A week passes by for Val in a blur of after-action reports, medical treatments and memorial services. The battle of the Chalcedony Pace casts a long shadow. The Host of Saints fractures down the middle; Trueheart’s ardent supporters demand swift, decisive escation, while the more cautious Saints condemn her actions and warn of the cost of war. The admirals, inevitably, take Trueheart’s side. Nobody has come forth to cim responsibility for the bombing of the peace conference. It would, they cim, make Adamant House look weak if they were to take such terrorism lying down. For the first time in over a century, amidst a haze of tear gas deployed by the police against a mass of protesters surrounding the Senate, war against Protean House is decred.

  The Archangel remains silent in her endless vigil, as she has done for the st dozen years. The clerics of the listening post at the Golden Precipice, sworn to record her every procmation since she entered her centuries-long seclusion, report that she moved not a single nanometre from her meditation stance upon receiving the news that millions more would fight and die in her name.

  Bliss stains Val’s dreams crimson. They dance suspended on strings in the sky, weightless and ethereal, free from prying eyes. Bliss’s dress resembles a carapace; Val is armoured in gold and silver. The music of the spheres guides them, mathematically perfect, the structures underpinning the universe id bare. But below the clouds, Ursa Major screams as the Vultures tear her limb from limb.

  With a lurch, their strings are cut. Val clings desperately to Bliss as they fall. The Hunter leans close, and her silken whisper cuts through the howling of wind and the cries from below: “You didn’t think I’d forgive you so easily, did you? I’ve never met a Knight who was such a coward. I’ll have you begging for mercy by the time I’m through with you.”

  Bliss’s fangs sink into her neck as they tumble through the stinging clouds. She is thorough; she is without mercy. Piece by piece, Val is devoured by her love.

  She wakes, soaked in sweat, in her own quarters. The smell of machine oil and the hum of the ship’s engine through the deck grounds her, reorients her in reality. Her heartbeat gradually returns to its resting rate. The damage to her bodies is rgely repaired, but the memory of Eris’s accusatory bck eyes lodges in her head like a bullet.

  She has already been through the justifications. It was self-defence; Ursa was an enemy combatant; Trueheart is the one to bme. She never met Bear outside her Seraph body. This should be no different than any other Hunter kill, another stanza in her inevitable poem. But minutes and hours before, Val was dancing, eating, fucking with Ursa’s comrades. Humanising the enemy, allowing empathy to skew one’s judgement in the slightest, is an unthinkable breach of doctrine. She is far, far past that: ideologically compromised beyond repair.

  Her post-combat doctrinal evaluation was unusually thorough. Beneath the harsh fluorescent light, she pushed the tangle of feelings deep down and gave the answers expected of a good Knight. Whatever they saw, they cleared her for active duty. Inanna’s Vengeance will deliver death once more in service of the Archangel. Any day now, Red Eris could be in her sights. It makes her feel sick.

  She needs a fucking walk. Val gets out of her bunk, wincing as she puts her weight on her newly repaired leg, and slips on a jacket and trousers over her underwear.

  Out into the corridor, same as always. When the door slides open she half expects to find Fi waiting out there, but she must be asleep at this hour. Val has hardly spoken to her since they returned, afraid to brave the thorny thicket that separates them. They saved each other’s lives, as usual. Fi harbours a love for her that she can no longer return, and a jealousy that, if provoked, could consign Val to prison. What could there possibly be to say?

  The Feather of Truth is subdued during the night cycle, lights sunk low and tinted blue, but a warship never truly sleeps. A few night-shift personnel ride the tram with her as it travels the length of the ship. Part of her yearns to reach out, to make a human connection with the people who keep the ship running, but they know better than to make conversation with a Knight.

  Val disembarks at the recreation commons. One foot follows another as she strides across the mosaic floor of the tram hub. She focuses on the repetitive locomotion of her limbs, on the beehive pattern beneath her boots; anything to avoid thinking. Her feet take her down a little-used corridor away from the leisure garden. As she passes the threshold of the chapel and the door slides shut behind her, the hustle and bustle melts away, leaving only the sound of her own footsteps.

  The Archangel looms behind the altar as always, her golden wings rendered in squares and parallelograms of stained gss, more abstract than her window at Martyr’s Rock. Less a person, more an ideal. Val inclines her head in the slightest of bows to the window out of long habit as she passes through the rows of empty pews and stands of flickering candles. Maybe this is all the Archangel is willing to be in the modern age: a figurehead, lost in contemption even as her empire rots around her. Her teachings and her Saints are all that remain of that once-bzing will, but they have proven to be vicious and cruel. War is here again, and Adamant House has learned nothing.

  Something has to change.

  She makes a hasty exit to the memorial garden before the bsphemous sentiment can spill out of her head. Not thinking has proven to be futile, as always.

  The garden’s silence is absolute, to aid in contemption. No breeze stirs the sheltering branches of the cedars; no rain weathers the surfaces of the memorial obelisks. Time is suspended here, where the glorious dead are commemorated: the twelve obelisks rise in a circle like numbers on a stopped clock, connected by winding paths. On a canvas of pinprick stars in the ceiling, a hologram of Earth’s moon bathes the scene in pale light. This sky, too, is gone but not forgotten.

