“It’s in the past. The past doesn’t define me.” I repeat Cassius’s words like they were my own. How many times did he tell me this? How many times have I failed to believe him?
“Stupid gahja.” She taps my forehead. “Nothing is past. Everything that was, is. That scar is a story of your subjugation. Slay the man who gave you that, and it becomes the story of your liberation.”
“Did your father teach you that?” I say, angry that she would preach to me.
Her eyes turn cold and flinty, sensing the accusation.
I’m suddenly achingly aware of the difference between us. She might be the child of a Sovereign like me, but she is a soldier. She was raised in gladiatorial academies amongst sinewy killers on a moon that breaks down your DNA if you step outside without at least three centimeters of high-grade radiation shielding. She has a scar from the Io Institute. There is none more brutal. The students don’t kill as much as Martians or rape as much as Venusians, but the games can last for years in temperatures that freeze your blood before it drips from a wound.
What have I done but read and run all my life? I suddenly feel indicted by my own banter. Like I’m a dog barking at a wolf who knows very well that I’m not from the wild, but lets me bark because it entertains.
“Apologies,” I say carefully.
“Forgiven,” she replies. “Yes, my father taught me that scars are why our ancestors were able to shape the worlds. As Golds, we were born as perfect as man can be. It is our duty to embrace the scars our choices give us, to embrace and remember our mistakes, else we live believing our own myth.” She smiles to herself. “He says a man who believes his own myth is like a drunk thinking he can dance barefoot on a razor’s edge.” The smile disappears as she perhaps remembers her father’s face when he was led away by her brother. And I see clear as day the true war that rages inside the girl. It softens me to her, because it feels a reflection of the same war inside of me. I fight back the urge to touch her hand.
“You think me wicked,” she says quietly, her eyes fixed on the window. “Betraying my own father…”
Why does she care? “Families are…complicated.”
“Yes. They are.”
A silence grows between us, and in it we share an understanding that goes beyond words.
“You are strange,” she says finally. “Your friend is a killer. But you, you are gentle.”
“I’m not gentle.”
I’m suddenly conscious of how close she is. How aware of her body I am. The space between us vibrates and trembles with something raw, newly woken and terrifying to me. I feel the heat in her breath, the cold petals of her pale lips, and the lonely fire in her dark eyes that would pull me into her and consume me. I would let it, and that frightens me more than her family. More even than the death that awaits me if she learns my family name.
She feels the same tension between us, and breaks it by turning away. “Marius says you are spies. That it was not by chance that you found me.”
“You don’t seem to put much trust in what Marius thinks.”
“He is a reptile, but not a fool.”
“I care more about what you think.”
She considers. “Anything gentle that lives long, hides its stinger well.” She turns to the wall to make her exit.
“Why did you take my razor?” I say, feeling a sudden flash of anger at her. “All those people died because I couldn’t get them out.”
“I know,” she says quietly. “But that is the horror the Slave King has made.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“I did it for the greater good. You will understand.”
“Your mother doesn’t know you’re here, does she?” I ask her, nodding to the jammer on her belt. “Why did you really come?”
She hesitates as if she doesn’t even know.
“You saved my life. I…wanted to see if yours was worth saving.”
“And?”
“I have not decided.” She looks at me with strange pity. “You play with things you don’t understand.”
“Your mother made me a guest. I’m protected by old law.”
“My mother is not my father.” She pauses. “Give her what she wants. For your own sake.”
“What does she want?” I ask, but the wall has already parted, and Seraphina has slipped into its shadows. Cassius was right.
We are not guests here. We are prey.
I FINISH MY MORNING LAPS in the pool on the fourth deck of the Nessus in the early morning. The swimming is part of the physical therapy to recover from the razor through the arm I suffered in the fight with the Republic Wardens. My body is a history of aches and pains. Not even in my mid-thirties, I’ve already had three cartilage replacement surgeries for my knees alone.
The swimming makes the arm ache like hell, but also helps displace the feeling of claustrophobia that has crept in during our second week in deep space in our push toward Society territory. That and razor training with Alexandar help keep my mind from my family.
After dressing in my stateroom, I find Sevro in his quarters. He’s lying on his bed watching a video of Electra when she was a baby. The little girl floats in the air above him, silent and dour even as an infant, as Victra dresses her in a high-collared vest. Sophocles’s tail swishes in the air, blocking the camera’s view. I hear Kavax laugh in the background. It’s been two weeks without communication to the outside world. It’s eating at Sevro.
“You still not out of bed?” I ask. “Lazy bastard.”
He squints over at me, eyes still swollen with sleep. “What’s the rush?”
“Apollonius. We agreed to talk to him this morning.”
“Oh, that.” He looks one last time at his daughter and turns off the holopad. “Sure we can’t keep him on ice a few weeks longer?”
“I wish. We’ll be in Gold territory in five days. Time to see if he’s on board.”
“And if he’s not?”
“Then you get to space him. And we burn for Mercury.”
Pebble finds us in the hall on our way to the chute down to the fourth deck. She looks tense. “We have a problem.”
We find Colloway hovering over a holoDisplay in the sensor room on the second deck. Clown stands behind him with his arms crossed, foot nervously tapping. “What’s going on?” I ask.
“Tell him what you told me,” Pebble says.
Colloway rubs his temples. For as much sleep as the man gets lazing around on the recreation room’s couch and playing immersion games, he looks exhausted. “So, you know this ship has an internal monitoring system that detects our thermal signatures.”
“Sure.”
He brings up the blueprint of the ship. Human-shaped figures glow red amongst the decks. I see Winkle’s cool signature on the bridge, Thraxa’s hot signature as she trains endlessly in the gymnasium. Sevro chuckles and points to two thermal signatures side by side in one of the staterooms. “Looks like someone’s going to Bone City. Who is that?”
“There’s twenty-four of us,” Colloway continues, counting off the figures one by one. Many are still in their bunks. “Ten Golds in the cells.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Sevro asks. “We got shit to do.”
“Last night I couldn’t sleep…”