Empire

  “She’s right, Syl,” said Ani. “We can change things for the better. It doesn’t have to be the way it was on Earth. Together we can make the Corps and the Military do our will. We can prevent war. The Sisterhood would be the real power, and it would be a power for good.”

  “Ani,” said Syl, “look around you! There is no good! They’re killing Illyri. They’re wiping out anyone who disagrees with them, anyone who is a threat.”

  “Them? They’re enemies,” said Tanit. “They would have hurt us had we not dealt with them first.”

  Syl ignored her, and fixed her gaze on Ani.

  “I’ve seen things, Ani, in the depths of the Marque. I’ve seen the First Five. They’re alive, but there’s a creature, a consciousness, holding them prisoner. They want to die. They started out believing they could control it, but now it controls them. They’ve sacrificed entire worlds to it—that’s what happened to Archaeon—and Earth will be next. They thought they were doing good, but they made a terrible mistake. All that is wrong with the Empire, all that has poisoned it, has its roots in the Marque.”

  “She’s lying!” Tanit cried. Syl looked at her, and saw that she genuinely did not know anything about what Syl had witnessed.

  “It’s true, Tanit,” said Syl. “They’ve used you too.”

  But Tanit was not to be reasoned with.

  “You’re the poison!” she shouted. “You’re the mistake! And if I can’t burn you, then I’ll burn the thing you love.”

  Paul screamed as puffs of smoke rose from all over his body, and the skin on his face and uninjured hand began to blister. Syl focused on Tanit, but the last of the Blue Novices was stronger than the others, so much stronger, and Paul’s shrieks rose in pitch as he fell to the ground, desperately rolling as if he could put the flames out.

  The smoke stopped rising. Like Sarea before her, Tanit felt Ani’s influence as a buzzing in her head, a clouding of her consciousness.

  “Stay out of this,” she hissed at Ani. “Trust me, my darling, you’re picking the wrong side.”

  But Syl, forced to watch Paul suffer again, barely heard Tanit speak. Her feelings for him fueled her own fire. He had come here to find her, and she would not let him die for her. She focused all of her energy on Tanit, all of the power that she had drawn from the dead Novices whose bodies lay scattered across the room. For the first time since the carnage had begun, Syl felt tired of killing. She wanted it to end, but Tanit would not allow it.

  And so Tanit too would have to die.

  I have become a monster, thought Syl. I am as bad as the rest of you, but so be it.

  Tanit gaped dumbstruck at the index finger of her left hand. It was burning. The fire turned from red to orange, and from yellow to white as its intensity increased. Tanit gritted her teeth and tried to douse the flame, but to no avail. Her hand moved up toward her forehead, her burning finger pausing an inch from her skin, her entire body shaking. She stared at Syl in disbelief, and found the strength to say her final words.

  “They’ll destroy you for this.”

  Then Tanit’s fingertip touched her forehead, and she burst into flames.

  CHAPTER 74

  Syl emerged as if from a trance. Tanit was no more, reduced to a mound of blackened flesh, and Syl was surrounded by the dead. Only Ani, Paul, and Peris remained alive.

  When she had time to think and consider her actions, Syl would try to analyze her feelings, and her state of mind, during the carnage in Kellar’s apartments. At first, it seemed to her that there was another Syl, a darker Syl, who had somehow taken over, and that she—the good Syl—was powerless to stop her. But, in silence and solitude, she was forced to admit that this was not the case: the true Syl, the one who could bend others to her will, even to the extent of forcing them to kill, or to take their own lives, was a combination of the two. And the most terrifying thing of all for Syl was that she still had no real understanding of her own nature, or of the extent of her power.

  But all that was for another time. For now, what mattered was Paul. She ran to him, and he held her with one arm, keeping his injured hand away from her body.

  “How did you get here?” she asked, her lips resting against his forehead, her mouth brushing his blistered skin.

  “It’s complicated,” said Paul.

  Wincing, he hugged her.

