33. Consummo

consummō ~āre ~āuī ~ātum, tr.

1. to add up

2. to bring to an end

When I wake, the second lion is dead.

Her name was Palissa Trask-Hauteclare, my aunt by blood. Blue eyes, graying hair, a statuesque nose. Dignified. She did extensive charity work for Low Ward; programs to feed us, clothe us—even got a medal from the king for it. I stood in line a dozen times for her soup, used it to stay alive after Mother died. Palissa kept me going—she kept many people in Low Ward going.

Palissa used her connections in Low Ward to track down where Mother and I lived. Her encrypted messages to Father burn in my eyes.

PALISSA: Worry not, Farris. I’ll find her and her kit—I know all the grimy little foxholes their kind hide in.

There’s no news on her death—no exploding generators on substations, no corporate tyrants crying false. Dravik simply sends the log between her and Father and then a picture—graying hair spilling off a detached head, limbs laid out beside each other on a dim metal table: Palissa Trask-Hauteclare in six elegant pieces. No blood, just flesh, like prepared meat in a butcher’s shop. His follow-up ping is immediate.

DRAVIK: Apologies, Synali. My associate forgot picture proof earlier than the disposal stage. It will not happen again.

Palissa’s severed throat is pinkish gray and bloodless but still hollow, still human on the inside. Something in my brain has been shaken loose by Sevrith. By Heavenbreaker. Breathe. You wanted this evidence. You wanted this. Repeat it hard, repeat it true: Palissa Trask-Hauteclare killed your mother and tried to kill you. She would do it again. Reach for the diamond necklace on the armoire, dig into the marble wall. Five circles left.

“If all your enemies were gone, Synali, what would you do?”

At first, I think Jeria’s failed. Her module doesn’t come through. Dravik is gone, and I glower at his empty seat at the breakfast table even as Quilliam tucks a kerchief away from his seemingly eternally dripping nose and beams.

“The master is a very busy man, just like his mother. She was always tinkering with some machine or other.”

I quirk a brow. “You knew Queen Astrix?”

“I have served at the Lithroi manse my whole life. I was very fortunate to have watched her grow into the finest of young women. And then…”

I start forward in my chair. “And then?”

He shakes his head. “I-I’m sorry, miss. I’m afraid my memory is not what it used to be.”

“She died, right? Suicide.”

Quilliam blinks his watery eyes. “Suicide? Oh no, Miss Astrix would never do anything of the sort.”

“Then she was executed publicly?”

“No—she chose to overload.”

My fork screeches clear through the ham shank and over the plate. “She was a rider?”

Quilliam’s smile returns as he pours me more pomegranate juice. “Oh yes—a very good one. Gained much respect from her peers and commonfolk alike with her bravery on the field and her prowess with machines off it. She repaired her own steed alongside the best engineers.”

“Which steed did she ride?”

The manservant rearranges his cuffs with knobby fingers. “I’m sorry, miss—there were many. I can only remember the one after her marriage to Prince Yarrow—forgive me—His Majesty. It was called Hellrunner.”

The same one Dravik said he rode—the Ressinimus steed, the symbol of their right to rule. Despite it being passed down through the royal line, the database info on it is scarce—it’s only been ridden a handful of times during important tourneys, and very rarely in the Supernova Cup.

My eyes slide up to the vis in the sitting room playing the aftermath of Rax’s third match, his face sweating and proud as he takes his helmet off for the king. It’s easier to look at him on screen—my body doesn’t react as fiercely. Safer. In control.

The only thing I know about Hellrunner is that it’s an A4—the generation after Heavenbreaker’s. A steed from the War. Why would the king want an old War steed when he could have his pick of the sleek modern marvels? I down juice and try to scrape together a thought and finally a question falls, cold with dread, off my lips:

“Which steed did Astrix overload in, Quilliam?”

He smiles sadly. “Why, yours, miss. Heavenbreaker.”

Quilliam’s plaintive cries of “Miss, please, your meal!” trail after me as I stride to the foyer, throwing on a coat and crunching across gravel and diving into the idling hovercarriage. Does the saddle preserve those who overload in it? Is that why I saw Astrix when I blacked out? Or is Heavenbreaker… I don’t have answers, but another rider might.

