Seven Devils

by Laura Lam

“And if we decide to leave, we’ll be caught at the nearest checkpoint,” Nyx said flatly. “Great service you’re offering here to refugees. And here I thought the Novantae were dedicated to ending tyranny and promoting peace and love or some bullshit.”

  Kyla’s eyes flashed. “Do you want to know what happened to the peace-and-love movements? They didn’t even put up a fight when they were caught, flayed alive, and left in front of the palace grounds as a deterrent. I make the difficult, ruthless choices so we can still fight. If you don’t like it, no one is stopping you from leaving.”

  Nyx shifted, but Rhea put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Don’t. Not now.” Rhea sucked in a breath. “All right. I’ll take that offer.”

  Nyx turned to her. “No. We’re not going back to the Empire.”

  “We have to,” Rhea said, “if we want to start over somewhere else. If we really want to stop running. You know we do.”

  Nyx looked to Ariadne for help, but Ariadne already knew her answer. “I’ll do it.”

  “I said no,” Nyx said. “How could you even consider this after what the Oracle did to you?”

  Ariadne’s shoulders hunched. She’d told Nyx and Rhea some of what she’d gone through but not the worst of it. Never the worst of it.

  Nyx was only getting started. “The Empire treated me like I was just a weapon to aim and fire,” she said. “I wasn’t any different from the Mors in my hand. You can’t even begin to imagine how many people I killed. And Rhea”—she swung her head toward the other woman—“they treated you like you were property. They dressed you in all those gold trinkets and had you lay naked on top of the dinner table like you were a centerpiece. To the Tholosian royalty, we are things. Possessions. Dona.”

  “Nyx . . .” Rhea started, but the name caught in her throat.

  Nyx breathed raggedly, her hands curled into fists. Ariadne had seen this in other soldiers who had managed to break through the Oracle’s programming and then come to her to be re-coded. Mercenaries like Nyx were so used to channeling their anger into violence, or the Oracle would dampen it down deep, only to arise when they needed to kill. Nyx didn’t know what to do with this flood of fury.

  “If we go back,” Nyx said. “If we are caught, they’ll turn us into gerulae, if they keep us alive at all.” Humans so rewritten by the Oracle’s programming there was nothing left. Ariadne had helped craft the code.

  Instinctively, Ariadne reached out to touch her, but Nyx jerked away. The younger girl almost recoiled from the heat of it. “If you and Rhea want to go on this mission, fine,” Nyx said through her teeth. “But I’m not exchanging one set of chains for another.”

  Nyx strode from the room, posture military-taut.

  When Rhea moved to go after her, Eris stopped her. “Kyla needs to brief you on the mission. Let me speak with Nyx.”

  Ariadne sniffed.

  “You don’t know her,” Rhea said, frowning.

  “You both know her too well. And neither of you have been soldiers.”

  Rhea nodded once, and Ariadne bit the inside of her cheek. Eris offered something resembling a reassuring smile and went after Nyx.

  Ariadne sidled up next to Rhea and put her arms around her. It was still such a recent thing to have friends. Rhea’s grip tightened, pressing her close.

  Ariadne just wanted to feel safe for a few more minutes before she went back to the place worse than the darkest depths of Avern.

  19.

  NYX

  Present day

  Nyx was still breathing hard when Eris found her. She had sprinted across the whole of the ship to the training room, run the circuit in the gym several times. She was in a mood to punish her body.

  “If you’re here to get me to change my mind, don’t bother,” Nyx said.

  Practice blades hung from the walls—long and short ones, some curved and some straight. Each different weapon was from a planet conquered by the Tholosian Empire; the military prided themselves on learning different battle techniques to improve their training and their brutality on the battlefield. Each instrument was heavier and blunter than what they’d use in real life, but still deadly.

  In comparison, the rack of false Mors on the far wall were for newer recruits; they only left a faint red mark instead of a hole in skin. Easy for guiding soldiers so green that they hadn’t seen an enemy corpse yet. This room had taken every aspect of training into consideration. There were shields, ropes, and punching bags. So many ways to play at the art of killing. The air smelled faintly of sweat, disinfectant, and chalk.

