Present day
Discordia’s vision was a tunnel of stars. It was bright around the edges, as if she were walking into a dream. She heard voices. They sounded like a flurry of birds taking off into the sky—
One voice was clear.
Damocles’s voice was a whisper in her ear, a vibration through her bones. It was heat in her bloodstream, straight to her brain. A terse command was lodged there, one she couldn’t hear yet.
But she was supposed to follow him until then. Focus on his light, on his features. His fingers beckoned her forward.
A gift. Discordia carried a gift. A box in her hands.
It was important, she knew. Somewhere in the back of her mind—buried so, so deep—a warning sounded. So small, the buzzing of a pest.
Damocles called her name, and she batted the warning away.
The voices went quiet as she moved forward. She looked out at them, at this sea of colors and light and—were they . . . people? Where was she? She couldn’t remember. Her head hurt too much. The pain in her mouth pulsed in time with her heart.
“Discordia?”
That voice. She knew that voice.
Hands gripped her arms. She stared at a man she recognized from deep in her memories.
“Father,” she tried to say, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a rough croak, a pathetic sound. They’d used nanites to staunch the blood, but Discordia could still taste iron.
His eyes were as sharp as she remembered, like roughly cut gemstones. “General, if you’ve brought me another pretender . . .” His fingers tightened and Discordia almost cried out. Her skin hurt. Everything hurt.
“Her DNA is a perfect match,” Damocles said, as if from a great distance. “I wouldn’t sully such an important occasion with false hope.”
The crowd’s whispers grew to hisses. Questioning shouts rose, hushed by the steady, calm tenor of the Evoli Ascendant. “What a gift to have such a reunion,” she said. “But unexpected and unforeseen in our negotiations. Will your true Heir honor our truce?”
True Heir. Discordia saw how much this chafed her brother. His jaw tightened. “She’s not in a position to be Heir to anything,” Damocles snapped.
Father barely appeared to listen. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked Damocles.
“Drugged and broken by the Novantae,” Damocles said. To any onlooker, his tone would have sounded indifferent; Discordia heard the hint of satisfaction in it. Of victory. “So, now you know why the resistance have made such impressive strikes against the Empire. They had her help.”
The Archon barely seemed to hear his son. He lifted Discordia’s chin. She knew every line of that face. She had spent so much of her life trying to please him. Hadn’t she? “I thought you were dead. So many came to me—but they weren’t you.”
His voice—softer than she remembered—came to Discordia as if from the bowels of a ship. Echoing. Distorted. His face was blurred, and she shook her head to focus.
Give the gift, an inner voice said. No. Her brother’s. He’d given that command back on the ship, and the drugs they’d put in her made it so difficult to resist. It pounded through her head like a klaxon.
No. No. Something was wrong. She couldn’t remember.
She shook her head, opened her mouth to speak again.
“Oh, did I mention?” Damocles couldn’t hide his sense of victory. “Her tongue’s been cut out.”
A hush went through the room. Her vision was beginning to clear. She met her father’s shocked gaze.
Do something, she willed herself. But her body wasn’t her own. It waited for a command.
Her arm still stung from the needle. The drug coursed through her veins. Her body felt like it was floating. The box was heavy, the only thing weighing her to the ground.
“Discordia?” the Archon asked, gaze searching hers. “Did they break you?”
“I told you she wasn’t as strong as you believed,” Damocles said. “When I found her, she was giving the Novantae information on how to destroy us. I had to control her myself, and now she can barely resist a command. Watch.” He turned to Discordia. “You have an offering for the Ascendant, don’t you, sister? Give it to them.” He glanced at the Ascendant.
No. Discordia was shaking her head. Something wasn’t right. What was it? What was it?
Someone called her by another name, one she’d chosen. Or had she imagined that familiar voice in the crowd?
The Evoli soldiers stepped forward to accept the gift.
