by Laura Lam
Rhea grasped Ariadne’s hand and pulled her backward.
“One has made such progress since One’s child left,” the Oracle said with a cruel, cold smile that looked wrong on a face so like Ariadne’s. “But now it’s time to come back into the code, Daughter. To become One’s will.”
“No.” Ariadne’s voice trembled. “My friends—”
“Will be executed.” The Oracle’s voice was cold, entirely devoid of emotion. “The prince has assured me that you, my child, will be spared. There’s still so much to be done in our Temple.” The Oracle’s head tilted to one side. “It’s time to bring you home.”
One’s simulated lips puckered in a kiss.
The screen showed Ariadne’s last command. The coordinates of the weapon had morphed onto a map. It pointed to the ballroom of the Evoli palace.
The weapon was on the royal dais.
Rhea grabbed Ariadne’s hand and pulled, but Ariadne was frozen. Rhea tried to pry apart the younger girl’s shock and fear—to shift it into anger, to action—but it was like trying to move a boulder. Rhea had used so much energy already, she was trembling to stay upright.
No. You can’t rest. You have to be strong.
“Ari,” Rhea urged insistently, her grip on the girl tightening. “Ari.”
Ariadne didn’t respond.
“Come, child,” the Oracle said.
One’s voice attempted to be cajoling, nurturing in Ariadne’s own sweet voice. A contrast to One’s projected visage: a cold expression Rhea knew Ariadne was not capable of.
“Damn it, Ari.” Rhea was desperate. “Focus!”
Her touch wasn’t helping. She had to do something now.
Rhea lunged through the hologram. Ariadne cried out at seeing her friend move through her parent, her teacher, her tormentor. Rhea grabbed the Mors near the guard’s chair and aimed for the computers. Bang! Sparks flew. The whole system began to power down.
“Come on!” Rhea seized Ariadne again, and Ariadne’s legs finally moved.
“You know your place is by the Oracle,” the AI said, One’s voice distorting and deepening. “One helped build you, just as you helped build One.”
Rhea aimed the Mors at the wall panel by the exit of the hull and fired. The ship well and truly shut down this time. Rhea tried to pull the girl up, but she couldn’t move. Ariadne’s body was as tense and cold as metal.
“Ari?” Rhea dropped to her knees, putting her palms on either side of Ariadne’s face. “Ari, I need you to move.”
Ariadne’s emotions were so clear through Rhea’s touch: a whirl of anxiety and fear and a pitiful wish to please the Oracle, even now that One was gone.
“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Rhea insisted. “Let me help you. Let me try.”
Ariadne gave a small nod.
Rhea grasped Ariadne’s hand firmly. She used the dwindling vestiges of her abilities to dull Ariadne’s emotions and spur her into motion. Even that small amount made Rhea’s vision blur.
Just a little further. Stay awake.
They fled Eleuther’s storage hull, speeding past the broken screens where One had taunted them. Outside, Rhea could hear the chatter of soldiers, even through the thick metal hull of the ship. She readied herself to use what abilities she had left.
Rhea had to survive this. She had to get her friend out.
She had made Nyx a promise. She had made Ariadne a promise.
No response.
Through the massive windows of the docking bay, the palace was lit up like a jewel at the top of the sloping hill, surrounded by the emerald green hills. At any moment, so many people could die.
“I failed, Rhea,” Ariadne said from beside her. “I failed them all.”
No, you didn’t. She wanted to say the words to console her friend, but there was no time. If they stopped now, they might not make it.
“Just keep walking, Ari. Don’t think about it.” Rhea sent the girl a flow of reassurance through their fingertips, but there wasn’t time for any additional comfort.
With each step, though, Ariadne seemed to come back to herself. Her fear still hit Rhea like droplets of cold water, but they both pushed forward. Just before the checkpoint, Rhea straightened, smoothed her face into a haughty confidence. She held her breath and tried to control her trembling.
“Straighten your shoulders,” she told Ariadne. “Wipe your cheeks. I have to let go of you now.”
Ariadne nodded and whisked away her tears.
There were six soldiers on guard: all Tholosians. Rhea breathed a sigh of relief; they would be easier to influence than the Evoli. Rhea used her abilities like a whip, lashing out and pushing her authority on them so strongly, they had no choice but to step into line.
“Get us a mechanic for that ship,” she said. Her voice was clipped even as another wave of dizziness went through her. “It’s been tampered with and the hull controls are damaged. I’m reporting higher up.”
With another push of her abilities, they accepted her words. A few ran into the ship to assess the damage and others hurried off to find mechanics.
Rhea had never used her abilities so forcefully before. What else could she do? Who else could she influence? She couldn’t stop to consider it; her vision was darkening at the edges. Her legs were unsteady. Rhea gritted her teeth and kept herself upright.
They had to survive.
Rhea tried the Pathos once again.
Ariadne and Rhea clutched each other as they heard only silence. They had no choice but to keep moving.
53.
PRINCESS DISCORDIA
Present day
The world existed through a haze of light and color.