  “I’ve come to take you away,” he said, and he was grateful that she made no objection, and even more so that she did not ask him if he had a plan. His plan, insofar as it went, was to get back to the Nomad, point it toward the wormhole, and hope for the best. But without her intervention, he realized, he would, yet again, be dead. Somehow, the rescuer had become the rescued.

  “They’ll be looking for me,” Syl told him. “Not just for this. I killed a Sister in the Marque. I had to. I—”

  Paul let go of her, and then placed his hand tenderly on her cheek. Her hair tickled his wrist.

  “Not now,” he said. “We can talk about it once we’re safely off Erebos.”

  He went to Peris and tried to lift him up, but the Illyri would not stand.

  “How could they have known?” said Peris, as much to himself as to the others. “They killed them all, but how could they have known?”

  “Peris, we don’t have time to hang around,” said Paul.

  Peris was pale, and bathed in sweat. Only now did he seem to notice Paul.

  “I’m not leaving,” he said.

  “You have to. They’ll want you dead.”

  Peris shook his head. He was in agony, but still determined.

  “Someone must stay. If we all run, there will be no one left to bear witness against them.”

  Paul bent beside Peris. He was overcome by admiration for him, unclouded by anything but pure affection, and felt a fleeting stab of shame that he’d ever doubted him.

  “I can’t stay,” said Paul.

  “I know. If you did, I’d damn you for a fool. Take Syl and Ani away. Look after them. Look after each other. And Paul”—Peris clasped the young human by the back of the head, pulling his face closer—“find a way to fight them.”

  Paul swallowed hard. He was sure that he was seeing Peris for the last time.

  “I will.”

  “Go! Go on, get out of here while you still can.”

  Paul took Syl’s hand and turned to go, but she pulled him back.

  “Ani?” she said. Her best friend was crouched on the floor by Tanit’s remains, her head in her hands, her body shaking with silent sobs. On hearing her name, she looked up, and her face was twisted with grief.

  “How could you, Syl? How could you kill her? I loved her!”

  “Ani, please . . . please, let’s just go. We can talk about it later.”

  Ani stood.

  “No! I’m not coming with you. What if you decide to kill me? You’ve already murdered so many of us.”

  “I had no choice. Look at the bodies! Look what they did to Peris! Think what Tanit was going to do to Paul.”

  Paul interrupted. “Ani, there’s a trail of their victims in this damned palace. I’ve seen them, all slaughtered. Anyone who might get in the Sisterhood’s way is being assassinated.”

  Ani stared at him.

  “Where’s Steven?” she said finally.

  “He’s in a ship waiting to take us away. Come on, we must go.”

  Ani stood up, but then she shook her head and went to kneel by Peris, wiping at her tears.

  “If what you say is true, Paul, then it’s important I stay here, with Peris. Together we will be witnesses. Together we will try to change things.”

  She reached out and took Peris’s undamaged hand. The old soldier looked up at her and opened his mouth, but his pain stole away any words.

  “Please, Ani,” begged Syl. “Come! Come with me. You’re my best friend.”

&
nbsp; Ani turned and looked at Syl coldly.

  “You!” she said. “You lied to me about your gifts, Syl. You killed without mercy. And Tanit is gone—gone, forever. You can’t even begin to comprehend how that grieves me. All my other friends are dead too, killed by your hand. No, I cannot call you my friend, not now, not after what you’ve done.”

  Syl tried to speak, but Ani silenced her with a glare.

  “Don’t!” she said. “I will stay here, and if things are as you say they are, I will do my best to bring such evil to an end. You seem determined to forget that the Sisterhood was founded with a noble purpose, but I shall make it my mission to reclaim that purpose, however long it takes. In time I may even come to forgive you, but I will never trust you, Syl Hellais. Frankly, I’ll be happy if I never lay eyes on you again.”

  Ani took a deep breath, and it caught ragged in her throat as she continued: “Yet we are both on the side of what is good and right, and so I wish you luck. I wish you both luck.”

  Syl could barely see Ani, for her own tears obliterated her vision, but she saw enough to know that Ani had turned her back on her, and when she reached out desperately with her mind it was like running into broken glass.

