Chapter 2
Domestic Bliss
I return to my apartment inside the Halo Palace. My private quarters are on a corridor near Grisholm’s sparring circle. The rooms are posh by the standards of my former capsule in the air-barracks, but they fall short of the elegance of my penthouse apartment at the top of Clifton’s sword-shaped skyscraper in the Fate of Swords. What I love most about this apartment is that it overlooks a formal rose and topiary garden and the sea beneath the jagged cliff beyond it.
Blue lights flash over my silver sword-shaped moniker when I place it beneath the scanner on the panel next to the door. The golden door slides open, and the heavy clicking and shuffling of metal footsteps on marble floor greet me.
No one attends to me here. The secondborns who work in The Virtue’s Halo Palace find it beneath their stations to assist a secondborn Sword. To compensate for this, a “mechadome,” a domestic robot with artificial intelligence, was assigned to me. They’re usually humanoid in appearance with sophisticated communication and domestic skills. Mine is not.
My newly commissioned mechadome waddles over from the drawing room.
My lips twitch into a smile. It’s clear this domestic servant has been resurrected from a scrap pile. Its two round, lens-like eyes, located in the center of its nearly neckless head, glow red. It uses infrared to find me in the wide foyer. The dented iron veneer of the three-foot-tall, hydrogen-powered domestic assistant doesn’t have a bit of shine to it. Lines of rusted round-headed fasteners run down either side of its plump torso.
Out of curiosity, I researched my new mechadome. In its former life, this little bot was a sewer worker with few artificial intelligence capabilities. It had no domestic skills whatsoever until it was assigned to me. Only the bare minimum of upgrades have been applied to its operating system, according to the rudimentary diagnostic I ran. The potbellied robot strikes me as someone’s idea of a supremely funny prank meant to make me feel less than welcome here. I suspect Grisholm had something to do with it. The Firstborn Commander’s joke couldn’t have backfired worse, though, because I find this squat, burly brute endearing.
“How has your day been, Phoenix?” I ask.
The mechadome shifts its weight from wide metal foot to wide metal foot and back—clang, clang, clang—and its glowing red eyes stare up at me.
I unfasten the armor clasps of my heat resistant hauberk and pull it over my head. Holding out the metallic mesh garment, I let go. As it falls, Phoenix lifts its short, cannon-barrel-shaped arm. The hollow appendage whines, and a powerful vacuum sucks the armor to it, catching it before it hits the floor.
Straightening my black tank top back into place over my abdomen, I realize that this little unit probably used to suck up sewage—a thought I don’t want to dwell on when it brings me my dinner later this evening.
Phoenix uses its other longer arm with the clawlike hand to secure the armor. The mechadome makes an awkward turn because its hover mode no longer works. With more clanging noises, it crosses the foyer at a toddling pace, depositing my hauberk into a transparent case. The thickset bot programs the storage unit to sanitize the armor. I pat its iron head on my way by to check the parcel chute.
The bin is empty—nothing from Hawthorne to let me know if he’s alive.
I cross through the drawing room to the message console on the wall in the den and take out the hologram pad. Lifting the antiquated handheld device, normally used by the administrative arm of the Halo Palace, I switch on the pad. An automated virtual image of a Stone-Fated secondborn appears, in holographic form, with a message: “Your request for a manual and tools to repair a Class 5Z Mechanized Sanitation Unit has been denied. You do not hold the moniker classification for this task. Please requisition a Star-Fated or Atom-Fated representative for further assistance.” The hologram winks out.
I growl in frustration. Using the handheld hologram pad, I record and send a request for a Star to visit my apartment. I shove the message pad aside. I’m irritated, for the millionth time since arriving here, about the restrictions on my moniker communications.
I squat down. “Don’t worry, Phee. I’ll get your hover mode fixed soon.” Phoenix responds by shifting its feet—three quick clangs—reminding me of the maginots’ tails wagging.
Straightening, I leave the den and walk to the winding stairs near the drawing room. As I climb them, I hear Phoenix behind me ramming repeatedly into the bottom step, trying to follow me. It turns on its powerful vacuum arm and angles it down. Reversing the flow of air, it blows a stream of wind, acting as a propulsion system. The squat little bot almost levitates to the first step. “Stay, Phoenix,” I order. It stills. The air system powers down.
