Seven Devils

by Laura Lam

  Four. Five. Six. Seven.

  Numbers made sense. Numbers were easy. She didn’t have to focus on anything but saying them.

  Eight. Nine—

  Nyx pushed Ariadne to the ground and covered her with her body as return Morsfire battered the table. Glass from shattered vases cut into Ariadne’s legs, but she couldn’t focus on that. Any moment, the Oracle would be deploying another line of defense. One couldn’t risk Nyx taking out too many royal guards.

  This wouldn’t work. What would? Think. Think. Think! She shook her head as if she could rattle a plan loose. She pressed her fingers to the rug, focusing on textures. This was fine. Focus. Focus.

  Yes.

  Nyx opened fire again as Ariadne counted, her voice firmer this time. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

  Texture. Renewed focus. The Oracle would be filling the command . . .

  Ariadne scrabbled at her pockets, shoving two tiny filters up her nose. She’d brought a bunch—just in case—because she knew what Oracle could do. What One’s protocol was when things grew too messy. Ariadne grabbed for Nyx.

  “What—”

  “Just trust me!”

  With a soft swear, Nyx holstered her Mors and shoved the filters in. They both clamped their mouths shut.

  Not a moment later, the alarms cut off. Ariadne heard the hiss of gas from the overhead dispensers, and a thick haze blanketed the hallway. Down the hall, the surviving soldiers dropped hard to the floor, unconscious but alive. The stuff was strong enough to fell a Lacustrian sea monster.

  Quiet. Noise gone. The silence was like an embrace.

  Nyx moved her fingers in an indication to go. They crept quickly down the hallway. When Nyx went to move the way they came with Eris, Ariadne held her back and shook her head.

 

  Why couldn’t she think now that it was quiet? Logic had been her comfort in the face of chaos.

  Soldiers in gas masks hurried in formation through the thick mist of the hallway. Shouts echoed around her.

  They broke into Morsfire.

  Nyx grabbed Ariadne.

  They kept low, sprinting down the hallway as blasts dotted the walls around them. Was Ariadne feeling light-headed? She hoped the filters were holding.

  Numbers. Counting. One, she thought fiercely, her lips forming the word. Two. Three. Four. Five—

  The map of the palace emerged from Ariadne’s tangled thoughts. Yes. This was the way.

  Nyx spun Ariadne into a wall a moment before a shot sizzled the wall where her head had been. Then they were running again, their breath a roar in the quiet hallway.

  Nyx returned fire behind her.

 

  They rounded another corner, leaping over servants unconscious from the gas.

 

  Nyx snapped, as if the answer were obvious.

  Ariadne asked in shock at the same time Clo asked,

 

  A pause.

  Up ahead, a door opened, and royal guards burst through. Nyx and Ariadne ducked down and Nyx shot at them in a hail of Morsfire that forced them to retreat. Ariadne felt powerless, dragged along by Nyx, keeping close. She was useless. She couldn’t think her way out of this. If more guards came, they’d be trapped.

  The ones coming up from the rear were gaining on them. The Oracle was around them. In the walls. How long until One saw through Ariadne’s flimsy disguise? Ariadne wanted to cry, to scream—anything but this helpless cowering.

  came Clo’s mental shout.

  Nyx tackled Ariadne behind a cabinet just before their ship exploded through the wall. Ariadne covered her ears at the screech of metal, the crash of furniture and debris around them, and the yelling of soldiers as Zelus mercilessly barreled into the once-pristine palace hallway. Clo mowed down the soldiers who had been chasing them, leaving an empty hallway and a big, gaping hole to the inside of the hangar.

  Before, they were traitors. Now they were palace-destroying traitors.

  The latch to Zelus’s cockpit swung open. Rhea appeared, gesturing them inside. “Hurry.”

  Ariadne was trembling so badly that Nyx practically carried her into the ship. The door swung shut behind them.

