The Emperor She Rescued

Doctor Ara Subramanian has one rule about the glacier clinic: no one dies on her shift. The man they bring in on Tuesday has silver blood, four extra ribs, and no name. She stabilises him, lies on his chart, and keeps him off the hospital's radar for four days, which is three days longer than her contract allows and exactly as long as it takes for the kill team to find the clinic. His name is Taviim. He used to rule a small interstellar polity, and he abdicated two years ago to avoid a civil war that happened anyway. Now the man who replaced him wants him dead, Ara is the only person who has treated him in the open, and the council that can void the succession is six systems away. She has a satchel of trauma supplies, a stolen ambulance, and no plan beyond getting him to the hearing alive. What she does not have is any intention of letting him go back to a throne he does not want.