The expression on its little face is almost forlorn. Its eyes glow brighter red. Its portal mouth, which is where it attaches to a power source to recharge its hydrogen power cells, can curve up or down to show the bare minimum of humanlike expression. The oblong opening is in a definite frown. “I’ll be right back.” I feel a bit stupid for talking to it this way. I don’t know the extent of its intelligence or whether it has genuine feelings, but still I’m acting as if it has both.
I jog up to my bedroom suite to take a quick shower. When I’m finished, I wrap a robe around myself and move to stand in front of the holographic mirror in the dressing closet adjacent to the bathroom. The mirror reflects my image with a holographic list of categories on its right side. I select “Casual Wear” by touching the air button. My image in the mirror becomes garbed in a champagne-colored silk blouse with off-white leather pants that taper at the leg. I swipe away the leather with a gesture of my hand. I want something that will suit my mood, which isn’t bright. The leather pants are replaced by cherry-red cotton leggings. I wrinkle my nose and keep swiping.
I was advised by the Stone-Fated attendant who gave me the tour of the Halo Palace that I’m not to wear any symbols of the Sword secondborn military while in residence here. Instead, I’m to dress like Sword aristocracy. The Palace agent fell short of telling me to comport myself as if I’m firstborn, but it was implied in his rhetoric. I have outfits for a myriad of occasions, from formal to beachwear, but everything in my clothing lists is stylish and feminine and fits the profile of a wealthy firstborn.
Tailored black high-waisted trousers finally catch my eye. Pausing on them, I swipe through a range of different tops to pair with them, settling on a clingy, long-sleeved black top with an asymmetrical neckline. All the appropriate undergarments that accessorize the outfit display as well. I order them. About seven minutes later, the outfit arrives through the air-driven clothing conveyor chute inside the dressing closet. The items are packaged in separate garment bags that store neatly in clothing cubbies until I send the garments back in them later.
The black heels I order have a wait time of thirty minutes. Barefoot but dressed, I go back to the bathroom. As I’m twisting my hair into a smooth knot at the base of my head, the door of my apartment bleeps in melodic tones.
“You have a visitor,” a sultry male voice says from the apartment’s speaker system. The heavy metallic ring of Phoenix’s feet begins in earnest below—clang, clang, clang, clang—
“Who is it?” I ask, securing my hair with a few pins.
“Secondborn Kinjin Star,” replies the simulated voice.
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang—
Smoothing the last hairs into place, I leave the bathroom and descend the stairs. “Open the front door,” I command, hurrying across the drawing room to the foyer. The apartment door opens, and the young woman outside gazes down at Phoenix at her feet. The mechadome shifts noisily from side to side.
The Star-Fated woman looks up at me as I approach. “I read the order, but I thought it was keyed in wrong. You have a Class 5Z Mechanized Sanitation Unit as a domestic assistant?” Her brown eyes sparkle with restrained mirth. She rests her hand on the knee of her lemon-colored uniform, bending toward Phoenix in fascination. The silver belt around her waist holds magnetized tools. In her hand is a silver case.
“They’re the up-and-coming thing,” I reply, my lip twisting with sarcasm. “Everyone will have to have one soon. Please come in.” I move aside, allowing her in. “This one has seen better days, though. The hover module doesn’t work on either of its feet.” The door slides closed behind her.
“Is there a place I can work?” she asks, appearing as if she’s making mental notes of all the tests she’d like to run on my little bot.
“This way.” I sweep my arm toward the long table in the formal dining area. Phoenix toddles along behind me like a puppy. At Kinjin’s urging, I help lift Phoenix off the floor and onto the marble tabletop.
“Thanks,” she says. “These little units are heavy. Their outsides are iron, and their insides are lined with lead.”
She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand and goes to work pulling rusted fasteners from Phoenix’s abdomen. As she works, I watch, asking questions when she pulls out soldering tools and replacement wiring. She runs upgrades on the operating system. After minutes of poking around, Kinjin pulls out a blackened metal part.
“I don’t have a replacement component for this,” she explains with a sheepish expression. “The lead is fine, but the receptor nodes on either side of it have shorted, and its boards are shot.” She sets pieces of lead on the marble table. “The hover mode won’t work without them. I can requisition replacement parts, but it will take several weeks because it’s not a high-priority item.”