  Nyx had already started wrapping her hands, wanting to punch that bag in the corner until she couldn’t think any longer.

  Eris leaned against the door frame. “I was hoping we could talk.”

  Nyx didn’t look up. She tested the wraps, gave the bag a few light punches. They were good. “Not interested in talking.”

  “You want to fight, then?” Eris said calmly, picking up strips to wrap her own hands.

  Nyx studied the other woman. She was so small that her head didn’t even reach Nyx’s shoulders. But it wasn’t even just her height; it was her frame. Muscled and compact, yes, but so little that Nyx felt like a mountain next to a boulder.

  “I’d break you,” Nyx said dismissively. She was engineered to break people. Big men, small women.

  “You sure about that?”

  Nyx wasn’t. She figured Eris was trained to move quick, strike hard, again and again. Tire out a larger opponent. Smaller soldiers were taught like that. Nyx had learned to expect it.

  “Tell you what: if you win, we can do all the talking you want,” Nyx said.

  Eris raised an eyebrow. “And if you win?”

  “You leave me the fuck alone.”

  Eris bared her teeth, a gesture too devious to be called a grin. “Deal.”

  Nyx waited for her to finish getting ready. They circled each other, slowly. Eris feinted first, a quick test jab. Too easy. Nyx barely had to move. She blocked the next punch.

  “You’re weak at misdirection.” Nyx’s breathing had slowed. She felt tethered in her body again. There was only the fight. Eyeing her opponent, finding their weak point, and hitting it.

  “Am I?” Was Eris . . . amused?

  What in the seven devils?

  Eris tried a few more punches. She was good. Fast, focused. She was someone who fought dirty.

  Nyx could fight dirtier. She darted forward, tripping Eris just enough to throw her off balance, then pushed. Eris staggered back, but her face didn’t even register the pain. Did she even feel it? Eris caught herself and moved forward faster than Nyx expected, landing a hard hit on the soldier’s forearm. Nyx’s very bones seemed to shake.

  “Not bad,” Nyx said, holding back a wince. “Where did you train?”

  Another quick duck, a double jab that Nyx just managed to block. “None of your damn business.”

  Eris spun into a high kick. Nyx ducked low, struck out and grazed Eris’s torso. Nyx prided herself on her prowess in hand-to-hand combat, but this woman was putting up a damn good fight.

  Their pace increased. Punch after punch. Block after block. Nyx grabbed Eris’s arm but she twisted away, leaving scratches on Nyx’s still-tattooed forearm. Nyx didn’t even feel it. She snarled, landing three good punches in a row. Eris absorbed the blows without a sound. Where in the fucking Avern had this woman trained? Why had Nyx never heard of her?

  Didn’t matter. Nyx had to be better. Eris tried to land a few of her own hits, but though she punched well for her size, they didn’t hurt Nyx at all. The Oracle might not be in her mind anymore, but one of the effects of old programming still lingered: dulled nociceptors. Her ability to feel pain was minimized. It was one of the few good things about having an AI mess with her brain.

  Then everything changed—it was as if a switch flipped in the other woman. Nyx w
ent in for a hit and missed. Again and again and again. Nyx’s speed had been lauded back on the training base, but Eris moved like smoke. Nyx would be certain she’d land a hit and strike nothing but air. Again. Air. Again. Air. Had Eris been toying with her?

  Enough of this.

  Nyx dodged another hit and lunged. She got a good hold on Eris and shoved her against the wall, dragging her up until her feet dangled six inches off the ground.

  “Enough games,” Nyx growled. “Yield.”

  Eris shook her head. She was breathing hard, but godsdamn it, she didn’t even look like she was in pain. Who the seven devils was she?

  “Yield!”

  Eris’s eyes narrowed and she smiled. What—

  She threw her head back, then slammed her forehead into Nyx’s nose.

  Cartilage cracked and blood wet Nyx’s lips. Bel’s balls, that shit hurt.

