The Diabolic

  Sidonia sat up several nights tinkering with the settings of the hair stilts, turning her hair blue, making it all stand on end, giving herself tight ringlets that temporarily morphed into her natural frizzier texture with a single electric jolt. Another jolt and her hair smoothed again. She then amused herself manipu­lating my hair, and decided raven brown with light waves was her favorite style for me.

  Sutera nu Impyrean had finally exhausted her decades-old knowledge of the Imperial Court. Her final session, she showed us off to the Matriarch and Senator with pride. “And for the benefit of my Grandeé, I propose that your daughter Sidonia’s signature features should be those beautiful eyes of hers, and you should darken her skin two shades to really complement them. Perhaps a lovely golden brown? Oh, and that long, graceful nose . . . Glorious. Whatever modifications she makes, she should always first think of how to draw attention to her eyes and her nose.”

  “And Nemesis?” the Matriarch said.

  Sutera was silent a moment, caught off guard by the question. She glanced at me, startled to realize we were going to keep up the pretense of training me until this very end. She had no idea. “Well, I suppose she could pick and choose. She’s completely symmetrical, as all humanoid creations are. It doesn’t really count as true beauty when it’s engineered in a laboratory, I don’t think, do you?” She looked at the Matriarch for agreement.

  The Matriarch just looked at her, waiting with mounting impatience.

  Sutera said, “Well, engineered creatures are always meant to be physically inoffensive, so there’s nothing objectionable about her other than her nose. That I’d fix. At least shave down that unsightly bump on the bridge.”

  I touched my nose, thinking of how I’d broken it more than a few times in skirmishes before I was civilized.

  “The eyes and the cheekbones, I should say,” the Matriarch chimed in, studying me. “What do you say, Sutera?”

  “I . . . I suppose. Again, you can pick and choose any of them.” Sutera laughed and patted her hair. “Perhaps I’d alter her coloring?”

  “Hmm, yes,” the Matriarch said. “We never add melanin enhancements to our humanoid creatures, just to keep them physically distinct from the family, but Nemesis could use some more pigmentation. Don’t you agree?” She looked to the Senator.

  For the first time, he chimed in, “Oh yes. Whatever it is you wish.”

  “I still can’t envision in what capacity Nemesis would serve at the Chrysanthemum,” Sutera said, “but whatever my Grandeé says, I would maintain you can’t go wrong with eyes, and sharp cheekbones are highly in fashion, always.”

  Sutera moved on to exhibiting our knowledge. She fired question after question at us, and I answered everything correctly. Donia was distracted and nervous about the hawk-like scrutiny of her mother and faltered several times. The visages of the imperial royals were flashed before our eyes, and Donia mixed up Cygna and Devineé Domitrian.

  But I missed nothing. That was all that mattered.

  “Excellent,” the Matriarch said, clapping her hands together elegantly. “Bravo, Sutera. They are well prepared.”

  “Very well prepared,” the Senator agreed.

  The Matriarch’s eyes drilled into me, a ruthless smile on her face. Her anaconda.

  Sutera glowed under her mistress’s praise and dipped into an elaborate Grandiloquy gait until she was clutching her heart down at the Matriarch’s feet. There, she drew the Matriarch’s knuckles to her cheeks, and then the Senator’s.

  “I am so pleased to serve another generation of your family. I hope to see Sidonia’s child one day when she has returned from the stars.”

  The Matriarch gave a brittle smile. “Yes, well, we will hope for the very best.”

  It wasn’t until Sutera was dismissed that Donia turned on her parents. “Why are we really doing this?”

  The Senator and Matriarch exchanged a look.

  “I know something is going on,” Donia said, her voice rising. “I thought perhaps you were going to marry me to someone, or send me away, but . . . but just now, I missed some answers. I missed them, Mother, and you haven’t even scolded me. What’s going on?” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh no, Father, are you in trouble? Am I being groomed to replace you?”

  “No, no,” the Senator said. “I am safe, my dear.”