  Val walks the radius of the garden past memorial after memorial, each golden name etched in the obsidian another life sacrificed in service of their House. She always thinks of her childhood friends when she comes here. Even Jebat—his young life cut cruelly short—is memorialised in the church of Martyr’s Rock, but no such honour is accorded to Marta. Her body still lives, still serves Adamant House, and when that vessel dies it will be Trueheart who is remembered for her sacrifice.

  Inhale, exhale. Let it go. She shouldn’t harbour anger in the presence of the dead. This is a pce where emotions are released, carried on the breath to dissipate into the indifferent sky. But before she can say anything to Marta, she catches a murmured prayer from nearby. Her enhanced hearing identifies the voice with ease: Weeper.

  After their conversation st year, they came to a silent rapport, the barest acknowledgement that Val was less odious than her other flight-mates. It is, perhaps, as close as the Penitent Knight is willing to get to friendship: held at arm’s length, where Val cannot hurt her too severely.

  Val approaches cautiously. The gravel path that she has walked countless times suddenly feels like forbidden territory. This is something private that she should not intrude on.

  Curiosity spurs her forward. She never did know when to leave well enough alone.

  Weeper kneels in the grass before an obelisk, speaking softly, her hair flowing down her back like a river of moonlight. Alone, the ever-present tension in her posture has eased; she seems strangely peaceful in this pce. Then the crunch of Val’s boots on gravel alerts her, and she snaps back to her familiar wariness like a startled animal. Her gaze alights on Val. “Valour. You’re out te.”

  “Seems I had the same idea as you. I’m sorry to interrupt you like this. If you want to be alone, I can go.”

  “What’s done is done. You can’t take it back, no matter how hard you try.” The tracks of tears glisten on Weeper’s cheeks in the synthetic moonlight. The corners of her lips lift, ever so briefly. “Come, pray with me.”

  Val kneels beside her. The cold soil chills her knees through her clothes. Somewhere in the trees, an owl-drone hoots. Real fauna would be a luxury too far for a military vessel; only a park aboard an orbital habitat could host such a disorderly creature.

  Weeper, solemn and still, recites her prayer. It is one of the few left to her by the censors, judged to be free of sedition. The tiniest of mercies: a scrap of Bastion House culture left unburned. Val allows the rolling rhythm of the prayer to wash over her, and hesitantly joins her voice to the verse. The words transport her to a world of gciers and snow, devoid of all but the hardiest life. It is no pce for humans, even spliced to tolerate the killing cold, but no other choice was left to them. Death is ever close in those concrete halls beneath the surface, her icy caress inevitable, be it through mining accident or hypothermia or starvation. The prayer reminds the listener to stoke the fires, to rely on one another to carry the weight of survival, to never give up hope—lest Death’s bony right hand drag them away too.

  “I named my Seraph as a reminder of what awaits us all,” says Weeper, flexing her own hand of flesh and blood. “Once, she was Hel’s Right Hand: a fitting title for the queen of the underworld. I was elected from among the ruling dynasties to safeguard the st stronghold of Bastion House in our time of need, and to lead our Valkyries in battle against the golden-winged invaders.”

  A Seraph’s name, it is inscribed in the Codex, carries its legend. It is a point of theology that has been argued over for centuries, but the effect has been observed: the power of a Seraph’s spark is, in rge part, based on belief. Names woven from the mythologies of Earth are not merely self-aggrandising but contain their own potency: the strife of Eris, the passion of Inanna. As a pilot’s reputation spreads, so too does their Seraph’s name grow, etched into the spark like a tapestry of battle scars. Only a great deed can reforge a Seraph’s name without abandoning its accumuted divinity. The Archangel was not always called such, but now her name is known by every person in the gaxy.

  Val bursts the bubble. “And now your Seraph is Skadi’s Shadow. What happened to you?”

  Weeper clenches her hand into a fist. “They were fools to pce their faith in me. I am—and will forever remain—an abject failure. Your Saint has reminded me of that at length, with barbed words and nerve probes. The colr, she says, is too good for me.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “I don’t have to believe anything. My reduced circumstances are pin to see. I serve penance for the crime of resisting Adamant rule. I am a hostage, a pet. I cannot hope for anything better.” The red light on her colr blinks.

  “So you’ve given up. That’s why you took that name.” Pity seeps into Val’s voice. A Seraph pilot who has abandoned self-improvement so completely is unimaginable to her—a dead woman walking.

  Weeper chuckles bitterly. “Are you trying to provoke me when I’m mourning, Knight? Your flight-mates have done much worse. You want to know what really happened? I’ll tell you, as long as you answer me one question first.”

  “Okay.”

  “Who are you here for?” asks Weeper. “The two Knights you lost at the Pace?”

  Val shakes her head. “I never knew them that well to begin with. I said all I needed to at their memorial service.”

  “Then who?”