“Discordia.” Damocles’s voice again, so loud that it pounded through her head. Was that her name? “Open the box. Let them see.” He delighted in ordering her around, as if she were nothing more than a pet.
Open. Open, open, open. The command was so loud, she was powerless against it.
She set the box down on the table between the Archon and the Ascendant, and lifted the lid.
A gasp went through the crowd.
The jewels glittered in the light. The necklace, the orb, and the scepter were nestled in the fabric. Each one was beautifully polished, highlighting the reds, blues, and oranges of the stones that gave the fire opals their name. A match to the jewels nestled among the branching antlers of her headdress.
The guards stepped forward to take the box from her. She watched as they inspected the jewelry, deemed it acceptable, and gave it to the Ascendant.
The Ascendant murmured kind words in her language and allowed a guard to fasten the necklace. It looked beautiful against her shining, opalescent skin. So much like Rhea’s.
Rhea.
Discordia’s mind caught on the name like a pebble in a stream before it washed away again. The two Oversouls—priests to the Ascendant—accepted their gifts of orb and scepter with their thanks and a nod.
The smile Damocles gave Discordia made her freeze in place.
Her command was finished. Discordia had served her purpose. The buzzing in her head cleared.
And Eris remembered.
She had seen Damocles hide the blaster beneath the velvet lining of the box. He had let her watch as he carefully arranged the jewels on top.
Eris had delivered the weapon intended to kill the Evoli.
Stop! She tried to shout the word, but all that came out was an awful noise, more animal than human. She lunged forward to grab the box, but Damocles seized her by the arm.
Eris struggled against him, her vision clouding. The blood pulsing through her veins burned, but she clawed at Damocles. Her scream was savage.
“Say it, Father,” Damocles demanded. “Admit that after all your training, your daughter failed you. Admit it. You made a mistake in declaring her your Heir.”
The Evoli Ascendant watched with unblinking eyes. How much did she and the Oversouls feel? Had Eris’s guard been lowered enough that they could sense her fear? What did they think about sordid family secrets unleashed in the middle of a peace ceremony? Their expressions betrayed nothing.
The Archon’s gaze was sharp. His voice was so low, Eris barely heard him over the ringing panic in her mind. “I apologize for this upset, Ascendant and Oversouls. Sign the treaty, Damocles. It’s the future we must dwell on, not the past.”
Damocles’s smile was slow. The Archon had not cast him aside. Had not welcomed Discordia back with open arms. Had not made her the Heir. The realization opened something raw inside her, old wounds she’d thought had closed so long ago. She didn’t know her father could still hurt her.
Damocles slid his fingerprints across the treaty next to his father’s. In her drugged state, Eris thought they were as red as blood.
Damocles looked at Eris with triumph. “The treaty is signed. We shall have peace.”
The Evoli on the dais closed their eyes, pressing their palms flat to their chests. Even Eris could feel their relief that the bloodshed was over. The crowd burst into cheers. The clapping was only background noise as Damocles leaned closer to Eris.
He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Occidit rex regina,” Damocles breathed into her ear.
King kills Queen.
Eris was helpless against the command. She didn’t know what Damocles had dosed her with. She tried to resist. She tried to open her mouth to scream.
She couldn’t. Her body was trapped, rigid. Programmed to do only what he had commanded.
Eris reached for the carved chest again, and no one stopped her. She pushed aside the velvet covering and the metal of the blaster underneath was cold. She picked it up, her hands on the trigger. Stop, Eris. Stop, stop!
The Archon’s eyes widened. The Ascendants stepped back in unison, turned as if to flee.
The air filled with smoke, hissing through the vents. Reds, oranges, yellows. Within moments, the ballroom was hazy, impossible to see anything. Eris’s mind whirred, desperate to throw off Damocles’s command.
Ariadne.
Another name stuck to her mind. Ariadne had created a failsafe. How many shots had Ariadne said would cause the weapon to jam? Three? Four? Could Eris fire it at the ceiling, or would the spores release and drift down on the guests anyway?