The crowd outside the tourney hall is frenetic. I barely make it through them, elbows in my ribs and eardrum-bursting screams until someone recognizes me—“SYNALI! SYNALI! SYNALI’S HERE!”—and thrusts an autograph book my way. Only then does the throng thin, a perfect aisle lined with half glares and half cheers, and I press on into the depths of the hall, past the security, past the bio-locks that open to my registered vis, and to the shower room choked with steam. It’s a beautiful place to wash off the dark stains of honor. Angels are carved in silver spouts, pearl handles for wings and water pouring out of their singing mouths. Humidity prickles at my face as I search between the stalls. He just won his match. 3-0. Again. He has to wash the blood and makeup and sweat off before greeting the swarming reporters and fans outside—we all do.

The smell of soap catches my nose: honeyed tea, fresh trees—scents I didn’t know before Mother died. It’s pleasant. And I despise it. I follow it to a broad back gleaming in the steam, riveted by muscle and bone and a spine carving through mist, white-blond hair hanging long and wet down his nape. I point.

“You.”

“Holy fucking sh—” Every muscle in Rax’s back seizes as he yanks the water off and whirls around, lion-bone face dripping frenzy and panic and water. “What’reyoudo—how—”

He looks down at himself. I don’t. “I have questions. And you’re going to answer them.”

“You can’t just—” He blinks away water, scrabbling for the towel draped over the stall wall and wrapping it about his waist. “This isn’t exactly polite, you know.”

“I don’t care for polite. Does your steed talk to you?”

Rax sputters. “Is that… Are you… Is that seriously your question? You barged in on me naked to ask—”

“Answer me.”

His uneasy laugh rumbles around the marble. “I mean, it makes this loud noise when the joints get rusty that kind of sounds like ‘help me’—”

“Does it learn new words?”

Rax’s smile fades. “You’re not joking.”

“Do I look like a joke to you?”

“No—that’s not—”

“When you black out in the saddle, do you see things?”

“What things, exactly?”

“Someone else’s memories.”

A quiet. He shifts his weight on the wet floor. “Maybe don’t ask anyone else that, yeah? It makes you sound like you’ve gone off the deep end.”

“Answer the question or stop wasting my time.”

“In case you forgot, Hauteclare, you were the one who barged in on me and demanded my time.”

I glare up at him. He stares defiantly back, black brow and redwood eyes. The steam collects on my throat, under my shirt, between my breasts—sticky, cloying, suffocating. The soap smell is everywhere, his smell is everywhere, and something in me won’t stop reaching for it, claw-hands and claw-teeth and curling tongue. Hungry. Dangerous. Why the hell did I come here? I could’ve asked anyone but him… No. I’m not on speaking terms with any other riders.

“That’s a no, then,” I manage. “On your steed talking.”

“Definitely no. There’s the mental link between you and the metal, but that’s for haptic feedback. You worry about two things in the saddle—overload and your opponent. That’s it. No memories. No words. No nothing.”

“You’ve never felt something in there with you? In the saddle?”

“Well, yeah. But that’s the feedback program mirroring your synaptic response…or something. Never paid attention in steedcraft class—As on all my practicals, though. Not to brag.”

My gaze narrows, dew clinging to eyelashes. He’s not lying.

I don’t even have to try to pierce him; he wears his emotions on his face with disgusting straightforwardness—never had to hide, never had to run. Ads, talk shows, the spotlight; he’s been loved, not hunted. I see memories. He doesn’t. My steed talks to me. His doesn’t. I don’t know anything, but I know the thing in my saddle is not just a feedback program—it’s something more advanced. Something that remembers. If he doesn’t hear his steed talk, maybe true AI isn’t in every steed. Did Astrix modify Heavenbreaker? Was she the one who put true AI in it, not Dravik?

My vis suddenly receives a ping, the sound bouncing around the marble. I look down—finally, it’s Jeria’s module. Dravik’s back, and he’s accessed the systems. One hundred and twenty seconds is all I’ll have, but I can choose when to spring the trap closed at my leisure. I turn to leave.

“Could we—” Rax cuts himself off. “Do you want to practice together sometime?”

“Practicing with a fellow participant is forbidden after the Cup begins,” I recite.

I hear his smile. “Yeah. But I wouldn’t mind bending the rules for you.”

