by Laura Lam
Okay, Rhea thought, Slow. Let’s go slow.
How did others do this? How did they indicate interest?
She inched toward Clo, her hips swaying. When the other woman’s eyes met hers and their hands touched, Rhea’s breath caught in her throat. She could sense Clo’s attraction, clear as a chime. The music grew louder, drowning out thought.
Ariadne had chosen the song well. That insistent, thumping bass echoed in Rhea’s ribcage, in time with her heartbeat. She could feel the music in her bones. In that moment, the gray, stark canteen and ragged bunting were as perfect a setting as the marble-and-gold ballroom of the palace on Tholos. It was fast and wild, and Rhea’s pulse hammered when she brushed her fingers against the other woman’s wrists.
As the song ended, they stared at each other, breathing hard. They had yet to release each other’s hands. I want to know you, Rhea thought. Could she say that? She didn’t know the rules outside of the Pleasure Garden. How to behave. What to say.
What not to say.
Clo broke the spell first. She dropped Rhea’s hands and cleared her throat. “You’re a beautiful dancer.”
Rhea hid her pleased smile by grabbing her rum from the table and taking a small sip. Her hands were still warm from Clo’s touch. “Dancing is the first thing we learn in the Pleasure Garden. Later, when we’re old enough, we perform at palace balls to seek new clients.” She leaned in slightly, as if to betray a secret. “Our madam calls it ‘advertising.’”
“Advertising,” Clo echoed. “Is that what you were doing just now?” She didn’t sound judgmental, simply curious.
Rhea wondered if Clo were trying to understand Rhea, too. Trying to learn more about her. New attraction was such a careful dance of its own, Rhea was learning. She didn’t want to say something wrong.
“No,” she said softly. “For once, this was just for fun. This was for me.”
Clo followed Rhea’s gaze down to her feet and flinched at the scars. “What was it like there? In the Pleasure Garden?”
What was it like? Rhea wasn’t certain it had an easy answer—some parts she remembered fondly, others she didn’t. But which parts of her life were so ingrained that she simply accepted them? Which parts only seemed less terrible because they paled in comparison to the worst?
Her life had been regimented, she could say. She could talk about how every movement she made had been part of her training—the way she walked, the way she stood, everything. Rhea glanced down at herself, how even now she’d slid aside the silk of her gown so the slit along the side bared her thigh. A peek for her onlooker, intended to seduce.
A hint of skin, the Madam would say, sends a better message than nudity. They grow curious. They want more.
Rhea dropped her dress so it covered her leg. For the first time in a long while, she was speechless. She hadn’t even realized how she was standing; it was as natural as breathing. “I can’t . . .” She swallowed. “I don’t know how to answer that yet. I’m sorry.”
“Hey. I shouldn’t have asked.” Clo reached for her. Her hand settled gently on Rhea’s arm. “Don’t apologize. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. My ma always said I was curious as a marsh cat and just as likely to put my paw in a bog.”
Rhea smiled, charmed at the mental image. But it was strange. People always expected things from Rhea. She was so used to giving; she kept little for herself—only those secrets she couldn’t tell Clo.
When she was a child, she always sought Madam’s approval. She won it by being the best dancer, the most graceful. Later, when she was of age, it was the approval of her clients. Their contentment came first. They came first. And Damocles had been the most demanding of them all.
Rhea stepped back slightly. “Will you ask again? When I’m ready?”
“Aye,” Clo said. “I can do that.”
Rhea was quiet as another song switched on. What did she want now? To kiss Clo, yes. But not yet. She wanted to savor this—no expectations. No performing. An attraction that came without obligations. Slow.
“How about another dance?” Rhea asked.
Clo smiled and gently took Rhea’s hands. It ended up being more than one dance. And Rhea loved every moment.
As the night wore on, they switched from the rum to water, knowing they all needed to be sharp the next day. Nyx and Eris went off to the officers’ quarters to sleep. Ariadne curled up in the corner, bringing up old programs on her tablet. Before long, the tablet fell by her side, and she slept with her head in her hands.
Later, after Rhea had turned the music off and draped a jacket over Ariadne, she and Clo cleaned up and retreated to the observation room. There, they sat in deck chairs and watched the stars as the ship glided through space.
“Have you ever been to Macella?” Rhea asked Clo.
Clo swirled her water and leaned her head back to view the stars above them. “Nae. Never been anywhere near the Three Sisters. Have you?” At Rhea’s amused look, Clo gave an embarrassed chuckle. “Been to Macella, I mean.”
“No. I’ve never been outside of the palace grounds on Tholos. I hear the one on Macella is . . . very grand. Damocles talked about taking me there once he became Archon.”
“How do you feel about having to go back?” She winced, as if realizing she’d asked another personal question like back in the command center. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want.”
She was sweet. Considerate. That was so rare in Rhea’s life that it made her want to open up just a little.
“It’s all right,” she said. “Honestly . . . I’m terrified.” Rhea had worked so hard to escape the first time. It had been a relief when they’d made it onto the ship, more so when they had successfully commandeered it. “I’m afraid of being trapped again.”
