by Ada Harper
Sent by the Cloud Vault.
Lyre was still talking, her usual drawl veering, every so lightly, into pleading. “—but at least let me help you. I know the Vault, Sabs, I can—”
“You will.” Sabine’s voice was low, foreign even to her own ears. Her attention rested nowhere in particular. She was staring at the wall. She was staring through the wall. She was staring at the Vault. “You will help me. I don’t—I don’t know what—I’ll need time to consider what you’ve done.”
Surprise, relief, then unease flickered across Lyre’s face, fast as a flame. She knew Sabine too well to miss the breath of pause at the end of that sentence.
“Sabs, just tell me—” Lyre reached out. The calluses on her fingers were balmed with silt, making the touch on her cheek softer than it should have been.
Sabine closed her eyes. Once, just once, to feel it. Then she opened her eyes. “I want the Vault.”
Lyre’s fingers twitched away from her cheek. Fingerprints of warmth disappeared quickly too. “You want what?”
“The Vault. They’ve more than proven that they act against the interests of the Empire and have lost all right as a neutral party. They can’t be trusted with the technological armory they have.”
“That’s not exactly how a peace summit usually goes, Your Highness.”
“A peace summit doesn’t usually start with the assassination of an heir of an Imperial House, either,” Sabine said, drawing her breath and authority all in one. She pinned Lyre with a glance. “I will remove the Vault’s ability to do harm to the Empire. Nanotech, armaments, all of it. You will help me. If you are truly loyal, I assume you are fit to serve?”
Lyre stepped back and her chin went up. Her eyes were dark, glittering. No longer from unspilled tears but from calculation. The loss was enough to make Sabine’s heart ache. But that was Sabine’s heart, not the empress’s. Sabine would have time to hurt later.
“At your word, Your Highness.” This time there was no mocking added to the title. Sabine missed it.
“I’ll require a plan. But first I suppose we should let the good Lady Alais know that we’re no longer running.”
“And the Syn Prime Minister,” Lyre reminded. “I still don’t trust him.”
“I don’t need to.” Sabine smiled. “He’s being hunted, too, and it appears we’re his ticket off this nightmare. It’s an excellent bargaining position.”
She smiled, and Lyre’s eyes narrowed at her. Sabine wondered if she’d shown too much tooth, too much eagerness to be cruel to someone. It was the easiest way to ignore your own wounds, after all. Lyre knew that too.
But she just nodded, now all spy. Wounds would wait. “Yep, this’ll go great.”
Chapter Seventeen
“How delightfully ambitious our royal majesty is!” Alais’s purr was only somewhat distorted by the sound of screeching metal. “Kitra, do be a dear and separate that claw from its owner. It’s getting cheeky.”
“Did I call at a bad time?” Lyre asked drolly, matching Alais tone for tone. She understood the virtue of whistling past graveyards, and Alais whistled past most of her life.
“Just a spot of mortal peril is all,” Alais said. There was a bang, then what sounded like an improvised incendiary. Impressive. “We were making lovely progress until we ran into these dainty little moths—”
“Yeah, shoulda warned you about that.”
“—and met their delightful kin when they called them. Did you know a squid could mate with a thornberry bush? The theoretical offspring are just adorable. I should like to take them to mother’s next senate dinner.”
A staccato punctuated her last words. Lyre thought she heard Kitra grunt. Fabric rustled, the sound of bodies clambering and grappling more than the mic could filter out. When Alais returned to the conversation, things were significantly quieter.
“In any case, we managed to lead them on a merry chase and incinerate the lead ones with a clever toy Cian whipped up. Now,” Alais said, humor dropping suddenly from her voice, “what bloody fool delusion of grandeur does our fair ruler require of us now?”
“She is listening,” Lyre pointed out.
“We’re taking the flotilla. Or taking it down,” Sabine said. “I thought you’d be eager to endorse this plan, Lady Alais. To gain vengeance against those who murdered your dear cousin.”