“Is there somewhere I could get them?”
Her eyes turn up toward the ceiling, and her cheeks puff out. “There’s a small repair shop in the downtown city center of Purity. They might have them. I can give you coordinates, if you’d like.” I nod. She closes and secures Phoenix’s iron casing. As she repacks her tools in her silver case, she reaches for the damaged lead parts.
“Can I keep those? I can show them to the technician at the shop. It might be easier,” I explain, palming the parts and shoving them in a nearby drawer before she can say no.
“Sure.” Kinjin shrugs. Together, we lift Phoenix down from the table. The stout bot seems no less functional for the loss of the small lead bits. Kinjin packs up her tools while Phoenix waddles around sucking up dust from the floor with its vacuum arm. When she’s finished, Kinjin says, “I’ll contact you when I get the parts.”
I nod. We walk together to the foyer. Once we’re away from Phoenix and the noise of the vacuum, a thought occurs to me. “I wonder . . .” I want to be subtle about what I say next. It pertains to Firstborn Reykin Winterstrom, my contact in the Gates of Dawn resistance. He told me he’s looking for his secondborn brother, Ransom. If I could somehow find this secondborn Star, I’d have something to barter with Reykin and the Gates of Dawn the next time they want something from me. “Kinjin, do you happen to know an engineer by the name of Ransom Star?”
A flicker of recognition crosses her face. “That’s an unusual name,” she replies.
“Yes,” I agree, offering nothing further.
“It doesn’t sound familiar.” Her eyes shift away, as if she’s afraid to look at me.
“Oh. Well, I’ll notify you if by chance I can get those parts sooner than you can.”
Kinjin nods without glancing my way. “You have a pleasant evening.”
“And you, as well.” The door closes behind the Star, leaving me to wonder why she lied.
Once Kinjin is gone, I panic. That was a supremely stupid risk to have taken for a negotiating tool I’m not even sure would be useful. I just blurted out Ransom Winterstrom’s name, as if a name like that couldn’t get me killed! As if a connection to Reykin Winterstrom and the Gates of Dawn isn’t the most dangerous aspect of my life. Everything is a mess. My hands tremble. I close them into fists.
Suddenly, this apartment is too small. I need to escape it. Going to the bureau drawer where I stashed the lead pieces, I yank it open. I could leave. I could cloak my moniker with the lead parts and just run away, but where would I go? Not back to Swords—not without speaking to Gabriel first. The moment I cross back into my Fate, I’ll be cut down—unless it’s in secret, and for that I’d need a plan.
My forehead dampens with sweat—my breathing hitches erratically, my heart drumming out of control. Even though I don’t want to admit to myself that I’m suffering from a severe form of panic, I know the symptoms, which are common among Swords before and during the trauma of combat—and even long after they’re away from any fighting. I drop the lead back into the drawer and close it.
Moving to a holographic screen in the drawing room, I explain my symptoms in gasping breaths to the Atom-Fated physician on duty. As I wait for a chet to arrive, I pace between the large white-linen sofa and the glass doors that lead to the balcony. The view of the sea beneath the cliff in the distance is gorgeous, but it does nothing to calm my anxiety. Nor does the formal rose garden directly below my balcony.
The musical bleep from the front door sets me further on edge. The automated voice announces the medical drone’s arrival. Phoenix trundles toward it, but I easily pass the mechadome and answer the door myself. A silver, bullet-shaped medical drone awaits me in the corridor. It scans my moniker. A compartment in its side opens and dispenses the thin paper square. Wordlessly, I take it. The drone flies away. I put the chet on my tongue and allow it to melt. Closing the door, I lean against it and immediately begin to relax. The panic subsides to a faraway feeling of mild angst, but the chet makes me feel sluggish and drowsy.
Walking back to the drawing room, I sit on the soft sofa. My shoulders round forward. The room spins a little. Slowly, I lie down, rest my head on a velvety throw pillow, and pull my feet up. Closing my eyes, I try not to think of anything. Not the Gates of Dawn. Not the war. Not my insane family. Not the brat named Grisholm. And especially not the one person I worry may already be dead. Hawthorne.
