37
OUR SHIP floated listlessly away from the ravaged Sacred City. Then I turned slowly, dangerously, toward the girl responsible for ruining everything.
“Why?” I looked at the Interdict’s blood on my hands, the dead man on the floor beneath us. “You . . . I told you . . . You knew . . . Neveni, why?”
“How can you even ask?” she screamed. “The Grandiloquy killed my planet, so I killed their god! I destroyed their Sacred City and their glorious Living Cosmos did nothing to stop it, and I’ve never been so happy in my life.” Rage made her entire body quake. “Let them all see now that their faith is a grand joke! Let them drown in the blood of Luminars just like their Interdict.” With those triumphant, angry words, Neveni crumpled to the ground and descended into frantic tears, belying her claim to happiness.
Numbly, I gazed down at her, thinking of the contradiction of tears I still didn’t understand. She raged with fury, and yet tears flowed. She’d murdered, and destroyed everything, and yet—tears.
“Why do you think I wanted to help you?” she sobbed. “Why do you think?”
Sickened, I recalled our conversation when I’d spoken of going to the Interdict. Only then—only then had she taken interest. She’d meant to murder him all along. She’d meant to wreak this destruction. That’s why she’d grown so cheerful the closer we grew to the Sacred City. Her goal was in sight.
She never meant to help me.
She meant to eradicate any hope Tyrus and I had left.
• • •
Some of the Sacred City had been propelled toward the event horizon of the black hole. Those sections I could still see as they descended into a slower and slower frame of time. I could never venture there. Not without risk of losing years I could not afford to squander.
I moved through the ship feeling as though I’d entered a strange and surreal dream. Near a window, I came to a stop, seeing what was left. There were great chunks of the Sacred City intact, spinning about through the void . . . insides exposed to space. The pastures. The plants. Those Exalteds and the dancers and that vicar who loved the Gorgon’s Arm Wayfarers . . .
And my Hera. That proud and beautiful starship. Obliterated.
My gaze shifted between that terrible destruction to the dull reflection against the clear pane. For an odd moment, I did not recognize myself, this woman who was too small to be me. The one with finery that had never belonged on her, but I’d worn it to impress the Interdict. I couldn’t make out distinct features. My hand raised, touched my crooked nose. Mine. Me. This was me.
A presence entered the room with me. Anguish.
“Tearing out of the dock damaged the ship. We also took a hit from a part of the city itself. I don’t believe it can enter hyperspace safely.”
I spread my hand on the window. Wouldn’t that be ironic, to go through all of this only to die from a failed hyperspace jump . . . from malignant space.
We had to repair the ship or take that risk. Without a hyperspace drive, it would take several million years to return to the Chrysanthemum. I pressed my forehead to the cool window and closed my eyes, my head pulsing. “I’ve no technical knowledge. Unless you do, the only one of us who might be able to fix it is her.”
“You believe an Excess could fix a hyperspace drive.”
“I believe Neveni could fix a service bot that can fix other service bots. They’ll tend to the drive. Her mother was the Viceroy of Lumina, one who tried to restore the sciences. Neveni is . . . I am sure Neveni has more understanding than you’d expect.”
“She is a girl of many surprises,” remarked Anguish.
I looked at him. “Did you know she’d do that?”
“The little girl told me nothing.”
Little.
Little. A strange word. Neveni was “little” only in the physical sense, and only compared to us. I couldn’t call anyone “little” who’d just altered our destinies and likely irrevocably shifted the course of galactic history.
My eyes met their ghostly reflection in the glass, which rendered them hollow, empty-looking black pits.
The Interdict could not fix this. That meant someone had to.
Someone always did. It would have to be me.
“We need to see what’s left of the Sacred City. I’m going to steer us closer. Can you see if there are any space-sheaths we can use?” My voice sounded cold. Granite firm.
“I will check.”
Minutes later I’d navigated us closer to the largest chunk that remained of the habitat, and Anguish wordlessly returned with the space-sheaths. None would fit his broad, muscular body, but I could don mine.
“Lumina’s atmosphere will be long clear of the Resolvent Mist,” noted Anguish. “I suggest we see about going there. . . .”
“No.” I shook my head. “We have to go back.”
“Back?”