  Beneath the false moonlight, many things are id bare. It casts deep shadows into the wrinkles of Weeper’s face, brings a sparkle to her eyes. She is no anonymous interrogator demanding the correct answers to prove Val’s loyalty, but a lost soul in search of connection in a universe that has done its best to grind her down.

  Val has told the full story of her life at Martyr’s Rock only twice before: once to Fi, once to Bliss. With Fi she softened the tale, wary of alienating her first friend in the wider world, a true believer to her core. This time, she matches Weeper’s lead, keeps things brief and honest. She is here to mourn Marta, the shining star, who year by year was indoctrinated into a perfect vessel—a mirror to Trueheart in every belief. She was gone long before the Saint took her body.

  Weeper drinks in every word. Afterwards, she says, “I’d never imagined that such a pce could exist. We had our rumours about the Saints—that their human bodies were preserved after death, recreated through tissue grafts—but this… I’m not permitted the words to describe what I really think. I’d almost wonder whether you’re allowed to tell me this.”

  “The Reliquary Knight program is a matter of public record. The locations of the monasteries are hidden, but any citizen can look it up online.”

  “Of course. If you told me something truly cssified, my colr would shock me unconscious.”

  Val runs her hand through her hair, still tousled from sleep. “I was lucky, as far as rejects go. I was still able to make something of myself. Adamant House isn’t kind to the unexceptional.”

  Weeper tilts her head. “And what would you say you’ve made of yourself, Borne on Wings of Valour?”

  A traitor. A heretic. A nascent god. Everything Adamant House should fear.

  “A lot more than I expected, and a lot less than I should be.”

  Weeper gives her a searching look. “Seems I’m not the only one who has to watch her tongue. The power of a Knight isn’t good enough for you?”

  Val shivers. Kneeling in the grass like this, the cold has finally run through her. “I told you who I’m here for already. How about you return the favour?”

  The Penitent Knight lies back and stares up at the false moon. “On that day, the sky itself was broken. The pnetary shield shattered like an eggshell under the assault of the Adamant fgship, and the Knights came streaming through the breach. We’d fought off their incursions before, but this was the end. Ragnar?k. With the sun obscured by ashes, I stood before my Valkyries in the command bunker and asked them: who will make their final stand with me? Who will fight until their st breath, until their armour shatters and their flesh sloughs off, until their very spark turns to cinders? To a woman, they answered: ‘I will.’ If a single one had dissented, if I had not marched them into the jaws of death in my pride, they might have survived that day.” Her voice cracks. “My wife, Sigrún, might have survived that day.”

  A pause. Val maintains a respectful silence, lets the moment stretch. Voice thick with grief, Weeper continues. “Thirty-seven Seraphs unched with Hel’s Right Hand to the surface. They were the best of us, the hope of Bastion House, armed with heirloom weapons. The Knights outnumbered us three to one. The trails of guided missiles heralded explosions; bright flowers bloomed in the sky as they found their mark. I felt each one of my friends’ deaths as a stab to the heart, but still I persisted. Sigrún guarded my fnk in her Seraph, Unerring Skadi, just as we had vowed. To the st breath.

  “Her bow was true. A thousand arrows burst through smoke and plumes of ash like the sunrise, and the enemy withered before her assault. With each Valkyrie’s death, their heirloom weapons passed to the two of us, imprinting our own armaments with new forms, new techniques, new memories. We had always been a complementary pair, sharpened together in countless skirmishes, but this battle was like nothing else. It was as if the symphony of the universe was revealed to us both, pyed in the key of violence. My twin bdes took the lead; Skadi’s bow was able accompaniment. Together, from dawn until dusk, we fought as legion—every missing part in the orchestra was ours.” She sighs. “I’d gdly give up this shadow of a life just to py that piece together with her one more time.”

  By her side, Val’s heart races at the realisation. “Do you know what that symphony was?” she asks cautiously.

  “No. I don’t think it’s for me to know, and I no longer have my Sigrún to accompany me. In the end, it wasn’t enough. The Knights streamed never-ending through the ashen sky, and only the two of us remained. A beam of searing light pierced her cockpit. When it dissipated, she was gone. She felt no pain at the end; her entire body was atomised in an instant. Her fighting will, the will of Bastion House, coursed through me as my heirloom weapon absorbed hers, but I had no fight left in me. The ice all around me was cratered with the impacts of broken Seraph bodies. I surrendered to the invaders, and at that moment, Hel’s Right Hand was no more. My Seraph became a mausoleum for Unerring Skadi, for the thirty-six Valkyries who died with her. Even my own name was forfeit in my capture. The pnets of Bastion House were repurposed, ice melted with orbital mirrors to better extract their resources, while the surviving popution was scattered across Adamant space to be re-educated, torn from their families and friends to forestall organisation and rebellion. I told you integration was a violent word. When I took my new name as a Knight, I chose it to commemorate the home I lost: A Gcier Thawed Weeps to Reunite With The Sea.”

  Tears trickle down Weeper’s cheeks once more. Val aches to reach out and comfort her, to offer redress for the atrocities the woman lying beside her has experienced, but she is still an Adamant Knight, an agent of the empire that consumed Weeper's home. Still, she has to say something. Words slip past her lips, hushed and hurried: “Soon, there will be a reckoning. Time can’t be turned back; those already taken from us can’t be returned, but we can’t continue this way any longer. When that day comes, I’d be honoured to fight side-by-side with Hel’s Right Hand.”

