by Laura Lam
Rhea reached for her. “Nyx—”
“No.” Nyx put distance between them. “No. I don’t care what you do. I won’t tell anyone, but I’m not coming with you.”
Rhea’s face hardened. “How long are you going to keep pretending?”
Nyx didn’t answer. She started to leave the room. “Good luck and try not to die.”
As Nyx grasped the door handle, Rhea called out, “How many more times are you going to have to pull the trigger?”
The soldier left without replying. She figured they both knew the answer.
Too many.
* * *
—
Weeks passed, and Nyx remained stationed outside Damocles’s door. She avoided Rhea’s gaze every time the courtesan came calling.
Nyx didn’t miss the finger-shaped bruises on Rhea’s arms. Or how sometimes, when she was stationed to guard Damocles at dinner, the courtesan was again put on naked display, painted with gold and silver as if she were a piece of art. Nyx knew humiliation when she saw it. She didn’t blame the other woman for plotting her escape or her revenge.
Stop it. He’s your future Archon. He’s your charge. You’re supposed to protect him, not wish him dead. You’re—
“Nyx!” The prince’s voice sounded through the closed door. Nyx gritted her teeth as she stepped inside. Damocles was sitting at his grand gilt-and-mahogany desk. He gestured to the door. “Close it.”
Nyx did as he asked and bowed stiffly. “How may I serve you, General?” She hovered near the exit, but he only beckoned her closer, taking a long sip from a glass of dark alcohol.
Nyx tried not to let her unease show as she edged farther into the room. She was rarely alone with Damocles. Not in there. In the hall, the way he’d let his hands linger on her uniform wasn’t long enough to be improper, but not short enough to be considered impersonal. She reckoned he knew that, too.
Maps of the Perseus star system were spread across his desk, where young soldiers were trained in simulated battles. It had been years since Nyx had been there. The planets were frigid—deliberately so. A soldier’s mettle was tested through exposure.
Damocles refilled his glass from the crystal decanter and sat back, his steely gaze meeting hers. His eyes were bloodshot. “Have you ever played zatrikion?”
Nyx frowned. “Sir?”
The prince stood, the chair scraping against the hardwood. “It was a favorite game of my sister’s,” he said, moving to the trunk on the far end of the room. He opened it and took out an ancient, battered board. “She and I played almost every day in my youth. Sometimes until the early hours of the morning, despite how tired we were.” Damocles looked at her expectantly.
Nyx cleared her throat. “Yes. I played with the soldiers in my garrison.”
Damocles set the board on the table. “Play a round with me.”
Uneasily, Nyx shifted on her feet. “I ought to get back to my post—”
“I tell you whether or not to return to your post.” Damocles gestured to the chair across from him, draining the glass and filling it again. She could smell the rum. “Now sit.”
Nyx pursed her lips and, reluctantly, settled across from him. The general arranged the pieces, his movements calm, collected. Despite her growing unease, Nyx kept her expression even as he moved the first piece on the board: the Priest.
He said nothing as Nyx slid her Peasant piece forward. He returned the move, taking her Peasant. Nyx had played this game both with other soldiers and her superiors during war. It kept her mind sharp and focused. Strategy was the first thing to go after the exhaustion of battle.
But Nyx did not play with Damocles the way she played with her peers. He was a prince, her superior, and he could command her execution for the smallest slight. And so she held back, letting him take another piece, and another, as she pretended to think her way through the game.
On his end of the table, the decanter level decreased. The scent of alcohol in the air made her stomach want to revolt.
Damocles slammed his fist against the table, jarring the pieces from their positions. “Stop it.” At Nyx’s startled gaze, he reset the board. “You’re holding back. Don’t insult me.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes. You are.” His words might have been slightly slurred, but his gaze was hard as steel. “Move the pieces as you would if you were playing against a fellow soldier. That’s an order.”
Nyx exhaled and tried again. The game went on. And on. She began to fall into the role she did back in her garrison, advance and retreat, advance and retreat.
Damocles made rash decisions. Each piece taken drew a breath from him, as if it were an assent of his weakness. The decanter emptied. His tactics grew sloppier, to the point where Nyx could no longer pretend her choices were foolish. She had to move forward to win the game or he’d notice she’d held back.
Nyx took his King.
“Queen kills King,” she said almost regretfully.
The general’s gaze collided with hers. He was drunk, the whites of his eyes red. Nyx didn’t even blink before his fist smashed into her face.
He hit her again. Again. She heard the bones of her face crack. “How did you do it?” He snarled. “How do you always win?”
“What—”
Damocles’s fingers were around Nyx’s throat. He squeezed hard, fingernails biting into her flesh. Uselessly, she grasped for his wrist to pry him off. She couldn’t do anything to defend herself. He was her general, her future Archon. Hurting him was treasonous. As her vision faded around the edges, Nyx thought of Rhea and how she’d brushed off the courtesan’s offer.
I should have taken it. I should have given myself hope.
“Tell me how you win, Discordia,” Damocles said, breathless from hitting her. “Tell me.”
Nyx froze. “Not. Discordia,” she managed between gasps.
