Ten years ago
Discordia watched her siblings train like a predator on a hunt.
The academy was intended to keep them busy, more focused on their own practices than on each other, but Discordia knew there would come a time when they’d have to hunt each other down—with the entire galaxy as their dueling grounds. The chase was part of the challenge, and Discordia was preparing herself for the possibility of fifty duels.
Only the strongest two survive, Mistress Heraia had told her. And if one of them won’t be you, then put a blade through your throat right now and don’t waste my time.
Mistress Heraia gave Discordia more time to observe her siblings than the other prefects did. It wasn’t cheating, precisely—they were encouraged to spot each other’s weaknesses—but Mistress Heraia’s methods were considered by the other prefects to be unusual. Too much emphasis on the cerebral and not enough on strength or battle.
Strategy, Mistress Heraia had told her, is as much a weapon as a blade. Let the men use brute force. You shouldn’t have to lift a finger to kill your opponent until the very end.
All fifty of Discordia’s brothers had varying degrees of skill. She had watched them from afar as they sparred with their prefects, and sometimes through the observation glass in the classrooms. She knew they did the same with her; the difference was that she never let her guard down. Every moment of her life was a performance, and her audience was fifty teenage boys eager to put a Mors blast through her skull. She counted Damocles among them; agreement or no, he would betray her in a moment if any other brother proved more competent.
No one there was worthy of trust. Not even allies.
Discordia crossed her arms, eyes narrowed at Adrian in his gymnasium below. Both the observation deck and the gymnasium were ringed with trees. It helped them feel like they weren’t trapped on a golden ship, and the roots could also trip up an inattentive student. Adrian diligently switched through every combat weapon in the collection, displaying a familiarity with each one that made his prefect nod in approval.
Adrian was agile. Incredibly strong. The problem she spotted in him was a fatal one: he lacked focus. Badly.
A small rustle came from behind her. The shadow out of the corner of her eye moved.
Damocles still made stupid mistakes.
Discordia seized Damocles by the wrist and flung his hand away. “Clumsy,” she said with a click of her tongue. “I’m not in the mood for games.”
Damocles looked annoyed. “I should have brought a blade.”
“You still would have failed.”
He made a sound in his throat—loathing or an admission of truth—taking in the sight below them. Adrian was practicing with a quarterstaff: not a terribly effective battlefield weapon, but exceptional for honing reflexes. His prefect smacked him across the face with the staff and Adrian reared back with a fist that sent his prefect sprawling. Discordia almost snorted. He hadn’t even bothered with his own staff.
“He has fists the size of boulders,” Damocles murmured. “Formidable skills. Probably the best among our cohort.”
“He might be big, but he’s sloppy.”
Damocles rolled his eyes. “Snob.”
Discordia lifted a shoulder. “Stating facts. Adrian has six months to practice before we’re permitted to fight duels. There’s still time.”
“You think he’ll improve by then?” Damocles asked. His expression was hard. “Considering replacing me?”
“No,” Discordia answered honestly.
“Good.” His eyes burned fire-bright. “Because I’d punish you if you did.”
Discordia went still. There was a promise in his voice, a dangerous finality. She’d always wondered if Damocles hated her. If, in the privacy of his room, he imagined ways of killing her. Theirs was an alliance based on survival, nothing more. Replacing him with a weaker brother wasn’t an option. Perhaps, if Discordia became the first Archontissa, she’d find a way to deal with Damocles.
For now, she had to let Damocles live.
“Don’t threaten me,” she told him. “You’re not being replaced.”
“Good.” He refocused on Adrian. “Then he’ll be our first.”
“Our first?” Discordia snorted. “I assumed you’d want to go after easy pickings. Leo and Marcus still can’t beat their prefects at combat. Xander can, but doesn’t seem interested in allying himself with anyone. That makes him vulnerable.”
She peered down at where Xander trained with his own prefect—just beyond Adrian’s gym.
Discordia scowled. She had yet to figure Xander out. Her other brothers were easy. Like Damocles, they wanted power by any means necessary—even weak ones like Leo and Marcus grew frustrated by their inability to overpower their own teachers. That made them defenseless.
But Xander, he had potential. And yet he seemed . . . bored?
Xander dealt a final blow to his prefect and left the trainer sprawled on the floor. Without a backward glance, her brother strode to the massive glass windows overlooking the clouds. He sat on a bench, tilted his head back against the glass, and shut his eyes.