  Clo was sitting in the pilot’s seat, her hand in a death grip around the joystick. “Got out of the way, I see.”

  Nyx brushed dust off her uniform. “That was an entrance,” she said.

  Clo laughed. “Well, we’re about to make one flame of an exit. Strap in.”

  Cato was sitting in the copilot’s chair. He returned their shocked look mildly. “Pray she doesn’t kill us.”

  Ariadne collapsed into her seat and buckled the belt as tight as it would go. She said a small prayer as she clung to the armrests. Nyx managed it all with a lot more composure.

  Alarms blared even louder than before, screeching through the entire compound and in the streets of the Macellan capital. Ariadne shut her eyes. Shit.

  “Tertiary protocol,” Cato said. “Oh, we are fucked.”

  “Be quiet, Cato,” Clo snapped. “Everyone strapped in? Good.” Clo shoved the stick forward and Zelus jolted upward. “Hold on, dipwells.”

  Was she really going to . . . ? Oh gods, she was.

  Zelus burst through the roof of the palace, destroying the entire east wing of the royal compound. Around them, the metal wings of the ship screeched through remnants of the palace, bones, wood, brick, and gold tumbling into the gardens below. With a rev of the engines, the ship jolted through the air.

  “Clo.” Nyx clutched the armrests of the seat. “I said break down the wall, not break down the whole godsdamn palace.”

  “I’ll take your advice into account next time. Shut up and let me fly.”

  Unmanned Tholosian military ships launched from Macellan hangars all over the city—One’s tertiary protocol in case of foreign invaders. In the wait for more soldiers to arrive, the Oracle sent up ships to attack and quell a possible invasion before it started, and to keep loss of life to a minimum. They were already getting into attack formation in the skies. Never mind the citizens below. No time for them to evacuate. A sacrifice for the greater whole.

  They’d be programmed to feel it was their honor to die.

  Do something, Ari, she told herself. There’s an answer here. Concentrate. Focus on your numbers, on your counting. One, two, three, fourfivesixseven—

  “Fly through the city streets to evade,” Ariadne breathlessly ordered, slipping her hand inside her jumpsuit to grab her tablet.

  “The ship’s too big,” Cato argued. Zelus was meant for a hundred crew. “Maybe if we had something smaller . . .”

  “Don’t remind me,” Clo said with a glare. “You’re the one who blasted Asteria into the aether.” She sped the ship up. Not fast enough.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Ariadne snapped. “Find the widest streets!”

  “Are you sluiced?” Clo’s panicked shout echoed through the command center as she evaded projectiles from the attacking Tholosian ships. “They’re streets, not asteroid fields, Ari!”

  Ariadne’s fingers flew over the tablet as she pulled up the schematics for the tertiary-protocol ships on Macella. “I’m
going to try to hack into the ships’ mainframe to turn off the Oracle the way I did for Zelus when I escaped with Nyx and Rhea. Since it’s remote, it won’t be for long, but it should give us enough time to run.”

  “How long?”

  Ariadne paused briefly to consider. “Thirty seconds.”

  “One minute,” Clo insisted.

  “Forty-five at most,” Ariadne argued.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Clo muttered, thrusting the throttle forward. She took a breath as the ship sliced through the air toward the towering tenements of the city. “Say a prayer, marshholes.”

  Clo dodged more projectiles and swooped through the streets of the capital. Outside the palace’s walled compound, the roads were more winding.

  “Left, Clo,” Ariadne commanded. “Go left!”

  Ariadne may not have left the Temple when she lived on Tholos, but she had memorized these streets and many others from the Three Sisters. She had watched vids from every angle she could, desperate for any exposure to the outside world. She saw, in real life, the gleaming cobblestone streets that were filled to the brim with markets and stalls full of fresh produce, baked goods, and glimmering fabrics imported from other planets in the Empire. Macella was a planet for the wealthy, and only the best foods, spices, and garments were shared among its people. She knew from the surveillance that the people had few worries there. Little fear of danger.