The smoke made her cough. Eris fell to the ground, heaving, the weapon tumbling from her hands. She pulled up the gossamer undershirt of her dress and wrapped it around the lower half of her face, her ruined mouth, unsure if it would even help.
A horrible sound cut through the confused mutterings of the crowd. A hiss, a shot, a sizzle of a blaster.
Another.
One more.
The smoke cleared, and Eris stared at the frightened, fleeing Tholosians and Evoli through a film of reddish orange. Her hands were empty, the blaster four steps away. She had not fired it. She couldn’t have.
Could she?
Her head throbbed, her tongue was seared with pain. The world was still hazy and uncertain, her mind still cobwebbed.
The Oversouls, the Ascendant, and the Archon had collapsed to the ground. Their cries pierced Eris’s ears. Her vision sharpened and her mind was clearer and—
Oh, the God of Death would be pleased this day. He would have bathed in the blood of his sacrifice. The guards ran to help the Oversoul and the Ascendant; Tholosian guards rushed to her father, but the plague was already manifesting. The ichor spores had been released. They, too, collapsed from skin contact. Their screams rose as they fell to the floor and writhed in agony. Blood would soon slide from their eyes, their noses, their mouths. They’d be dead in days, if they were lucky. Most would die in mere hours.
There was no help for them.
Eris backed away, her hand to her lips. She barely registered her brother fleeing the room with his own guards. Her thoughts were slow, unfocused. Remember. What happened? Had Damocles taken the blaster from her? Fired at their enemies and then his own father?
Or had he made Eris pull the trigger for him?
Gods, had she killed these people?
All was chaos. Tholosians and Evoli fell. Their vomited blood covered the floor of the dais.
“Eris!” Hands turned her roughly around. Strangers. Faces she didn’t recognize.
“Pick her up, pilot,” the strange woman commanded.
Pilot? Nyx. Cato. Eris tried to speak, but all that came out was an ugly, strained sound. Desperate.
“Pick her up,” Nyx commanded Cato again.
“Wait.” Another voice. Eris looked down to see her father staring up at her. His face was streaked with blood. “Discordia.”
He met her gaze but could barely move. She saw the tiny puncture where the ichor had blasted through his uniform. Your fault, she told herself. As Zoe she had blithely mentioned, the sequencer could target multiple strands of DNA—and Damocles must have imputed both Evoli and the Archon’s genetic material.
It astonished Eris that such a small blast could bring down the ruler of the entire galaxy. He’d defeated whole armies. He’d seemed invincible. Impenetrable.
“A soldier’s death,” her father whispered. “Please.” The last word sounded as if it pained him to say.
Amid the chaos, Eris kneeled beside her father. I’m sorry, she mouthed.
He shook his head, shutting his eyes. “You should be,” he breathed.
And Eris knew he thought she was responsible—just as Damocles intended. Everyone had watched her pick up that weapon. Everyone was going to watch her stab him. Her father was going to die hating her. Yet here he was, asking her to give him a last modicum of dignity.
She deserved this.
Eris took a breath and slid the sharp pin from her hair—the only weapon she had. She plunged it through her father’s neck, piercing right through his carotid artery. His death, like so many of her others, would be quick, merciful, better than most of her sacrifices to Letum.
I’m sorry, she mouthed again. I’m so sorry.
Cato scooped Eris up into his arms. He fled with Nyx through the crowd of people heading out of the ballroom.
“Eris!” someone called. Eris lifted her head to see Clo limping through the crowd, Kyla at her side. Eris felt relief—their faces were their own. “This way!”
Clo pointed to a door. Around them people were dropping, dropping, falling like trees in a forest. So much faster than that first manifestation on Ismara. Honed into a weapon. Spreading like wildfire.
“I thought you said you were going back to the ship,” Nyx was saying. Eris barely heard them.