Damocles released her. Nyx sucked in precious air, crawling away from him even as he backed toward his desk, breathing hard. He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Damocles stared down at his hands. His knuckles were bruised, blood beneath his fingernails.
“Get out,” he said, his voice almost breaking around the words. When she didn’t comply: “Get the fuck out.”
Nyx pushed to her feet and fled the room, taking up her post.
She barely got through her shift. The other soldiers looked like they wanted to ask about her bruised face, the scratches on her throat, but she betrayed nothing.
When she was released, she went to the Pleasure Garden and sought Rhea out. She shoved open the door to the courtesan’s room, not even waiting for an invitation.
Rhea was at her vanity table, carefully applying makeup. “Nyx?” When she saw the swelling and bruises on Nyx’s face, she drew in a breath. “My gods,” she whispered. “What happened to you?”
“Doesn’t matter. How do we do this?”
“You’ve changed your mind?”
Nyx nodded, one quick jerk. It pulled at the blood caking her temple.
“I have a friend who can help get us out,” Rhea said.
“Who?”
“Someone even closer to the Archon than me.”
It took Nyx a moment. “The madam of the Pleasure Garden would help you leave?”
“She knows she can’t go, but she wants to see me fly.”
Nyx let out a breath. Fly. Away from all of this. Before Damocles could finish what he started and get her punished. She’d be the one who suffered. She’d be the one the Oracle reprogrammed until One’s influence was so impenetrable, Nyx would have no thoughts at all. And that’s if she was lucky—the only other punishment would be execution delivered at the end of a Mors.
By then, it would be too late to escape.
“What do you have in mind?” Nyx asked.
Rhea held her palms out, her
silk whispering in the quiet of the room. “I have years of ideas.”
Nyx nodded and looked out the window to the glittering, lit trees of the Pleasure Garden. She let herself feel something like hope.
27.
NYX
Present day
Nyx didn’t know how to comfort the other women.
They had all gone back to the ship in silence and returned their facial features to normal.
Once revealed, Eris just shook her head and went off to another part of the ship. Rhea seemed the most affected, having watched the Evoli’s execution through Ariadne’s eye camera. Sadness drenched every line of her body. Clo sat next to Rhea, offering her a steaming cup of tea. Rhea accepted it. She didn’t drink but simply held the warmth in her hands for comfort.
Nyx rubbed her own arms, fingertips trailing the vanished swirls of her old tattoos. What happened to the Evoli wouldn’t be marked on her skin, and yet Nyx felt like it should have been. She didn’t understand why his death bothered her. It wasn’t—
Realization struck deep. It was the first time Nyx had seen an Evoli executed since Ariadne had deprogrammed her. Now she could choose who to grieve, who to love, and who to hate. There was nothing to alter the patterns of her thoughts.
It was freeing. It was terrifying. What if she made the wrong choices? What if—
The bright light of the vid-screen jerked Nyx back into the room. Ariadne had drawn up her weapon schematics.
“I should never have made this,” she said.
“You designed it,” Clo said firmly. “I’m the one who made it.”
“It doesn’t make a differe—”
“Yes, it does,” Clo snapped. “Those schematics were just a start. I’m the one who filled in the details and made the fluming thing work. I—” She looked at Rhea, who had shut her eyes hard. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry to you all. You shouldn’t have had to see it.”
Clo slid closer to Rhea and hesitated before putting an arm around the other woman’s shoulder. Ariadne shifted her chair closer, until her knees touched theirs.
Nyx didn’t know what to do. She didn’t touch. She didn’t like physical affection, and she didn’t know comforting words. She had seen too much death; it was so constant in her life that the sight of it was as common as food on her table. Anything—any word she might say—only sounded tactless, dismissive. Get over it. You’ll see more of it. Don’t think of it. Push it out of your mind. Pray.
Eris was right: there was no God of Mercy.
Except that since being free of the Oracle, Nyx had begun to think more often that death and sacrifice were just excuses for cruelty. Worshipping these gods—and having beliefs part of Tholosian programming—numbed citizens to the horror of it all. Some people shouldn’t have to live with such daily brutality; they should have gods in their pantheon who weren’t so harsh. That they could pray to for mercy, compassion, love—things that Nyx was just coming to understand that she had a choice to feel them.
People should have gods who didn’t demand so much. Who didn’t take so much.
But Nyx knew of no such deities. Only the cruel idols she had been taught.
Eris came to the door of the command center, watching the trio with a detached expression. But when her eyes met Nyx’s, Nyx recognized her same longing and frustration. Wanting to be like those other women, knowing she never would be. They were born and bred differently, Eris and Nyx.
They were the God of Death’s chosen.
Eris stepped forward and opened her mouth to speak, but instead retreated.
Nyx almost went after her, but then Rhea lifted her head from Clo’s shoulder. “Let’s focus on the mission, please. I need a distraction.”
Thank the gods.
“Right,” Clo said softly. “Me too. Ariadne, do you think you’ll still be able to get into the Oracle’s mainframe when we get to the ballroom?”
“Yeah,” Ariadne said, straightening. “The commander’s key will work for the identifier, and I know the access codes.”
