56. Jugiter

jūgiter, adv.

1. enduringly

2. in unbroken succession

Helmann von Axton hits me instantly.

Pressure, pain, speed—all of it smashes into my left side, as hard and fast as a bullet. The full weight of a massive steed bears down on me, and before we can make an escape plan, our back hits a web of hot hard-light—the net edge of the arena. I try to move, but I’m pinned. By him.

“Come now, rabbit,” the man on the holoscreen rasps. “I’ll have more fight than this from you.”

He’s in a Dreadnought, heavier than any other type of steed, and yet it looks streamlined—shoulders smooth, legs smooth, barely any of the usual Dreadnought bulk in its armor save for its gargantuan chest. Neon yellow ridges down the back and elongates past the waspish hips as a spiked tail. The edges of its helmet curve like ingrown bull horns, like jaws made already shut, like an animal not yet invented but one that eats well.

Metal grinds into my chest, my shoulders, and the arena’s projection net scorches my back—a fearful heat starting to burn in my heart. He came from nowhere. In a Dreadnought. I should’ve seen it coming… No. They do not get fear from me.

go.

I reverse the jets. We blast backward into the net, the white hard-light searing a pattern down our spine. The nauseating smell of burning flesh and superheated metal permeates the saddle. I grit my teeth—just a little bit more—and then the lightweight snap of freedom comes—enough space to drop through his pin and dart away as far and fast as we can. His laugh rumbles from the holoscreen.

“Did you enjoy that pain? I’ve seen it in you—seen you embrace it. You kiss agony with those sweet, scarred lips as if it’s your first lover.” He rises, the jets on his back blazing neon yellow, so high and hot the LED cross above us drowns in it. “Shall I be your first, rabbit, and your last?”

I cut the comms, my fingers shaking.

Heavenbreaker thinks what I refuse to feel. “afraid.”

My skin feels like it’s crawling with invisible maggots. He’s different from the others. His tone is like the men in the brothel but different, worse, and he glows, vibrates, waits—waits like I’ve never seen a rider wait before, suspended at the apex like time means nothing to him, like he’s exactly where he’s meant to be.

And I’m trapped in here with him.

“—altercation before first tilt is a definite foul, Gress, annnndddd there we go—the ref’s called a yellow flag on Wingpiercer. Heavenbreaker gets a two-second head start on the first tilt! But can she capitalize on it?”

Helmann doesn’t seem to care about the rules. It feels like he wants to kill me, not ride against me. I read it in Rax’s hastily scrawled letter Mirelle gave me, but I feel it now—the heatwave from a projection dagger, the grin of a man walking behind you at night, the ear-splitting pressure before an airlock vents. Danger.

“the tilt,” Heavenbreaker echoes.

It’s right. I’m safe on the tilt—I can see him coming better there. I jet to it.

“Riders, prepare for first tilt! In the name of God, King, and Station!”

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

The crowd feverishly echoes the commentator—thirsting for tragedy, urging on my demise. Helmann von Axton decides to settle his bulk languidly on the terrene tilt.

The countdown: Three.

The holoscreen comes up again.

Two.

“Let me see you,” Helmann rumbles. “All of you.”

One.

My heart pounds, my mouth goes dry—he’s going to hurt me, hunt me; I’m trapped in here with him—and then…the flowers appear. Flashing for just a moment in perfect color and detail against the black of space are white daisies and blue hyacinths—flowers blooming deep in the throat of the cold dragon. Mother’s voice echoes like cool water poured over hot coals. “Thank you, Synali. They’re lovely.”

Heavenbreaker. It made these flowers for me, to calm me—my own memory given back in perfect detail. The flowers fade to black, and the steed begins a thought in our mind.

“give them nothing.”

As the last petal fades, I finish it.

take everything.

Zero.

The silver lance bursts to life in my hand, assembling whole and sharp in an instant. The tilt releases us with a two-second head start. We’re fast—no hesitation, just speed. The stars blur, Esther seeming at a standstill in her rotation for a split second, her bands of malachite-green clouds hovering in place. Wingpiercer releases late yet draws close, the blue light of the grav-gen swallowed whole in its black armor and its yellow lance aimed for my throat.

hold.