  “Go through the markets, Clo.”

  Ariadne’s fingers flew across the tablet as she accessed all those vids she had watched—they would help her now, just like they did then.

  With a swipe of her finger, she paused the live feed and turned every camera inward to face the bricks of a building. One’s dependence on surveillance gave Ariadne the advantage here.

  For right this moment, the Oracle was blind—and if One was blind, then One was distracted.

  Those in the markets screamed and fled as Zelus barreled through their pristine streets, ripping into the upper layers of the market stalls. Tholosian ships came in behind them. Their shots struck Zelus’s protective shield. Bang! Bang! Bang!

  “Projectiles detected,” the ship intoned.

  “You think?” Clo snarled. “Hurry up, Ari.”

  Ariadne ignored the panicked looks of her crew as she dove into the remote system. She had one chance to do this before the Oracle fixed surveillance, adapted to the invasion, and put up new protections. Worse, One would know it was Ariadne—her signature was too obvious; no one else had knowledge of the schematics for tertiary protocol ships. One would know—

  There it was. One had fixed surveillance and was implementing counterattack sequences as Ariadne dug into the code. Her breathing quickened as a clang! echoed through the command center and the ship shuddered.

  “Damage sustained,” the ship’s computer said.

  “Stop stating the obvious,” Clo shouted. “Ari? Update!”

  The tablet’s screen flickered as One attempted to shut Ariadne out of the system. But Ariadne had helped build this; this system was as much hers as it was the Oracle’s. She cut around the code, putting up blocks to slow down the Oracle’s processes.

  “Daughter,” One intoned. So quietly that Ariadne wondered if she had heard the voice at all.

  “Stop it,” Ariadne whispered as more images flashed.

  Her favorite programs. Her collections. Her room. One showed her these things even as One fought against Ariadne’s code, trying to distract her with memories of the Temple. Her prison. That lonely place where the only company she’d had was an AI that left trinkets as if that made up for her cloistered childhood.

  “Stop,” Ariadne said again, trying to work through the chaos around her. Another projectile hit the ship. More damage.

  She couldn’t do this. She was a failure. The Oracle was always going to win. Her shoulders slumped, fingers pausing. Why try? She wanted to curl up, close her eyes, and block out the world. Wait for the end. The Oracle would likely kill her and grow a new Ariadne from her cells. A better daughter. More compliant.

  A burst of blue calmness. Rhea’s hand was on her shoulder. Her voice drawing her from the storm. “Come on. Finish it. You can do this.”

  That touch was enough to give Ariadne a final burst of strength. She shoved through the images the Oracle had put up, laid down the code—

  Another jolt through the ship almost knocked her down.

  —and with a final keystroke, finished her attack.

  The onslaught stopped. She’d overtaken their navigation systems. Behind them, most of the Tholosian ships crashed into agricultural fields outside the city. There would still be deaths, but at least she’d diverted them from buildings and market stalls, which would have meant higher body counts. That would not matter to those still in the line of fire. She’d still helped cause that. Her fault. Her fault. Plumes of smoke and ash rose to the sky around Zelus as it sliced through another narrow city street. Don’t think. Don’t think.

  “Pull up,” Ariadne ordered. “Pull up now and prepare the ship for a jump!”

  With a whoop of relief, Clo shoved the throttle back and the ship tore through the sky up and up toward the stars. She entered the command for the jump, her face focused in grim determination. The ship shook as it prepared to barrel and leap into space.

  Rhea’s hand settled on Ariadne’s other shoulder. Ariadne heard the other woman’s voice in her ear: “Well done, petal.”

  Ariadne closed her eyes and sat back as the ship carried them to safety.

  Don’t think.

  45.

  CLO

  Present day

  The ship sliced through space, a speck in the darkness. The endless void of black surrounded them.

  Clo kept her head up. Eyes on the darkness, hands on the controls.