“How long before those codes are changed?”
“Every hour. But”—Ariadne tapped her temple—“I came up with the algorithm. The main problem is our identities. They might hold up for another check, but I haven’t had time to weave backgrounds that hold up for closer inspection. They’re not going to last through tomorrow night, if we’re not careful.”
Nyx let out a breath. “Damn.”
“Can’t you make time?” Clo asked.
Ariadne side-eyed her. “Sure, let me just pull it out of my hat. If I had a hat.”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant”—Clo waved a hand—“making our identities more secure.”
“I can’t do that in hours. Look, when I try to find out more about Josephine, the Oracle might put up defense codes to protect the information, but hopefully it’ll take One a while. That’s the best I can do.”
Nyx raised an eyebrow. “A while?”
“Days,” Ariadne said brightly. “Maybe weeks. I’m hoping for weeks before the military fleet tries to hunt us down and execute us.”
“Kid, you’re not helping.”
“I’m hoping it’s after we’ve completed the mission,” Rhea said. She was still pale, and her voice shook. “With new identities, we can escape the execution. I want to move on with my life.”
“And do what?” Clo asked.
Rhea considered. “In the Pleasure Garden, we learned a great deal about listening to people. I think I could help the Novantae with the trauma after war, the difficulties of leadership. And with deprogramming. Right, Nyx?” She gave Nyx a small smile.
“Holy shit. You helped Ariadne break Nyx?” Clo gave an impressed whistle.
“They didn’t ‘break’ me,” Nyx almost growled. “I wasn’t broken.”
Weren’t you? her cruel inner voice whispered.
“Okay, fixed you, then. I’m just surprised. And impressed. You’re meant to be”—she gestured wildly—“an amazing superkiller. No hesitation or fear.”
Gods. As if Nyx needed a damn reminder that she had little will of her own before Rhea and Ariadne. She still had the sleep recordings repeat in her dreams even though she hadn’t listened to one since leaving Tholos. Echoes of programming still slipped into her thoughts.
“Clo,” Nyx said. “Do me a favor: stop talking before you wedge your foot so far down your own throat that you choke on it.”
Clo tapped her lips. “Aye. Shutting up. Sorry.”
Rhea put her hand on Clo’s shoulder. “It’s been a long day. You three get some rest before the ball tomorrow.”
Nyx looked at her sharply. “What about you?”
“I’m going to make Eris such an incredible dress that no one will notice Ariadne leave. We need that intel on where the rocks came from, what they’re for, and how Kyla’s spy network was compromised. I’m not taking any chances, not with our future.”
* * *
—
The next night, Nyx fit the small shifter device onto the roof of her mouth and put her false face back on for the ball. She hated the features Ariadne had given her, but understood why the girl had designed them in such a way.
Though she couldn’t change Nyx’s stature, she’d altered the shape of her face, nose, cheekbones, and lips to soften her expression into one less hawkish, less jaded. A closer look at her eyes would show Nyx’s true personality, but if she kept her gaze cast downward, all people noticed was a tall woman who had been engineered to appear blandly pretty.
They had to move quickly tonight. If they didn’t finish this part of their mission before their covers were blown, they had no future. It was that simple.
Still, Nyx was overly aware of how vulnerable they were, sitting in the loading bay. Security was so tight that it was impossible for her to relax as she, Clo, and Ariadne donned the gowns they had or
dered on short notice from the palace’s dressmaker.
Of all the things Novan funds should go to, Nyx thought wryly.
Rhea applied Nyx’s makeup. “The last time I wore makeup,” Nyx said while under Rhea’s ministrations, “I was a guest at a ball on Macella.”
“Yes.” Rhea dabbed a touch of shadow across Nyx’s lids. “I remember. The night that started everything.”
Nyx swallowed.
“You look beautiful,” Rhea said when Nyx didn’t reply. “Even with this face. I can still tell it’s you.”
Nyx looked in the mirror and resisted the urge to curl her lip. “Are you coming tonight?”
“No.” Rhea bowed her head. “I’ve faked too many smiles to do it again.”
* * *
—
Nyx held her breath as they again went through security. They were surrounded by their enemies, people of influence in the Empire. The attendees at the royal festivities were considered the best examples of engineering the human race had to offer: most were military, but others were diplomats, governors, regional officers, magistrates, and other officials who kept each planet of the Empire functional for its citizens.
Each woman in Nyx’s group had been taken and analyzed against the identities Ariadne created, and when the handheld machine beeped its approval, everyone’s shoulders relaxed.
As before, no one had commented on the shifters in their mouths; over half the people there would be wearing the same to improve their features or be someone else for the night. Shifters could give their skin that extra glow, or make their eyes shine just that much brighter, their lips that much fuller. Shifters were as much for dramatic effect as the glittering ballroom dresses.
Though people took pride in the cohorts they were born into, shifters helped everyone at these celebrations show off for other genetic groups—for no one knew what was natural and what wasn’t. Did the Pollux opifex cohort really produce those with eyes so blue? And that lone survivor of the Orphne militus cohort that fought in the Battle of the Garnet—had they all been so striking?
