by Laura Lam
The Archon’s gaze was sharp. His voice was so low, Eris barely heard him over the ringing panic in her mind. “I apologize for this upset, Ascendant and Oversouls. Sign the treaty, Damocles. It’s the future we must dwell on, not the past.”
Damocles’s smile was slow. The Archon had not cast him aside. Had not welcomed Discordia back with open arms. Had not made her the Heir. The realization opened something raw inside her, old wounds she’d thought had closed so long ago. She didn’t know her father could still hurt her.
Damocles slid his fingerprints across the treaty next to his father’s. In her drugged state, Eris thought they were as red as blood.
Damocles looked at Eris with triumph. “The treaty is signed. We shall have peace.”
The Evoli on the dais closed their eyes, pressing their palms flat to their chests. Even Eris could feel their relief that the bloodshed was over. The crowd burst into cheers. The clapping was only background noise as Damocles leaned closer to Eris.
He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Occidit rex regina,” Damocles breathed into her ear.
King kills Queen.
Eris was helpless against the command. She didn’t know what Damocles had dosed her with. She tried to resist. She tried to open her mouth to scream.
She couldn’t. Her body was trapped, rigid. Programmed to do only what he had commanded.
Eris reached for the carved chest again, and no one stopped her. She pushed aside the velvet covering and the metal of the blaster underneath was cold. She picked it up, her hands on the trigger. Stop, Eris. Stop, stop!
The Archon’s eyes widened. The Ascendants stepped back in unison, turned as if to flee.
The air filled with smoke, hissing through the vents. Reds, oranges, yellows. Within moments, the ballroom was hazy, impossible to see anything. Eris’s mind whirred, desperate to throw off Damocles’s command.
Ariadne.
Another name stuck to her mind. Ariadne had created a failsafe. How many shots had Ariadne said would cause the weapon to jam? Three? Four? Could Eris fire it at the ceiling, or would the spores release and drift down on the guests anyway?
The smoke made her cough. Eris fell to the ground, heaving, the weapon tumbling from her hands. She pulled up the gossamer undershirt of her dress and wrapped it around the lower half of her face, her ruined mouth, unsure if it would even help.
A horrible sound cut through the confused mutterings of the crowd. A hiss, a shot, a sizzle of a blaster.
Another.
One more.
The smoke cleared, and Eris stared at the frightened, fleeing Tholosians and Evoli through a film of reddish orange. Her hands were empty, the blaster four steps away. She had not fired it. She couldn’t have.
Could she?
Her head throbbed, her tongue was seared with pain. The world was still hazy and uncertain, her mind still cobwebbed.
The Oversouls, the Ascendant, and the Archon had collapsed to the ground. Their cries pierced Eris’s ears. Her vision sharpened and her mind was clearer and—
Oh, the God of Death would be pleased this day. He would have bathed in the blood of his sacrifice. The guards ran to help the Oversoul and the Ascendant; Tholosian guards rushed to her father, but the plague was already manifesting. The ichor spores had been released. They, too, collapsed from skin contact. Their screams rose as they fell to the floor and writhed in agony. Blood would soon slide from their eyes, their noses, their mouths. They’d be dead in days, if they were lucky. Most would die in mere hours.
There was no help for them.
Eris backed away, her hand to her lips. She barely registered her brother fleeing the room with his own guards. Her thoughts were slow, unfocused. Remember. What happened? Had Damocles taken the blaster from her? Fired at their enemies and then his own father?
Or had he made Eris pull the trigger for him?
Gods, had she killed these people?
All was chaos. Tholosians and Evoli fell. Their vomited blood covered the floor of the dais.
“Eris!” Hands turned her roughly around. Strangers. Faces she didn’t recognize.
“Pick her up, pilot,” the strange woman commanded.
Pilot? Nyx. Cato. Eris tried to speak, but all that came out was an ugly, strained sound. Desperate.
“Pick her up,” Nyx commanded Cato again.
