She wouldn’t think about their child.
Anguissa pivoted to survey Piper Twelve. “I hate robots,” she told him and thought she saw a flicker of trepidation even in his impassive expression.
Tell him to plug into the infinity port, Captain. Ryke was terse and Anguissa felt his tone like a slap. His nature wasn’t his fault, she knew that, but she couldn’t make peace with his need to feed.
The sooner he got to Centurios and their ways parted forever, the better.
“Plug into the infinity port, Piper Twelve.” The robot hesitated and Anguissa filled her lungs with air, more than ready to fry him to cinders. “That would be a direct order, Piper Twelve.” Her snakes were rising like cobras prepared to strike and when they hissed, he moved to do as instructed.
“What comes after, Captain Anguissa?”
Anguissa was so surprised by the question that she assumed she’d misunderstood. “What do you mean, Piper Twelve?”
“Is there chaos or oblivion after existence?”
Anguissa supposed a religious argument wouldn’t be very compelling. She expected Ryke’s commentary and missed it. “Personally, I’m hoping for oblivion.”
“As am I.” He plugged his finger into the portal and nothing happened for a moment. Then he jerked and began to make a whirring sound that couldn’t have been one of his usual reactions. He looked toward Anguissa, as if to beg for mercy, and she breathed a targeted plume of fire, granting him the oblivion he desired.
When she was done, there was only a pile of blackened metal and wire remaining. She shifted back to her usual form and swept it into the grinder and disposal unit. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Ryke was silent.
Gone from her mind for good.
He’d done what he said he would do.
Anguissa knew she should be glad, but she did miss him. The upside of him abandoning her now was that her reliance upon him couldn’t become worse. He wouldn’t be able to destroy her, or their child. She’d take him home, wave goodbye, then go after Bond and the Archangel alone.
Too bad she couldn’t summon much enthusiasm for her own vision of her future.
“Prepare to jump, gentlemen,” she said into the comm, but no one replied.
Hellemut’s mind was not a place where Ryke wanted to linger. He stayed only long enough to get her into her Starpod, then ensure it was locked and released from the dock. He programmed the nav and locked in the coordinates of a distant destination, one that she had insufficient fuel to reach.
Would it be a lack of fuel or oxygen that ensured her demise? Ryke didn’t care. She was doomed, which evened the score.
When there was no chance of Hellemut turning back, he abandoned her to her fate. He slipped into Anguissa’s mind, triumphant, only to be shocked by her horror of what he was.
She thought he was feasting upon Hellemut’s anima.
She was revolted by the idea. The power of her emotional reaction shook Ryke to his core. How could she so despise what he was? How could she blame him for his own nature? How could she have shared his thoughts and not realized that he was different from his fellows, by choice?
Once, Ryke would have slipped away, but Anguissa said she was carrying his son. He owed that child the opportunity to know his or her own father. This might be his last chance to leave a legacy of any kind for his child. Anguissa couldn’t go to Centurios and survive, but the presence of his son there meant that Ryke didn’t want to be anywhere else.
Anguissa announced the impending jump and Ryke knew he would dream of a failure. He was tempted to withdraw from her, but reconsidered.
Could he choose his dream and show Anguissa something specific from his past? Could he give her a story to share with their child, the child he would never see?
Ryke was certainly going to try.
Seven
Anguissa dreamed of blood. Copious quantities of it, running in the streets of a city she didn’t recognize. She could smell it, she could feel it slipping beneath her boots, she could taste the tang of it in the air. It was metallic, distinctive, yet in this dream, it was more.
It was life.
She was aware of the power in the blood, the elusive ether that animated all beings, that made them more than the sum of their biological parts. Her lust to consume blood was so strong that she knew it couldn’t be her own. She hated the smell of blood herself, but in this dream, it awakened a desire within her that was both powerful and unfamiliar.
An umbro’s thirst for blood.
She was sharing Ryke’s dream again.
Anguissa was curious despite herself. What would this memory tell her about him?
This city must be on Centurios. This battle must have been important. He was at the fore of a battalion of troops, armored, and each fighting with two blades. The other army were feasting upon the dead and were apparently dizzy with the power of the blood. They’d been distracted from the fight by the satisfaction of their base desire. Anguissa felt his disgust for his opponents.
But weren’t they the same kind? Weren’t they all umbros?
Ryke’s troops cut through the ranks of the feasting army, dealing death with merciless efficiency. She felt how the scent of blood fed a ruthlessness deep inside Ryke, how it summoned a ferocity that she associated with umbros.
She also felt Ryke’s own abhorrence of his body’s desires, yet his inability to be anything other than he was. When the battle was over and the street strewn with bodies, his men feasted in their turn.
But they didn’t drink blood. They inhaled the escaping spirits of the dead warriors. Through Ryke’s eyes, Anguissa could see the life spirits rising, like mist over the bodies that could not longer serve their will.
Ryke bent over a dying warrior, looking into his eyes, seeing his acceptance that he would never hunt again. As Ryke watched, the light in the warrior’s eyes was extinguished. A fine mist rose from him, a mist in rainbow hues, and Ryke breathed deeply, inhaling it all.