  Weeper gives no reply, but as Val leaves her on the grass and crunches down the garden path, her sapphire eyes follow all the way.

  ***

  It hardly feels like a proper Hunter’s funeral without a body to be recycled. Bliss winds the silver ribbon through the outer branches of the memorial tree and ties it off at the end, leaving a length to dangle down and sway in the artificial wind. All around her, the other members of her flight follow suit, leaving the boughs veined in silver. The bond keens with a funeral dirge sung by the silver-masked priest overseeing the proceedings. No words are spoken aloud in the silent biodome; the ceremony is conducted strictly through the Mother’s Embrace.

  As the Hunters retreat from the tree, surrounding it in a semicircle, the priest in the centre brings the dirge to an end and speaks. Their mask is expressionless, anonymous; all priests are interchangeable as the Mother’s servants. -Today we remember Bear, Hunter of the Chrysalis, and her Seraph body Ursa Major, which was cruelly scavenged by Vultures. Though she was denied the opportunity for rebirth, she will live on in our recollections, and her genetic code will join this ship’s past Hunters in the memorial tree.

  As Bliss stands before the tree in her white funeral dress with Hasret and Summer holding her arms, a sharp pressure begins to build in her skull. Summer gnces at her in concern, sensing the pain; Bliss shakes her head. -Just a headache.

  The priest produces an auto-injector with a long needle from their smock and plunges it into the tree’s bark. Hasret winces in her wheelchair and grips Bliss’s forearm, her nails digging in painfully. She never did like injections.

  The rest of the ceremony slips by in a haze; Bliss struggles to focus on the details with such a terrible headache. Hasret is sullen and silent as the rest of the flight departs. Seeing the state of the two of them, Summer takes it upon herself to ease the tension. “Shall we go for a turn about the garden?”

  Off they go past the algae stacks, Bliss and Summer walking beside Hasret in her motorised chair. Hasret turns her head to watch a harvest-beast sleeping in its pen, her expression softening; she finds the creatures unaccountably cute. Bliss bought her a plush toy of one that now takes pride of pce on her bed.

  Among the lush foliage of the biodome it’s easy to forget where they are; this could be any garden world in the core rather than a ship built for war. Bliss takes in the familiar sights along the path, letting her mind wander to distract from the headache.

  Last night she dreamed of dancing in the sky. The experience was singur, vivid, an outpouring of emotion from deep within. The taste of Val’s blood still lingers on her tongue. What her Knight did to Ursa was, undoubtedly, necessary. It feels cruel to put it that way, but if Val thought it was right, it must have been the only way.

  But she felt that woman die. So, when faced with the culprit, she did what came naturally: she sunk her teeth in and ripped out chunks of flesh.

  Isn’t love always like that? We consume and we remake each other, always greedy for more.

  As if picking up on her train of thought, Summer breaks the silence. “I won’t forgive her. That Knight… I thought maybe she wasn’t like the others, that in some other life we could have been friends. I was sorely mistaken.”

  “A Knight is a Knight,” says Hasret. “They churn them out on assembly lines, tin soldiers marching in step. If she was called upon to represent the House, she toes the line as well as anyone. If anything, I feel sorry for her.”

  Summer splutters, “What? After what she did?”

  “We aren’t that different, really. We’re all fighting a war that started long before any of us were born, for gods who’ll never see us as anything more than disposable meat. We Hunters are just more honest about being monsters.”

  Summer stops in her tracks and folds her arms. “Well, I’m not a monster!” They both turn to Bliss: Summer pleading for reassurance, Hasret with a tired and knowing look.

  She should just tell them the truth. There’s no future for any of them here. They should get straight into their Seraphs and fly away together, now, before they’re tangled up in the war and picked off one by one. The pounding in her head grows worse by the second.

  “What do you want from me?” she snaps. “Would you like me to absolve all your sins, to condemn everyone who’s ever wronged you? You knew what you were signing up for, Summer. Don’t deny it. A Hunter isn’t human, not any more. We’re wolves among the hen-houses. Bear delighted in cruelty; we all do. It’s a fucking job requirement. We're all stained with the same blood. Don’t try to pretend you’re better.”

  Summer’s lip trembles. “It’s my calling, my pce in the Mother’s design. I’m not a monster for knowing where I stand in the hierarchy. We are better. That’s how we were made, you more than anyone.”

  The words that so impressed her as a child ring hollow now. She wonders if Summer would ever have given her the slightest gnce if her mother wasn’t an Elder. A white-hot pain bzes behind her eyes. “Enough. I don’t want to argue with you. I need to lie down.”

  She leaves them both behind and returns to her suite. The low orange-and-pink light of the flowers on the ceiling comforts her as she lies on the bed, lulling her into a slumber. She clutches the pendant hanging around her neck, and dreams of being someone else.