The cry between steeds resounds, and they make the light between them. Sight comes like snapshots in the dark, like the strobe lights of Talize’s club—his yellow lance, my silver lance. His body, my body—a perfumed bed, white roses, a cold tilt, a hot dagger. The cascade of thought and the alignment as it comes together inside me: Helmann von Axton wants me. But he is not the first.

and he will not be the last.

Impact.

Nerve-crackling pain shoots into my teeth, my fingers, every breath just giving the pain more oxygen to stab with. Something’s wrong in my right leg. My lance pierces nothing, flying under Helmann’s ribs as if I was always aiming there. Heavenbreaker staggers as it rises, and my mind staggers likewise: How did he dodge? I had him locked in at the right inertia, the angle…it was faster than he could ever hope to evade as a Dreadnought.

unless.

Unless he already knew what I was aiming for.

“Come now, rabbit,” he purrs on the holoscreen. “Did you not listen? I want to see everything you have. All of it.”

Red, 0. Blue, 1. My right leg goes numb, and I look down—it’s nearly cleaved all the way off, twisting in space by a thin tangle of cables. Worse, the jets on it pulse in serrated rhythm, unbalancing everything. I try to steady, but I wobble uncontrollably, flail, every direction mixed up and a horrifying thought creeping in: Helmann could’ve taken our leg off like Yatrice, but he didn’t. He left it hanging to watch me stumble. He’s toying with us.

Astrix’s voice is a mantra carved in all the soft parts of my brain: “do you know what it means to ride?”

There is only one choice left—that’s what it means to ride. Reach down to where the steed’s leg connects to my bone. This will hurt.

That, too, is what it means to ride.

I clutch my own leg—whole in the saddle and half dangling by a thread outside—and twist. The flesh of me doesn’t give, but the metal of me does, and yet it hurts the same—the same white-red agony spearing through me as Heavenbreaker’s leg disconnects in a shower of sparks. I can feel hot blood pouring out where there is none, my own heart pumping my life away from me invisibly. Machines don’t feel pain, but she’s hurting, too.

Her. “She”—the first time I’ve called Heavenbreaker anything other than “it.” The sound fits like puzzle pieces, like well-worn gloves.

I turn my hand and look at the dismembered leg in it. Last time this happened, dark oil streamed from it, but now there’s only silver—nerve fluid. The rise is almost over. Helmann is hungry—I have to create an opening with his own hunger. Rax said he’s better than us. Rax could take him better, Mirelle could take him better—but I’m alone. The letter’s heavy on my chest, written by him and given by her.

no. i’m not quite alone.

I switch the comms on and hold my own leg up like bait. “Come and get it, beast.”

Helmann’s laugh is an aching growl rolled one slow timbre at a time. “All of us, beasts. But you and I the same kind.”

I drop the leg, and it floats away. He smiles beneath his broken halo, all sharp white teeth.

“Can you hear my heart wailing for you, rabbit?”

I switch lance hands. Fumble. ignore the fear. No—use it. Like fuel, like anger. This fear is horrible, ugly, deep…but it is mine and no one else’s.

“I’ll hear it better,” I say, “when it’s on the tip of my lance.”

Your opponent’s been switched. His name’s Helmann von Axton—Brann’s twin and a piece-of-shit mass murderer. House Velrayd asked him to kill you on the tilt in exchange for his freedom. Helmann’s better than you, and he’s better than me. I’m serious when I say you need to be careful—no throwing yourself all-in. You’re not gonna die. I won’t let you. You’re gonna win this and keep moving on until you reach me.

Helmann’s in a Dreadnought, but you treat him like a Frigate. Keep your left side guard high and tight. His defense is flawless, and I’m not fucking exaggerating for fun—he leaves no openings, so you’ll have to create your own. Cut comms the instant he tries to talk to you—he’ll get what you’re planning from the way you sit in the saddle. He reads riders like a book. I’ve seen it happen, and I’m not gonna watch it happen to you.

Live, Hauteclare. That’s what it means to ride.