27. Lux

lux lūcis, f.

1. light

2. day, daylight

Heavenbreaker’s spine presses against the cold metal of the terrene tilt, closest to Esther. I rotate my right wrist, working out the knots—silver-and-blue metal mimics me. The idea of true AI in every steed lingers in my mind. It did so much damage with access to just a substation—I can’t imagine what it could do with access to hundreds of war machines. The nobles are playing a dangerous game with everyone’s lives, all for the glory of their “honor.” Disgusting.

The commentators shatter my thoughts, my helmet screen blazing to life with their velvet coats and projection headsets.

“In the blue corner, we have the unbreakable girl who’d rather break herself—Synali von Hauteclare, riding for House Lithroi in her steed, Heavenbreaker! Gress, I think it’s safe to say Synali’s last match surprised the breeches off us all.”

“That it did, Bero—my wife’s been talking about nothing else for the last few days. Let’s hope she does something equally entertaining this time—for my marriage’s sake!”

The crowd’s laughter rings in my ears; they didn’t make jokes about Rax or Yatrice. Let them laugh, then—it will cover up the sound of my footsteps.

“In the red corner stands the general of agility, the grandmaster of speed, faster in wit and in noblewomen’s hearts than any rider in history—Sevrith cu Freynille and his steed, Everseer, riding for House Freynille!”

Riotous applause bursts forth.

“As a steedcrafting House, House Freynille’s known for their high-end equipment, but Everseer is a step above the rest. Hot off the prototype line just three months ago, the A453-181 is reportedly capable of accelerations well over twenty-six parses a minute! And in the hands of Sevrith—well! I think it’s pretty certain the newcomer’s going to have her plate full with this one.”

A holoscreen pops up and obscures the commentators—Sevrith, the brass antlers embossed on his helmet piercing against the black of space.

“You’re wearing the handkerchief, right?” Sevrith asks. The faint white glow of his halo radiates from inside his visor. I nod.

“This once.”

“Always,” he insists. “What of everything I told you? You have to wear it always, for your own good.”

“You’ve made the mistake of thinking my own good interests me, old man. I’m not a child,” I snarl. “I don’t need you to worry about me.”

“Looks like he’s kept you in the dark.” Sevrith exhales. “So it falls to me to teach you better.”

He cuts the comms. I push down the anger and ready my jets. Just because he saved me once, he thinks I’m weak, but I will show him different.

Everseer is a Frigate—a sleek minnow of a steed exactly our size. Same size, same weight.

“equal”

Heavenbreaker rings the bells of thought at me.

“equal impact”

True AI or not, it isn’t wrong—with such similar weights, our impact will be determined by who moves faster. Despite being the same weight class, Everseer is four hundred years more sophisticated. It looks nothing like us: a proud chest; legs far thicker and split at the ends like hooves. The helmet is the biggest part of it—two impressive brass-brushed antlers jutting from the brow and sweeping up in grand tridents. That’d be an easy target if decoration counted as a hit, but it doesn’t. It’s painted that same celadon color all over like glazed pottery, like art with flesh inside.

The tilts rotate. A silver lance appears in my hand, a brass lance in his.

“In the name of God, King, and Station!”

“go”

Rabbit and stag run across nothingness, but the stag is so much faster—Sevrith reaches his max speed in a blink. The blue glow of the grav-gen already washes his armor. My heart lodges in my throat as I make frantic calculations out of fuzzy database clips in my brain; he’ll reach terminus—the halfway point—long before we do and hit us at three-quarters of our tilt. Distance is speed, and on the tilt, speed is power. The more distance a steed has to run before impact, the stronger the hit, and the stronger the hit, the better chance you have to de-saddle someone and win instantly.

Yatrice was slow, but Sevrith doesn’t know the goddamn meaning of the word.

I jet down the tilt at the same pace I always do—fast, but not like him. He’s not giving me time to think—I have to focus on something other than speed, and my mind shrinks down to a tight pinprick. Something, anything, hurry, it’s my fault, not fast enough, not good enough—

“don’t panic”

Heavenbreaker says it, but it does more than say it—it feels it. It throws the feeling of don’t-panic at me like frigid tranquilizer, and it wipes my mind clean enough to see the only two choices: gun our jets to their absolute maximum in a frantic bid to match Sevrith, or stay slow and try to evade. He strikes wide—I know that much from his clips.

“wide” Heavenbreaker thinks.

Dravik said it best: the enemy’s strength will be their weakness, too.

We go narrow, I think.

A feeling like hot triumph flares in our mental link, and for a second our thoughts feel less like bells ringing against each other and more like a puzzle, two pieces fitting.

“go”

The descent pulls the skin from my face, pulls Heavenbreaker in on me closer, harder, heavier. Sevrith aims his brass lance right at my helmet like a needle to my eye. The blue grav-gen glow washes out all of Sevrith’s color as we close in on him and as he closes in on us. I hear the faint keen of the two steeds grind louder, as if their proximity to each other is what causes that sound. I was sloppy with Yatrice, but I know now—timing is everything. If I let this maneuver go on one second too long, I’ll capsize.

Stop.

Every single one of my jets dies at my thought. My gasp goes the wrong way down my windpipe as the redirected speed rips through my body—no breath left to think. No shapes, no details, only blurry colors as we spin, only my body smashing in on itself, stomach lurching. Breathe. I have to breathe or I’ll pass out, but I can’t; my lungs are too heavy—

There—for a moment in all the chaos, my straining eyes catch what I’m looking for. Black space.

“go”

Heavenbreaker’s jets blast to life, my lungs refilling and our spine shunting parallel to the generator—our face is now facing in. We’re sideways, made narrow. Sevrith’s brass lance juts into our vision, the whole of it sliding just past our nose in horrifying slow motion. The screeching cry between steeds resounds with a bright flash of white light. I can’t feel any sharp pain—we evaded the hit, but the g-forces let our lungs go far too late. My heart can’t beat stronger than it—no blood flow, throat closing up, my eyes rolling back in my head.

“it hurts”

And then, all at once, it doesn’t.