  Nyx staggered back, spitting blood onto her shirt. Eris didn’t even hesitate; she sensed an opening and took it, smashing her fist into Nyx’s face.

  Nyx fell to the floor. The breath left her lungs and she struggled for air. Eris straddled her, knees on Nyx’s upper arms, pinning them to her side. Her forearm came down hard on Nyx’s throat.

  “Yield,” Eris said, baring her teeth.

  Nyx tried to let out a growl, but it only came out as a short gasp for breath. Eris’s forearm dug into her throat.

  “Damn it, Nyx,” Eris snapped. “Yield before you pass out.”

  The small sound Nyx made might have been a laugh if it didn’t sound so pathetic. She struggled to stay conscious as the black crept into the corners of her vision.

  “I’m taking that as a yes,” the other woman said. “Don’t even think about hitting me again.”

  The forearm came away, and Eris rolled off her. Nyx sucked in precious air. She shook her head once, twice, and her vision mercifully began to clear. The headache was new and un-fucking-welcome.

  Eris settled on the floor next to Nyx, brushing her hands on the front of her jumpsuit. “I won. Now spill.”

  “It doesn’t count as a win if I didn’t yield.”

  Eris let out a short laugh. “You wouldn’t have yielded before I’d broken your windpipe and killed you, and you know that.”

  Smart ass.

  Nyx dragged herself up into a seated position. “Fine.” She focused on breathing in and out, forcing her heart rate back to normal. Her nose throbbed. She pressed the bottom of her shirt against it to staunch the blood.

  “Your nose is broken,” Eris volunteered.

  “I’m aware.” Nyx pushed the pain away. She’d get Ariadne or Rhea to help her patch it later, already dreading the way they’d fuss. Nyx slumped against one of the gray columns, the coolness nice against her sweat-slicked skin.

  Eris stayed quiet, her elbows resting against her knees. The dark curls by her hairline were plastered to her skin. She said nothing, letting the silence stretch.

  After three minutes, Nyx caved. “If you’re not going to leave, talk. Ask. Whatever. Don’t just sit there and leer at me.”

  “What, they didn’t teach you silence technique during torture training?”

  Nyx learned how to stay quiet under pressure or intense pain. Even prayers to the God of Death were to be made in thoughts alone, never spoken aloud. That was a weakness to be beaten out of you.

  “Sorry,” Eris said quietly. “I shouldn’t have asked that.”

  “Were you a royal guard?” Nyx asked.

  Eris’s face was blank. Every bit as in control as when she was fighting. “Something like that.”

  Only another royal guard could have lasted longer than two seconds against Nyx, and only someone higher ranked would have beaten her. Whoever this small woman was, she had body mods. They were strictly controlled, highly regulated, and damn near impossible to replicate outside of palace personnel. With a few exceptions, they could only be added during infant incubation. So, this woman had to have been a top cohort in the militus class, engineered like Nyx was for special ops. A lot of cohorts came and went—experimental engineering didn’t always take, so infant mortality among some groups were higher than others. Most soldiers didn’t know much about other cohorts unless they were young and impressive enough to warrant notice. Like Nyx.

  Nyx would have heard about someone who fought like this. A soldier that talented would have her face splashed across the vid-screens in the military camps to inspire others.

  She probably changed her face, Nyx realized. Then who the Avern was she?

  “If you stared at me any more intensely, I’d be on fire,” Eris said, clearly amused.

  “Trying to figure out who you were. Before.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Nyx considered that. Before meant being under the Oracle’s control, when killing came as naturally as breathing and eating—it was just what soldiers did. No thought to the matter until the day something interrupts that programming and you recall all the things you’ve done and think that maybe the God of Death isn’t a God at all but a monster. Something worse than a devil. And you’ve only been feeding it.

  “Maybe not,” Nyx said. “But if you were military, you know what they did to me and what they forced me to do. What’s the point in offering to erase my tattoos if you’re asking me to go back to the Empire that put them there?”

  Nyx unwound the bandages, letting them fall beside her. A few of her knuckles would bruise. She took out a heavy ring from her pocket. She always wore two, except when she sparred, and instead of slipping it back on her fingers, she rolled it along her palm.

