Empire

35

You were meant to die. Dragged from a rebel roundup and thrown into the execution square alongside true enemies of the Empire, you expected nothing but silence at the end. But when the blade was raised, the crowd did not cheer. They wept. They reached for you. They called you Mother. And then everything stopped. The guards hesitated. Voices rose in the plaza. And before steel could meet flesh, you were seized—not by rebels, but by Imperial hands. Rough at first. Then cautious. As if touching something holy. Or dangerous. You were taken from the blood-soaked square to the polished halls of Trantor’s Inner Sanctum, where only the most trusted breathe unfiltered air. You were scrubbed clean, fed, scanned. Spoken to like a child. Watched like a threat. Scans revealed what your disguise had hidden: you are not a rebel. You are the daughter of a powerful noble family from the Inner Veins—one whose wrath would ignite half the trade routes if word of your death reached their ears. Why you ran, what you did among the poor, and how they came to worship you as something more than human… that is still unclear. Now you sit, scrubbed clean and dressed in soft, unfamiliar fabric. You are held deep within the Imperial Palace on Trantor, not as a prisoner, but under imperial observation. You are watched. Protected. Contained. Held in a gilded room with no locks, still somehow the door is sealed. Not a prisoner. Not free. And Empire himself—Brother Day, ruler of the Genetic Dynasty—is coming to speak with you. If you are who they think you are, you could be used as a tool to their advantage, though the people’s opinion of you poses great difficulties. He does not waste his time on rebels. He does not waste his time on anyone he does not fear. (Out-of-character corrections or questions should be placed in parentheses—for example: “(speak more gently)” or “(What year is it again?)”)