“Wait.” Another voice. Eris looked down to see her father staring up at her. His face was streaked with blood. “Discordia.”
He met her gaze but could barely move. She saw the tiny puncture where the ichor had blasted through his uniform. Your fault, she told herself. As Zoe she had blithely mentioned, the sequencer could target multiple strands of DNA—and Damocles must have imputed both Evoli and the Archon’s genetic material.
It astonished Eris that such a small blast could bring down the ruler of the entire galaxy. He’d defeated whole armies. He’d seemed invincible. Impenetrable.
“A soldier’s death,” her father whispered. “Please.” The last word sounded as if it pained him to say.
Amid the chaos, Eris kneeled beside her father. I’m sorry, she mouthed.
He shook his head, shutting his eyes. “You should be,” he breathed.
And Eris knew he thought she was responsible—just as Damocles intended. Everyone had watched her pick up that weapon. Everyone was going to watch her stab him. Her father was going to die hating her. Yet here he was, asking her to give him a last modicum of dignity.
She deserved this.
Eris took a breath and slid the sharp pin from her hair—the only weapon she had. She plunged it through her father’s neck, piercing right through his carotid artery. His death, like so many of her others, would be quick, merciful, better than most of her sacrifices to Letum.
I’m sorry, she mouthed again. I’m so sorry.
Cato scooped Eris up into his arms. He fled with Nyx through the crowd of people heading out of the ballroom.
“Eris!” someone called. Eris lifted her head to see Clo limping through the crowd, Kyla at her side. Eris felt relief—their faces were their own. “This way!”
Clo pointed to a door. Around them people were dropping, dropping, falling like trees in a forest. So much faster than that first manifestation on Ismara. Honed into a weapon. Spreading like wildfire.
“I thought you said you were going back to the ship,” Nyx was saying. Eris barely heard them.
“I said if there was trouble, I would come back to save your arse.” Clo gestured to the fleeing crowd, the bodies on the ground. “I’d say this is the fluming definition of trouble, wouldn’t you? Now follow me.”
“Where’s Sher?” Nyx asked Kyla.
Kyla said nothing, her head down.
“Dead?” Nyx asked.
“He chose the wrong side.” Kyla’s words were heavy as stones. “I’ll explain later.”
Her words took a moment to filter through the discord of Eris’s thoughts. Sher. He’d betrayed them.
Emotions like betrayal and failure and grief could wait until after escape.
Clo led them through the door and down a hallway. The jarring movement of Cato’s body nauseated Eris. She still reeled with pain and remnants of the drugs, and Cato’s hard grip on Eris burned her skin. She was so tired. Keep your eyes open. Stay awake.
Clo took them through a supply room. She swept aside a window curtain to reveal a hidden door that led to the servant’s wing. They all hurried down the next hall.
Eris reached out to touch Clo’s arm. Thank you, she mouthed.
“You’re welcome,” Clo said, striding next to Cato. She reached into her coat and pressed a heavy cloth into Eris’s hands. “I brought your piece of junk. Apparently, this ancient silted scrap slips through security.”
Eris unwrapped the cloth to find her old, treasured blaster nestled in the center. Than
k the gods. The familiar weight of it felt like coming home.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
They all froze. Outside, the shouting began anew. Screams echoed in the night.
“What is that?” Clo stopped at one of the windows and swung it open.
Nyx was impatient. “We don’t have time—”
“Oh my gods.” Clo’s hand covered her mouth. “Oh my gods.”
Eris struggled in Cato’s grip until he wordlessly released her. They all gathered around the window and looked outside. There, she could see some of Damocles’s guards, out of uniform, forming a human chain to march on the crowd, attacking any Evoli stragglers uninfected by the ichor.
They were spreading the disease faster.
They had found a way to replicate Ariadne’s weapon, the failsafe useless. They’d made it look ornate, cruelly beautiful. The Tholosians loved making death into art.