  ***

  Linnea

  I didn’t know how much I’d miss her until she was already dead. Amalthea, the queen of Hunters, bzed like a supernova. We were all in awe of her, cmouring to bask in her radiance for just a moment. Then she was gone, snuffed out in an instant, and all I was left with were the burn scars.

  Grief is an ugly thing. It makes you selfish. The guiding light of our flight, the woman who was like a sister to me, was gone. There could never be another Hunter to match her, not in the whole damned Division. Somebody would have to step up, pick up the pieces, take charge in her absence. But all I could think about was how much this hurt me.

  As they lowered her Seraph body into the recycling tank to be dissolved by the sacred enzymes, I felt the st moorings of my life snapping free. She was there right from the beginning, my very first mission, when I acted like a petunt child. I learned respect in time. I was always more of a follower than a leader; it was all too easy to fall into her orbit. Some flights take on a ft command structure and give everyone equal say in decisions, but for us, Amalthea’s word was final. I’d spent my whole adult life under her wing—most of us had—and in the end she sacrificed herself for my sake. She’d left things unfinished, left me unfinished. There was a ragged hole in my life where she’d made her exit wound.

  Sometimes, when all hope is extinguished, when you’re left drifting bereft of purpose and meaning, there arrives a saviour to rescue you from the abyss. She found me alone, slumped in the shade of a cypress by the waterside. We’d said our final goodbyes to Amalthea and my restless legs had carried me here, as far away as I could possibly get from sympathetic words. I processed better alone. I hugged my knees and took in the foggy expanse of the bayou, the dense tangles of roots dipping into shallow water painted orange by the sunset. Like a picture postcard of old Earth, but the curvature was inverted; there was no horizon, only ptes of nd curving upwards in the distance to form a tube that enclosed us all. Overhead, dawn was breaking on the far side of the Nucleus.

  As I craned my neck to look, a shadow fell over me. An older woman in a white suit and a wide-brimmed hat obscured the sky, her face familiar from countless news broadcasts. “You look lost, Linnea,” she said in a rich alto. “Let me guide you.” She offered a hand to help me up. The thought of saying no evaporated before it could fully form; Elder Violette was not a woman to refuse.

  Her grip was firm as she hauled me to my feet: a steady hand on the tiller. I didn’t think to question how she knew my name. Violette knows everything. I had seen her standing apart at the funeral, paying her respects but never mingling with the Hunters of our flight. An Elder has no peers but the Chorus. For her to take an interest in me… I didn’t know whether to be fttered or terrified. Shivers ran down my spine as she appraised me with her percipient gaze. Maybe a little of both, then.

  Violette led the way down the waterside path until we reached a small dock nestled beneath the trees. A canopied boat, rge enough for a handful of passengers, stood ready to head out into the waters of the bayou. Without hesitation, the Elder hopped in and started the engine; the roaring of the outboard motor startled a flock of birds into flight. “Come along, Hunter,” she called briskly. “Let us take in the sights while we discuss business.”

  I was sorely unprepared for this. I’d hoped to spend the evening drinking alone, spiralling down the drain; maybe crying uncontrolbly for a spell, if I could find the time. Amalthea wasn’t there to cut me off, so I could drink until I bcked out. She really wouldn’t approve of all this self-pity, but then she had to go and get herself killed, so she didn’t get a say in how I mourned her.

  The bitterness showed on my face as I obediently climbed aboard the antique boat. I half expected the thing to start sinking under both our weight, but it only bobbed slightly in the water, and once I was seated on a wooden bench opposite Violette, we were off. The mirror array that passed for a sun on this station cast its gaze away from us. As dusk began to fall, the humid air took on a chill that made me gd of my warm suit jacket. Beneath the hum of the motor as it drove us through the water, I could make out the sounds of nature: birdsong and the chirp of cicadas.

  “You would rather be alone, I take it,” said Violette, reclining in her seat as we reached the open water. An electric ntern hanging from the boat’s canopy illuminated her face in warm yellow. I nodded in agreement. “I don’t mean to impose, but I have pces to be, and I needed to speak with you before my departure.”

  “It’s a privilege, Elder,” I said. The narrow circle of ntern-light shone only for us, a beacon to dispel the gathering night. Before me was a Violette that couldn’t be captured in pixels, bathed in a soft, intimate glow. Few people are ever allowed to be alone with someone as singur as her; this would be my only chance to seize the opportunity. “Whatever you need, I can do it.”

  A beaming smile creased her face. “So eager! But do call me Violette.”

  Dropping her title felt overly familiar, a step too far for someone with a direct line to the Mother rooted in her brain. She was a rarefied being, spun from light into refined beauty; I was hardly fit to polish her shoes. But as polite as she was being to me, she had given me an order. “Violette, how did you know Amalthea?”

  “I’m an old friend of her family. Several generations back, in fact. I watched their rise to power from the beginning, and none shone brighter than Amalthea herself.” She looked ahead, across the water, where an indistinct shape loomed out of the fog as we approached it. “We all miss her deeply. I wish that she had been born into a better time. There is precious little glory to be had for a Hunter in this day and age. The great enemy has dwindled just as we have since the Eye of Heaven abandoned us; an endless, inevitable slide into obsolescence. Something must be done, before entropy takes us all.”