  “I don’t believe you! What’s—”

  “Oh,” huffed the Matriarch. “Tell her the truth.”

  The Senator sighed, lines standing out on his face. He hadn’t refreshed his false-youth since Sidonia’s summons. “Very well. I am in some disfavor with the Emperor, but I’m not in danger—”

  “You are, Sidonia,” the Matriarch said.

  Donia flinched back, shock blooming on her face. “M-me?” She threw me an urgent look.

  I drew toward her. “Don’t be afraid.”

  “I am in danger, Mother?” Donia cried.

  “You’ve been summoned to the Chrysanthemum to face the Emperor,” said the Matriarch. “To be held accountable for your father’s idiocy, naturally. But you won’t be going.”

  Donia wasn’t a fool. She connected it all in a moment—the change in my appearance, my training alongside her, and now . . . this.

  “No,” she breathed.

  The Senator stepped forward and clapped his daughter on her frail shoulder. “Your mother’s got a plan to keep you safe from the Emperor. We won’t send you. We would never risk you like that, sweetheart. Instead, we’re sending her.”

  “No,” Donia said again, shaking her head fiercely. She rushed over to me, clasped my hands. “No,” she told me.

  “It has to happen,” said the Matriarch. “Sidonia, don’t you see this is precisely why we ordered you a Diabolic? We bought Nemesis so we could protect our daughter. Our heir. And now, here Nemesis is, ready to help us do that.”

  “I am,” I assured Donia.

  “So . . . so Nemesis will be the Emperor’s hostage?” Donia said, her grip tight on my hands.

  “We hope she’ll be a ward of the court. We hope she’ll come to no harm.”

  “And if he summoned me for my death?” cried Donia. She turned to me. “What about then?”

  “Then you will be safe with your family,” I said simply.

  “Sidonia,” said the Senator, “see sense: Nemesis is not our heir. She’s our property.”

  Donia looked between her mother and me, horrified. “No. No! I won’t let this happen! Even if you fool them at first, what if someone finds out what you are?”

  “How?” I said, looking down at myself. I didn’t resemble a Diabolic anymore.

  “They won’t even imagine what she is,” the Matriarch said. “They will never fathom someone could have the audacity to keep a Diabolic alive, much less send one in their daughter’s place to the heart of the Empire. Nemesis is clever enough to pull it off. It’s the perfect scheme.”

  “Unless she dies!” shouted Donia. She shook my arm. “You can’t go. I order you not to go. I won’t let you risk this for me! Mother—” She turned on her mother, tears streaking down her face, but she saw the cold, iron-hard look on the Matriarch’s face, then her father’s careless ease. “No! No, this can’t happen!”

  Donia spun around and ran from the room.

  I gave her time to process what she’d learned, and then tracked her down in the fortress gardens right by the tiger enclosures. The large cats were gathered in a cluster at the edge of the enclosure, mewling for her attention, but Donia just stared at them like she couldn’t see anything.

  “How could you?” she said as soon as she noticed me. “How could you conspire with my parents behind my back? How could you keep this from me?”

  “It wasn’t particularly difficult,” I said bluntly. “I’m a good liar. It’s one reason I’ll be more suitable for the Chrysanthemum than you.”

  ??
?And what if you die? What do I do then?”

  “If I die, it’s because I’ve died in your place. You’ll do what we all want you to do: you’ll live.”

  “I hate you. I hate you so much!” Donia threw herself at me, hitting ineffectually with her fists. The blows glanced off my arm as I watched her, slightly baffled by the vehemence of her reaction. I began to worry she might hurt her hands.

  Throughout the gardens, the restive animals stirred, rustling the greenery with their movement as they instinctively fled the noise.

  Then she jerked back a step with a scream, tears on her face, and barreled for the door. There she collided with Sutera nu Impyrean, busy making her last round of the fortress before returning to her planet-bound existence.

