by Laura Lam
Despite how lovely and calming the palace appeared, it was a fortress. The Oracle scanned every person who entered and left, mapped their foot traffic, their features, and their behavior. Humans were creatures of habit, easy to predict. If their behavior was inconsistent with the Oracle’s prediction, One flagged that person as suspicious. And One was never wrong.
Clo unbuckled herself from the flight chair and let out a breath. “We’re going to die,” she muttered to herself, standing.
Eris pushed her toward the door. “How about a little optimism?”
“I prefer realism. That way, I’m less disappointed.”
“Neither of you are making me feel confident,” Nyx said as they gathered near the door and waited for Rhea to lower the ramp from the comm center. “And I wasn’t exactly enthused about this before.”
“Clo is being dramatic. As always.”
“We’re walking into the main seat of our enemy,” Clo said. “We’re completely unarmed, hoping a thin mask obscuring our features, some phony papers, Ariadne’s weapons plans, and Eris’s role as some scantily clad arms dealer will see us through the day. Even if we do all this, we might not even find out where the cargo came from or why Kyla’s spies are all dead.”
Ariadne tilted her nose up. “The files will hold up. Your DNA will match your identities.” She fiddled with some small square object in her hands. “We’re going to be fine. I make great stuff and my specs are amazing because I’m amazing.”
Kyla’s unmanned craft had come in shortly before Zelus crossed into the Three Sisters. Aside from the weapon components Ariadne had asked for, Kyla included a few small gadgets to help with their mission. Among them was a device to aid Ariadne in hacking into the Oracle’s DNA storage database to change Zoe’s identity.
Fear spiked through Eris. Did Ariadne know Eris was Discordia? Or had Kyla somehow encrypted the information? She looked askance at the little girl, but she was still fiddling with the component. Eris had to hope Ariadne hadn’t discovered her secret.
“Look, I don’t doubt your skills—” Clo started.
“Great, because I really am excellent!” Ariadne grinned. “I only hope you are as good as you claim.”
Nyx snorted.
“Focus,” Eris said, holding her breath as the ramp hit the ground. “Just so we’re clear: Nyx, you’re going to remain with me while I convince Damocles to buy our weapon. Ari and Clo: steal a security badge and find out about the rock.” Eris cut Ariadne off before she could interrupt. “I’m not calling it Josephine again; get over it. Here we go.”
Because the Tholosians had no God of Life, Eris only had one option: Salutem, the God of Survival.
Eris prayed they all made it out of this alive.
23.
PRINCESS DISCORDIA
Five years ago
Discordia should have known that training under her father would be worse than with Mistress Heraia. Despite the sleepless nights, the battle simulations, and the combat training, life at the academy had been easier. Decisions had been simple. Even in field training, where Discordia had killed her first Evoli soldier at the age of ten, death was always in the heat of a fight. A split-second decision. A sacrifice made.
Easy.
The Archon demanded cold rationality. Not mercy, no. Never that. He wanted whoever survived as his Heir to be feared, to be adored, to be a successor proven worthy of his throne. When Discordia killed for him, it was hardly ever in battle, though she did fight. Often. She had impressed her father enough to be taken under his personal tutelage.
The Archon had picked his favorite, even as he played at impartiality. He wanted Discordia to survive. Eighteen were gone. Thirty-two to go if she left Damocles as her Spare.
Discordia’s first major victory in the war against the Evoli came after a year under the Archon’s harsh lessons. She led the Empire’s soldiers into a bloody, fierce battle that won her father a resource-rich planet that would ease the strain of dwindling resources in their Empire. She was celebrated across the Tholosian Empire for it. Her icon was flown over thousands of skies, and her people rallied around her image.
For her father, though, it wasn’t enough.
The Archon had watched Discordia closely to ensure she would never be weighed down by guilt or sentiment of any kind. If she was to be his executioner—his Servant of Death—for every crime committed against the Empire, Discordia would have to grow used to the scent of the dead, the sound a body made when it hit the ground. One shot to the head, out like a light. Another. Another.
“Line them up,” her father commanded his soldiers.
They were on the battlefront with five Novan prisoners who had tried to warn the Evoli of the Tholosians’ impending attack. These rebels had been caught infiltrating the military compound on Solaris. Every soldier there knew them, had befriended them. Had never suspected the truth.
The Archon wanted them all to watch the execution.
All five in a row, eyes on her. Her father wanted her to meet the gaze of every person she killed. Always a test.
“Go on, Discordia,” her father said.
Discordia didn’t hesitate. She raised her Mors and went down the line: One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
So easy.
The deed was done. The God of Death would smile upon her.
But as Discordia shoved her Mors in its holster, her eyes snagged on someone in the crowd.
Xander.
Why had the Archon not let Discordia know that her brother was there? Her father’s gaze met hers and he nodded in satisfaction before striding back to his tent. No indication he was aware that his son was standing nearby.
Unless . . .