Anguissa felt its power surge through Ryke’s body, adding strength to his own. She felt the dead warrior’s virility and power redouble Ryke’s own, making him more than he had been before.
The startling thing to Anguissa was that the feasting prompted a similar rush within Ryke as shifting shape did within her. She understood that he was doing what he had been born to do, that he was following the impulse of his kind, and that his very nature rewarded that.
Could she blame him for being what he was?
Could she despise him for being good at what he was?
As she wondered, Ryke straightened and looked over the battlefield after he had feasted, considering the fallen in the streets of the city, and she felt his heart clench with disapproval. She felt the loathing within him, the disgust with his nature that was so similar to her own reaction.
And when a subordinate soldier beckoned him to the side of the leader of the opposing forces, a powerful warrior on the cusp of death with blood on his mouth, Ryke turned away.
“No more,” he said with resolve. “I have feasted to sustain myself, and will feast no more.”
“But...” the subordinate protested, clearly confused.
“He is yours,” Ryke said. “A reward for valor this day.”
Confusion lit the other subordinate’s gaze but then the other warrior breathed his last. At the sight of the rising spirit, again a rainbow-hued mist, the hunger claimed him. Ryke watched him feast, noting that he was insatiable, well aware that the craving was the weakness of his kind.
They could be betrayed by their own desires, just as this opposing battalion had felt compelled to stop and feast before the battle was won. They were more primitive than Ryke’s kind, feasting on blood instead of spirit, but they were umbros, too, and Anguissa felt Ryke’s determination to never be driven by his own base need.
He vowed to rise above it, which meant he would eliminate its power. He would achieve that the same way he accomplished all of his goals, with discipline and resolve, wi
th training and denial, and his body would slowly learn to find sustenance elsewhere.
Anguissa felt his conviction and admired it. Could she have denied her own nature, even if she had desired to do so?
The stream of memories flowed more quickly then, and she had the sense that Ryke was deliberately revealing his truth to her. She certainly was learning more about him than she had in the past. She watched him train himself to survive without feasting. She saw him turn away from temptation, time and again. She saw him find satisfaction of a much lesser kind in the exchange of ideas, in the sparkle of conversation, in the tingle of sexual tension. It was like subsisting on appetizers instead of banquets, but Ryke exercised vigorously to keep his hunger tamed. She was in awe of his conviction and his discipline.
Was this why his father had wanted him dead?
She viewed the memory of Ryke’s capture by the Gloria Furore and felt his love for his son in those last moments they shared together. She was certain then that he was curating memories for her and she couldn’t help but be flattered by that. He skimmed through the interrogation by the Gloria Furore, the refusal of Centurios to ransom him, the profound relief he felt when he learned that his son had been returned home.
They tried to tempt him to show his ability as an umbro, to do what he couldn’t resist doing. They exposed him to blood, to dying warriors, to the bodies of those who didn’t survive interrogation. Ryke held fast, and it was likely only possible because of his own earlier training, his own decision. They taunted him with the spirits of warriors of ill repute and those of uncommon valor. They teased him with possibilities, but Ryke refused to feast. They isolated him from conversation and contact with any sentient beings, but he dug into his determination and did not feast, even when a morsel was offered to him in his starvation.
Could Anguissa have been as persistent?
She lived through the horror of the immersion in fire ants, the excruciating pain of the millions of simultaneous bites. She shared his disgust of them climbing toward his mouth and nose, and the terror that they would suffocate him. The fear didn’t lessen at all with each successive bath, but Ryke did not break.
And she felt the change manifest within him during the last immersion. His skin was aching and raw from the bites. It burned with pain that was only multiplied when the ants began to gnaw upon him again. His fists clenched and his body went taut as the tide of ants rose over his knees, over his hips, over his chest, then the worst possible thing happened: the fire ants climbed over his chin, over his lips. He kept his mouth clenched shut, but they charged into his nostrils. He gagged and his lips parted, and they surged forth like a tide, flowing into his mouth and down his throat.
Ryke roared in horror, convinced that he would die of the biting invasion.
Suddenly, a tide of fire swept through him. He felt as if he was lit from within, as if a flame had taken up residence in his veins. He had been briefly convinced that he was dying, that the torment would end, but then a wave of well-being suffused him.
He had changed.
Ryke felt so potent that he might have been immortal, but he hid his reaction from his captors. He sagged in his bonds and was lifted from the vat. The fire ants retreated, flowing from his every orifice, leaving him transformed from within.
He had been reforged. Ryke didn’t know why or how, and neither did Anguissa. The feeling faded, just as surely as his appetite for spirit and even blood faded. He almost yearned to be dipped in the vat of fire ants again, in the hope that he might escape. Instead, the Gloria Furore tired of him and his resistance and assigned him to the Armada Seven.
He was no longer what he had been, but his transformation to something new was incomplete.
They came out of the jump and Anguissa stared at the display of the deck, her assumptions shaken by all that Ryke had shared.
Was it possible for anyone to change their fundamental nature? Anguissa would have said no, but after the memories Ryke had shared, she was no longer certain.