  Donia collapsed in her arms, bawling. Sutera stroked her shoulders unthinkingly, and then pulled away. “No, no, I can’t indulge this. What have I told you about unseemly displays of emotion? Once you’re at court—”

  “I won’t be at court!” Donia shouted. “Mother isn’t sending me. She’s sending Nemesis. That’s why she’s been in training with me.”

  My breath stilled.

  “What?” said Sutera.

  I stepped forward, trying to send a warning look Donia’s way, but she was distraught and blind to what she was revealing to Sutera. “They’re just like you. They think she’s property. They’re having her pose as me and risking her life like it’s worthless!”

  “That’s treason,” gasped Sutera.

  The words settled in my mind like a death knell, and not for me. Sidonia had crossed a line telling Sutera nu Impyrean, and now I had to take care of this.

  “Donia.”

  My voice, low and dangerous, seemed to break through her fit of rage. Donia stood there trembling all over, wiping at the tears on her face with her thin hand.

  “Donia, we will discuss this. But first, Sutera, I have an explanation for you.” I crossed the distance between us, and the Etiquette Marshal didn’t think to resist when I tried to steer her out of the room with me. “You see, things are very complicated. . . .”

  Donia stood rooted in place for a long moment, and then she suddenly seemed to guess what evil I intended. “Nemesis—no!”

  I looked at her. I hadn’t wished to do this before her eyes, but if she insisted, then let her watch.

  Sutera glanced at me, puzzled and utterly guileless, a question on her lips. She never asked it.

  I snapped her neck.

  7

  SIDONIA’S SCREAM pierced the air as I let Sutera drop to the ground, as I stepped back from the body. She rushed forward to cradle the Etiquette Marshal, shaking the older woman. “Sutera, Sutera!”

  “What did you expect?” I said quietly.

  Sidonia looked up at me, a horror on her face I hadn’t seen since that first day before I was civilized. It was like she hadn’t understood—truly understood—until that moment just what I was.

  “Why?” Donia whimpered. “She helped us.”

  “Because you told her what she didn’t need to know. She would have reported us, and then I couldn’t have saved you.” I drew a step closer and Donia scrambled back, still on the ground, staring up at me with abject terror.

  This, I realized, was what I needed from her now. Not her adoration, not her fondness. I needed her to understand me. I needed her to finally see me the way her mother did, the way the vicar did—the way I was. My throat tightened at the thought of seeing revulsion blaze over Donia’s face when the blinders were finally ripped from her eyes, but I had to do it for her sake.

  “Don’t you understand, Sidonia?” I said. “I’m not your friend. Friends are equals. We’re not. I’m not one of those tigers over there, genetically fashioned to be cuddly and bare my belly for you. I’m not here to be a companion. I’m a murderer, here to kill for you or die for you as needed. I’m your tool, your weapon—your property.”

  “No, you’re not.” Her lip trembled. “We’re more than that.”

  “To you, maybe. But not to me. I can’t feel what you want me to feel.” I knelt down to hold her eyes and hammer in the brutal truth. “You know what I am. You know I killed one of your Servitors. Did you think I did that out of mercy? I would have done that if she’d been in the full bloom of health.”

  She shook her head but couldn’t take her eyes from me. She was fighting with herself, not wanting to believe me—but now unable to deny it.

  “I see you in the heliosphere,” I said, looking inward, envisioning those services when we heard the vicar speak of Helios and the will of the divine. “You wonder about the universe. You ponder what created you, what your purpose is, what the meaning of your existence could be. . . . But I don’t ask those questions, because I know the answers. I’m no child of your Living Cosmos, and there is no spark of the divine in me. Let me go and do what I was made to do. Don’t fight this.”

  Donia rose to her feet, staring down at me like she’d never seen me before. She looked older than she ever had before, older than eighteen, like I’d just taken something more valuable than any material possession from her.

