Dreams of the Bound Anchor

Chapter One

Avena

The technicians erased my kitchen in seventeen minutes.

I stood in the middle of the empty room, serene, while three domestic technicians sealed the final service panel into the wall. The seamless pearl surface swallowed every seam until no evidence remained that anything had ever been installed there.

A stove. A basin. Cabinets I had never opened. All gone.

I had never used them anyway. My meals arrived through the delivery port precisely forty seconds after I requested them. Still, the absence sat wrong in the room.

The lead technician stepped back and swept a verification beam across the wall. Pale green light washed over it, searching for flaws.

“Complete,” he said.

The word echoed longer than it should have.

I clasped my hands. “Thank you.”

All three technicians looked at me, confused. Not rudely. I didn’t think Khevari could be rude, but their composure cracked, just for a second. A flicker of surprise. A brief ripple of color beneath the youngest man’s cheekbones before he smoothed it away.

I pretended not to notice.

In my opinion, gratitude was appropriate. Even if it was directed at people who had just erased part of my home.

The lead technician inclined his head and laid two fingers over his heart. “Your residence has completed Steward integration, Lady Avena.”

Steward.

The title should have settled over me like ceremonial silk. Instead, I kept staring at the blank wall.

My mother had called at dawn to congratulate me. My eldest sister had sent a bottle of Veiran nectar so old it predated the last border expansion. Six members of my House had sent formal messages praising my elevation, my service, and the honor the Dominion had granted me.

No one had mentioned the kitchen. I hadn’t known they removed them after activation. Or perhaps I’d never thought to ask.

The technicians gathered their tools and left. Their gray uniforms faded through the archway as the door sealed behind them. Silence returned briefly before the house AI, Qelos, spoke.

“Lady Avena, the Ministry assessor has arrived.”

I turned. “Admit her.”

The entrance slid open with a quiet whoosh, and Assessor Selari stepped inside as if she had always belonged there. Smoke-gray robes. Perfect posture. Silver eyes that hadn’t changed since I was seven years old and she’d conducted my first emotional aptitude review.

“Avena,” she said, offering both hands.

I met her palms lightly. “Assessor.”

“I should have addressed you as Steward,” she corrected.

I allowed a small smile. “It still sounds unfamiliar.”

“It will not for long.”

Her gaze moved across the room: the curved furniture, the suspended sculpture, the newly sealed wall where my kitchen had been. All perfect.

“Your conversion was completed efficiently.”

“Yes.”

“And integration?”

“Completed before dawn.”

“Any discomfort?”

“No.”

This was true. I had slept through most of it. The only sign anything had changed was the thin silver bracelet on my wrist. It could have been only a pretty bauble.

It was not.

It linked me to the house. To the system beneath it. To the Anchor.

Selari’s eyes flicked to it. “May I?”

I extended my arm.

She touched the metal.

A translucent display unfolded between us, filled with data I couldn’t read. Her eyes moved quickly.

“Excellent compatibility,” she said.

“I was told the match exceeded projections.”

“It did.” She closed the display. “Your Anchor is unusually efficient.”

Anchor.

The Anchor was a biological resource. A living system. A foundation for Khevari longevity.

Human neural tissue produced a field we couldn’t generate ourselves, so the Dominion refined what nature offered.

Progress due to Khevari intelligence.

Selari moved toward the window. “The first day can feel anticlimactic.”

I followed her, grateful for the shift in subject even though I didn’t know why.

Below us, the city moved in perfect silence: white towers, suspended gardens, silver transit lines threading through cloudlight.

“No,” I said. “I didn’t expect anything dramatic.”

“Of course not.”

I glanced at her.

She smiled briefly, the expression precise, controlled, and gone almost before it formed.

Selari had always approved of me. As a child, I had considered that a kind of achievement.

My emotional discipline scores had been among the highest in my cohort.

I hadn’t had a visible luminal flare since I was twelve.

Feeling is inevitable. Display is a choice.

I never forgot the lesson again.

Selari gestured to the seating platform. “Shall we?”

After we sat, a sphere detached from her belt and opened like a silver flower between us.

“This will be a standard post-integration assessment,” she said. “Nothing to worry about.”

“I understand.”

“Name and House.”

“Avena Serath, Second Daughter of House Serath.”

“Civic appointment.”

“Cultural arbitration adviser, Ministry of Annexed Territories.”

“Social classification.”

“Luminary, House Serath.”

“Residence classification.”

“Private Steward estate, Sereval Tier.”

“Anchor designation.”

I hesitated. Not long. A fraction of breath. Selari noticed anyway.

I looked at my bracelet and found the etched code. “Anchor E-Seven-Nine-Four.”

The sphere pulsed a cool white.

“Do you understand the purpose of your Anchor?”

“Yes.”

“Explain.”

I recited it automatically. Neural field. Conversion. Restoration. Lifespan extension.

“Do you believe the process causes suffering?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“They remain unconscious. Humans do not demonstrate advanced self-awareness.”

