he called her god
dear reader — here is a glimpse of sci-fi I’ve been toying with. if you enjoy it, please let me know.
The man—called Iris—knelt before the woman. The queen, as it were, although such titles were not used in Rizden. The people had built a new system so long ago, any mention of the old words were confusing at best and downright unidentifiable to anyone under seventy.
Outside, a Puppet dragged its metal limbs across the snow-hardened frost. The sound was a reminder of what waited beyond the warmth of Collapsis.
The woman—Naja—stood, black silk fabric grazing her thighs, her sternum, the very tops of her biceps. Beyond the castle built into the rock of the Rizden land, it was bitterly cold. But here, nestled into the mountains with a heating system most citizens only dreamt of, Naja could afford to bare her skin if she wished.
And Naja, thirty-six, tall, proud, did wish.
Her feet were bare, her toes unpolished—ornament among the ruling class was considered gauche; they knew their power without decoration—and her naked fingers were linked behind her back.
The inner chamber of her sanctuary was so quiet she could hear the raspy breath of Iris, even with his neck curved and head hidden, temple pressed to the marble floor. The knobs of his spine protruded beneath his worn black shirt, the frayed hems of his pants dirty above his boots.
Iris was a Frez, a member of the working class. Within the past few years, they were in danger of being replaced by robotics crafted by Deja, but recently, Frez had started working alongside the new technology, and there were rumors that soon enough, they would both morph into a single transhuman collective—beingness camouflaged by mechanics.
Many within Naja’s circle inside the Collapsis Castle did not much care. Whether Frez were human or robot mattered not; what was important was the fact they submitted to Deja, the rulers.
As Naja could see, this man—at least this Frez—was very good at submission.
In a room lined with human art—by maker and of subject—with calming deep emerald walls, vast ceilings so as to forget one was inside a mountain, and dark flooring, Iris was at once fragile and alive. This room in particular, meant for visits like these, housed little else but a throne at her back Naja could choose to dictate from, a door behind the throne, and directly ahead, a black mass of a double entrance outside of which two human guards waited to hear her directive. Both women, both murderers—by duty.
Naja padded softly closer to the man until she could see the curl of his dark hair behind his ear. She had been told he was twenty-nine, but the only glimpse of his face moments before he prostrated himself upon his entrance did not reveal much to her.
“Lift your head.” Her voice was low, commanding, the kind used to being obeyed.
Iris slowly shifted the muscles and bones in his neck until he was awkwardly looking up at her, looming before him.
The whites of his eyes were shockingly clear; rumor had it this came from the earthen diet the Frez were so proud of. The deep green of his irises reminded Naja of her favorite time of year. Spring, when everything started living again.
His face was clean, shadows cut beneath his lower lashline, and he had shaved in the past day or so. Thick hair, but dirty, as to be expected. Not from any hygienic deficiency, but rather because working outside in the winter was hard, and long, and tiresome. Naja had been told he was dragged from a mine an hour into his workday.
The guards offered to push him into the showers reserved for the dogs of the castle.
Naja declined. She did not own a dog, and there was something about the way the Deja paraded them through Collapsis and the high streets of Rizden that made her feel faintly ill.
“What is it that you have done?” she asked Iris, her voice quieter now. She had learned true power, and it did not come with a scream.
Iris’s expression was blank. He, too, had learned true power. Perhaps he had screamed when he first met it.
“I do not know, God.”
God.
The title tasted metallic in the air—gifted, or cursed. Naja did her very best not to flinch at the name. There was something deep in her bones that remembered this was wrong, that she might pay for it later. But that was not now.
Now, Naja did not like being lied to.
She tilted her head, stared down at the Frez. “Reconsider your answer,” she said—still soft, but never sweet. Women were rarely that. Not anymore.
In his eyes, she swore she saw his past. A flicker of remembrance—or maybe the force of trying to forget. But he did not blink, he did not look away, and he still stared awkwardly up at her.
He came to a decision, and his throat rolled as he swallowed. There were many Frez willing to die for a transgression without much of a fight, but he must have had something he held onto back home.
“One of the Puppets…” He trailed off, swallowed again. His voice was coarse, and she wondered how much of his lifetime he had spent in the mines. “My sister skipped away from the fire. The Puppet must have thought she was in danger. It pinned her down, fractured her arm before I could…” His brows came close together, a furrow between them. “I destroyed the Puppet.”
“The Puppet created by Sylaz?” Every machine in Rizden was born from that woman’s mind. She was not much involved in the mechanics of making, but it had been her idea, and in Rizden, ideas—and those who thought them—were protected viciously.
“Yes, God.” Iris would not look away. Naja could practically feel his pride. A dangerous thing, but almost beautiful. It was a crime if she wanted it to be; Frez could be put down for any infraction, and pride was rarely questioned. It was pride that had once brought women to their knees, reduced them to little more than second or third or fourth-class citizens, depending on the man who owned them.
That would never happen again. Deja protected this ideal above all others.
But Naja remembered her father’s eyes and how they lit up when her mother so much as entered a room.
She was once God, too, and so perhaps it was only to be expected. Love, Naja had been taught within Collapsis, could get you killed. Or worse.
And there was much worse that could happen to a woman, back before… this.
Now, the men were afraid.
“Your sister is living?”
“Yes, God.”
“I have been told I should abandon you.” The word was deliberate. In Rizden, “abandon” and “execute” meant the same thing.
“Told?” Iris seemed to mock her, though his expression did not change.
She was old enough and learned enough not to rise to the bait. “Yes,” she said, and a slow, sharp smile curved her lips. “Interesting, isn’t it? How advisors wish to rule from their own puppet throne.”
“It is, God.”
“Sit. Your neck strain is making my head hurt.” She unclasped her hands from behind her back and thrust her fingers at Iris, vaguely indicating what he should do.
He bowed his head once, then pushed up in obedience. She couldn’t miss the way his triceps flexed beneath his shirt as he moved into an upright kneeling position. It didn’t escape her notice, either, the way his hands spread on his thighs—the stance of someone who had forgotten he could be erased by taking up too much room.
“And so you are not all friends with the Puppets?” she asked. She wondered how he had destroyed one. It was rumored to be nearly impossible; why these cases were so few and far between. She couldn’t see any obvious bruises or breaks along his body, but something must have hurt. A machine’s death always left a mark.
“We are not friends.” The words seemed torn from his mouth. It wasn’t quite an answer but it revealed more than one would.
Naja swiftly knelt down before him, not quite to her knees. Her muscles were limber and strong enough to rival his if ever they were to fight.
She was nearly level with him now, her deep brown eyes locked onto his.
If he seemed startled at her closeness, he revealed nothing.
That was exactly what she needed.
“Good,” she said. She knew her next words would risk a public mauling so vicious, her children’s future children would feel it—yet her voice did not shake. The chamber itself seemed to hold its breath. There was no sound now from the Puppet outside.
“I need you to teach me what it is you did, and how it can be done… better.”
Silence gathered like snow. Beyond the doors, one of the guards shifted—the faint creak of leather, soft as a memory.
Iris’s gaze didn’t waver. Something—defiance, or perhaps devotion—lit the edges of his eyes.
And in that glint, Naja saw the beginning of something that, one day, might burn them both.
