Moira, the Fury, rushes Sevro to impale my friend from behind with her razor as he tries to move
past Ragnar, who’s fighting both Telemanuses, to get at Cassius. I fire my pulseFist point-blank into her side just before she reaches him. Her armor ’s pulseShield absorbs the first few rounds, rippling blue in a cocoon around her. She stumbles sideways, and if I did not continue to fire, she’d have
nothing but a bruise in the morning. But my middle finger is heavy on the trigger of the weapon.
She’s an engineer of oppression, and one of the best minds of Gold. And she tried to kill Sevro. Bad play.
I fire till her shield buckles inward, till she falls to a knee, till she twitches and screams as the molecules of her skin and organs superheat. Boiling blood comes out her eyes and nose. Armor and
flesh fuse together, and I feel the rage ride wild inside me, numbing me to fear, to sense, to compassion. This is the Reaper who laid Cassius low. Who slew Karnus. Who Gold cannot kill.
Moira’s pulseFist fires wildly as the tendons of her fingers contract in the heat. Shooting into the ceiling on full automatic. Twitching sideways, whipping a stream of death across the room. Two Silvers running for cover explode. The glass of the viewport at the far end of the room, which looks out onto the space city, cracks perilously. Howlers scramble for cover till the pulseFist glows molten on Moira’s left hand and the barrel overheats to melt inward with a corrupt fizzle. With that last gasp of rage, the wisest of the Sovereign’s three Furies lies in a charred husk.
My only wish is that it could have been Aja.
I turn back to the room, feeling the cool hand of wrath guiding me, hungering for more blood. But
all those that are left are my friends. Or once were. I shudder with hollowness as the rage leaves me as fast as it came. Replaced by panic as I watch my friends try to kill one another. The ordered lines have broken down into a hi-tech brawl. Feet sliding on glass. Shoulder blades slamming into walls.
PulseFist battles between pillars. Hands and knees scrambling against the floor as pulseFists wail and blades clamor and hack.
And it’s only now, only with this terrifying clarity, that I realize that there is only one common thread that binds them. It’s not an idea. Not my wife’s dream. Not trust or alliances or Color.
It’s me.
And without me, this is what they will do. Without me, this is what Sevro has been doing. What an
inevitable waste it seems. Death begets death begets death.
I have to stop it.
At the center of the room, Cassius stumbles after Victra through twisted chairs and shattered glass.
Blood slicks the floor beneath them. Her damaged ghostCloak sparks on and off and she flashes between ghost and shadow like an undecided demon. Cassius cuts her again across the thigh and spins as Clown shoots at him, cutting Clown across the side of his head before bending back to dodge a shot from Pebble on the ground across the room. Victra rolls under the table to escape Cassius, slicing at his ankles. He jumps onto the table, firing his pulseFist into the onyx till it caves in the center, trapping her beneath. He’s inches from killing her when Sevro shoots him from behind, the blast absorbed by Cassius’s shield, but one that knocks him several meters to the side.
To the right, Ragnar, Daxo, and Kavax fight a duel of titans. Ragnar pins Kavax’s arm to the wall
with his razor, leaves the weapon, ducks, fires his pulseFist into Daxo at point-blank range. Daxo’s shields absorb the blast, and his razor misses Rangar and takes out a chunk of the wall instead. Ragnar hits Daxo in his joints and is about to snap his neck when Kavax skewers him through the shoulder
with a razor, screaming his family name. I rush to help my Stained friend, but as I do I feel someone to my left.
I turn just in time to see Mustang flying through the air at me, her helmet covering her face, her razor arching down to cut me in two. I bring my own razor up just in time. Blades slam together.
Vibrations rattle down my arm. I’m slower than I remember, much of my muscle instinct lost to the
darkness despite Mickey’s lab and my training bouts with Victra. Plus Mustang’s gotten faster.
I’m pressed back. I try to flow around Mustang, but she moves her razor like she’s been at war for