“In Discordia’s name,” the soldiers shouted, spraying the crowd with weaponized ichor propellants. People fell. They screamed for help, to be spared.
But there was no God of Mercy.
Eris made a sound in her throat. Despite all of Ariadne’s efforts, Damocles must have reproduced it before Zoe came back with the updated model. He now had documentation that she’d invented it under the false name of Zoe Eirene-X-2 with the intent to completely massacre every Evoli. This would erase any doubt that she was involved, any doubt at all.
In Discordia’s name.
“We have to go,” Nyx said, urgent.
“No,” Clo shook her head, her eyes filled with tears. “No. We can’t just leave them. They’re using—” Her breath hitched. “Godsdamn it, this is my responsibility.”
“No, it isn’t. We can’t do anything for them, Clo. Most of them are probably already infected.”
“And the ones who aren’t?”
“They’re in the perimeter. They’re dead anyway.” Nyx’s mouth compressed into a grim line. “We have to go. Gods, I hope Rhea and Ariadne somehow survived this.”
“Don’t tell Ari,” Clo whispered. “If she’s alive . . . don’t tell her about this. It would break her.”
Eris struggled toward the massacre. To stop it. She had to stop it.
“Come on,” Cato said to Eris. “Nyx is right. There’s nothing more we can do here.”
The fight left her. Eris leaned heavily against Cato as they hurried through the halls. Her vision wove in and out, and she felt as if she were floating. Cato practically carried her down the back steps deeper into the palace. It was empty—everyone there would have attended the ceremony. They had all been commanded to. It had been ordained.
And it would lead to their murder.
The sound of running made Eris look up. It was Rhea, sprinting at top speed. Her arms flung wide as she crashed into Clo, nearly toppling her.
“Rhea,” Clo said, running her hands over the other woman’s tear-streaked face.
Rhea stuttered over her words. Her Evoli-like skin was glowing beneath the dirt. Eris realized the other woman must have felt the slaughter outside—the emotions and suffering of thousands of people dying. Her hold on Clo seemed to be the only thing keeping her upright.
“Ship,” Rhea managed, pointing toward the docking bay.
“Is Ariadne all right?” Nyx asked.
Rhea managed a nod.
Eris tried shutting her eyes. She could hear the death, smell it; she didn’t want to see any more—but no. She lifted her lids. She had to bear witness.
She deserved it.
Nyx fired at the guards to clear a path. Outside, the crowds started to bang on the heavy metal doors. “Discordia!” they shouted, several breaking through the shield of guards. Damocles’s people let them go.
They wanted the mob to tear their princess limb from limb.
Eris’s group sprinted toward a ship she didn’t recognize—Lysicrates. Cato secured his grip on Eris, and she hated that she couldn’t even rely on her two legs. They made it there seconds before the horde.
Nyx raised the door. People from the crowd tried to scramble up, their screams echoing in a cacophony of noise. Nyx shot at them, clearing stragglers as the door slid shut. Hands hammered on the outside. Shots from the guards skittered along the hull. If they broke into Lysicrates, the mob of desperate citizens would not be kind.
“Hurry!” Ariadne said over the comms of the ship. “Clo! Cato! I don’t know how to fly this thing!”
Cato sprinted from the hold. Clo stayed.
A screech, and the purr of another engine sounded in the hangar. Eris’s head snapped up in time. Damocles and his close guards were hurrying to their own ship.
At her side, Clo snarled, “That lentic spawn of a caiman’s balls.”
Eris shoved Clo roughly aside. He was hers. Hers.
With renewed energy, Eris ran for one of the smaller hatches. Clo shouted her name, but she ignored it. Damocles had to die for what he had done. She didn’t care how many people would see her do it. He had already made her look like a villainess, a traitor. Let her be guilty for ending him. What would his death change? Nothing. Nothing.
Everything.
She opened the hatch and dropped to the ground, crawling forward on hands and knees with her blaster gripped in a sweaty palm. Damocles had almost reached his ship. She could see his feet. This was Eris’s last chance, and she wanted him to know it was her. Pain seared at the base of her tongue like Morsfire.