“Unlike the royal family, I can’t afford to indulge myself with the idea that my suffering will somehow justify that of others. Revenge is too rich for my tastes,” Alais said. “But, for queen and country, et cetera, et cetera. I suppose The Liar has a plan on how four barefoot Imperials and a Syn bureaucrat are going to bring down a technocracy.”
“Yep,” Lyre said. And despite herself, despite the stew of acid and dread in her stomach whenever Sabine looked at her that way, despite her betrayal being out and revealed at the worst time possible. Despite all of it, her lips curled with a smile. Nothing was right but this—this was what Lyre lived for. “We’re going to let them do it to themselves.”
“How?” Alais didn’t even have the patience to sound surprised.
Well. She was no fun lately. Lyre sniffed. “The whole flotilla is a series of interconnected engine cores, yeah? Salvaged from old ships. You got that from the tour. What you didn’t get is how those engines don’t burn out from the strain and bring the whole thing down.”
Lyre began to pace, then stopped herself. She prided herself on holding still. Nerves would get you killed. The argument with Sabine had thrown her off her game. She felt exposed, rubbed raw. She folded her arms and rapped her points on her elbows instead. “It’s bioengineered, like everything else on the Vault. Heat-eating moss. Attracted to heat sources like engines. Attaches to the vents and converts the excess heat to energy.”
“I hope you’re not proposing we visit every engine on the flotilla with scrubbers.”
The flotilla was made up of several ancient warships. It was the size of three capital cities strung together. Visiting each engine wouldn’t be practical. “Not every engine. We want to keep the damn thing in the air, after all. Three should do enough damage to send the system into conservation mode.”
“What does that gain us?” Sabine prompted. Lyre glanced at her. She was all empress. A fortress of calm and assumed privilege. All empress Sabine, and Lyre missed her Sabs.
“Conservation mode will direct power to Vault stabilization—life support, lift, and so on,” she answered. “It’ll bypass usual security measures and dump research and data archives into a temporary stasis. The normal network is airtight—no way we could open a port there. But the archive is meant for temporary measures. It’s vulnerable. We take down that database before the system resumes and it’ll be a blow.”
“Their research surely has redundancies.”
“They do—but this is the Vault we’re talking about. Self-sufficiency is key. Data is archived near the central core—one of the cooling vents we’ll hit. Hit the vents, corrupt the data, get out. That last bit is really important, by the way.” Lyre saw how Sabine’s gaze went distant, calculating future moves and countermoves. “But this will only slow them down, mind. We can’t exactly make the Vault scientists dumber. They’ll be able to reconstruct the data loss in time.”
“Time enough for the other sovereigns of the world to come to an equilibrium.”
“In a scenario which suggests Imperial advantage is likely.” Cian’s voice wasn’t accusatory so much as impressed.
“Good of you to join us, Prime Minister. I thought you’d continue to leave all the heavy lifting to my people.” Oh yes, Sabine did not care for him at all.
“Unnecessary. Acquired weaponry with weight parameters perfectly in normal ranges.”
Sabine blinked.
Lyre hurried on before they could begin arguing over metaphors. Really. Politicians. “Actually, the Syn has a special part t
o play in this plan.”
“Naturally.” Damned if the weird man didn’t sound cheerful about it.
“I understand you came up through entertainment corp work in the Syn. Got your start as a minor technical consultant. Holo compression. Security.” Lyre studied her toes. Sabine wouldn’t like the next part. “Databases.”
“Oh,” said Cian.
“No,” said Sabine.
“You’re well informed,” Cian continued, a thoughtful tone creeping into his voice. “The system is zero axis based?”
“It is,” Lyre confirmed.
Sabine had become an iced presence at her back. When Lyre turned, she saw the glare that usually sent half the senate scurrying for a dark corner to hide in. “We’re not trusting success on a creature of the Syndicate.”
Lyre had expected that. She gave an agreeable hum. Leaned forward, just to see Sabine flush. “All right, Your Highness. I suppose it’ll be awkward, when we get back, firing the Duchess Olivia and all but...”
“Liv is different, as you’re aware,” Sabine said lowly.
