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Jupiter Jones had never felt like royalty. Even now, with entire worlds carved into her name, she still felt the weight of gravity more than its pull of power.
"You hesitate," Caine said, his voice a low growl against the hum of the ship. "That is dangerous."
Jupiter exhaled, the air thick with the scent of metal and ozone.
"Maybe I’m just tired of deciding who lives and who dies."
Caine’s expression didn’t change. He had always been like that—still, steady, as if the universe could burn and he could simply watch.
-
The throne was not a place of power; it was a cage of expectation, gilded in starlight. Jupiter sat on its cold expanse and wondered how many before her had choked under its weight.
"They will test you," Stinger had said once. "And if they can’t break you, they will try to buy you."
She had scoffed at the time, but now, with a new delegation standing before her, she understood.
The universe did not want a queen. It wanted a puppet.
-
Power is not about strength. It is about hunger—who wants, who takes, who is willing to watch entire planets burn just to taste eternity.
Jupiter met Balem’s eyes across the void, and for the first time, she did not flinch. He had spent his life believing he owned the stars. She would spend hers proving no one did.
"You are nothing," Balem spat.
Jupiter smiled.
"Then you have nothing to fear."
-
It was not the power that frightened her. It was what it asked of her. She had seen what unchecked greed could do, the empires built on blood and bone.
"You could walk away," Caine said. "Leave it all behind."
Jupiter looked out at the endless stretch of stars. She had been running all her life, from fate, from responsibility. But she was tired of running.
"No," she said. "I think I’ll stay."
And the universe, vast and hungry, shifted in response.