  “Ani,” she whispered. “Ani, please . . .”

  Ani’s spine was rigid, and Paul pulled at Syl’s hand.

  “We have to go,” he said. She nodded.

  Together they ran.

  • • •

  The first step was to get to the shuttle landing pads. Once there, they could force a crew to take them up to the Nomad. Paul could see that shuttles continued to land and depart: with luck, they could just lose themselves in the traffic.

  Guests were still making their way to the Grand Hall for the ceremony. Nairenes moved among them, but there was no sign of any more Blue Novices, and nobody appeared to be paying them very much attention at all. He looked at Syl and saw that beneath her hastily rewound headscarf, her face was a rictus of concentration, her eyes puffy and red, but dry. She was doing her best to make both of them unnoticeable.

  A covered glass tunnel connected the main palace complex with the landing pads. They were almost halfway down it, the crowds all gone now, when a voice spoke Syl’s name. Syl stopped, and a great weariness swept over her. She should have known that escape would not be so easy.

  She turned to face Syrene. The Archmage waited at a junction in the tunnel, about twenty feet from where Syl and Paul stood. She was flanked by her personal handmaidens, Cocile and Layne.

  Other figures joined them now: Securitats, the very ones that had regarded Tiray with such hostility earlier that day. They appeared to be unarmed—clearly the laws about weapons on Erebos even applied to the Securitats—but they outnumbered Paul and Syl.

  Paul heard footsteps behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw three more Securitats cutting off their route to the landing pads. They were surrounded.

  It was then that Lord Andrus stepped into the tunnel.

  Syl almost ran to her father. She had not been permitted to communicate with him since her departure for the Marque, and even though she had convinced herself that he was no longer the parent she had known, seeing him in the flesh forced everything but love from her mind, especially now, when she felt so raw and exposed.

  “Father,” she said.

  He smiled at her and extended his arms, inviting her into his embrace.

  “Syl,” he replied. “My beloved daughter. Come to me.”

  Her feet moved of their own volition. Only Paul’s grip on her hand prevented her from going farther. He squeezed her fingers.

  “Be careful,” he said, remembering Peris’s warning about Andrus. “He’s different now.”

  But he didn’t look different. He was still the one who had held her as a child, who had indulged her as a teenager, who had shown her images of the late Lady Orianne, telling Syl stories of the mother she had never known, bringing her back to life by sharing his memories of her with their daughter.

  Lord Andrus spoke her name again, but now his tone had an edge to it. He continued to smile, but his eyes had the glassiness of a doll’s.

  “Syl, come here. Do as I tell you.”

  And in that moment Syl had the answer to Peris’s question: Syrene’s pet killers had known whom to target because her father—or the thing that now infected him—had revealed all his secrets to his wife-to-be. Trying desperately not to weep, Syl stepped back to join Paul, clutching his hand tighter.

  Lord Andrus’s smile faded, but it was Syrene who spoke next.

  “We’re disappointed in you, Syl. We had high hopes for you.”

  But she didn’t sound disappointed. Instead, Syl thought that she was almost impressed. Tentatively, Syl allowed her mind to probe Syrene’s feelings. Yes, there it was: surprise. Syl had surprised her.

  She knows, Syl thought. She knows about what I did to Oriel. She knows that I’ve seen the First Five. And she also knows what I can do with my mind. Like the others, she always believed that Ani was the one with the power, but she was wrong.

  Surprise. I feel it. I sense it.

  Surprise—

  And fear.

  Syrene swatted away Syl’s probings, but she reacted just a second too late. She had exposed herself to the young female.

  Now her eyes flicked briefly toward Paul.

  “You should have stayed far from here, boy,” she told him. “You’ll die on Erebos now. If it’s any consolation to you, at least you’ll be dying for love.”

  She returned her attention to Syl.

  “You will attend our wedding,” she said. “You shall smile throughout. When the ceremony is over, you will be returned to the Marque. And then, well, we shall see . . .”

