My eyes return to the firstborn in the corner. He’s still watching me. This older man seems so familiar. I don’t know why. My head tilts. He smiles at my who-are-you gesture, and then recognition dawns—I should say, Gates of Dawns.
Adrenaline crashes into my bloodstream. He’s Sword Commander Walther Petes. Dune’s fraternal twin brother. Here, in the Halo Palace. It must be him. My eyes go to his moniker, expecting to see a silver secondborn sword, but it’s gold. He’s a firstborn Sword.
He has the same build as Dune, with the same chiseled bone structure and the same full-lipped smile. His hair is a warm chestnut color. He wears it short—military length. His nose is different from Dune’s. This man’s nose has been broken a few times and never repaired. He’s clean-shaven. I try to see the color of his eyes, but he’s too far away.
“And you!” The Virtue rages on, his finger jabbing at me. “How are you still alive after you fell from the top of the Sword social club?”
“I’m hard to kill,” I reply.
His eyes flare. He glances from my face to Dune’s, and then back. “You’re ‘hard to kill.’ That’s your answer?”
“Yes.”
A rumble of surprised laughter shakes his shoulders. “She’s hard to kill,” he roars, laughing furiously and looking over everyone in the room. Others join him tentatively. His rage-filled gaze returns to me. “So am I. If I find that you were a part of this, I will rip your throat out.”
I nod once, not looking away.
Clifton intervenes. “I brought the security footage from the social club. We can review it now.”
“Show it,” The Virtue barks. Clifton nods to the secondborn Star behind us. The security shutters lower over the transparent wall, blotting out the sun. Soft lighting illuminates the room. The security doors close, imprisoning us inside.
The Virtue remains standing, but others find seats. Grisholm gets Reykin’s attention and indicates a chair for him. I choose not to sit with them, drifting to the back of the room near the wall of flowing water and its tranquil pattering sound. Clifton takes a position on one side of me. Maybe he’s already seen the footage, and he was present for the event, but he doesn’t watch when the holographic images of the main ballroom, the gallery level, and the Gods Table take shape. The noise of the party is clamorous. I tense, waiting for the mayhem.
A warm hand brushes mine with a gentle stroke against my smallest finger. I glance up at Clifton’s face, a mask of remorse. Impulsively, I latch on to his hand for the briefest of moments, squeeze it, and then let it go.
The holographic recording flares with light. Death Gods invaded the club through a rooftop terrace entrance in pairs. More than likely, they used gravitizers, which means they had extensive military training. The assassins trickle in and blend with the revelers, taking up positions near doors, exits, security drones, and the club’s private security.
Hawthorne and the Death Gods entered the building in the same way. That bothers me, although it makes strategic sense. It’s how I would enter if I wanted to get in and weren’t invited.
“Why aren’t the drones picking them up?” The Virtue bellows.
“Pause,” Clifton orders. The footage stills. “They didn’t have monikers.”
“The drones should have alerted us to that.”
“We believe they used a device that reflects the moniker closest to them. At such proximity, the drones cannot discern there are multiple people. It fools them into believing the person has simply moved.” From the pocket of his trousers, he holds up a black cuff bracelet with a flat, square chip embedded in it. “We recovered these from the bodies of the attackers. We’ve never encountered this type of technology before. My engineers are pulling them apart as we speak. We should know more soon.”
“Do you suspect Burton?”
“I do,” Clifton replies without reservation.
“Resume!” The Virtue orders, his hands clenched into fists.
My holographic image enters the social club. I can hardly watch. The burn of adrenaline, of knowing what lies ahead, sickens me. I want to reach into her world of light and warn her—tell her to save her father—but I can’t. The sound transports me back to that living nightmare. Panic seizes. My vision blurs. I’m gasping. No one notices. They’re all riveted by the footage. Then the carnage begins.
Reaching into my sweater pocket, I take out the packet of chets. The cellophane wrapper crinkles loudly beneath the recorded screams of a violent massacre. My shaking fingers have a difficult time tearing open the seal. Walther eases the packet from my grasp, deftly opening it and offering me a small white stamp in his palm. I don’t take it all. Instead, I rip off a corner piece and put it in my mouth. Dune’s brother stuffs the rest of the chet back into the cellophane and slips them into my pocket. Slowly, my breathing eases, though everything still has a faraway perspective.
My holographic image enters the gallery, sparking cheers from some of the group assembled here. The firstborns are enjoying this, as if it were some form of entertainment. I stifle a snort of derision.
“Who is that Sword?” The Virtue shouts.
“Pause,” Clifton orders. “That’s Hawthorne Trugrave. He’s a newly Transitioned firstborn. You remember him—he was at the Sword Palace the night you acquired Roselle.”
Acquired. Have I been acquired? Is that what they’re calling my internment here?
“Get him here!” The Virtue barks.
“Of course,” Clifton replies. “Resume.” He sends a message with his moniker.
Under the influence of the chet, I analyze the Goddess Roselle before me. She’s possessed, eviscerating her enemies with the vengeance of a wrathful deity. Ruthlessly, she hunts them. The fusionmag is an extension of her will. With Tyburn behind her, shielding her back, she’s the north, south, and east winds.
The men watching shout thunderously and applaud when Roselle slices open the leg of the flying Death God with her dagger. Her fall to the ballroom floor elicits gasps. More cheers roar as she targets the flying assassin and shoots him out of the air. But when she dons goggles and spews a billowing cloud of red dust into the ballroom, the firstborns jump to their feet, clapping uproariously at the wholesale slaughter of assassins, as if she’s some favored competitor in the Secondborn Trials.
I am unable to look away. I feel nothing when the war goddess tackles the bomb-wielding assassin, crashing with him through the window and out into the night sky. The grenade explodes. All the glass blows inward, shooting shards toward the surveillance cameras. The firstborns raise their arms to their faces and gasp.
The holographic footage ends. Whoops of laughter seize the group. Grisholm is one of the most riotous, as if he’s been on a thrill ride and can’t stop talking about the experience. He turns to Reykin, chatting boisterously. Reykin glances over his shoulder at me. His expression is grim. I look away.
The Virtue calls Clifton back to the front of the room. He and Dune brief Fabian Bowie and his advisors on their preliminary findings about the massacre.
I’m barely listening.
“You were brave,” Walther says. I meet his eyes. They’re jade colored, not sand.
“It wasn’t bravery,” I reply. “It was rage—a Sword-Fated threnody.”
“Remind me not to upset you.”
“I’ll do that. Walther.”
His smile is one of pure pleasure. For a moment, it soothes the ache in my chest.
Dune says, “I’d like to introduce Firstborn Walther Petes.” He gestures in our direction. “He’s a newly Transitioned firstborn, a former secondborn commanding officer at the Twilight Forest Base in Swords. His brother, Fergusson Petes, was among the casualties at the club last night. He flew in this morning to assume his new position as a military consultant to The Virtue.”