There are things he knows, and things he doesn’t know that he knows, the Elder had said of Dahlen.
“Say the word, Princess. We can download his cube into yours. All his memories, his feelings, his knowledge—yours to experience. Even the moments he himself can’t remember.”
“What would—what would happen to him?” she asked. Rhee could hear the uncertainty in her own voice. Her ma’tan sarili corroding, just like her resolve. She was weak. She’d always been too weak.
“Does it matter?” he asked. “Agree to join me. Relinquish the throne and hand power over to your council, to me, and I’ll let you live. You will be my top adviser. You never had what it takes to be empress. You were never meant to be empress, after all.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“There’s no shame, Rhiannon. Not all of us were meant to rule. Join me. I’ll help you find your sister, and I’ll let her live as well.”
Rhee couldn’t help the desire she felt, like all her atoms were rearranging at this moment, making room for the new knowledge she wanted so badly. For a way to find her sister, finally, after all these years. But at what cost? To make Dahlen a shell? To Ravage him, to reach in and steal his soul and wring it dry? It made her nauseated, then angry.
Honor. Loyalty. Bravery.
She wasn’t capable of what Nero was asking. Killing was one thing. She couldn’t ask someone to live after she’d taken away the very thing that made him human. The ancestors were watching, and perhaps Vodhan was too.
“No.”
“You stupid girl! You’d die for a Vodhead?” Finally, Nero lost his temper. Spit gathered in the corners of his mouth. All his earlier composure had drained away, and what bubbled up in its place was his rage, his hatred, his petty ambitions. “I’d be doing your people a favor by killing you. A bleeding heart could not serve the throne. It certainly didn’t serve your father.”
“Don’t speak about my father,” Rhee said. She wanted to rip his tongue out of his mouth. “My father died with honor.”
“How quaint.” Nero grabbed the largest scalpel from the table next to him. The droids in the auditorium marched toward her, one coming in from either side. “I’ll make sure you follow in his footsteps.”
Rhee kicked at the glass once more as Nero moved slowly, methodically, lifting the scalpel to Dahlen’s neck. Rhee saw the gleam of the razor-sharp edge from where she stood. It mocked her. She rammed the barrier with her right shoulder and felt the pain bloom in her joint.
Rhee heard it before she looked up—the crunch of metal, the hiss of air. Four prongs, each the size of her forearm, pierced through the ceiling of the auditorium. And then the walls clamped toward the center, closing like a fist. Something unbearable invaded her chest. The oxygen was vacuumed out, replaced by the poisonous compounds outside, filling up her lungs and lining her insides. Her face bloating, her body growing hot, strands of her hair burning away. The sound of an alarm, and red flashing lights . . .
The metal fist pulled, and the whole ceiling ripped away to reveal a gaping hole. The sound was swallowed up into a roaring, scorched black sky.
The droids that had run toward Rhee flew away mid-step, their legs still pumping as they were sucked into the darkness and swatted toward the ground in the heavy gravity. She, too, was lifted into the air.
And the split second before her death, she saw Death.
Death was blue. Death was familiar . . .
It was the Fisherman she’d paid with Julian’s telescope, the one who’d marked her. She couldn’t understand what he was doing there, but it didn’t matter. There was no time to think. He was fitted with a jetpack, a harpoon gun tucked under his arm. He bent backward, reeling in the giant slab of alloy wall as you would a giant fish. In his other hand, he held a short-barreled gun that he aimed straight at Rhee.
She hurtled toward him, forcing her eyelids to stay open despite the swelling. If she’d die, it would be with her eyes open. The Fisherman fired once. Twice.
Some sort of slime hit her square in the face. It hardened instantaneously into a soft plastic, and underneath the strange mask, suddenly she could breathe. The jellylike substance thinned out and spread all around her body, protecting her from the elements. She looked over and saw that the second shot had been aimed at Dahlen, and the same strange plastic encompassed him, too, gurney and all. Rhee nearly melted with relief.