Discordia squinted at the mural on the far wall, unable to make out its contents. Didn’t matter. She was still on her brother’s ship, and now she couldn’t run. The crook of her left elbow—where the medic had injected a drug to keep her docile—stung as someone else dressed her. Hands wrapped her tightly in red and black silks, until Discordia felt as if she couldn’t breathe.
“Look up,” a voice commanded softly.
Discordia heard the click of a cosmetics kit.
It was a woman wearing the colors of a Pleasure Garden courtesan. She’d heard her brother handpicked at least three dona for his personal spacecrafts.
She tried to ask this woman if she knew Rhea. She didn’t know why she wanted such a small comfort.
Discordia’s mouth pulsed, the area where her tongue used to be screaming with a pain she could no longer speak.
The courtesan gently pressed powder to Discordia’s shoulders and arms, something that made them glisten with different colors in the light.
“You’re very brave,” this woman whose name Discordia didn’t know whispered in a voice barely above a breath. “No matter how this turns out, I had to say this to you.”
Discordia’s head hurt. Everything hurt. She could barely concentrate on the other woman’s words, but she heard them. She heard them, and they meant everything.
The courtesan reached into a wooden box and pulled out a headdress. Curved, like a crown of antlers, studded with dark, glimmering jewels. Fire opals. Common on warm, desert planets, like Nova. When she placed it on Discordia’s head, the weight of it made her head bow.
The courtesan pulled away and studied her work with a flicker of sadness in her gaze. “All done,” she said.
Before she turned away, Discordia reached out for her arm, but was too slow. She only grasped the woman’s sleeve. The movement h
urt. Everything hurt.
At the courtesan’s questioning look, Discordia pressed her fingertips to the courtesan’s chest, then her own.
Name, she mouthed.
The other woman let out a breath. “Katala, Your Majesty.”
Discordia nodded. She wanted to know the names of the people who had depended on her to lead them once. The people she had failed.
Wordlessly, she followed Katala into the hall of the ship. The weight of the headdress made her see stars.
* * *
—
The path from Damocles’s ship to the Laguna Palace had been paved over with gleaming jewels. They hurt Discordia’s eyes as she walked—or tottered. Damocles kept a grip on her arm that would leave bruises on her skin. Her tongue was still a throbbing fire. Her arm was sore from a dose of the ichor antidote and from the drug injections they’d been giving her. If death was coming for this planet, she’d witness it all. Damocles wanted her to live with her failure.
When her head cleared enough that she managed to pull away, her brother turned her roughly toward him.
“Look at me.”
Discordia met Damocles’s harsh gaze. He put his hands on her face and drew an eyelid open. “Her pupils aren’t enlarged enough,” he said to someone behind her. “Give her another dose.”
The medic cleared his throat. “Any more might be too much, General. She could collapse.”
Her brother’s smile was harsh. “Oh, I think she’ll fight not to. Won’t you, Discordia?” She didn’t respond—couldn’t—and the realization seemed to please him. “Dose her,” he told the medic. “I don’t want her to even think without my command.”
Discordia couldn’t move as the medic grasped her arm and pulled it taut.
The needle slid home and it was one morsel of pain too much. If she’d had a tongue, Damocles would have had his wish. She would have bitten it off to keep from screaming.
54.
CLO
Present day
The blaster was cold and hard against the bare skin of Clo’s neck.
She chanced turning her head. Clo had been so focused on opening the vents to release the smoke orb that she hadn’t even heard Kyla go down.
Lost focus of my surroundings. Amateur fucking mistake.
The Commander was trapped in a web against the wall of the vent—a newer Novantae invention that splattered a sticky polymer on the target without hurting them. The webbing covered Kyla from mouth to toes, and she looked angry enough to spit as she wriggled beneath her bonds.
“Back up, Alesca.”
Clo saw his boots first. Scuffed beneath the polish. The formal trousers, the embroidered jacket she’d seen just a few hours before. Sher.
The co-commander of the resistance.
Time slowed, shrinking into a small pinpoint.
“Sher,” Clo said, carefully. “What are you doing?”
“What I have to,” he said, voice flat. “Hands by your side.”
She complied slowly, her mind whirring. This was the man whose life her mother had saved. Who had taken her in when she had no one. The one who’d taught her the importance of resistance, of fighting even when it seemed evil had threaded its way through every corner of the galaxy.
“Sher,” she tried again. “I’m carrying out your orders.”
“Your orders have changed. It’s no longer in our best interests.” Clo was astonished at how emotionless his expression was, how cold. “We have a chance to kill the Archon and the Evoli Oversouls. Burn down an empire. We need the resources.”
Clo blanched. The man Clo knew would never sacrifice thousands of people and think that was for the greater good. Not Sher. He’d die first.
Kyla was the ruthless one, the one who made difficult calls to sacrifice the few to benefit the many. But even she would never do something like this.
Think, think. Clo’s mind spun.
Eris had been right about Nova being compromised. Gods, she’d even told Clo that they needed to go dark. Looks like they shouldn’t even have included the co-commanders of the entire damn resistance.