“And as you’re aware, your available army has shrunk to a guard you don’t know, a spymaster you distrust, and a northern general you dislike.” Lyre ticked off her fingers.
“No offense taken,” Alais added from the other end of their comms.
“Were unarmed and inappropriately dressed—” Lyre gave Sabine’s formal slippers caked with mud a hard look “—and on the run from an entire flotilla full of geniuses with questionable morals. I should know. I was one.” Lyre bared her teeth in a smile, accepting the way it hurt to see Sabine flinch in response. Yes, well, no use pretending otherwise now.
Point made, Lyre stepped back to give Sabine room. “I know it’s a novel feeling for you, but you can’t afford the luxury of hating the Syn and everything it stands for right now.”
“We maintain a cordial relationship with all our border neighbors, including the Syndicate. You make your point.” Sabine’s expression didn’t say she was convinced. But Lyre was the only one who could see her glaring daggers at her. “Prime Minister, are you quite certain you’re up for the job?”
“After we sabotage the cooling, the system will redirect energy from the data networks to power, leaving the archive exposed. We’ll need you to corrupt the data archive at the neighboring node,” Lyre explained. She helpfully added, “And disengage the port locks on the nearest available emergency shuttle. Once the cooling fails, Sylvere will have a clear pinpoint on our position and have every excuse to send all kinds of beasts our way.”
“I anticipate that falls within my means of competence,” Cian responded, completely devoid of the irritation most people would experience having their honor doubted. “Primary knowledge trade with the Cloud Vault has centered around Syndicate communication protocols. Likely the Vault has incorporated this programming into their own system.”
“Well, that’s a fascinating tidbit of information I’m not stowing away to use in the future.”
“That will be an interesting eventuality.” Cian sounded almost amused.
It took a little time to go over the details—Lyre always disliked trying to explain a strategy once it was clear in her own head, but she’d gotten better at it after years with the Imperial scouts—and by the time they had a plan, a weariness had settled into her bones. Lyre clicked off the comms to find Sabine sitting on a pile of roots down the tunnel, methodically pruning the damned dog.
“That thing could be carrying an aphid transmitting our every movement, you know,” Lyre said as Sabine deftly untangled and smoothed down another tendril of leaves.
Goji gave her a reproachful snort and almost looked smug as Sabine continued running a delicate touch over her monstrous flowers. No, not her, its. Lyre refused to humor a creation of the Vault with more identity than she had to.
Sabine didn’t look at her at all. “Goji does not have fleas. All the more reason to keep her well-groomed.”
“All the reason to not keep it around. That thing is pure Vault.”
“I will be the judge of that, and I will not hold Goji’s origin against her, I—” Sabine frowned, as if she’d stumbled across an unwanted knot, and dropped her gaze. “I haven’t decided how I feel about the Vault’s creatures yet.”
It was a proclamation softened with something vulnerable. It made Lyre’s stomach drop. It was all there, naked and bleeding between them. Sabine knew. She knew. And...and now everything was over. Sabine’s pity didn’t soften that. Nothing did. It made Lyre want to cry, want to scream. She shrugged instead. “There’s a junction up ahead. We should get past that before stopping for the night.”
* * *
The junction was farther off than Lyre thought. To Sabine, it seemed distances had a way of stretching and compressing in the Vault; nothing was a straight path. By the time they’d found a forgotten little cove that Lyre had dubbed—dubiously, in Sabine’s opinion—“safe,” every muscle in Sabine’s legs was screaming for rest. Too much time sitting on a damned throne. This was why she left the adventures to her brother and his mate.
She left Lyre to secure the—well, camp was really too grand a word for the broken segment of steel and old growth that formed a shelter, but Sabine was too tired to care. She slid down against a warped pipe and squinted when something soft padded her shoulder blade.
They’d seen enough of the underworks now for Sabine to realize it was composed of its own series of tiny biomes. The muck clinging to the walls in this section of the underworks had a unique sheen to it. She reached out and ran a clump between her fingers experimentally. It was silky between her fingertips, nearly creamy. Like paint. Nature had made the underworks its canvas. Sabine could admire that much at least. Paint didn’t have intentions, just natures and hues. It was all about how it was wielded.
