I’ve spent so long hiding my emotions behind an indignant mask that all of a sudden it feels like a dam is breaking within me. It must be bad, because Wen immediately clocks it. The vibrosword stills in her hands, and she withdraws it into its hilt, taking an anxious step toward me.
I take a step back.
I see another first flicker across her face—the first time she realizes that being a knight might not be a universally good thing the way everyone around her has been framing it. She sees the raw fear and hatred I’ve finally stopped bothering to hide and realizes she’s not a hero. That’s she’s only a hero from a certain point of view.
Now I wait to see if she decides that makes me her enemy. It’s always been a strange balance between us. Wen’s never been one of the pure-of-heart Archon faithful. Hells, the Archon folks themselves have been all too happy to reject her up until the point when she slid into Torrance con-Rafe’s powersuit. She’s always held herself close enough to the fringes that I hoped I could swing her to my side.
I can’t ally with a suited knight. I can’t condone another one of those monsters taking the field.
But there’s something about seeing her like this—seeing her fierce and horrifying and awesome, a sword that can cleave hullmetal in her hand—that lights a spark in me. Envy kindles it, vicious envy that she started with nothing but a half-burnt face and a stolen ship and now she’s risen to this. I have more. I have always had more. What right does she have to fly so high?
I’ve been knocked down, but it’s not enough to make me doubt the blood in my veins. The blood that shapes my destiny and etches my name in the stars. If I have to start from scratch, so be it. I’ll do it again. Do it until it works.
So I whirl on one heel and march out of the lab, trusting—knowing—she has no choice but to follow me.
Wen chases me all the way back to our quarters. She quits trying to catch up to me when she realizes where we’re going, instead trailing a few feet back. It gives me the space I need to figure out exactly how to approach this conversation.
It also gives my palms time to build up a decent sweat.
When I blow into the entry room, she closes the door wordlessly behind us. The safety of our room’s lack of surveillance should comfort me, but instead I feel my panic worsen the moment I turn around and spot the vibrosword clipped casually to her belt.
“Spit it out,” Wen says, resting one hand on it like it already unquestionably belongs there.
“Remember what I told you that night you pulled me out of the vents?” I ask, my eyes slipping to the floor in a way that I hope makes me look distraught but still in control of myself.
“Jog my memory, why don’t you?” she replies. She’s clearly impatient to get back to her training. This might be the longest break she’s taken in days.
“I told you this”—I gesture up and down at her—“was only going to get you killed.”
“And I told you that nothing’s killed me yet.”
“And you expect that to hold up when we strike Imre and all of Tosa’s amassed forces? You expect you’re going to come out of that intact just because Iral gave you a fancy powersuit and put a ruttin’ sword in your hand?”
I wait until I’m certain that’s doubt I see flickering in her eyes.
“Because it’s not gonna.”
Pause for effect.
“Not unless you have me too.”
She laughs, as I knew she would. I wait for the humor to pass her by, for her to grasp that this is a demand I’m deathly serious about. “What…do I need you for?” she asks, bemused.
“Remember your first flight? When you nearly plowed headlong into the Torrent because you didn’t grasp how fast you were going? How often do you think something like that’s going to happen when you’re so new to the powersuit?”
Gears turn in her head. Her grip on the hilt tightens.
“Look, I was never much of a pilot. I was always better at talking to people. Think about every time you’ve run an active field with me on comms. Think about how badly you need that when you’re about to go to war in a rig you’ve only had a couple days to get a feel for.”
She’s thinking. I’m almost there.
“And you heard those drums. You’ve seen the way the people on this ship worship those poor, martyred knights. I’ve been watching the way they train with you—like it’s a dream come true. They let you get sloppy, because they don’t dare infringe on a precious knight’s process. I’ve seen the openings where they should have struck. The moves they didn’t take. I wouldn’t let one of those people in the same room as the channel that’s supposed to feed me the information that keeps me alive. They love the idea of you, but they’re too starstruck to ground themselves in the reality of what running those comms entails. All they’d do is turn you into another martyr. You need someone on comms who cares more about keeping you alive than watching a ruttin’ knight do some fancy tricks. There’s only one other person in the galaxy you could trust to watch your back like that, and he definitely doesn’t have time to run your comms.”
Wen nods—once like she’s trying to convince herself, then again to make it clear it’s a yes. But before I can lock that yes in, her eyes narrow. “The commodore won’t clear it.”
“The commodore was in the cockpit with me when I stopped you from splatting yourself on the Torrent.”
“So?”
“So she saw how useful I can be. She knows we work well together, and at an hour this dire, she wouldn’t be half the strategist I know she is if she wasted this opportunity.”
“She also wouldn’t be half the strategist I know she is if she let you onto the bridge during an engagement. Or did you forget that’s why you got booted the last time you tried to ‘help’ me in a battle?”
I shake my head. “This time will be different. We’ll get that clearance before, not during or after. She’ll clear it if you ask.”
Wen makes an incredulous little scoff. “Why?”