“To Tyrus.”
“You wish to return to the Chrysanthemum?”
“We are returning.”
“Are you mad?” said Anguish. “We will be killed on sight.”
“We are Diabolics,” I said to him coldly. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid.”
“If I ever return to the Chrysanthemum,” said Anguish, “it will be to execute your young Emperor. I will not risk the little girl.”
“I will,” I snarled. “Her welfare stopped being my concern when she ruined everything.”
“You believe,” he said contemptuously, “that she will fix this ship for you when that’s your plan?”
“I believe she must fix the ship. If you wish to be the slightest bit useful, you will make her fix it while I’m gone.”
His eyes snapped with warning. “If you are hinting at me torturing her into obedience—”
“Hinting? No. I am telling you to do it. Or I will.”
“No pain we could inflict upon her will exceed her grief.”
“That remains to be seen.” I moved to jam my helmet over my head, but Anguish’s large palm swiped out, sent it careening into the far wall, and my heart felt as though an electric prong had spiked through it.
I rushed over to it, my throat clenched, and examined the precious helmet. No cracks. Good. Oh, I could destroy him. I could murder him. . . . He leaned toward me, eyes afire with rage of his own.
“If you lay a finger on her, Nemesis dan Impyrean, I will return the pain to you fivefold.”
The words, the words . . . The challenge, the hostility in them stirred some long-buried chord deep in my being, and the surge of beautiful malice that swept over me propelled me toward him one step, another.
“Is that so?” My lips pulled into a smile, baring my teeth.
“It is,” he promised, and there was a dangerous light in his eyes that told me his instincts were being stoked with the promise of violence just as mine were.
It didn’t matter, then, that he significantly overpowered and outweighed me. How glorious it would feel to hurt him, to see him bleed, and from the way his great muscles shifted and he began prowling about me, as I circled him, I knew the sentiment was mutual.
“She,” I said to him, my voice trembling with fury, “has doomed us all.”
“She has doomed your young Emperor, you mean.”
“And you despise him. How pleasurable you must find this.”
His smile taunted me. “Yes.”
That was it. I threw myself at him with a scream of rage, and he absorbed my weight, twisting me about to crash to the floor beneath him, his body crushing me. I raised my head and bit the nearest thing to me—sinking my teeth into his shoulder, blood welling up like copper in my mouth. The move surprised him long enough for me to raise my leg and drive my knee into that weakness of male Diabolics. At the same time his fist slammed my side hard enough to send acid boiling up my throat. . . .
“STOP!”
Icy cold water splashed us, drenching us, and Anguish stumbled up to his feet, and I shoved my way up to mine, my garb plastered to me, hair soaked, and Neveni stood there, the upended basin in her hands spattering a few last drops on the floor of the ship.
“Stop,” she repeated, her voice a croak. “I am going to repair the ship.”
Neveni dropped the empty basin with a clang. She held herself like every bone, every cell in her body hurt her, impossibly fragile and breakable.
“I don’t want to be stranded here until we die,” she said. “So I’ll do what I can. If that’s what you’re fighting over, don’t bother. You two just stay away from each other. I mean it.”
And with that, she left us. Anguish and I exchanged a last heated glare, then I stalked out of his sight.
• • •
The docking bay was gone, so I struggled to orient myself as I entered the segment of the Sacred City nearest us. It took me some time to seal the doors, to switch back on the artificial atmosphere, but soon I could pull off my helmet and breathe in the chill air. In the days that followed, I went back and forth. I retrieved any freeze-dried rations I could find, any bots I could recover—functional or no—while Neveni worked on repairing a single bot to enable her to repair others.
Four days. That was what it took. Four days of Neveni trying to figure out what did what, flitting through the Arbiter’s database when she came across something perplexing to her. Yet once she repaired a single bot, it repaired the others, and then they were all working on the hyperspace drive. I repressed the horrified, frantic thoughts that licked at my mind, telling me the time that was truly passing was so much longer than I knew.
Then Neveni called us into the command nexus. “I think we can get out of here. Or we’ll explode. Either way, let’s find out.” Silence settled about us, thick, tense. She looked to Anguish. Nodded. They both turned to me, and I knew they were about to let me know how we would proceed from here. “Nemesis, we’re not going to the Chrysanthemum.”