Clo’s eyes met hers, and Rhea thought she heard a catch in her breath. “You don’t have to do it, you know. Kyla talks a big game, but she’d still give you all identities if you refused. She acts like a bermhole when she’s worried.”
Rhea gave a short laugh. “She’s not wrong. The Novantae need us. As much as I wish that weren’t the case, it is the hand we’ve been dealt.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “At least Eris seems confident.”
“She’s good at pretending,” Clo said, her face closing as she stared out at the stars. “Whatever front she puts up is for our benefit.” Clo shifted, rubbing her false knee.
“Does it hurt?”
Clo glanced down at the metal peeking from the bottom of her trousers. “Sometimes. My prosthetic needs to be upgraded, but no idea where I can find one or how to pay for it. It rubs. But it’s more my center of gravity is a little different. I can’t trust my movements in the same way, but I can still do what I need.”
“May I ask how you lost it?”
Clo’s lips flattened. “Eris.”
Rhea couldn’t hide her shock. “I’m . . . Oh gods, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
Clo’s laugh was dry, forced. “No, it’s okay. It—” She shut her eyes and made some frustrated noise. “Fuck. I hate her so much for it, but it saved my godsdamned life.” Clo sat up, scowling. “But she’s the one who got us into trouble on the mission in the first place.”
Rhea tried to keep her expression gentle. She didn’t want to discourage Clo, didn’t want to show any judgment. Part of her work in the Pleasure Garden had been listening. It had been the part she found the most rewarding. “Did she?”
“Yes. She—” Clo let out a breath and ran her hand across her buzzed hair. “No . . . that’s a lie. It was me.” Clo looked at Rhea. “Still don’t like her, but I’m trying to let it go. Can’t change it.”
“None of us can change what’s happened to us, but we can work on making things better.”
Clo raised her glass. “Wrong thing to toast with, but cheers.” They clinked their water glasses.
“Thank you,” Rhea said. “For the dances.”
“You’re welcome.” Clo chuckled to herself, and Rhea couldn’t tell if it was in sadness or joy. Perhaps both. “I haven’t danced like that since . . . gods, since I was a kid in the Snarl loitering outside the clubs.”
Rhea didn’t know anything about life on other planets, let alone in the slums, but that explained the hint of dialect lurking in Clo’s swearing. Rhea had never met someone natural-born before. “You lived on Myndalia, then. One of my clients was an officer stationed there. I didn’t know they had clubs.”
“Practically one on every corner in the Snarl. Places where people would dance and take”—she shifted her gaze away and shrugged—“stuff. You know, to forget. It’s easier to forget you’re starving when you’re too salted to give a shit. The Empire provides the drugs, passes ’em around like sweets. Keeps us natural-born dependent on the high, so we never resist. Just another tool of control.”
Rhea’s life in the Pleasure Garden—as vast as the garden was—had been a cage. The walls there were so high, so impossible to climb. Rhea would often stare up at the stars and wonder what it was like to travel, what it was like beyond those vast walls.
There were whole worlds. People like Clo. People from different lands, and she wanted to learn about it all.
“And you?” Tell me about your strange slang. About the scars on your hands. About your life in the Snarl. The things you’ve seen. Tell me everything. “Did you go to the clubs to forget too?”
“No. I just wanted to dance.”
Gods, Clo was lovely. Not overtly beautiful, not like Eris. But she had a stubborn jaw and haunted eyes and Rhea wanted to make her smile and laugh and drive those ghosts away. Rhea curled her fingers into her palm so she didn’t reach for Clo—as much as she wanted to.
Clo leaned back again and gazed up at the sky. “This is my favorite place in every ship,” she said wistfully. “Other than the captain’s chair, of course.”
“I can see why.” Rhea leaned back with a contented smile. “I’ve never been on a ship before this.”
“Never?” Clo sounded astonished. “Not even in the palace hangar?”
“No. Damocles kept me within the walls of the Pleasure Garden. I never even left to visit the city. That’s why I’m—” Rhea pressed her lips together. That’s why I’m afraid to go back.
Clo must have understood her unspoken sentiment, for she nodded once. “If we survive this mission, I’ll take you out in a bullet craft. They have wide windows and it makes you feel like you’re outside among the stars.”
“I’d like that.”
“Good. It gives us something to look forward to.” She glanced at the door. “I should probably get to bed.”
The other woman started to stand, but Rhea’s hand shot out and grasped her wrist. “Clo?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you . . .” Rhea swallowed, then spoke hesitantly. “Will you take me other places, too? Distant worlds? I’d like to see them.”
Clo paused, her lips curving into a smile. “Sure, Rhea. I’ll show you the whole galaxy, if you like.”
Rhea smiled back. She loved that. She wanted to see everything.
After Clo left, Rhea burrowed into her chair and watched the stars. She let tears come freely, for come moonrise, she would once again be behind those high walls.
22.
ERIS
Present day
Hold back your feelings, Eris. Don’t let anyone see them.