I jab a finger at the vibrosword on her belt. I don’t need to do anything more than that. Esperza’s entrusted Wen with the legacy of the suited knights—the legacy of the friend who dragged her into the war in the first place. She’s handed over a piece of technology so precious that it hasn’t seen battle in a decade. If Wen Iffan asks, the commodore will set the fleet in orbit around her. She’ll give the Flame Knight whatever clearance she needs.
And Silon’s going to throw a ruttin’ fit—I’m so goddamn excited to see her face when she has to sign off on the commodore’s order. If that’s the one bright spot in all of this, I’ll take it.
Wen’s lips settle into a grim, decisive line. “If you’re right about this, we need to start training together stat,” she says. “From the rumblings I’ve heard, we’re shipping out at any second.”
The notion is chilling, but maybe a bit less so than it was a minute ago. Sure, I’ll be flung into battle, trapped on the wrong side as the Archon forces fight like hell to beat Berr sys-Tosa out of his stronghold.
But if a suited knight tries to take the field, I’m going to be the only voice in her ear.
CHAPTER 23
The hours before battle are a series of tense goodbyes that start with the majestic and trickle down to the minute.
Well, maybe majestic is giving it too much credit. I find the whole spectacle around General Iral’s departure for the flagship dreadnought gaudy, but I see the necessity of it. The whole affair has overtaken one of the Torrent’s outer decks, flooding it with lines of neatly dressed officers, blocks of tightly packed soldiers, and the noise of a hundred skin drums pounding a call to arms.
Iral and his staff process through the middle of the grandeur down the aisle that’s been cleared between the entrance to the docks and the massive ramp deployed from his flagship. The general’s braids are bound back, his expression set in a serio
us mask. He’s the picture of perfect focus, a far cry from the scattered, frenetic thoughts racing through my head as the battle for the Tosa System inches closer and closer.
I shift my weight from foot to foot uneasily, trying to muster a similar outward calm. I stand at Wen’s right in the row of officers positioned between Iral and his ship, doing my best to keep my eyes pinned on the approaching general instead of Ettian, who’s planted himself a few paces ahead of us. At this point, I don’t think anyone in the administration cares too much about the amount of attention I pay the emperor, but this is for my own edification. If I let myself think too much about how difficult it is for Ettian to keep himself upright, it’ll block out everything else, and I can’t afford that.
But when Iral reaches Ettian, I lose all ability to differentiate between what I should be paying attention to and what’s a distraction. All I can think about is how small the emperor looks against his general. How frail his stature is, framed against Iral’s broad shoulders. I have to keep reminding myself that this isn’t like when we fought for Ellit, when Ettian was striving desperately to prove himself against Iral’s reputation. Ellit earned the emperor respect—not just for his bloodright, but for his prowess. I can see that respect in the way Iral regards his emperor now.
In fact, the reason we’re all here, doing this nonsense procession, is so that the rest of the Archon administration gets a firm reminder of who’s really in charge. Iral is about to lead the assault on Imre, while Ettian remains aboard the Torrent with the rear guard that will sweep in once it’s safe to do so. If Iral is victorious—if he reclaims the Tosa System for Archon—the general has an opening to make a play for the reins of the rebellion, and Ettian needs to cut that shit off at the root.
So Ettian stands between Iral and his flagship, head held high, wearing a fine crown of twisted platinum branches that wind around emeralds the size of goose eggs. His shoulders are weighted by platinum bars, his load far heavier than the one that decorates Iral’s uniform. He’s the very picture of imperial majesty, the clear gravitational center of the room, and I look at him praying to any god who’ll listen that no one notices he’s about to topple under the weight.
But instead it’s General Iral who goes down, sinking to one knee before Ettian like he did five months ago when the young usurper stormed the court with no rational thought in his head beyond freeing me from the general’s clutches. The rest of the deck follows suit, bending at the waist until Ettian and I are the only ones left standing.
He glances back over his shoulder, and for a moment I worry that he’s going to pull some nonsense he thinks he can get away with because people are too busy falling over themselves to show him deference. Smirk or wink or point at the ground like he expects me to drop for him.
Ettian only gives me a grim look and a firm nod. Months ago, I would have countered it with some nonsense of my own—anything to knock him down in a public forum where I’m not being recorded—but I realize with a horrible pinch that I’m far too committed to keeping him upright. Far too steeped in the seriousness of the general’s departure. Far too invested in everything happening here, on the wrong side of the war.
So all I give him is hollowness, and the general rises, and his attention swings back around, and the Archon mobilization marches on.
* * *
—
An hour after the general is safely away, I trail Wen through the grand mess of the Torrent’s outer deck, swept up in the tide of pilots exchanging slaps on the back as their superiors trade salutes and soft smiles. There’s a goodbye ahead of us that matters to her—so much so that I feel guilty hovering on the fringes of it. A trim shuttle at the far end of the deck is being prepped for departure, and outside it stands Commodore Esperza and her entire retinue of staffers. While the Torrent has served her well as a flagship, she’s taking her command to a smaller cruiser that will serve as a pivot point somewhere midway between Ellit and Imre—a place where she can minimize communications delay between both the spearhead of the Archon attack and the reserves.
