54. Incorruptus
incorruptus ~a ~um, a.
1. intact, unspoiled
2. (figuratively) pure; not seduced
I hear the screams first.
The hall shivers with chattering and shrieks, and it takes me three seconds to realize the closer I walk, the louder it becomes. Four guards hold back the crowd outside the Lithroi hangar, alcoves packed tight with people clutching autograph books, their vis cameras glowing like a dozen blue eyes.
“Miss Synali! For my daughter. Please, you’re her favorite—”
“I love you! I LOVE YOU!”
“Step back! Keep behind the line!”
“Look over here, Synali!”
A projection microphone is shoved into my face. “Hi, Synali, Merdia Grassus from Channel 17Rho. Can you tell us how you’re feeling right now?”
Just as I’m about to push them, a cane abruptly stabs between me and the reporter, sapphires flashing and separating us, and then someone leads me away by the arm. The screams dim, and Dravik’s smile comes into focus.
“Apologies, Synali. I assumed the tourney hall would take appropriate precautions for you, but it seems I must do everything myself. There will be more security for your next match.” His confidence in me rings quietly. “I’m afraid I don’t know who your next opponent is.”
I frown. “It’s posted on the seed—Brann von Axton.”
“It seems House Axton’s made a last-minute substitution for Brann.”
“They can do that?”
“No. However, they can certainly make excuses for why their rider can’t take their helmet off at the end of the match.”
“So you have no idea who I’m facing?”
“I have several,” Dravik corrects. “None of them conclusive. House Axton has many skilled riders in its midst; ’tis something they’re infamous for. Whoever it is will be very good. Treat them with caution, watch their movements, and you should be fine.”
I don’t like any of it—my body tight but my mouth loose. “It’s power, isn’t it?”
The prince inspects his vis mildly. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Your mother tried to take the throne all those years ago by turning the steeds into an autonomous fighting force. A terrifying army, faster than any battleship, stronger, more versatile. It would’ve been Gamma-1 all over again, but a hundred times worse—at least back then, the true AI was confined to the substation. And now you’re trying to finish what she started—using Heavenbreaker. Using me.”
His smile isn’t aimed at me, but rather at his own palm.
“Do you still think so little of me, Synali, to believe that I’d want something as menial and short-lived as power?”
“You—”
“No matter how advanced the AI in a steed, it still requires a human mind within its saddle to function.”
“There is a human mind in Heavenbreaker—Astrix.”
He blinks.
“You said it yourself—Sevrith isn’t as gone as I think. The overloaded riders aren’t gone. Neither is Astrix. I saw her in the saddle. Something about her is still alive in there.”
Dravik chuckles in the quiet. “If this is a cruel joke you’re playing to get back at me…”
“It’s not. I just need you to tell me what’s going on. I’ll believe you—I promise.”
Before I can form words, someone in the crowd peels around the guards. An ecstatic face closes in for me fast, hands grabbing, but the sapphire cane flashes on their ankles and they plummet into marble. The guards flock to wrangle the trespasser back as the prince pulls his cane in neatly from the chaos and looks to me.
“If you could travel in time and go back to old Earth, Synali, would you tell them of the enemy’s arrival?”
I snort. “Obviously.”
“Would it do any good?”
I go still. The crowd seethes, but the prince is tranquility.
“They had never seen them or fought them. They had never even been in space for any truly prolonged period of time. They knew Earth and the sky and the animals. Would they believe you? If you marched up to their leaders and told them of the enemy razing the Earth in great bouts of laserfire, would they believe you?”
“No.”
“No,” he repeats patiently. “Because it was not happening and had not happened. They could not understand what they had not experienced.” Dravik smiles. “It is not belief I need from you, Synali, but understanding.”
A saint in marble looks down at us from the ceiling, a woman with her breasts cut off. She holds them aloft on a platter, her eyes turned Godward. Dravik leaves, and I lose him in the crowd, but I never had him to begin with; the prince is always one step ahead of me. Of everyone. A woman standing still in the undulating crowd has his pale-brown hair, her unmistakable fox smile aimed right at me—unnerving silver eyes and lips moving with words I can’t hear and yet words I can hear perfectly.
“do you know what it means to ride?”
And then I blink, and she’s gone. I turn, the crowd’s riot cutting off as the Lithroi hangar closes behind me with a hermetic hiss.
“You.”
I nearly jump out of my suit—Mirelle’s waiting for me against the marble wall in a white tunic, her silky hair pinned with pearls. My mouth goes dry; why is she here? If she has a weapon… Her gold heels click as she strides up the walkway and holds out a sealed letter. I reach for it, but she pulls away, pearly nails flashing.
“I’m giving this to you for one reason, murderer.”
“And what would that be?”
We could’ve been family—the same little dresses, the same little hair ribbons, the same giggling under the same sunlight.
“I refuse to see you die before I show you the true meaning of defeat.”
My heart makes a sick leap in my chest; her words are like a knife of twisted kindness—the closest I’ll ever come to hearing care from her, the closest I’ll have to my family caring for me ever again. I take the letter slowly with a smile.
“Thank you, Mirelle.”
“Welcome, one and all, to the middle matches of the Supernova Cup’s A seed! It’s a lovely day in the arena for a spot of tilting—no silica dust from Esther and barely any radiation flares to speak of. We’re coming closer to the finals here, and the competition is a scorching field of excellence! Wouldn’t you agree, Gress?”
“Without a doubt, Bero! Out of all the Houses that’ve entered the Supernova Cup, only a few remain standing! Some old favorites, strong favorites, and brand-new favorites make up the powerfully eclectic bunch vying for the top spot—and the king’s favor—this year!”
“And what a top-spot fight it’ll be, Gress! Let’s get right into it; in the blue corner sits a champion of crushing might, a man with a taste for overwhelming victory, a rider with a mastery of the Dreadnought class like no other—please welcome Brann von Axton and his steed, Wingpiercer!”
his name is not Brann von Axton.
“And over in the red corner is the most unexpected rider of the Cup—having made it this far in her very first riding year, with no academy record to speak of! She’s fast, furious, and frankly, frighteningly ferocious—give it up for Synali von Hauteclare and her steed, Heavenbreaker!”
The handkerchief rests against my chest, and folded within it is Rax’s letter, Mirelle’s jasmine perfume wafting up from it.
“worry?” Heavenbreaker asks, a quiet bell.
I answer unquietly. not mine. theirs.
The silver spirals pause and then resume their slow crawl across my eyeballs.
“friends?” It’s asking if Rax and Mirelle are our friends. How can we be? We’re too different, too far gone. Heavenbreaker thinks of my heart, its thoughts lingering on the crimson wax seal of the hawk. “love?”
I scoff. go.
Heavenbreaker’s jets blaze to life as we slip through the arena net. The camera drones buzz with frantic motion, but the steed doesn’t cower from them. I feel Heavenbreaker meet its own fearful hesitation with a burst of jetfire, the sound inside my head almost—almost—a metallic scoff, like a ghost of me.
The holoscreen that pops up is no ghost; it’s a man in a pitch-black rider’s suit with neon-yellow slashes across his expansive chest. The small screen does nothing to hide his height, the thick cords of muscle banded on him. He wears a black helmet like polished coal, a yellow tiger’s maw ringing the visor in fangs. The halo painted on his forehead beneath the visor glows only by a half—a faded, broken thing, as unkempt as his ragged hair like spun gold. I cannot see his eyes, and yet I cannot look away from them, either, his growl searing my ears.
“Hello, rabbit.”