“Fine.”
My agreement surprised Neveni. Anguish narrowed his eyes, not trusting me.
“Fine,” I repeated, looking at him now. “I’ve given it thought, and we can fly from here to the colony of Caladrail. It won’t cost us too much time. I will drop you off, and then proceed without you.”
“That won’t work for us,” Neveni said. “I’m a fugitive, remember? I can’t just go on with my life.”
“Oh, yes. Your wrongful label as a terrorist,” I said dryly.
Her lips curled at one corner. “I know I sort of fulfilled that prophecy, but the fact is, my reputation’s going to limit my options. I’d be caught in two seconds if we landed on Caladrale or any significant colonies, and we’d stick out too much somewhere smaller. We have to find a transient population . . . a frontier, maybe. And what about Anguish here? Can you imagine any reality where this guy would blend in with a crowd?”
“Yes,” said Anguish. “I can.”
“I was asking her, and I meant that to be rhetorical,” Neveni told him. “I was making a point that you’re enormous and terrifying.”
I’d swear he looked flattered.
“Where do you suggest, then?” I asked her.
“I suggest we part ways,” Neveni said. “You can get to the Chrysanthemum without the Arbiter.”
“How?” I snarled. “By floating?”
“Turn yourself in. You’ll get brought to the Chrysanthemum for your quiet execution. I’m sure of it. Face it: you’re as good as dead if you return. So you might as well not drag the rest of us down with you. How does your corpse help out Tyrus, hmm?”
“What is my alternative?” I raged. “Just leave him?”
“Yes!” Neveni cried. “Leave him. You’ve already done it. You had to, and he wanted you to do it. You can’t save him.”
“Yes, and I have you to thank for that,” I shot back.
“Fine, go die for him. Great. What good does that do either of you?” She threw up her hands. “People love. People die. People lose those they love with all their hearts, and it happens all the time, Nemesis, and people move on. Look at me. My planet is dead. I have no one. My one friend now plans to go to certain death for the stupidest possible reason. You told us what you learned about the Venalox. If that’s true, he is not even going to care about you anymore.”
“There is a chance if we stop wasting time and go right now,” I retorted. “Can’t we argue in hyperspace?”
“That’s the real cruelty of making a Diabolic,” Neveni said. “We exist in this enormous universe with endless frontiers and infinite possibilities, and you only see as far as the bounds of a single person. If you want to throw your life away, I can’t stop you.”
No. She could not.
She turned to Anguish. “You stop her.”
“Wait. What?” I said. I snapped into a defensive position—just as his fist impacted my face.
• • •
Someone was drilling into my head. My eyes opened and I moaned as light pierced my eyes. . . . My voice was strange. It sounded wrong.
My gaze shot wide open, and I saw my space-sheath clad legs floating above me. With a jolt, I realized I was wearing the suit, and I had no idea where I was. My hand lashed out, connected with . . . stone. With stone.
I dragged myself closer to the structure. An airlock door blurred in and out of my vision, and I shoved myself toward it, then forced my way inside. Long after the atmosphere repressurized, my brain seemed to jostle in my skull, and I groped for understanding.
Then I saw the Interdict’s body on the floor where I’d placed him. Understanding came to me in a terrible jolt.
“No. NO!” I shouted, my voice ringing out, and I rushed toward the window—but the Arbiter was not there anymore.
Bright, surging ripples of hydrogen swam through the darkness of space, as far as I could see, and then the world dimmed about me and I felt like the air left my lungs. I knew what I was seeing. Gravity. Powerful gravity tearing at the Transaturnine System now that the gravital window had closed.
“Neveni, I will kill you. I will kill you for this.” My words were flat, heard only by me.
They stranded me and took the ship.
They left me alone in the ruins of the Sacred City.
I sank down to the floor, my head pulsing with pain, and the hideous reality of what had just happened sank into me. The schedule I’d examined, again and again, to determine the timing of our return to the Sacred City . . .
I knew it by heart. I knew just what gravital window had closed, and when the next one would open. A scream seemed to build within me, but I choked on it.
They’d stranded me here for twelve days.
And on Tyrus’s end, when I emerged . . .
Three years.