The hope—the wild, reckless hope—is that Wen will see her on the other side.
The reality, I fear, is not so optimistic. I didn’t want to taint with my presence what is, in all likelihood, the last time these two ever speak, but Wen insisted that I stick with her. As we approach, I slow my steps, letting Wen go on ahead to greet her commodore.
“Iffan,” Esperza says, accepting Wen’s salute, then stepping back to look her up and down. She’s dressed in her padded undersuit, ready to lock and load in her armor at a moment’s notice. Esperza, on the other hand, is kitted out in regalia, her commodore’s platinum glimmering in the bright lights of the loading zone. If Iral hadn’t stuffed Wen in the powersuit, she’d be dressed similarly and shipping out at the commodore’s side.
Both of them seem to be thinking about that; Wen’s eyes flick nervously to Esperza’s other subordinates and Esperza clocks it with a slight smirk. “You would have been a valuable addition to my team, in time,” the commodore says gently. “But I’d wager you always would have ended up here. I do my best work quietly, and I’ve got this sneaking suspicion quiet is never going to be your style.”
“It was an honor to learn from you,” Wen offers, a burble of emotion nearly strangling her voice.
Esperza chuckles, then steps forward to lay a steady hand on the Flame Knight’s shoulder. “It was an honor to teach you. From the start, you had a spark in you that ruttin’ scared me—because I knew how brightly you’d burn one day. You’re going to be unstoppable out there. I can’t wait to see it.”
I swallow the impulse to object. Wen looks like she’s about to try to deflect Esperza’s praise, but before she can get the words out, the commodore yanks her forward and wraps her in a firm hug. Wen hesitates, no doubt running some fast numbers on chains of command before deciding rut it and hugging Esperza back.
Some of the aides behind her barely conceal their shock at their boss so openly displaying affection. Others look jealous—an emotion I find surprisingly sympathetic. War strips our softness. It aches to watch someone reclaim theirs.
But for my part, I try my best not to look sick to my stomach. Esperza’s validating every choice that put Wen in that monstrous suit and framing it as all but inevitable. Of course she’d never claim responsibility for turning Wen into a suited knight, but I want something—some acknowledgment that thanks to her, Wen’s probably about to lose her life.
Instead, Esperza claps her gently on the shoulder and steps back with pride glowing in her eyes alongside hopeless, reckless confidence that she’s done right by her protégée.
And then, even worse, her eyes land on me.
“Umber,” she says, with far more civility than I would have given her credit for. “I don’t like you. I don’t trust you. Unfortunately, despite all that, I’ve gotten to know you. I know that you can never be trusted to do right by Archon. But I’d have to be a complete fool to discount how much you’ve helped our girl. Thank you—seriously, I mean it,” she says around a laugh as I hitch backward in surprise. “Sometimes the advancement of the enemy is in the empire’s best interest. I couldn’t have taught Iffan half as well as I did without your assistance. And I couldn’t leave her side for this battle if I didn’t know she’s in the hands of someone who’s gonna do right by her.”
Esperza settles her hands primly behind her back and straightens, a move that looks so profoundly like one out of Deidra con-Silon’s playbook that I nearly laugh. “All the same, I’ll tell you this: let Iffan down in any way and I’ll come up with a manner of public execution that’ll make even your mother shudder.”
“Understood, Adela,” I say with the cockiest, most sarcastic salute I can manage.
Esperza nods like she expected nothing else, and there’s something in the gesture that veers dangerously close to approval. With one last crooked pirate’s smile and a
wink at Wen, she turns her back on us and summons her people with a wave of one hand and a quick beat of her other against her thigh.
Wen watches her go for a long moment I don’t like at all. I tap her on the elbow, and she startles, shaking her head. “Any other goodbyes before you load out?”
“One,” she says, “but we’ll meet him at the lock.”
* * *
—
It’s not a far walk from this deck. Not far enough for me to brace myself for the sight of the powersuit waiting to swallow her when we enter the staging zone. Wen sinks into its clutches eagerly—too eagerly. The metal wraps around her perversely with so much ease that she doesn’t even need a technician to check its fusings. Her helmet remains cocked back, leaving her head the only part of her free from the powersuit’s snare. Knight and suit move as one off its mounts, crossing the staging zone to pick up her vibrosword from its stand. She clips it to a magnetic release on the suit’s exterior, then lets out a long, steady breath.
Somewhere deeper within the Torrent, drums are starting to pound.
I try my damnedest to tune them out. “Right, we need to do a comms check here, then another one at the bridge, and then—”
“Gal.”
I don’t understand how her voice is so steady. Wen’s smarter than I am—of that I’m reasonably certain, even if her self-preservation instinct is a little skewed. She’s been clever enough to avoid danger most of her life, escaping with nothing worse than a half-burnt face. But even the smartest person I know—Rhodes Tsampa, a member of Hanji’s cohort, for the record—would be aware of the danger she’s trying to throw herself into.
Then again, Rhodes was never much of a pilot. But Wen’s the one who flew me through the fall of Rana in a souped-up Beamer. I’d never say it to Ettian’s face, but I don’t think even he could have gotten me through that mess.
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