Bored, yes. And . . . weary?
“What has you so captivated?” Damocles asked. He missed nothing. That made him a great ally.
That made him a dangerous enemy.
Discordia shuttered her expression. “I was thinking that Xander ought to be first. A brother who refuses an ally has no one to defend him.”
“I prefer a challenge.”
Damocles had gone back to watching Adrian. His small smile—the barest lift of his lips—was absolutely chilling. “Father will be so proud, don’t you think?”
In the months that followed, Discordia began to wonder if she’d chosen the wrong brother.
This close to the ban being lifted, allied pairs were almost inseparable. Discordia spent most of her time with Damocles. He had become difficult to manage; his competitiveness was stifling and it made him violent. Lately, their games of zatrikion had grown turbulent.
“Queen kills King.” Discordia uttered those same words—as she had done a hundred times before.
Damocles knocked the table aside and slammed his fist into her face.
They brawled on the floor of Discordia’s bedroom. The zatrikion pieces scattered across the carpet as they punched and kicked and hit. Discordia flipped Damocles to the ground and had her blade to his throat, pressed to the flesh just over his artery. One wrong move, and he was dead.
“Either you calm down, or I make you my first sacrifice,” she snarled. “Choose.”
He huffed a breath, his eyes cold. “The ban doesn’t lift for another two days.”
“I’ll risk it if you don’t get it together,” Discordia said, voice low. “Stop caring so much. Feelings are a weakness, and weaknesses get you killed.”
Every potential Heir learned this from the moment they could walk. They all had tests to determine their flaws; Discordia’s was deemed excessive empathy. She’d been given an Evoli nurse as a toddler. A majority of Evoli minds were incompatible with programming, but Livia had suffered a minor brain injury that rendered her mental empath defenses useless. As a result, the Oracle’s programming was threaded through Livia’s mind even deeper than the average Tholosian. She was compliant. She was docile. She was kind. Discordia was purposely allowed to bond with Livia for years, had come to love the nurse.
Do you think she’ll still love you if I lift the programming? Mistress Heraia had asked mockingly.
Yes, Discordia had said. She was still a child. So stupid. So foolish. Yes.
As soon as she was free of the Oracle, Livia had tried to smother Discordia in her sleep.
And Discordia had killed the woman who had raised her to save her own neck.
She blinked hard, bringing herself back to the present. “I need you to be better than this. Do you understand me?”
Damocles’s lip curled. “You’re not my damn prefect.” He sounded so young, so petulant. Almost a man, still behaving like a boy.
“No, I’m not, and your prefect should have done his job.” When Damocles didn’t respond, Eris said, “You’ll never make it if you keep letting emotion get in the way. It’s why you’re losing this game, over and over. You want to make it to the final two? Stop. Caring.”
She wondered if he’d hit her again. If he did, she would walk away. One of her other brothers would ally with her. Maybe Xander; he was still unpaired.
“Fine. Let’s start the moment the ban is lifted.” His lips curved into an unexpected smile. “Lucky for us, Adrian is back from field training.”
Startled, Discordia lifted her blade from his throat. “You’re eager, aren’t you?”
“Eagerness has nothing to do with it. Father is leaving on the night craft tomorrow.”
There it was. During their training, they had so rarely seen their father; they had been raised in the academy since birth. He came only for special ceremonies, Tholosian military grand tours after their victories, and the occasional progress assessment. Once, Discordia had glanced up from her sparring to the window of the observation deck to find him watching her. She’d thought she had caught his nod of approval.
“You want him to see,” she said.
Damocles raised an eyebrow, as if the answer were obvious. “Don’t you?” He shoved her off and stood. “Meet me at Adrian’s gymnasium tomorrow at sundown.” As he started for the door, he said over his shoulder. “I can’t wait to see the look on Father’s face.”
The next night, Damocles and Discordia hid behind the foliage at the edge of the gymnasium as Adrian trained with another of their siblings. Xerxes had a similar technique to Adrian’s, a brutal fighting style that relied too much on strength. Damocles had hoped to find Adrian alone—but he and Xerxes were allied, and the dueling ban was too close to being lifted.
The time for solitude had passed.
“Fine,” Damocles said in irritation. “Two at once.”
He moved to stand, but Discordia grasped his wrist. “What are you doing?”
“Challenging our brothers,” he said, as if it should be obvious.