  I was stunned into silence. What she was saying bordered on bsphemy. It was something all experienced Hunters understood, and she had the advantage of an intelligence network and the experience of centuries to back it up, but to hear it so frankly was a shock: Protean House will not st forever. If I agreed with her, would she have me executed for speaking out of turn?

  I had never thought too deeply about politics; the idea of talking about this further made my skin itch. Instead, I seized the safest thread I could. “Amalthea was the best friend I ever had. No, she was more than that; she was a vital part of my soul. When the Knights killed her, they ripped a chunk of me free; since that day, I’ve barely been half a person. Without her, I’m… rudderless. Set adrift without a compass to guide me.” Once I started, it was hard to stop; the words oozed out of me like bck bile. It felt disgusting to admit this to a stranger.

  Violette listened intently. From her expression and through the bond I felt no judgement, only calcution, as if she was assembling a behavioural model of me in her head. Amalthea was like this too. She knew each of her Hunters as well as herself, knew exactly how to keep all of us happy and in fighting shape. Under her command, we were a single organism. Now our brain was dead, and the rest of the organs would shut down before long unless someone took up the task of thinking in her stead.

  The shape in the fog resolved into a colossal mushroom, its cap broad enough to shade a Seraph, rooted in a small isnd that jutted from the shallow water. Violette brought us to a stop and cut the engine, leaving us a few hundred metres from the fungus.

  “A toast, then, to her memory,” she said, pulling a cooler out from under her seat. Inside was a bottle of wine and two gsses; she popped the cork and poured one for each of us. I took mine gingerly. She couldn’t have known about my habit. One gss wouldn’t hurt, surely. Violette clinked her gss against mine; the sharp sound cut through the silence like a bell. “To a fine Hunter. We may never see her like again.”

  “To my best friend,” I said. “I should have been the one to go before you.” I downed the wine in one gulp. I didn’t want to cry in front of the Elder, but the tears came anyway, leaving my vision swimming. “Fuck. I’m sorry.” I wiped my eyes inelegantly with my sleeve. Some impression I was making; the scary butch with a shaved head and enough piercings to start a jewellery shop, blubbering like a child.

  “Don’t be sorry. Whatever you feel now, hold onto it, cherish it. This is what makes us human, what distinguishes us from the machine. If you didn’t cry from all the pain and grief welling up inside you right now, you would be no better than the ones who killed her.” Violette’s tone was neutral, but her eyes were intense, her gaze weighted. This was not just sympathy; it was a lesson.

  Far be it from me to ignore her wisdom. “What do I do now?”

  “Amalthea spoke highly of you, Linnea. You are an exceptional talent among the Division, faultlessly devoted to your House: a bloodhound who tracks her prey with unerring precision.”

  The words jarred in my head. She couldn't possibly be talking about me; I was nothing without Amalthea’s guidance. Maybe she'd mistaken me for one of my flight-mates. “Elder—”

  “Violette.”

  “Violette. Amalthea wouldn't lie to you, but she was talking about the Linnea under her command, not the broken woman I’ve become. I don't have that spark in me any more.”

  “You require a compass, as you said. A guiding light, someone to steer you in the right direction.” She took a sip of her wine and set it aside, folding her arms. In the shadow of the mushroom cap, her ntern was the only light to be seen. It was all I could do to restrain myself from reaching out to touch her face and burning up in her radiance, like a moth to a fme. “I can provide that. As Violette of the Chorus, my own talents lie in cultivation. It is not enough to simply scatter seeds and hope for a good harvest; I must prepare soil with the right acidity and nutrient bance, water on the right schedule, and fend off pests who would see my project undone. Only then can my efforts bear fruit. This is how I bolster the superorganism; this is how we win.”

  As she spoke, a serene blue radiance rose from the mushroom, drifting across the water: a cloud of bioluminescent spores, millions in number. Cerulean light sparkled in Violette’s eyes like cold fire.

  “Is this…?” I gazed out at the pinpricks of light dancing on the wind.

  “A fruiting body of the Mother, yes. I thought it an appropriate venue for our conversation. The Budding Mother is with us always, Linnea, but the Nucleus is where she first cast off her Seraph body and set down roots. This station is, more than anywhere, her home: a nexus of divine metempsychosis where recycled souls rejoin the Mother to be spun out into new Seraph bodies. Even now, Amalthea will be with her, eager to lend guidance to Hunters of the future in a new form. Does that comfort you?”

  This was a trap too, but if she had chosen me as her project, I could afford to test the limits. “No. It doesn’t. The Amalthea I knew is gone; even if she still exists in recycled memories, we can’t just pick up where we left off. She’s still dead.”

  “That is not the official position of Protean House.” She sighed. “But, I suppose, it is a typical human reaction.”

  I leaned back in my seat and watched the spores floating by. “So, you’ve brought me all the way out here, plied me with drink and sweet words. Let's cut to the chase: what do you need from me, Violette?”