I learned so much just by watching him destroy the dummy. A real scrimmage against him would be invaluable. Temptation, then realization: he has nothing to lose. He’s already destined to be the winner of this tourney. Someone as talented as him…I’m sure even if he was caught with me, they’d find some loophole so he could still compete. But the nobles are waiting on tenterhooks for the smallest excuse to cut me from the Cup. Even suggesting we fight means he’s either ignorant or purposely trying to get me kicked.

“I have no interest in spending any more time with you than is required.”

“Because you hate me,” Rax ascertains.

“You think you’re special in my hate?” I laugh, the sound ridiculous and bitter. “You’ve been straightforward with me when no other noble has, and so I will return the favor this once.”

I look over my shoulder with ice and salt, blood and throats, fire and truth.

“I hate all of you.”

Mirelle Ashadi-Hauteclare is on another talk show, just after a chorus star’s concert. She’s prettier than the chorus star by far—chestnut hair flattened straight and a pure-gold suitdress up to her elegant neck.

“The Supernova Cup is no playground—Sevrith cu Freynille was a great rider but far past his prime. His cutting-edge steed bought him time; borrowed time, if you would. Time isn’t on Synali’s side, either—it’s only a matter of days before she’s struck from the seed.”

Father chose her to ride for the family—she’s his last vestige, a loose end with his eyes and his pride, and once again she has me burning the training arena long into the night.

“synali alone. synali very sad.”

I shake off Heavenbreaker’s bell-thought. It’s getting better at talking, longer sentences, but it doesn’t matter. However advanced its programming, whatever words its matrices make…none of that matters. It’s my steed, my sword. I’ll be stronger than it, than Sevrith, than Mirelle and Rax—than every noble in this godforsaken Supernova Cup. My mind is mine, my body is mine, and I’ll use them both until they burn to ash.

I will use everything I have left to make them pay.

My chest heaves in the hangar, breath hot. Everything in practice felt harder tonight. Dravik’s perfect stealthy engineers are clearly slacking on maintenance—the saddle was chilly and my pivots were stiffer, like the steed’s joints were rusting again. The screech of metal rings as Heavenbreaker slots into the massive vacuum tube back to Dravik’s bunker, passing the window in a blur of silver and blue. Silver and blue like the hem of a dress. Is Astrix in that hospital with the rest of them, with Sevrith? Or has her body already…

She’s either in a coma or dead, but I saw her. She spoke to me.

My exhausted knees give out. I glare at my distorted reflection in the floor—so weak you can’t even stand on your own—and drag myself to sit against the wall. I don’t want to think about what I found on Dravik’s vis; I clicked on everything I could see—directory after directory, fileshares, anything strange. His inbox was off-limits—needed a password—but the rest of his vis was suspiciously neat.

And then I found it—buried among terabytes of old chess game logs—a folder labeled Progress. Inside were pictures of the same type I saw in Sevrith’s chart—strange orange-yellow heat maps spreading over an image of someone’s brain. Top-down views. Side views. Not nearly as many dark spots on this one, but then I noticed the images were going sequentially. The first one was three months ago—dated the exact day I woke up in the hospital. The most recent was three days ago.

And all of them had a name in the top right corner: WOSTER, SYNALI E.

The first brain image was solid color. But then the holes started to appear at the end of month one, small pinpricks widening over the weeks—dark and persistent—until the most recent image. A dozen holes the size of sugar cubes blot my brain all over.

A vis ping mercifully shatters my thoughts: ONE NEW MESSAGE FROM: UNKNOWN. I click it with shaking fingers.

RAX: This is way easier than busting in on my showers. Plus you don’t have to look at my face. Win-win for everyone.

Persistent, isn’t he? He clearly thinks I’m weak—easy to defeat on the field and get into his bed. Being in his bed just once… I kick the thought away disgustedly. Sweat slithers slowly down my chest, over the scar, down my stomach. Block him. My fingers twitch from the block button to the reply box, autocorrect trying three times to make me politer than I want to be.

SYNALI: Fuck off

RAX: In precisely which direction? Yours?

I swallow a scoff. Smooth. Experienced. Pointless. The end is coming, an end only I can see—five remaining circles carved into marble. Ignore him.

SYNALI: What do you want

RAX: A hello would be a nice start.

Think. Straightforward.

SYNALI: I have no use for you

RAX: That’s what I’m hoping, Hauteclare.