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang—Phoenix’s rapidly shifting steps bang on the floor directly in front of me. I open my eyes to see its glowing red ones just inches from my face. It’s night. Only one small lamp on the side table lights the apartment. I must have fallen asleep. I rub my eyes and raise my head from the pillow. Suddenly, fingernails dig into my scalp, yanking me up by my hair. A meaty arm around my neck chokes me in a brutal stranglehold. The arm moves. A dagger at my throat cuts into my skin.
Phoenix’s vacuum arm whines to life. The mechadome points its cannon-barrel-shaped limb at whomever is behind me. My hair whirls and rips toward it. The vacuum arm grows longer. The man’s hand yanks free from my neck, the powerful suction from Phoenix pulling it away. Grunts of pain and frustration come from behind me. The assailant lets go of his knife, which disappears inside Phoenix’s arm. A hatch blows the weapon out of a round chamber in the robot’s upper back, and the knife sticks into the wall.
Phoenix’s extended vacuum arm locks on to my attacker’s wrist and sucks the large man’s forearm to the round metal opening. Phoenix’s vacuum retracts, jerking the man forward. He lets go of me, wrenched by his arm, falling to his knees and sliding toward Phoenix’s feet as the vacuum shaft continues to shorten. The crunching of bones is barely discernable over Phoenix’s loud whirring.
The man struggles, but it’s no use. In one grotesque motion, his forearm folds in half and disappears inside the vacuum. Harrowing screams bleat from behind the man’s dark mask. The powerful suction dislocates the assassin’s arm as he feebly punches his free hand against Phoenix’s metal limb and bellows in agony.
A shadow crosses my peripheral vision, and I lurch off the cushion just in time to avoid a fusionmag pulse to the head. The pulse strikes the man on the floor, exploding his brains all over Phoenix’s iron fasteners. Most of the blood vaporizes in the heat.
I land on the floor beside Phoenix and brace for the next fusionmag shot, but Phoenix reverses his arm-cannon, spewing out pieces of the dismembered limb at the second assailant, knocking the fusionmag from his hand.
While the second assassin scrambles to pick up his weapon, I dive to the wall and force the knife blade from it. Twisting, I hurl the weapon just as the second assailant rises to aim the fusionmag at me. The knife sticks in his Adam’s apple, and he reels backward. His gun bounces toward me as he hits the rug. I tumble to it near the side of the sofa. He twitches on the floor, blood spurting from his throat as he dies.
On my knees, I reach for the fallen weapon. Another pulse flashes before my eyes, and I flinch, expecting to feel it burn them right out of my head, but Phoenix’s stout body lurches in front of me. The pulse connects with the mechadome, making a sizzling sound that quickly dies out, probably because Phoenix is lined with lead, the worst conductor of fusion energy in this room. The little robot stomps from foot to foot, its infrared eyes glaring at a third intruder standing by the balcony door.
My hand closes around the grip of the fallen fusionmag. Lifting the weapon, I fire a shot. The glowing pulse strikes the third man in the shoulder where I intended it. I want him alive. He pitches to the side. Wounded, the man spins and escapes over the balcony railing.
I’m on my feet, sprinting to the balustrade. Reaching it, I peek over the edge. One floor below me, the third assassin stumbles away, holding what’s left of his shoulder, disappearing behind a hedgerow of the rose garden.
I grip the line, secured to the railing of the balcony, that he used to leave. Clutching the fusionmag in one hand, I wrap the line around my forearm and step over the barrier. The line stretches like elastic, setting me down on the ground with minimal impact. Disengaging from it, I run in the direction of the escaping man.
Salt air and the sound of crashing waves greet me at the end of the formal garden. The ocean is ahead, at the bottom of a perilous cliff. The stairway to the beach is in another direction. This is a dead end. I push on, seeing movement in the darkness. The assassin runs toward the edge of the cliff. I contemplate killing him from here, but then I won’t be able to question him, so I run as fast as I can, expecting him to slow down. Instead, he reaches the cliff’s edge and jumps.
“Roselle!” a harsh voice snarls behind me. A strong arm captures my legs. I fall forward, hitting the grassy terrain hard. We slide almost to the brink of the cliff. The man above me flips me over, glaring at me in the moonlight, and I stare up at the Star-Fated soldier who invades my dreams almost every night.
“Reykin,” I whisper, stunned. “What are you doing here?”