“I said if there was trouble, I would come back to save your arse.” Clo gestured to the fleeing crowd, the bodies on the ground. “I’d say this is the fluming definition of trouble, wouldn’t you? Now follow me.”
“Where’s Sher?” Nyx asked Kyla.
Kyla said nothing, her head down.
“Dead?” Nyx asked.
“He chose the wrong side.” Kyla’s words were heavy as stones. “I’ll explain later.”
Her words took a moment to filter through the discord of Eris’s thoughts. Sher. He’d betrayed them.
Emotions like betrayal and failure and grief could wait until after escape.
Clo led them through the door and down a hallway. The jarring movement of Cato’s body nauseated Eris. She still reeled with pain and remnants of the drugs, and Cato’s hard grip on Eris burned her skin. She was so tired. Keep your eyes open. Stay awake.
Clo took them through a supply room. She swept aside a window curtain to reveal a hidden door that led to the servant’s wing. They all hurried down the next hall.
Eris reached out to touch Clo’s arm. Thank you, she mouthed.
“You’re welcome,” Clo said, striding next to Cato. She reached into her coat and pressed a heavy cloth into Eris’s hands. “I brought your piece of junk. Apparently, this ancient silted scrap slips through security.”
Eris unwrapped the cloth to find her old, treasured blaster nestled in the center. Thank the gods. The familiar weight of it felt like coming home.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
They all froze. Outside, the shouting began anew. Screams echoed in the night.
“What is that?” Clo stopped at one of the windows and swung it open.
Nyx was impatient. “We don’t have time—”
“Oh my gods.” Clo’s hand covered her mouth. “Oh my gods.”
Eris struggled in Cato’s grip until he wordlessly released her. They all gathered around the window and looked outside. There, she could see some of Damocles’s guards, out of uniform, forming a human chain to march on the crowd, attacking any Evoli stragglers uninfected by the ichor.
They were spreading the disease faster.
They had found a way to replicate Ariadne’s weapon, the failsafe useless. They’d made it look ornate, cruelly beautiful. The Tholosians loved making death into art.
“In Discordia’s name,” the soldiers shouted, spraying the crowd with weaponized ichor propellants. People fell. They screamed for help, to be spared.
But there was no God of Mercy.
Eris made a sound in her throat. Despite all of Ariadne’s efforts, Damocles must have reproduced it before Zoe came back with the updated model. He now had documentation that she’d invented it under the false name of Zoe Eirene-X-2 with the intent to completely massacre every Evoli. This would erase any doubt that she was involved, any doubt at all.
In Discordia’s name.
“We have to go,” Nyx said, urgent.
“No,” Clo shook her head, her eyes filled with tears. “No. We can’t just leave them. They’re using—” Her breath hitched. “Godsdamn it, this is my responsibility.”
“No, it isn’t. We can’t do anything for them, Clo. Most of them are probably already infected.”
“And the ones who aren’t?”
“They’re in the perimeter. They’re dead anyway.” Nyx’s mouth compressed into a grim line. “We have to go. Gods, I hope Rhea and Ariadne somehow survived this.”
“Don’t tell Ari,” Clo whispered. “If she’s alive . . . don’t tell her about this. It would break her.”
Eris struggled toward the massacre. To stop it. She had to stop it.
“Come on,” Cato said to Eris. “Nyx is right. There’s nothing more we can do here.”
The fight left her. Eris leaned heavily against Cato as they hurried through the halls. Her vision wove in and out, and she felt as if she were floating. Cato practically carried her down the back steps deeper into the palace. It was empty—everyone there would have attended the ceremony. They had all been commanded to. It had been ordained.
And it would lead to their murder.
The sound of running made Eris look up. It was Rhea, sprinting at top speed. Her arms flung wide as she crashed into Clo, nearly toppling her.
“Rhea,” Clo said, running her hands over the other woman’s tear-streaked face.