Discordia almost let out a bitter laugh. He didn’t recognize his own. Didn’t care. Xander hadn’t impressed him enough to warrant notice, to be chosen for the Archon’s personal tutelage. That Discordia had was both a gift and a curse.
Xander was taller than she remembered, every bit as muscled as Damocles. The similarity ended there. Where Damocles was fair-haired, Xander’s shone as dark and lustrous as polished volcanic rock. His skin was tanned. She recalled Damocles had tracked him to Vega but lost him after his ship had become overheated from the temperature of the scorching suns there.
Alone, Discordia reminded herself. Xander had always been alone. Had never chosen his second, and now it was too late.
Such an easy kill. Why would he risk coming here?
Discordia would have moved forward to call him out, but something in Xander’s features puzzled her.
What’s he doing?
He stared at the bodies of those rebels. The Archon’s children were taught never to have sympathy for the dead. They were the agents of the God of Death. His chosen.
They killed; they sacrificed.
It was in their nature.
His grief was so stark that Discordia flinched. Mesmerized, she watched as her brother reached up to grasp his scythe necklace. Xander’s lips moved in a silent prayer. A last rite.
No, they did not give this to traitors. They didn’t deserve—
Xander’s eyes snapped to hers; the sadness was gone, as if she had imagined it. But Discordia had seen. And it had sparked an emotion she hadn’t felt since the night she’d killed her first sibling.
That, more than anything else, was why she had to kill him.
* * *
—
Discordia gathered her weapons: two blades, two Mors, and a small boot knife that she had yet to use. She hadn’t been that desperate.
She had killed ten siblings to Damocles’s eight. They were always trying to outdo each other. Most sibling pairs remained together for protection, but Discordia and Damocles were often apart.
They had their competition. Discordia would gift the God of Death with number eleven.
Xander’s tent was alig
ht when she came—he was no doubt expecting her. The duel declaration had to be vocally made, after all. Sneaking up on a sibling the way one would in battle was discouraged. Damocles had, of course, disregarded such rules.
Discordia always gave her victims chances. Earning a win was better than stealing one.
She flung back the thick canvas of the tent.
Yes, Xander had been waiting, sitting on his cot with a single lantern lit. His military uniform was folded beside him, and he wore the threadbare clothing of a thuban, a low-soldier. Someone undecorated and barely acknowledged. The Archon called them cannon fodder. Why was a son of the Archon wearing a thuban’s uniform?
If he wants to live like cannon-fodder, then he should die like one. Damocles would sneer if he were there. Her brother came up with creative ways of murdering their siblings. He would choose something brutal.
Discordia’s fingers closed around her holstered Mors. She would be quick. It was the closest thing to mercy she was capable of giving.
“Discordia,” he said easily, resting an arm on his knee as he leaned back in his cot. “What took you so long?”
She frowned. Why wasn’t he challenging her? He smiled as if sensing her thoughts, and it was a strange sort of defiance. He knew why she was there, what she had seen earlier, and perhaps he hoped to lower her guard. His open, relaxed hands held no weapons. How could she duel a man who didn’t fight back?
Their gazes met. His eyes were disconcerting. How had she not noticed them before? They were gray, like the metal of a spaceship. Striking and pale and all too sharp.
“Stand up,” she commanded, trying to gain some semblance of control. “Choose your weapon, Xander. I challenge you.”
He stood and his tall frame towered over hers. “I think you’ve found me at something of a disadvantage.”
“Bullshit.”
They trained their whole lives for this. He had seen her earlier. He had all the time in the world to get his weapons ready—to make his choices. More than most of their siblings would have given him.
He held his bare hands out. “Empty.”
“Then take one of mine,” she snarled. She’d had enough of whatever game he was playing. “Mors or blades?”
He let out a breath, a short laugh. “Blades, then.”
Discordia slid the blades out of the sheaths at her wrists and tossed him one. Xander caught it easily, holding it in front of him as they circled each other. Finally, Discordia thought, feigning left, then stepping into a lunge. He blocked her, twisting his body to avoid the tip of her blade. He fought better than the last time she’d seen him at the academy.
Battles removed all complications. All questions. Kill Xander. Forget him. Forget what she’d seen. What she’d felt.
Swipe. Discordia almost had him, but his forearm came down against hers. He’d made no move to attack her. Not once. Discordia smacked her palm against his cheek, an insult from their training days. A reprimand a prefect would give to a child. Xander let out a small hiss of breath.
“Fight me,” Discordia snarled.
Xander’s lips flattened. “Why?”
Why? “Because you’re supposed to.” She slapped him again. “Because this is what we were trained for.”
“You don’t need me to fight back, Discordia. You want to kill me?” He grasped her wrist, knelt down so he could hold her blade against his throat. “Then kill me.”
“That’s not how it works.” He was supposed to fight for his life, die with honor. “You duel. We duel.”
“What if I don’t want to?” He asked. They were breathing hard. Discordia’s knife broke the skin of Xander’s throat and a small trickle of blood stained his shirt. “What if I don’t want any of this?”