  Her crew stood around her, the quiet in the command center almost unbearable. Ariadne’s black skin was beaded with sweat. She was trembling and her eyes were closed, her lips forming numbers in a silent count. Rhea kept her hand on Clo’s shoulder, a presence meant to comfort but that only succeeded in making Clo feel numb. Nyx was impassive as ever, as if she hadn’t just shot dozens of royal guards to escape Macella—her old comrades. Cato was silent in the corner, looking down at his hands.

  They’d left Eris behind.

  There had been the perfect opportunity for Eris to betray them all, if she’d considered the possibility. But instead, she had urged them to save themselves, and Clo was fluming pissed. Eris was meant to be selfish, not selfless.

  Clo had accused Eris of not caring.

  She’d accused Eris of being no different than Damocles.

  Gods, the shame ate at Clo. She’d left Eris behind. She’d left her behind.

  “What do we do?” Ariadne asked, perched in one of the command center chairs, her knees drawn up to her chest.

  “Simple,” Nyx said. “We move forward and we don’t look back.”

  “We just left her there,” Ariadne said, her voice small.

  “So what? She asked us to.” Nyx clenched her jaw at Ariadne’s shocked expression. “Don’t look at me like that. Eris was the one who sacrificed herself. So, we don’t have Princess fucking Discordia on our ship anymore. Excuse me for not getting emotional. She’d be the first to tell me to cut our losses.”

  Clo shot to her feet. “That’s enough.”

  “Oh, it’s nowhere near enough, Clo. You knew this whole damn time who she was and didn’t tell any of us.”

  Rhea released Clo’s shoulder. “Stop it, Nyx. That wasn’t Clo’s secret to tell. Eris saved you back there, and you want to abandon her?”

  Nyx shrugged. “Maybe she wanted to be caught. Maybe she can convince Damocles to step aside, take up her place, and stop the assassination from within. Which isn’t exactly a bad idea.”

  “She would have told us,” Ariadne insi
sted.

  “Would she?” Cato asked from the co-pilot chair, with a pointed look to Clo. He shrugged. “I’d have kept it to myself. She’s the one who’s worried that Nova’s compromised.”

  Clo’s lips thinned. “She’s not you, marsh-hole. She trusts us.”

  “No. She’s just a trained general who earned her place as Heir to the Archon with blood.” Cato ran a hand through his hair. “I like Eris, or I thought I did, but she’s not exactly someone I’d bet on to choose emotion over practicality.”

  “Look,” Clo said with a sigh. “A week ago, I would have agreed. Now? No. She would have told us. She would have given us that much.” When Cato opened his mouth to argue, Clo cut him off. “Oh, enough of this. Ari, can you communicate with her? See if she’s still alive, at least?”

  Ariadne shook her head. “If he hasn’t removed her Pathos already, she’s well out of range.”

  Clo focused on the command deck. The stars outside the wide glass began to blur. Clo shifted her leg, the prosthetic rubbing against her skin. The last time Eris had done what she thought was best, Clo had lost a piece of herself. She waited for the anger to emerge and crawl across her skin, but it didn’t. After holding that rage for so long, she understood that it wasn’t directed at Eris for making that practical, ruthless decision to save Clo’s life by amputating a leg.

  No, that fury had been over a loss of trust. Over the lies.

  But Eris hadn’t lied to her. She’d saved Clo’s life—twice. Clo wasn’t about to abandon her.

  “Then we operate on the assumption that she’s alive,” Clo said. “We go after her, and we complete this damn mission. We save the people on Laguna.”

  “Why?” Cato asked, crossing his arms.

  “What the fuck do you mean, why?” Clo curled her hands into fists. “Is your programming still stuck? Or are you that heartless by choice? Let me know right now so I can shove your ass out the airlock.”

  Cato glanced at Nyx, and even she looked uncertain. Clo couldn’t fluming believe this.