  She reached out and switched off the ntern. Blue spore-light, devoid of warmth, deepened the lines etched into her face. Here was Violette the Elder, ambassador to a god, a figurehead carved from wood. My blood turned to ice.

  “What I need, Linnea, is a hound. You will come when called; you will kill who I instruct you to kill. You will be the purest expression of my will; your fangs and cws will be as my own. All of your needs will be taken care of. You will live in the p of luxury for the rest of your life as my champion. Do you accept this arrangement?”

  My heartbeat thundered in my ears. I would never have another opportunity like this. To surrender so utterly would be terrifying for some, but I needed this more badly than air or water. I didn’t have to think. I didn’t have to grieve. I could forget everything that had ever pained me, lose myself in the spray of blood and viscera, subsume my own will beneath a far greater one. Violette knows everything; she would make far better use of my Seraph body than I could.

  “Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I agree. Take me, use me how you will. I don’t want to think any more.”

  A smile lit up her face; a fsh of teeth, a deepening of wrinkles. “Kneel.” I knelt before her, and she extended a hand. “Kiss my hand, Linnea, and the deal is struck.”

  I did as I was told, savouring the roughness of her skin on my lips, and changed the course of my life forever.

  ***

  With Violette as my lodestar, Persephone’s Ascent found a new cadence of sughter. In my Seraph body I yanked out dissent at the root. Severed encves, spliced hierarchy-breakers, Adamant sympathisers, even a rogue Elder; all fell right into my patient jaws. I gouged the spark from Elder Azalea’s Seraph, held it bloody and quivering in my cws, and delivered it to my Violette as an engagement gift.

  Before her, I had considered marriage an outmoded institution, founded on the subjugation of women, best left to rot in the ruins of Earth as an organ in patriarchy’s bloated corpse. But after five years in Violette’s service, I found there was no better way to express my devotion.

  She had stayed true to her promise; I wanted for nothing. With her hand on my leash, I found crity. Here was a world in which complex politics and personal desires did not exist. My conscience was clear as a cloudless sky; I went where she commanded and hunted to my heart’s content, until I was whistled back to her side with my muzzle stained with gore.

  At home in the mansion on Divona’s Wellspring, Violette brightened my days of leave where our schedules intersected. In the early days, I was afraid to speak my mind, afraid that she would discard me for a new hound that didn’t act out of turn. But she valued my contributions, and listened intently when I voiced opinions on Seraph deployments on the border and tactics for my own hunts. She respected my intelligence, and I was in awe of hers: a mind to rival the Sovereign Engine and its caged sun.

  Our retionship wasn’t without its frictions, especially at the beginning. When Violette communed across light-years with the Chorus from the isotion room in the celr, she would often fly into a foul mood. The Elders were bound together more tightly with each other and the Mother than the rest of Protean House, their connection like coronary arteries compared to our capilries, and any dissent would have profound effects on the psyche. She would often go on meandering rants about Elders who particurly vexed her: scheming Hemlock, and artless Dahlia, and that damned mad scientist Cendine. To calm herself she would rely on injections of mycosuppressant, shutting down her connection with the Mother entirely for hours at a time, and confine herself to her study to plot. On the few occasions I saw her under the effect of the drug, she would blink at me blearily as if sleep-deprived and then snap at me to go away.

  Of the two of us, I had the worse personal habits. I would always keep a stash of alcohol—mostly spirits—hidden around the house for when she was away and I was feeling particurly sorry for myself. I had a life that anyone in Protean House would envy, and yet my brain still contrived ways to torture me, to remind me that I was responsible for Amalthea’s death. It only seemed right to allow myself to drown my sorrows for a while, and I wasn’t watched as closely as I had been by my flight. Even the servants didn’t know for a long time; I could take a detox pill and be fresh as a daisy for a sortie the next morning. It’s so easy to heed the siren’s call and repse.

  In my search for another distraction, I found a grand piano standing in the dining room of the house. It grew out of the teak floor as if pianos simply occurred naturally, sprouting little leaves from its legs. It was covered in a sheet when I arrived, seemingly unused. In the evenings, when the sun shone through the floor-to-ceiling window and painted all in rose-gold, I would come there to py, reviving a habit from my youth. One day, Violette arrived unannounced, slipping in beside me on the stool to take up half of the melody with her nimble hands. Once the song was over, I turned to see tears streaming down her face.

  “Thank you,” she said, csping my hands in hers. “I’d forgotten how beautiful it could be.”

  After that, she turned herself to the task of teaching me with all the skill of an old master. It had been more than eighty years since she st pyed—she learned from her daughter Marielle, and couldn’t bear to touch it after her death—but once the muscle memory was rekindled, it grew into a wildfire passion for both of us. Sometimes we would py together; other times one of us would sing while the other accompanied. We would practice te into the night, building a rapport of little touches, jokes and gales of ughter, until inevitably she began to invite me to her bed.

  Wrapping my arms around her warm body as she slept and breathing in her sweet scent, I felt as if the Mother herself had designed us to fit together. To be the leashed hound of such an incomparable woman, and to be worthy of her love, had seemed like an impossible dream—and yet here she was, my anchor in stormy seas. In those days, it felt as though nothing could tear us asunder.