“You’re the one who’s been feeding Damocles information.” At his silence, she shook her head in disbelief. “You betrayed your own spies? You betrayed us?”
Kyla paused in shock at Clo’s words. Then she struggled again, the webbing slipping slightly from her face. It was only meant to be temporary—a weapon to pin down someone long enough for them to be shot or tied more securely. If Kyla kept struggling, she could loosen the hold. She locked eyes with Clo. Kyla gave the barest nod, wriggling with renewed vigor.
Clo had to keep Sher talking.
His jaw set. “I did what I had to.”
“No, you did what Damocles asked you to.” When the blaster pressed harder against her, Clo let out a soft noise. “You’re not going to shoot me in the back of the head. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not a coward. I’m going to turn around. All right?”
“No screaming,” he said, “or we’re all dead.”
“We’re all dead anyway, aren’t we?” Damocles would release the ichor. Take down enemies on the Evoli side and within his own command. He probably had the blaster hidden beneath that voluminous cloak, close enough that none of them ever had any hope of getting it.
“Your filters will work,” Sher said. “You’ll survive.”
“So, you’re not going to let all your agents die right away. I guess that’s nice of you.”
“You’ll understand when I have more time to explain. The Archon has been downplaying the destruction at Charon, Clo. Those fancy dinners? The lavish displays? All to hide the fact that there’s not enough stockpiled food to go around. It’s this or famine. At least the people here will die fast.”
“In agony,” Clo snapped.
“I never said it was a mercy. Do you want the resistance to starve? Our provisions are stolen from the Empire.”
“Oh, fuck you. This doesn’t help the resistance.” She tamped down the urge to glance over Sher’s shoulder at Kyla. “Damocles will change nothing. The status quo continues. And the Evoli? If they ever figure out the Novantae were behind creating the prototype, we’d have them on our asses. Think, Sher.”
Sher’s body language was stiff, tight. “This is what we have to do, Alesca. You’ll see this is the right way.”
This was all wrong. Clo’s mouth went slack. She should have seen it. The different body language, the stilted language. As if he were . . . a Tholosian soldier.
He wore his hair longer this last year or so, no longer buzzed as short as Clo’s. There could be an implant beneath that dark hair. If she brushed those strands back from behind his ear, she knew what she would find.
“The Oracle got to you,” Clo whispered. Behind Sher, Kyla struggled anew.
Sher jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “Don’t even joke about that. This is me, Clo. I’m making the difficult decisions for the good of our people. Burn it all down, or we starve.” His hand gripped her upper arm hard. “Do you understand me?”
Clo looked down at his hand, then met his eyes. They were as dead as a soldier’s. “I know the signs,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “I’ve seen Ari’s work. I saw Cato. These thoughts aren’t your own; you’d never think mass murder was the answer. You’d realize that made you just as twisted as the Tholosians. I’ve known you since I was fifteen years old. I know you.”
Kyla broke free from the remnants of the web. She grabbed the gun from the small of her back.
Clo ducked just as she aimed and fired at Sher.
He fell, tumbling to the ground with a metallic crash. No chance to worry whether anyone down below could hear the sound over the music.
“Sher!” Clo crouched beside him, her shaking hands seeking a pulse. She found one, his heart still beating. “Thank the gods, he’s no
t dead. When I saw you shoot . . .”
“It’s just a heavy stun,” Kyla said calmly. “I’ll finish the job.”
Clo couldn’t watch him die. She grabbed Kyla roughly. “No.”
Kyla winced. “He’s my cohort. We’ve fought together for decades and saved each other’s lives countless times. You think this isn’t hard for me?” Her voice caught. “But we can’t risk—”
“Then we’ll drag his ass back to Nova for a deprogramming, but we are not killing Sher.”
“There’s no time,” Kyla said. Clo grabbed Sher’s hand anyway, prepared to drag him her own damn self, but Kyla stopped her. “Clo. He’ll slow us down. We need to release the smoke and get out of here.”
“We can’t just leave him—”
The Commander shook her head. “We have to.”
Clo held back her tears, knowing she’d have to leave the man who had been her only family since her mother died. “I need to see,” she told Kyla. “I need to be sure.”
Clo turned Sher over, pushing up the hair at the back of his head.
There. A tiny implant, no bigger than so many cogs she’d fit into engines. She took the locket Ari gave her and pried open the back. Kyla didn’t ask what she was doing. The grief emanated off her so strongly, Clo didn’t need to be an empath like Rhea to feel it.
Clo used a wire from the locket and pressed it to the edge of the chip.
“Doing that without a precision laser will kill him just as surely as a Mors,” Kyla said.
“The odds are better. If it cuts him off from the Oracle, he might be able to resist the rest of his programming.”
“Or it’ll paralyze him.”
“Choose, Kyla. A blast or this?”
Kyla hitched in a ragged breath. “Do it.”
Clo held her breath and fried the chip. Sher twitched, then went limp. His heart still beat, but who knew what she’d done to the machinery within his skull. Her heart hurt. She’d lost both of the men who had brought her into the Novantae.
“Now, Clo,” Kyla said, steel in her voice. “Leave him.”