VIV LAY ON the floor at the Grand Rector’s feet, in chains, and consoled herself with the thought that so far almost everything was going according to plan. She never would have reached the Grand Rector walking free, and if the choice was chained or not at all, at least she wore chains she chose. Xiara had sold the humble-outsider-bringing-tribute schtick; the Pride made things interesting for a few hours there, in a we’re all going to die sort of way, but she’d reached the heart of the Mirrorfleet. The rest was up to her.
She hadn’t expected the Grand Rector to be quite so imposing in person. The last time Viv had seen her, the woman seemed colossal, true, but that was a projection, and projections lied. She was easily seven feet tall in person, taller if you counted the wings that rose from her back, thin-boned and severe and massive with the interlocking muscles both wings and arms required. Her feet and hands were talons, her eyes a deep raptor gold. On Hong, the robes of the ’faith looked comforting, relaxed; the Rector wore hers taut and ceremonial as a dress uniform. And she was smiling, an expression as natural and reassuring on her face as it would have seemed on a hawk’s.
“Xiara Ornchiefsdaughter,” she said as if Viv had not spoken, though her gaze never left Viv’s form, “tell us of this treasure you have brought.”
“You have sought her.” Xiara sounded dutiful, proud, earnest—every bit the loyal Orn warrior she’d been when she first brought Viv to her mother’s court. Viv almost bought the lie. “We traveled together. She betrayed me. She crawled back, and I wanted nothing of her. So I bring her to you.”
Viv forced herself to her knees. She hadn’t expected the chains to be so damn heavy, and she burned to think of all these high-class monks and nuns and such seeing her trussed up like this. It wasn’t the most decorous position from which to make a pitch. “I didn’t crawl.”
The Rector knelt with an ease Viv had not expected from a woman that tall; she cocked her head to one side, and before Viv could flinch back, her left talon darted out and drew a thin line of blood from her cheek. The Grand Rector smelled the blood, tasted it with her thin tongue. “How strange. As the Heretic claimed: it speaks, yet lacks a soul.”
Damn the sting in her cheek. Heretic probably meant Hong. What did that past tense mean? Was he dead? Tortured? Imprisoned? Viv didn’t let herself hope, and she most certainly did not ask about him. She’d met enough high-level players to tell that the Rector was the type that thrived on weakness. She’d never dealt against someone like that from quite so compromised a position. “I need your help.”
“You fled High Carcereal with a heretic and a demon, and you have scourged the galaxy in the months since, committing great blasphemy. You are a soulless puppet, your strings cut, in chains. Why should we help you?”
“To save yourselves.”
The Rector laughed, seized the chains across Viv’s chest in her fist, and rose from her crouch, dragging Viv and chains alike one-handed up. Viv’s feet left the floor and she dangled from the Rector’s grip. “You are in no position to make threats.” Her breath smelled of metal. Viv wondered what she ate, if anything.
“I’m not threatening you. The Empress is.”
“Blasphemy,” the Rector sneered. “If you were not a sacred relic, I would break you now. If you had a soul, I would enlighten you.”
Viv wasn’t certain what enlighten meant in this context, but the tone of voice didn’t suggest anything pleasant. “Your Empress made me on High Carcereal, and ran away. Did you ever wonder why?”
Those golden eyes might be curious—or hungry.
“She made me in her image,” Viv said. “She’s modeling her past. She’s stuck—she’s taken her current technologies as far as they’ll go, and she can’t think outside them. So she’s been searching for a version of the universe where she has the power to beat the Bleed. She thinks she’s found it.”
“Then the final triumph is at hand.”
“For her.”
“Her victory is ours.”
It was hard to breathe, suspended like this. “You don’t get it. She doesn’t care about you. She cares about winning. The Bleed have stopped her from rolling over the cosmos so far, because if she grows too large, they’ll come for her. If she breaks them, that’s it. She’ll eat the whole Cloud. She’ll turn this galaxy into her citadel. She’ll archive you all, if you’re lucky, and reach out for another galaxy, and another after that. She won’t be safe until she’s sure the Bleed are truly gone, until she’s sure there’s no bigger threat hiding behind them—and she can’t be sure of that until she owns the universe. You’ve studied her for centuries. You know her better than anyone. How she strikes, and why. I’ve seen worlds she’s ruined, and the archives she carries with her, pieces of civilizations she found interesting. Frozen whales in a frozen sea. That’s your future, if you don’t help me.”
The Rector dropped her; Viv’s knees buckled when her feet hit the ground, but she’d been waiting for the weight. It bowed her. She almost collapsed, but she forced her legs to push her up, to take the weight, to let her stand. Her shoulders trembled, and her back, and the chains bit into her skin, but she held firm before the Grand Rector.
“She offers victory. Immortality. The ’faith has followed Her for centuries. And yet you claim She would destroy us. Why should we listen to your lies?”
“They’re not lies. You have followed her from battlefield to battlefield. You pick up the pieces she leaves behind. You keep civilization alive. But if she wins, she’ll leave nothing here or anywhere. Just her.” Viv couldn’t turn much, but she scanned the monastic court, all those robed and hooded strangers in their many forms, letting her desperation show and seeing signs of sympathy, or at least shame. One of the monks, a woman with white hair and large owly eyes, seemed receptive, though it was hard to say how much of her concern was for Viv and how much for the wounded, man-sized bunch of seaweed she was holding. “I can break the Empress’s locks. Ask Xiara. That’s why she had to bring me herself—I could slip free if she wasn’t there to watch me. You’ve been collecting her tools, her traces, for longer than I can imagine. I can help you use them, and together we can save—”
The Rector’s face did not change to warn Viv of her impending motion. Her hand closed over Viv’s mouth, and her long fingers wrapped around Viv’s jaw, around the back of her skull, talons dimpling skin just on the verge of drawing blood. Her last word was lost in a moan, and her jaw creaked as the Rector squeezed. “We have heard enough from this soulless creature. She has borne out the Heretic’s account of her delusion. So small, so weak: hard to believe the Empress would build such a thing.”
At small and weak, Viv managed a muffled protest, even through the pain.
“We will not be drawn into heresy. We will not let your lies distort the true science. But you are, yourself, a miracle, and you shall receive no less study than your nature demands. Archivist Lan, perhaps this will serve as a more fitting challenge for your students than the seductions of Pride hardware.” The Grand Rector gestured to the war monks, massive and armored and waiting with their pikes. Two marched forward, seized Viv’s chains from behind, and dragged her back. “Seal her in a relic case.”