Kill him. Her father’s voice was in her head, his constant refrain. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? Slide in the blade. Don’t ask him why. Don’t ask any questions about back in the square, why he said his prayers over their enemies.
She met Xander’s eyes and flinched. So many emotions she could now name: weariness, guilt, grief, trauma.
Discordia swallowed hard. “Those men out in the square today. You knew them?”
Xander kept still. “No.”
“But you grieved for them.” Discordia didn’t understand. He was like a puzzle she couldn’t put together, an unwinnable game of zatrikion. “You gave them last rites.”
“You don’t need to know someone to grieve for them.”
He said the words so gently. Had he seen her shame earlier? “We’re not supposed to feel anything for anybody,” she whispered. “It’s a weakness.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
Xander’s gaze searched hers. “Then why haven’t you killed me yet?”
Why hadn’t she? Why hadn’t she? What was he but some inconvenience, a corrugation in her otherwise smooth path to being her father’s Heir? It angered her that he should show up in that crowd, force her to question things, stand here so still as if he were some willing sacrifice.
Fight me, she’d commanded him. She had already killed five people today who hadn’t fought her back.
And it shamed her.
With a whispered curse, Discordia took her blade from his throat and backed away unsteadily, her hand finding his desk. A map of the Iona Galaxy was laid out there, topped with little figurines. The ophidian, the lavi, the firewolf—Old World animals whose DNA had been brought by the first generation ship to Tholos and reintroduced to certain terraformed planets. Every Old World animal was considered sacred, cherished.
Discordia picked up the firewolf, tracing her fingers across the wood. Were these pieces to Xander’s puzzle? Figures on their metaphorical zatrikion board? Discordia felt like a child again, trying to understand how the world worked. Her role in it. Her purpose.
“You made this.” Her words almost sounded like an accusation.
She heard him let out a breath as he approached. Discordia tensed—her fingers clutching her knife in one hand—but when Xander reached out, it was only to take the firewolf from her. “I made a lot of them back on Myndalia,” Xander said, studying his work. “My prefect used to break my fingers over it. The nanites healed them overnight, but I always remembered the pain.”
Discordia flinched. The Archon’s children were not allowed any interests that might be perceived as weaknesses. As too soft. Such things were problems to be solved. Discordia had enjoyed drawing. The small pictures she created on her tablet were erased daily, lest Mistress Heraia discover them.
One day, the prefect had. Yes, Discordia had her fingers broken, too. She remembered that pain of bones knitting together too fast, how tender they were the next day in training. But unlike Xander, she had never disobeyed again. She had conformed.
“Why?” she asked in a low voice. “Why keep making them if you were punished?”
He must have seen her vulnerability. Her control fraying at the edges. He handed the firewolf back to her, closed her fingers around it. “Because when I made these, I could forget,” Xander said softly.
“Forget what?”
“Everything,” he told her. “Everything they did to us.” When Discordia didn’t respond, Xander nodded to the firewolf in her hands. “Keep it, if you like.”
“I don’t need it,” she said flatly.
Xander gave her a slight smile. “Then bring it back the next time you try to kill me.”
“I have to.” Discordia needed him to understand. This was some fluke. Some moment of softness. She could not let it happen again. “I have to kill you, Xander.”
His smile disappeared. “If you say so, Discordia.”
She took the firewolf back to her tent. After putting out the lanterns, Discordia lay in the darkness with the firewolf pressed to her palm.
And for the first time in her life, she let herself forget.
24.
ERIS
Present day
Zoe Eirene-X-2 strolled with the confidence of a woman at ease with her life and the way she manipulated people.
Eris walked between Ariadne and Nyx. The skirt of the sheer dress trailed behind her, thin fabric clinging to her legs. It felt powerful, as if she were wearing armor.
No one looking at her would ever guess she wore the face of a dead woman, and beneath that was another alias. No one would suspect that the whole galaxy could have been hers.
Clo brought up the rear as another assistant, the kind of person Zoe would bring along for effect. No one needed three personal assistants, but the arms dealer had a flair for the dramatic.
At the entrance of the palace, the guards scanned her fingerprints and pricked her thumb to run her genetic code through the Oracle’s system. Eris forced herself to breathe evenly, to keep her heart rate steady.
Eris relaxed at the beep of the all clear. The guards bowed politely and ushered them inside.
The grand hall of the palace was comprised of millions of bones separated by the glittering blue lapis from the mines of Macella. The various decks ringed the edges, endless doors leading to offices, conference rooms, and secrets. Everything shone—the bones that had been painted a rich gold, the bright silver of the archways. All of the walls were etched in more scenes of conquering and victory of other planets. Over one hundred planets in eight hundred years, systematically emptied of indigenous life forms, no matter their sentience, and smoothed over to pave the way for humans and the regimented Tholosian way of life. The floor was made of burnished Tholosian marble, white with veins of black, silver, gold, and soft pink.