  “I don’t want you to, and I’m not asking you to go back as a soldier,” Eris said, her eyes following the ring. “We can get you a shifter to hide your face. No one will recognize you, Nyx.” At Nyx’s silence, Eris loosed a breath. “Listen, I know what that ring means. I know that they give it to soldiers who survive to make it to the royal guard. And I know what’s on the inside of it.”

  Eris held out her hand. Nyx placed the warm metal band in the middle of the other woman’s palm. Nyx felt the weight of the simple, circular jewel—the cut blue stone that signified the highest honor among the royal guard, those who scored the best marks during training. The ones who earned the right to defend the Archon personally.

  Then she tipped the heavy silver band to see the underside, and Nyx heard Eris’s breath catch. The tally marks on the underside were so small, she’d need a magnifying glass to count them all. They stretched across the entire circumference of the band, leaving no space at all. Whoever set them into the metal was forced to continue the marks to the outside of the band, circling all the way around to the edges of the stone.

  Each single line signified an execution Nyx made during combat missions while training. Each one was a mark of courage, a sacrifice made to appease the God of Death, a ravenous, demanding God.

  There were more tallies on that ring than thorns tattooed on Nyx’s skin. If the Archon wanted a mercenary to kill in secret—to assassinate high-ranking officials or spies—then a guard did not mark their skin with the proof of that death. They carved it into metal that circled a finger like a yoke.

  “I see,” Eris breathed.

  Few had seen Nyx’s ring this close. Rhea and Ariadne didn’t know what it meant—wouldn’t think to search for that secret message of even more kills than the tale of her skin told.

  “They couldn’t fit them all,” Nyx almost whispered the confession. She took out the second ring.

  Eris swallowed, plucking it gently from Nyx’s scarred palm. This time, the tally marks took up half of the band. On the outside was etched Hear me, O Death. I kill for Thee.

  “When I took these rings, I was sure,” Nyx said. “I was so sure.”

  Eris didn’t ask, simply waited.

  “I’d trained my whole life, but I was eleven on my first missi
on. People don’t suspect a child. I made my first kill, earned my first thorn. I’d believed everything they’d told us, all they’d coded into our DNA. I was so sure that our war was right and every planet in the universe ought to belong to us. I believed every species not our own deserved to die.” Nyx took the rings back. “So, I can’t atone for these. I can remove the tattoos, throw these rings into space, but it won’t undo these deaths. Some of us don’t deserve second chances.”

  “I’m not asking you to atone,” Eris said. “I’m asking you for your help.”

  Nyx met her eyes. “Why?”

  “Because I believe in second chances, even if you don’t.”

  Nyx didn’t look away.

  It didn’t matter how much she regretted what she’d done in the past, or how many people Nyx had killed, how much she knew she’d bathed her soul in blood. Undoing the Oracle’s programming had been like cutting out a piece of herself. She still felt empty. She knew how messed-up that was. You didn’t regret a damn thing when you had it programmed into your head that you shouldn’t.

  Eris remained silent, letting Nyx work through her thoughts. Nyx wondered if Eris had thought the same when she left. Was there a void where her heart should be, or did something else eventually take its place? Gods, she hoped so. And she hated that she hoped.

  “All right,” she whispered, her voice ragged. “All right, damn it.”

  Eris nodded. She rose, but Nyx’s hand shot out and gripped her wrist hard. “Rhea and Ariadne are my responsibility. If anything happens to them . . .”

  She didn’t need to finish the sentence. Eris lowered her gaze to Nyx’s fingers. “On my missions, their lives come before mine. Yours too.”

  “So, you’re the captain, and if this ship is bound for a crash landing?”

  “I’m throwing your ass on a bullet craft whether you like it or not.”

  Nyx’s lips curved upward. This was different from Ariadne and Rhea. They were both good, heroic. And Nyx wasn’t good. She killed too damn easily. But this woman? They shared a background. Eris was just as bad as Nyx, but she was trying to be better than her nature, and that changed everything.