“Do you feel concern for Anchor E-Seven-Nine-Four?”

“No.”

A pause.

Selari did not move. I added nothing. Concern required an object capable of receiving it. I did not feel it for plants. I did not feel it for animals processed into nectar. I did not feel it for systems I did not need to think about.

The Anchor was alive. That did not make it a person.

“Curiosity?” she asked.

“No.”

My answer was too fast. The recorder pulsed in front of us.

Selari’s gaze sharpened slightly. “You may answer honestly, Avena.”

“I did.”

“Curiosity is not a disciplinary offense.”

“I know.”

“It is only monitored.”

Heat gathered faintly beneath my collar, but I kept my breathing steady. No lights flickered under my skin. I schooled my face back to serenity.

Selari leaned back. “Stewardship can produce unexpected preoccupations. Awareness of the lower level. Imagined form. Mechanical curiosity.”

“I have none of those.”

“You have been active less than eight hours.”

“Then I will report any change.”

“Good.”

Her tone stayed even, but I knew what this was. Everyone did. There were rare cases of Stewards who became fixated. Who went down to the integration level. Who tried to speak to what was not meant to be spoken to. To a thing that could not understand.

One woman had believed her Anchor recognized her voice. The Ministry had been notified at once and corrected the situation. She had not returned.

Selari crossed one leg over the other. “Have you accessed the lower level?”

“No.”

“Do you intend to?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“There is nothing I need there,” I said.

Selari held my gaze.

“Precisely.”

The interview went on: dreams, appetite. Loyalty. Satisfaction. Understanding of system risk. Neural contamination. That phrase lingered longer than the rest. Then the sphere closed and returned to her belt.

“Your regulation remains exemplary,” she said.

My shoulders eased, quiet and controlled. “Thank you.”

“I will return in seven days. Then monthly, unless your readings change.”

She stood.

At the door, she paused. “The Anchor assigned to you is a superior specimen, Avena. Your stability projections are exceptional. You have every reason to celebrate.”

“I am grateful, Assessor.”

“I know.”

For a moment, her expression softened and she wasn’t the assessor, a representative of the Ministry. She was just Selari. Then it was gone.

“Enjoy your life,” she said.

The door sealed. Silence returned, but her words stayed behind.

***

I moved through the house without purpose, the light shifting across polished surfaces. My work chamber waited. My meal had been delivered. Everything functioned exactly as it should.

And yet.

There was something beneath it. Literally. A second level that wasn’t a basement or a storage room. It was an integration chamber. A sealed system containing something I was not meant to think about.

I stopped at the eastern wall and touched the glass. Blue vines outside had bloomed overnight. Deeper than before. Almost violet at the center. My bracelet warmed. Only slightly, but I pulled my hand back.

“Qelos.”

“Yes, Lady Avena?”

“Was that a system adjustment?”

“Please clarify.”

“My bracelet warmed.”

“Steward integration remains within optimal parameters. Mild thermal sensation is expected during initial synchronization.”

Synchronization. My fingers curled against the window ledge at the sound of it.

“When does it begin?”

“Primary neural synchronization occurs during the Steward’s deepest sleep cycle.”

“And the Anchor?”

“The Anchor remains in regular stasis.”

“Of course.”

A pause.

The house couldn’t judge. The quiet had the shape of judgment anyway.

“It is seven bells. Would you like your meal?” Qelos asked.

“No.”

“Your nutritional schedule recommends—”

“I said no.”

The sharpness surprised even me. Gold flickered beneath my wrist. I stared at it until it vanished. No one was there. No one had seen.

Except the bracelet.

I forced my breathing down. Feeling is inevitable. Display is a choice. I repeated it until my pulse steadied. Then I ordered the meal, ate half, and returned to work.

By nightfall, I told myself nothing had happened. The first day always carried irregularities.

Selari had said so. Hormones were shifting. Thermal shifts occurred. My sleep needed adjustment. The flicker had been biological. Not emotional.

“Begin rest cycle,” I said.

The doors sealed. A low tone vibrated through the floor, and my bracelet warmed. And not slightly this time.

The warmth spread from my wrist, up my arm, and across my chest. I opened my eyes.

“Qelos?”

No answer.

The cold hit me first. Real cold. Not controlled air. Not engineered comfort. This cold was sharp, immediate, and alive.

I stood in snow. Dark trees rose around me, heavy with white. Silence pressed close while I tried to place where I was.

A cabin.

A man stepped onto the porch. He was tall and broad, his dark hair touched with silver, his face half-covered by a beard roughened by time.

He stopped when he saw me. We stared. His eyes weren’t silver, lavender, or yellow but blue like the Vanquished Sea. Blue like the vines on my wall.

The stranger looked at me. At the snow. At his hands. Then he said, “Well, this is new.”

My heart thumped hard against my chest for one beat, then two. Blue-white light flared beneath my skin. I saw it, and so did he. His gaze dropped to my hands, then moved back to my face. I curled my fingers into a fist.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”