  “I know you were forced to love me,” she said, clutching her hands together. “But—but just because someone forced those feelings on you doesn’t mean they’re less important, or that you’re less human. You’re my best friend, and I love you, Nemesis. And my feelings aren’t worthless just because I feel them for you. Maybe the fact that I love you whatever you are means my feelings are worth more because no one made me feel this way, it just happened. I choose to love you. I choose to care about what happens to you, and you can’t take that away from me.”

  “You’ll get over losing me.”

  “No, I won’t.” She shook her head, her eyes wide and haunted. “You mean more to me than you may ever understand, so let me tell you something right now: if you die out there, I’m going to follow you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If you go to the Chrysanthemum and they kill you, then I will throw myself out an airlock. I swear it.”

  Anger swelled in me. “Don’t be stupid.”

  She let out a short, crazed laugh. “You don’t care about what I feel, you don’t care about anything but my safety, I understand that. So here it is, here is what will happen: I won’t be safe if you aren’t. You will survive or I will die.”

  I launched myself to my feet, wondering why she was saying something so stupid, so irrational. She looked at me with a sort of crazed triumph like she’d beaten me somehow, so I hissed, “Take back those words.”

  “No.”

  I seized her by those frail shoulders, those bones like bird bones that I could break and shatter so easily, and shook her so hard, her head jerked back. But still there was that insane conviction on her face, even as I roared, “Take it back!”

  “No!”

  And as her eyes held mine, wide and glorious and so self-destructively devoted to me, to me of all things. I felt a helpless surge of rage, because I knew there was no way to tear this from her. I could break her in half, I could stomp every bone in her body to dust, and I still would never vanquish that resolve, that madness.

  That was when I realized for the first time that Sidonia Impyrean—meek, fearful, shy, and gentle—could be indomitable.

  So I released her, and she stumbled back several steps, still with that infuriating stubbornness and resolve on her face.

  “All right,” I said.

  She straightened, staring at me with hope.

  “All right,” I said again. “I’ll come back alive. I will do everything in my power to preserve my own life as I would preserve yours. I’ll do it or I’ll destroy this Empire trying.”

  Silence. I sensed something strange had shifted between us, perhaps forever. The illusions were gone, our truths bared, and yet I felt like I saw her and she saw me, and perhaps in some ways we
were equals for the first time. My strength had always exceeded hers and her importance had exceeded mine, and yet here we were, evenly matched at long last. My life now held the same value as hers—because her life depended upon mine.

  Sidonia straightened her garments with dignity. She looked down at Sutera, and her face tightened. Then she forced her eyes away like she couldn’t stand the sight any longer. “Your nose,” she said. “Make your nose your signature feature. Don’t fix it. It’s uniquely you.”

  I touched the scar tissue on the bridge of my nose, that singular mark of so much violence in my past. “How would the Grandeé Sidonia Impyrean end up with a nose like this?”

  There was a sad smile on her face. “You’re a good liar, Nemesis. Make something up.”

  8

  THE SHIP that arrived to take me to the Chrysanthemum was manned by the Excess. They swarmed out like an unruly mass upon docking, their chaotic voices dominating the space.

  “. . . so this is the Impyrean domain . . .”

  “. . . always wondered what it looked like . . .”

  An urgent tugging at my hand pulled my attention over to Donia. She met my eyes, and a strange emptiness filled me. This might be the last time I saw her.

  It was certainly the last moment that I would be me. As soon as I stepped into the view of those Excess, I would become Sidonia Impyrean.

  “If I could pick anyone in the universe to be me,” whispered Donia tremulously, “it would be you, Nemesis.”

  As the last days whiled away, she’d thrown herself into helping fashion me into a better Grandeé with more enthusiasm even than her mother. We decided on my new hair color together—raven brown—and my new bronzed skin color. She chose the arched dark eyebrows and long black lashes implanted over my newly green eyes. Endless tips flowed from her about how to be a better Impyrean heir. We sat up nights as she related every inconsequential detail she could scrape from her memory about those Grandiloquy children she’d interacted with over the galactic forums, just in case I encountered those same people at the Chrysanthemum.