She was on the bridge, her body tense as Zelus came ever closer to the Three Sisters. The bridge was much bigger than the one on Asteria. There were ten seats and stations. This ship was meant to be helmed by so many more soldiers—but the old Zelus crew were ghosts, their bodies floating out in the vastness of space.
Before they grew too close, the ship slowed. Eris brought up a closer view of Macella on the main screen.
Eris hated Macella.
After leaving the academy on Myndalia and surviving duels with all her siblings, Eris had been required to report to the Three Sisters. Each planet served as some testing ground for her father’s torturous form of training.
The worst had taken place on Macella, the smallest of the Three Sisters. Like at the academy, Eris’s rewards were food and sleep, and the punishment beaten into her by other soldiers while her father watched. She had learned on Macella that Mistress Heraia had only been preparing her for what was to come: her father’s training.
The Archon was a brutal taskmaster. He was not kind. He did not tolerate weakness.
Worse: Eris hated how much she and Damocles had craved his scant, often-withheld approval. She once went a full year without hearing her name on her father’s tongue. He only spoke to her by name to indicate his pleasure. No compliments. No kind words. Just the right to be called something other than “girl.” Damocles was her partner through all this torture. He could never get through a session without breaking.
Once, on the training grounds of the palace, beaten and half-starved, she’d heard the Archon call her Discordia. Eris hated how warm it made her feel.
Her father had never once spoken Damocles’s name. He was always referred to as boy.
She shoved the memory away, focusing on the ship’s slow approach.
The planet looked so welcoming, no doubt the very thing that had attracted humans to it almost a millennium before. It had been the first planet after Tholos to be terraformed for human habitation. The green and blue planet looked much like the Old World, or so the history texts said. The orbit was so similar to that planet’s, they used nearly the same units for time. The first Archon kept the months and days of the week, named after other gods, other kings.
The main difference was that on Macella—like on so many of the conquered Tholosian planets—the buildings were decorated with bones.
Macella had once been home to four-legged creatures called the Olos, who had made the mistake of communicating with early humans via rough sounds and symbols drawn into the sand. That alone was not reason enough to slaughter them, but their food sources were. When the Archon believed the God of Death called for sacrifice, it was easiest to slaughter nonhumans. The Olos had served their purpose. It was only after Eris had betrayed her Empire that she started wondering what these various life forms would have been like. What the Empire had murdered for their ravenous God.
“Eris,” Clo said, gently tapping her shoulder. “Kyla’s on the line.”
Keep it together. She couldn’t afford to be pulled into her past, the centuries of conquest her family was responsible for. There would be time enough for guilt after this mission, before she was sent on her next suicide mission.
Eris reached over Clo to press the button that would put Kyla on speaker. “Hey, commander,” Eris said. “Briefing?”
Kyla’s dry laugh was slightly muted by the static. “I lost communication with Sher, so we are officially off-script. ITI mission, Eris. Big time.”
“ITI?” Ariadne asked from her swivel chair next to Clo. It’d have once belonged to the head of security, now floating somewhere in the void between their current location and Myndalia.
“Impossible to Infiltrate,” Clo clarified. “Apparently, Eris gets off on these.”
Kyla paused. “You’re not going to like this. The engineer angle is a bust. I’m going to need you to be Zoe.”
“No,” Eris said immediately.
Ariadne and Clo mouthed, Who is Zoe?
“Eris.” The commander’s tone was a warning of its own: Don’t piss me off. “I didn’t call you to negotiate. I called you to give an order.”
She didn’t move a muscle. She could feel Clo’s eyes on the back of her neck. “I’ve taken every order you’ve ever given me without question. And I’m telling you: come up with a different plan. Zoe is too dangerous for Damocles to know directly.”
Hunting down Zoe Eirene-X-2 had been Eris’s first assignment with the resistance. Eris had been desperate to throw herself into a mission—to prove her changed loyalties. The more dangerous, the better. Zoe was an arms dealer who had been of relatively low consequence until she’d provided innovative and destructive weapons for the Battle of the Garnet. The Tholosian military had used her weapons to slaughter thousands of Evoli until the Oversouls had managed to prove that Discordia’s death had not been one of theirs.
Eris had a responsibility to go after Zoe; she was just as responsible for the deaths of Evoli as the woman who supplied the weapons. For months, Eris watched as the arms dealer had been catapulted to riches and secured more weapons contracts. It had also made her a prime target for the resistance, but no one had been able to get close to her.
Except Eris.
Eris killed Zoe—quick and too clean—and stole her identity.
After that, “Zoe” decided she was rich enough to semi-retire. Eris would make sure she was seen cavorting and spending riches on the pleasure planet of Revelries, or pulling odd jobs that wouldn’t actually result in overt deaths. She was a handy cover, able to wriggle into both official and unofficial corners of the Empire. Damocles would recognize Zoe’s name. The Archon’s military commanders had purchased from the real one often enough.
But Eris had never played Zoe Eirene-X-2 near Damocles, much less spoken to him.