming of when he left Dseum's lesser moon more than five thousand sars ago, when he had been a mere child, innocent, and blind to the depravity and corruption of the royal house.

Compared to what he had experienced since his return home, those brief sars had been the best of his life, spent alone with his mother, learning from her, free to do and think as he wished. And now. He glanced back at his bed, where a pale-skinned woman sighed in her sleep, lost to her dreams. What was her name again? He couldn't remember. Her gown, a diaphanous silver, and coated with diamonds lay in a puddled heap upon the slate floor.

He went to it and picked it up. It was wrinkled. Shaking it out, he lay it over the back of one of the divans and smoothed it down, the quiet act soothing him. He disliked disorder, despite his existence having been spent drenched in battle, and his armor coated in blood. He preferred the quiet solitude of his rooms, his books, and his near-feral companion, Easar, a wounded mountain cat he had rescued during one of his campaigns. It was enough, he needed nothing more. None of Uribi's women appealed with their cunning looks, their capricious natures, and their grasping, shallow fixation on baubles and vanity. He longed for something other, someone pure, good, a woman of learning. Apart from his mother, who kept herself in near solitude far outside the capital, and with learning scorned by his father, no women like that existed anymore. They dared not.

He ran his finger along the material of his guest's gown. Very expensive. Silver was even more precious than gold. He suspected the dress had been made just to gain his favor, the cost crippling. His guest had arrived deep in the night, the virgin daughter of some noble, seeking to allocate a greater share of rations for her family by offering herself to the heir of the high seat, willing to enslave herself as his concubine, giving up her chance to choose a partner and home of her own. She had stripped before him, beautiful, yet terrified, quaking, the bones of her neck, ribs, and hips protruding, sharp with hunger.

He had said nothing, careful to hide his annoyance at having been pulled from his meditations. While she waited, naked and uncertain, her garish cosmetics stark against her skin, he prepared her a drink laced with sleep root and led her to his bed where he lay down beside her until she slipped into unconsciousness. He found an extra blanket and covered her cooling body before returning to his book to meditate on the words of one the ancient sages from the reign of his grandfather, Anu, who had ruled in peace, wisdom, and prosperity, a world he longed for. He glanced at the woman, so small in his bed, and so young. She could be his daughter. Sickened, he turned away. He would aid her, but only her. Her family, who had so cruelly used her—for them, there would be nothing.

He drank again, bitterness tainting his thoughts. In his dying world, everything had become a transaction, even a daughter's chastity could be whored to the highest bidder. Over the ages, his father had abused his power, consuming the empire's scant resources to near total depletion. How many times had Marduk taken his legions with him into the Deep to secure more gold, more food, more building material? A hundred times? He swallowed the ambrosia, tasting nothing but regret. If only it had been a hundred. In his heart he knew the number was much higher. Guilt slinked along his spine, sharp, precise, his brutalities haunting him.

He purveyed death, destruction, and despair in the name of greater good, and each time, on his return: celebration, accolades, followed by an immediate return to the same wasteful existence, his people ploughing through those resources paid for with the lives and worlds of innocents. And once the gorging and gluttony ended, he would be commanded to venture back out into the Deep, knowing the screams of his armies' ships hurtling down from the heavens would herald the beginning of the end of the existence for those whose only crime had been not to waste what they had. Soon, nothing would be left, nothing but a wasteland of ruined planets stretching as far as the furthest reaches of the known Deep—because of him. His home was dying, and he was doing nothing to stop it, apart from destroying more worlds to delay the inevitable.

It was enough. No more would he go out into the Deep. No more would he kill innocents. Long ago, his father had cast out the sages and closed the temples so none could question him. He had made Dumuzi his vizier and together they had exploited everything Anu had worked so hard to create. His father was a despot, unfit to rule, but to overcome him—to commit the act he knew he must—Marduk would need the blessing of the exiled sages. He glanced at the crystal wall overlooking the city. Night bore hard upon the capital, its towering, triangular, clear-walled structures, dark, quiet. Marduk turned to look at the woman in his bed, debating what to do with her. He went to his desk and pulled out a tablet, powered it up and typed in a brief message:

You are to remain in my household as Easar's caretaker. She has become too old to accompany me on campaign. My steward will arrange your accommodation. Do not come to my bed again. Save yourself for the one who will love you.

He set the tablet onto his cushion beside her, dressed, and left. No more would men sell their daughters for food. No more would the sages be silenced. Purpose gilded him. He strode from the room, lifted his weapons from the rack by the door, and slid them into their holders on his hips. He was the Highest Prince, Commander of the Legions, a harbinger of death. Now, death would come to those who deserved it, and after the long, hard climb back to balance: order, wisdom. Peace.