  Syrene ordered the Securitats behind them to seize Paul. Two of them were male, one female. The males grabbed Paul, one of them disabling him instantly by digging his gloved fingers into Paul’s wounded hand. The female tried to hold Syl—for males were not permitted to touch Nairene Sisters, even a prisoner such as she—but by now it was a simple matter for Syl to cloud the Securitat’s mind, and suddenly the Securitat was groping at one of the males holding Paul.

  Then Syl felt Syrene’s thoughts enter her mind, filling her brain with a painful, high-pitched shriek even as she tried to focus on the Securitat.

  “Cocile, Layne, deal with her,” Syrene told her handmaidens, and the pair stepped forward.

  What happened next convinced Syl that she had started to hallucinate. Layne fell behind, and just as Cocile neared Syl, Layne leaped in the air and landed a blow that knocked Cocile unconscious. The male Securitats holding Paul had no time to react before Layne was on them. Syl heard the snapping of vertebrae, and they were gone. The shrieking in Syl’s head ceased, and she saw the female Securitat punching herself hard enough in the face to knock herself unconscious. A second later, the Securitat was on the ground.

  Now Layne spun and extended her right hand in a closed fist. The flesh above the third finger burst, and a thin muzzle extended itself. The first of the pulses from it struck the Securitat closest to Syrene, and the second clipped the Archmage herself, sending her stumbling backward in pain. The tunnel began to vibrate around them, and Syl looked up to see an unfamiliar ship coming in fast. The Nomad’s heavy cannon swiveled, and moments later the far end of the tunnel disintegrated in shards of metal and glass.

  “Run!” said Layne, and Paul and Syl raced to the gap while Syrene’s servant covered their retreat, walking slowly backward as her right arm bucked with the force of the pulse blasts.

  The Nomad landed and the cabin door opened, the gangway automatically lowering. Thula appeared in the gap and helped Syl on board first, then Paul. Layne came last, still firing. When they were all safely inside, the Nomad turned in the direction of the landing pads, where a dozen shuttles stood waiting. Alis raked the pads with the he
avy cannon, watching with satisfaction as Nairenes scattered and shuttles exploded. It would be some time before the pads could be used again.

  “And there,” said Layne, pointing at an array of dishes and antennae straight ahead. The cannon spoke again, and the array was blasted to pieces.

  “Good luck raising the alarm now,” said Steven.

  The Nomad commenced a steep ascent, Steven giving the ship full throttle so that Paul and Syl barely had time to get into their seats before the G-force pushed them back against the padding. They left the moon’s atmosphere less than a minute later, emerging into the vastness of space, Melos Station to their port side, the Melos Wormhole to starboard.

  Layne rose from her seat, found the ship’s medical kit, and tried to examine Paul’s hand. He pulled it away.

  “Who are you?” Paul asked her. “What are you?”

  “That’s no way to speak to your rescuer,” said Alis from the cockpit. “The correct words are ‘Thank you, Meia.’”

  “Meia?” said Syl.

  And she reached out and embraced the Mech who had, once again, brought her to safety.

  CHAPTER 75

  While Meia treated Paul’s burns, she told them as much as she could of how she had come to be on Erebos: the selection of a new identity (which, not entirely regrettably, had involved disposing of the real Layne, whose remains were now rotting deep below Edinburgh Castle); the journey from Earth, and her arrival on the moon with Syrene’s party; and her discovery, through careful listening on the long voyage, of the plan to use the Blue Novices, the most adept generation yet of the Gifted, to dispose of enemies of both the Sisterhood and the Corps, with the wedding ceremony as cover for the killings.

  Unfortunately Meia had been too late to prevent the attacks, but she was present when the bodies of Tanit and the others were discovered, and had just enough time to speak to Peris and inform him of her identity before he was taken away for medical attention and questioning. It was he who had told her of Syl and Paul’s flight, and also of the presence of the Nomad in orbit. As a Mech, the communications blackout imposed by the Sisterhood had no effect on her: Meia was her own communications system. Alis had homed in on Meia’s signal, and when she saw the figures in the connector tunnel she knew exactly what to do.