She emerged on the left side of the ship. As she broke cover, Eris screamed. It sounded almost strangled, her rage so thick she could have choked on it.
Damocles stopped and looked over his shoulder at her.
His mistake.
With the drug pulsing through Eris’s system, she could still feel him curled through the edges of her mind. She pushed back. Long ago, she had told him emotion was a weakness. But she was wrong. It made her stronger.
And he was no match.
Eris pointed her blaster and pulled the trigger.
The blast curved. It traveled through the air between them. On target. Perfect.
She shot Damocles right through the eye.
As Damocles fell, memories burst through Eris’s mind. Her brother’s face, younger, less twisted with hatred. His intense concentration as they played a game of war and he decided his next move on the board. She remembered his first kill, the one she took from him. She remembered being forced to take Xander, too. She remembered every brother she killed.
Damocles was the last name on her list.
Clo reached Eris, dragging her back toward the hatch as guards shot at them. Below the ship, Damocles’s body was still visible, his face toward them, his eye weeping crimson.
“You did it,” Clo said, breathless. “You fucking did it.”
Eris tried to pull away from Clo. She had to be sure. His mods could take so much damage—too much. His guards were already dragging him to safety. She had to finish him off, now. She had to.
Nyx roughly hauled her up through the hatch. “We have to go.”
Eris bucked against Nyx’s hold, but the other woman held tight. She let out a cry, strangled, but the drugs were still in her system. She wasn’t strong enough to overpower the larger woman as Nyx pulled her deeper into the hold.
She was already losing consciousness as Clo told everyone that Damocles was dead.
But Eris knew better. She could feel it in her bones.
Damocles was still alive, and he was going to make them all pay.
57.
NYX
Present day
Nyx watched as Cato tended to everyone’s wounds.
She sat, curled up in the corner, with the biggest damn glass of hooch she could find—they’d emptied the supplies off Lysicrates before returning to Zelus.
Zelus was their ship. They’d made it a home.
In the corner of the room, Eris was still passed out and attached to the monitors as the drugs left her system. She’d come out of this the worst by far.
Or—maybe the resistance had. After Sher’s betrayal, the Novantae were fucked. Completely burned. All their secrets out there for the Oracle to sift through. Ariadne had set up an encrypted line, and the rebels were packing up and leaving Nova. Many were going dark. Their small rebellion had become even smaller.
After all her scheming, Nyx would never set foot on Nova sand in the end. It upset her in a way she didn’t understand—the lost potential. That plan she, Rhea, and Ariadne had worked for over the course of a year. A life she could have lived, but would never happen.
Now it would be something else.
Or maybe nothing at all.
Nyx downed more hooch. The world was getting a little softer around the edges. Her senses dulled. Her mind was less sharp.
It made it easier to deal with the pain.
“What are you going to do about her wounds?” Nyx asked Cato, tilting her chin at Eris.
“Stabilize for now. Let her heal. If she wants the face she wore in the resistance, between me and Ari, we could manage. Not so sure about the tongue.”
“If she got it back, I wonder what she’d say,” Nyx said.
“She’d have a few choice swear words, that’s for damn sure,” Cato said, with an easy smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“No going back from here, pilot,” Nyx said. “You’re stuck with the most wanted crew in the Iona Galaxy, blamed for the deaths of thousands.” She raised her glass. “Cheers to a clusterfuck.”
Guilt flashed in Cato’s features, but he shook his head. “At least the rest of Laguna was able to evacuate. No one outside of the perimeter was infected and the spores were contained in the spharias. We saved close to a million lives, plus the millions off planet. All of the Evoli, many Tholosians. That’s not nothing.”
Nyx found a smile. “Silver lining. Well done.”
Nyx went up to the top of the ship, a small room that reminded her of her barracks back on Tholos. She could look straight up through a porthole at the stars above.