Idiot, Discordia thought to herself. “We wait,” she said, “until the dueling ban is lifted. Only another hour. Our brothers will still be here and they’ll be more prepared. You said you wanted a challenge.”
Damocles bared his teeth. “Father will be getting on the night ship any minute, and he’ll come if security detects a duel,” Damocles hissed. “I’m not waiting.”
“It doesn’t matter if he sees—Damocles—”
Her brother jerked out of her grasp and shoved his way out of the foliage. She heard his voice, high and authoritative: “Adrian and Xerxes, I challenge you—”
Discordia leapt through the foliage.
But it was already too late. He’d issued his challenge. The duels had begun.
Discordia darted into the melee, engaging Adrian while Damocles took care of Xerxes. Adrian recognized Discordia as a bigger threat than her brother, and he didn’t waste time. He threw himself at her and swung hard. His massive fists were fast, barely missing her face as Discordia ducked and wove. She had trained for this. This was like breathing. This was like dancing. Mistress Heraia had taught her to move like water across rocks, and she did—oh, how she did. She spun away from Adrian’s kicks and hits as if she were in a Tholosian waltz, every movement deliberate, smooth, beautifully orchestrated.
She played with him. She toyed with him. She teased him with the ease of her skill, with how easily she dodged, just waiting, waiting, for him to tire and slow from the force of his movements.
Adrian didn’t see the blade until she struck. He managed a single word—her name, a ragged sigh—before she plunged her knife into his chest. Her aim was perfect: right through the heart. Quick, merciful. Mistress Heraia would have been proud.
Her brother collapsed to the ground, and Discordia looked over at Damocles’s progress as she wiped her blade. Damocles stood over a prone Xerxes, who was bleeding out onto the hard floor of the gymnasium.
“You did it,” Discordia said, breathless. “You—” She paused at Xerxes’s struggle for breath, his eyes wide. Their other brother choked on Damocles’s name. “He’s still alive. Finish him off, Damocles.”
Damocles stared down at their brother emotionlessly. “Father isn’t here yet.”
A chill went across Discordia’s skin. “He’s suffering. Finish him.”
His eyes snapped up to hers. “This is my duel. It’s done when I say it is.”
Xerxes looked at her, pleading. They were all taught to dispatch each other quickly. No prolonged, painful death, but a death with the respect given to fellow soldiers. Theirs was a difficult deity to please, but Letum did not reward torture. He only rewarded for the collection of souls.
This isn’t right.
Discordia knew she and Damocles were never destined for a merciful alliance—their upbringing and expectations were too violent for compassion—but this? This was the only thing that came closest. This was what separated them from monsters.
One small act.
“No,” Discordia said. “The duel is done when the God of Death gets his sacrifice.”
Discordia dove to her knees. With a quick strike of her blade, she slid it into Xerxes’s throat.
“No!” Damocles grasped her wrist hard, pulling the blade out. Their bloody hands gripped the knife as they struggled over it. “This was my duel. My death. Mine. You had no right to—”
Slow, steady claps came from behind them.
Discordia and Damocles startled. Their father leaned against the door frame. His body was so broad, he commanded the space of the doorway. His gaze was steady as he took in the two dead bodies bleeding out on the ground. If he cared at all for his two sons, it didn’t show. He stopped clapping and lowered his hands, but the sound still echoed in the gymnasium.
The duo scrambled to their feet, bowing. “Father,” they said at the same time.
The Archon came forward, his eyes only on Discordia. “Duels weren’t supposed to be issued for another hour.”
Damocles let out an almost panicked breath. “Yes, Archon, but—”
“Your excuses don’t interest me.” Discordia went still as the Archon reached out and grasped her chin. He studied her for what seemed like hours. He released her. “I’ll be seeing more of you, I believe.”
Without even a glance or a word to his son, the Archon strolled from the room and shut the door behind him.
Damocles stared at Discordia with an expression she couldn’t place. Anger. Or hatred. Before she could decide, his features smoothed to indifference. “I’m going to my room,” he said, walking away from her. Then, over his shoulder: “Say a prayer to the God of Death for me. He seems to favor you.”
With a shuddering sigh, Discordia took off her necklace. She pressed the small scythe into her palm, and whispered her prayers over the bodies of her brothers. She tamped down the heaviness in her chest as their blood pooled at her feet. An unfamiliar feeling made her ache. A burden she didn’t recognize. Didn’t understand.
Years later, she would realize that was the first time she had ever felt guilt.