Rhea stuttered over her words. Her Evoli-like skin was glowing beneath the dirt. Eris realized the other woman must have felt the slaughter outside—the emotions and suffering of thousands of people dying. Her hold on Clo seemed to be the only thing keeping her upright.
“Ship,” Rhea managed, pointing toward the docking bay.
“Is Ariadne all right?” Nyx asked.
Rhea managed a nod.
Eris tried shutting her eyes. She could hear the death, smell it; she didn’t want to see any more—but no. She lifted her lids. She had to bear witness.
She deserved it.
Nyx fired at the guards to clear a path. Outside, the crowds started to bang on the heavy metal doors. “Discordia!” they shouted, several breaking through the shield of guards. Damocles’s people let them go.
They wanted the mob to tear their princess limb from limb.
Eris’s group sprinted toward a ship she didn’t recognize—Lysicrates. Cato secured his grip on Eris, and she hated that she couldn’t even rely on her two legs. They made it there seconds before the horde.
Nyx raised the door. People from the crowd tried to scramble up, their screams echoing in a cacophony of noise. Nyx shot at them, clearing stragglers as the door slid shut. Hands hammered on the outside. Shots from the guards skittered along the hull. If they broke into Lysicrates, the mob of desperate citizens would not be kind.
“Hurry!” Ariadne said over the comms of the ship. “Clo! Cato! I don’t know how to fly this thing!”
Cato sprinted from the hold. Clo stayed.
A screech, and the purr of another engine sounded in the hangar. Eris’s head snapped up in time. Damocles and his close guards were hurrying to their own ship.
At her side, Clo snarled, “That lentic spawn of a caiman’s balls.”
Eris shoved Clo roughly aside. He was hers. Hers.
With renewed energy, Eris ran for one of the smaller hatches. Clo shouted her name, but she ignored it. Damocles had to die for what he had done. She didn’t care how many people would see her do it. He had already made her look like a villainess, a traitor. Let her be guilty for ending him. What would his death change? Nothing. Nothing.
Everything.
She opened the hatch and dropped to the ground, crawling forward on hands and knees with her blaster gripped in a sweaty palm. Damocles had almost reached his ship. She could see his feet. This was Eris’s last chance, and she wanted him to know it was her. Pain seared at the base of her tongue like Morsfire.
She emerged on the left side of the ship. As she broke cover, Eris screamed. It sounded almost strangled, her rage so thick she could have choked on it.
Damocles stopped and looked over his shoulder at her.
His mistake.
With the drug pulsing through Eris’s system, she could still feel him curled through the edges of her mind. She pushed back. Long ago, she had told him emotion was a weakness. But she was wrong. It made her stronger.
And he was no match.
Eris pointed her blaster and pulled the trigger.
The blast curved. It traveled through the air between them. On target. Perfect.
She shot Damocles right through the eye.
As Damocles fell, memories burst through Eris’s mind. Her brother’s face, younger, less twisted with hatred. His intense concentration as they played a game of war and he decided his next move on the board. She remembered his first kill, the one she took from him. She remembered being forced to take Xander, too. She remembered every brother she killed.
Damocles was the last name on her list.
Clo reached Eris, dragging her back toward the hatch as guards shot at them. Below the ship, Damocles’s body was still visible, his face toward them, his eye weeping crimson.
“You did it,” Clo said, breathless. “You fucking did it.”
Eris tried to pull away from Clo. She had to be sure. His mods could take so much damage—too much. His guards were already dragging him to safety. She had to finish him off, now. She had to.
Nyx roughly hauled her up through the hatch. “We have to go.”
Eris bucked against Nyx’s hold, but the other woman held tight. She let out a cry, strangled, but the drugs were still in her system. She wasn’t strong enough to overpower the larger woman as Nyx pulled her deeper into the hold.
She was already losing consciousness as Clo told everyone that Damocles was dead.
But Eris knew better. She could feel it in her bones.
Damocles was still alive, and he was going to make them all pay.