Lyre was trying to start a fire. The small flame struggling in the pocket box of tinder guttered. Lyre cursed quietly under her breath. The flicker of light played with the halo of Lyre’s hair. Sabine slid her gaze down to the flex of tendons that traced Lyre’s neck to join with, Sabine recalled, a particularly impressive back of lean muscle and soft skin.
An ochre, with a touch of russet, Sabine decided. Paint was on her mind as she wiped her fingers absently. If she were to paint Lyre, her skin would be soft, pale brown, deepened with ochre to play with the shadows Lyre was so fond of, but light enough to set the constellation of freckles on her face in relief. They would be charcoal, touched with a gunmetal kind of silver to catch the light. The same silver she’d use to catch the shiver of mischief in Lyre’s eyes. Subtle, there then gone, like a predator peeking through the fronds.
She could paint Lyre from memory, every freckle, every play of shadow and light. She could paint the scar on the curve of her left thumb, the dip of soft skin by her hipbone. The tiny lopsided freckle on her ass, though she hadn’t seen that since they were much more innocent. She could paint Lyre from memory, but the prospect of only memories hurt, like a knife between the ribs. She’d felt that pain a lot, lately.
“Report.” It was the only part of her question that was easy, therefore the only part that slipped past her lips. Familiar and hoarse. Lyre turned, blinking, and Sabine cleared her throat. “The reports you sent. To the Vault. You will tell me about them.”
For half a second, the light flickered and Lyre looked as if she’d rather face a firing squad. But a different look composed itself. Sabine didn’t like the self-loathing she saw there. Lyre nodded. “What do you want to know, Your Grace?”
Why. Why did you write them at all, what were you thinking, when did you write them, what did you feel, what do you feel, what—
No. Those were questions a lover would ask; Sabine couldn’t ask those yet. The chance she’d had, to be Lyre’s lover, after that coronation night, she’d rejected in hopes of something more real. It’d never materialized, and now...they were lef
t with this. Instead, she picked something expected, something safe and vain. “The first report, what did you say about my family?”
Lyre poked at the pitiful excuse for a fire but then appeared to think better of it. She straightened and found Sabine’s gaze. “The de Corvus family poses a significant threat to the Imperial throne.” She sounded distant, like she was reciting something. Of course, Lyre would have memorized her intelligence reports. Of course she would have. “House Corvus is old, rich, and well-loved by the merchant class. Should they be radicalized, the Corvus senator would be an effective tool.”
Lead settled in Sabine’s gut. This was going to be so much worse than she’d imagined. “You were assigned to us to—”
“Senator Corvus is charming and well-connected,” Lyre continued, barreling on over Sabine. “His mate, clever and the real power behind the House. The Lady Corvus should not be dismissed as a caricae, and is the more feared force amid the moneyed supporters of the House. The heirs—”
Sabine’s throat clenched painfully. Something must have shown on her face. Lyre flinched for a moment before resolutely continuing. “Galen, aged twelve, lacks the aggressive ignorance of most altus boys. However, under current mentorship of his aunt, General Leigana, and it is the opinion of this agent that his strategic acumen should be monitored.”
Sabine smiled. Galen had been such a softhearted boy. Her brother had been a big, lanky kid, but the only time he’d gotten into fights as a kid was over ridiculous protective impulses. Defending their House’s honor, squaring off with bullies. Ridiculous toxic altus nonsense, made all the more ridiculous the way he’d mope about it later, as if it were some kind of personal failure. Lyre and Sabine had joined forces early in their friendship to protect her sweet brother. Trump up his reputation until fighting became unnecessary and other children had begun to follow his quiet lead. It hadn’t been hard, and planning it with Lyre had been—
“Sabine, aged fourteen, beta girl. Corvus doesn’t hold with favoring altus children, thus Sabine appears the heir apparent of the House.” Lyre’s rote recital cut into Sabine’s thoughts. “End of report.”