If anyone could do it, it would require the kind of resolve he’d shown.
Was it possible that she felt admiration for an umbro?
“In the beginning, there was the anima,” Bakiel said softly. Anguissa turned from her position in the captain’s chair to find the custo just inside the door from the lower deck. He looked even less substantial than he had previously, as pale as a morning mist and just as ethereal.
“The spirit?”
“The essence that feeds all living things. Some call it the soul. Some call it the essence. On Centurios, we have always called it the anima.” He nodded and stepped onto the deck at Anguissa’s gesture of invitation. “It filled all living things, giving them purpose and power, coursing through their blood, firing their thoughts, driving their bodies. And as the origin of all life, it became a commodity of value.”
He sat before her, glancing at the display of the stars. They might as well have been alone in this sector of this quadrant, all other vessels far away. They were cruising toward Centurios.
“Where’s Ryke?”
“He sleeps. Between the sedative’s effects and the exertion, never mind the trials of his servitude, he is exhausted.”
Anguissa frowned, knowing she needed to ask the question but already guessing the answer. She had to be sure. “But he slipped into Hellemut. He possessed her anima and drove her to her death. Didn’t he feast?”
Bakiel shook his head. “No, he swore to abandon the habits of his kind many, many years ago. His word is his bond, regardless of the cost to himself.”
“He smells like an umbro.”
Bakiel considered this. “He was born an umbro. He chooses to be both more and less than that.”
“You don’t need to watch over him? I thought that was what a custo did.”
“I watch over him when he slips, not when he sleeps,” Bakiel corrected. “And I serve him in all ways. You need to know his history and so I will tell you what Ryke will not.”
“What’s a luxa?”
Bakiel smiled. “The light in the darkness, of course. The beacon in the night. His destined mate, the one who will make him complete so that he can fulfill the prophecy of our kind.”
Anguissa’s heart skipped. “Funny he didn’t mention that.”
“Ryke has never believed in prophecies. His caste tend not to. They discard them and forget them, but we custos preserve all such details. It is part of our service.”
“Tell me about Centurios.”
“Is that a personal device?” he asked instead, indicating the film applied to her arm.
Anguissa nodded. “I think the energy beams on the Armada Seven destroyed its power source.”
“Let me see it.”
“You do repairs as well as cook?”
Bakiel smiled. “I serve. It is my place and the source of my satisfaction.” He beckoned and Anguissa removed the film, liking the care he showed when examining it. He laid it flat on a console, then searched for tools and parts. The design allowed for easy substitutions, Anguissa knew that, but she didn’t have the skill to do more than basic repairs herself.
As he worked, Bakiel talked, his voice a low litany. “On Centurios, the anima was believed to reside in the blood. A race evolved that could feast directly upon the blood. In time, their hunger and their numbers grew so that they were feared by the others of our world. They were always a minority, but their feasting gave them power over others.”
“I can understand that.”
“Initially, they were indistinguishable from us, but they became hunted for a time. Their days in darkness, hiding from persecution, changed them, made them darker, made them seem less substantial.”
“Umbros.”
“Umbros,” Bakiel agreed. “Once they took to the shadows, more than their appearance changed. They dreamed of the life they had enjoyed before being compelled to hide and yearned to restore it. That could only occur if they were in command, and the scheming began to make that so. They built th
eir numbers, they rose in darkness, and they claimed the royal palace by force. For centuries they ruled, and so long as their blood toll was filled, they were reasonable rulers.”
“The blood toll must have ensured that they were hated, though.”
“Not so long as we waged war and they consumed those we conquered. But in time, the armies led by umbros conquered all of the other cities on Centurios, bringing all under their dominion. In comparative peace, there were fewer to feast upon. Unbeknownst to those outside their kind, some of the umbros were changing. They remained predators and still sought the anima, but they had evolved to find it without feasting upon the blood.”
Anguissa thought of Ryke’s vision in the dream, of the fine mist rising from those recently deceased. That must have been the anima.
“Umbros had always been persuasive and had always possessed a kind of cunning that led victims closer to them. Some called it the ability to cast thoughts into other minds. They learned, from a combination of conquests and experimentation, to slip fully into the mind of a host organism and possess it.”
“Then steal the anima and abandon the host to die.”
“You disapprove.” His tone was matter-of-fact, even as he deftly repaired the device. “The universe abounds with predators of one kind or another.”
“But that’s hunting of the most barbaric kind.”
“Worse than drinking blood? Those victims didn’t survive, either.” He spared her a glance. “What of the victims of your dragon fire?”
The question reminded Anguissa of her sense during Ryke’s dream that they had so much in common. “Stealing a soul seems worse.”
“You’re not alone in that view, Princess Anguissa. In fact, there was dissent within the ranks of the umbros themselves, until the new breed seized power in violent coup. They vowed to end the blood toll, so the people of Centurios supported them. But after the final battle, they feasted upon the anima of the defeated umbros for ten days and nights. Once the animae of the defeated umbros had been consumed, companies of soldiers took to the streets, seizing the animae of citizens. Chaos ruled. It is said that darkness fell completely upon Centurios with that victory.”