  ***

  A year after our engagement, the wedding party drew guests from the furthest reaches of Protean space. Violette handled the arrangements with customary efficiency. An Elder’s wedding is a singur occasion; even with the guest list pruned as efficiently as possible, they swarmed into the estate in their hundreds to celebrate our joyful union. My guests hailed mostly from the Hunter Division, including my old flight. They were greatly outnumbered by those invited by Violette, but that was no surprise—I had never been a social butterfly, and she had touched more lives than I could possibly match in my forty years.

  At a Protean wedding, reality frays at the edges. The caress of the Mother’s Embrace broke down inhibitions, aided by more mundane drugs; the emotions of every guest pped at the shores of my psyche. There are no boundaries between things—a joy shared is a joy magnified. The revelries of the day became a hallucinatory blur, remembered in vivid snapshots: a performer blowing technicolour bubbles that revolved in a kaleidoscopic pattern; a frenetic dance that threw me from partner to partner with wild abandon; the scent of bergamot and wet earth; a flock of tiny pink birds taking flight, pursued by a raptor.

  Evening fell; the glow of bioluminescent leaves signalled the beginning of the ceremony. As if in a dream, I found the end of a red ribbon pressed into my hand. As I walked down the aisle—my path lit by dancing fireflies—I handed branches of ribbon to the cmouring crowd, forming a model circutory system that connected us all like the Mother’s hyphae. On the far side of the garden, I caught Violette doing the same, striding towards the dais where we would both meet. The detox I had taken minutes beforehand took hold, sharpening my senses, flushing the st of the intoxicants from my system; I had to be fully present for this moment. Our union was inevitable, drawn across light-years by the pull of gravity to become one, here, now.

  We had pnned out our outfits in detail, spending hours poring over designs and attending fitting sessions. It wasn’t often that I wore anything other than casual clothes or my pilot suit, but the tailors had risen to the occasion. I wore a three-piece suit in Stygian bck with a purple shirt, the fabric cut to dispy the Seraph impnts running down my spine. A violet bloomed from my pel. Silver cws augmented my nails, flickering in firefly-light, while smoky eyeshadow transformed my eyes into pits of void. I made no pretences; I dressed like a killer.

  Up the steps I walked, trailing the ribbon behind me. The masked priest took the end from my hand, and we both turned to watch Violette’s approach. Witnessing her radiance in person left me breathless. A diaphanous dress in striated purple, adorned by a matching violet, flowed behind her as she ascended the steps. The lines and angles of her body were picked out in whorls of phosphorescent blue body paint, ghostly vines buoying her up from without.

  Many a woman would kill to hear her speak their name. I had gone further still, spilling rivers of blood in her name, a sacrifice for her to gulp greedily until rivulets ran down her chin. She would never be sated, and neither would I.

  She csped my hands in hers, locking eyes with me as the priest tied the ribbons around both our hands. -Are you nervous, Linnea? she asked, the corners of her eyes creasing with a gentle smile.

  -You know I am, beloved. But I’ve come too far to let nerves stop me.

  -This isn’t my first time. If you follow my lead, no harm can come to you.

  The crowd fell silent; the air hung heavy with anticipation. Violette’s pulse—strong and steady through the veins of her hand—was the heartbeat of every guest, transmitted through the ribbon to beat through us both.

  -Today we gather to witness the joining of Elder Violette and Hunter Linnea, said the priest. -The Mother’s Embrace binds us all together in equal measure, but today they forge a greater bond, their lines grafted together to bolster the superorganism of Protean House.

  Our vows were written together, extensively rehearsed. Now the script sprang to life before my eyes.

  -Linnea, said Violette, squeezing my hands tighter beneath the ribbon. -Love is such a fleeting thing, burning bold and defiant against the darkness of the void only to be snuffed out in an instant. When you entered my life, you stoked its fme in my heart once again. I promise to keep you safe in my embrace against the vicissitudes of the universe, come what may.

  In the back of my head, awareness stirred. We were being watched—not from without by prying eyes, but from within. A great mass bore down on our minds, grafted to Violette through the bond. It was far heavier than any human mind, yet it brushed us with only the gentlest touch. The full weight of its consciousness would shatter our minds into jagged shards. Instinctively, I held my breath.

  The Mother was watching.

  I could not show fear. I knew my part in this scene, and I pyed it without hesitation. -Violette, I was adrift at sea before I found you, and your light guided me back to shore. I could never begin to repay you for all that you’ve done; I am born anew in your arms. I promise you all that I am, and nothing less. I will obey and protect you until my dying breath.

  The oppressive presence withdrew, seemingly satisfied, and I could breathe freely again. The priest snipped the ribbons that bound us to the crowd, freeing our hands. Seized by boldness, I took Violette and dipped her low, kissing her deeply while the crowd erupted into appuse.

  Fireworks burst across the sky in green and gold as I relinquished the kiss to bring her back upright, both of us flushed and breathless and exultant. The triumph of victory shone in her eyes: I was hers. Always hers, only hers, until the stars burned out.