The submarine glides into an open dock and settles into a rack that lifts it from the water with a rattle and a groan. Aurae lets go of my hand. I stretch my legs and wait for my seat’s safety straps to unlock. Through the porthole, I glimpse movement outside the ship. Shadows moving on a dim dock. My eyes adjust quickly, and a chill creeps down my spine. The shadows carry something in their hands.
Manacles. It’s a big set. And then another. And another.
I turn back around to see Sevro struggling to keep his eyes open. Diomedes yawns even more deeply than Darrow this time. They both blink like they’re trying to stay awake.
“Darrow! Something’s wrong,” I shout. “They got chains out there!”
Darrow doesn’t react except to turn and look at Cheon and raise his eyebrows. “It doesn’t have to be like this,” he says.
She stares back at him and taps her bionic nose. “You know, I can smell a musky man at a hundred paces and tell you the Color of his last shag, but I still can’t smell ceronocyne gas. Can you?” He does not answer. “This brand’s made for Golds.”
“No,” Sevro slurs and begins thrashing at his straps like a caged animal. “No!”
“Don’t fight,” Darrow murmurs. “Sevro, don’t fight them.”
“Cheon, what are you doing?” Aurae asks. She struggles with her seat’s restraints.
“Athena’s will.” Cheon stands. The heavy Reds stand with her. Their armor flickers alive as their generators whir up. I pull the release latch for my straps. Nothing happens. I pull again, and the straps contract, synching me tight to the chair. Sevro gurgles in rage. I pull my pistol only to have Aurae claw at it.
“No,” she says.
The gun falls to the floor, out of reach.
“Lyria, don’t. Cheon, these are our friends—”
I’m slim enough to slip down through the restraints of my seat and pin the pistol between my feet. I flip the pistol back into my lap and it hits the restraints and nearly slides off. I grab the pistol and point it at Cheon. Something hard and metal slaps the back of my head. I see black spots. My brain aches. I can’t get out of my straps. What is happening? Cheon grabs Darrow by the hair and sniffs him. He stares back, groggy. I’ve lost the pistol. Aurae is shouting, telling her to stop, calling for Athena. Another Red is opening the bag at Darrow’s feet. He hollers to the others and lifts up a black helmet with a grunt. Cheon shakes her head.
“Thought I might smell a bit of the old Red on you,” Cheon rasps to Darrow. “But you’re all Gold now. A Red would know some debts just can’t be forgiven.” She clocks him in the face with a steel gauntlet. “The Sons you betrayed had husbands. They had wives. They had children and grandchildren.” She hits him again. His head lolls. Aurae’s somehow slipped her restraints. She has the pistol. She points it at Cheon and fires over her head. Cheon hits Darrow again. Aurae fires the gun again.
Aurae is so angry she’s crying. “This is not who we are. What are you doing!”
Cheon turns, licks her lips. “Seems it wasn’t just the Raa who had this little Pink on her back.”
A voice comes from the door. “Cheon. What are you doing?” Cheon stops. The door to the submarine has opened and a thickset woman enters wearing a black, spiked helmet and a simple black jumpsuit. Heavy braids of dark red hair fall to her midback. Her dark arms are muscular and tattooed with white ink. The troopers part.
Athena.
Cheon looks down, ashamed. “Get out,” Athena says. Cheon mumbles an apology. “Get out. Turn in your weapons. Report to the Sanctuary. Aurae is right. This is not who we are.”
Cheon obeys. Athena walks up to Aurae and slowly helps her lower the gun.
“Aurae, we finally meet. My bravest daughter.” She kisses her forehead. “I thought you were lost in the Core. I should have known better. Well done.” The Pink falls to her knees, quaking. “No, no. We never kneel, Daughter, least of all you. You have brought me all I asked for, and more. Far more.”
“You bitch! We trusted you!” I snarl at Aurae. “What is this?”
Athena turns her helmet. Its glowing red eyes bore into me. “Justice, at last.”
59
DARROW
Athena
I WAKE IN A COLD room with a sour chemical taste in my mouth and a headache. Machines rumble through the walls. I swim in nausea as I sit up. The air is heavy with the flavor of rust. Huge chains clink. They are light in the low gravity, but they are thick as my wrists and anchor me to the floor. I feel for Bad Lass. It’s gone. So is Pax’s key. The fog in my head is in no hurry to clear, and I remember what happened.
“You talk in your sleep.”
I am not alone in the room. A woman sits on the floor, her back against the wall. Her hair is dark red and pools on her shoulders in heavy braids woven with silver filament. A curved black hasta leans beside her. She reads from my copy of The Path to the Vale. Both of her hands are artificial and seven-fingered.
I rub my temples. “Where is Sevro?”
“Aren’t you curious what you said in your sleep?”
“Sevro.”
“Safe. He will never be harmed here. We owe that much to his father. You and the Raa, on the other hand, may not be so lucky. To say nothing of the Obsidian.”
“And Lyria?”
“The Red who tried to shoot Cheon? She’s with Aurae now. She won’t be harmed. She’s done us no crime. But I am surprised a Red who was a victim of your assimilation camps would be so protective of the Reaper.” She glances up with a frown. “You look surprised as well.”
She is not a tall woman, but she is dense. A Red ultraheavy like Cheon. Her nose is Roman in its architecture, and crooked. Her skin is a dark black. Her eyes are garnet red, large, wide-set, and narrow. She seems in her late forties. Her sleeves are rolled up, and her forearms, like her neck and face, are covered with white tattoos. Names.
“Guess I should ask. Are the ships real? Or were they just bait?”
“They are real…if the Obsidians have not found them or destroyed them. As for bait? No. They could not be bait because there was no trap. Aurae was sent only for Barca. But when she called from Sungrave…well, I knew this was something I could not run from any longer.” She sighs, then waves the book a little.
I didn’t bring it with me. They have the Archimedes. And Cassius?
“Life is easy to imagine as a path. But it is moments like this when I think of it as a particle accelerator. You, the Daughters: You’re two high-energy beams traveling close to the speed of light before finally colliding. That collision will lay bare the essential building blocks of your nature, and ours. I did not want this collision. Not with you. Not now.”
“Why not?”
“I pulled us from the brink of hatred. I pulled myself from the debris you made of my life. Now…the stir your presence has caused. The hatred it has awoken. Well. The Daughters demand justice, and I am but their will.”
“It needn’t be a collision,” I try.
She smiles. “Is that why you did not struggle in the submarine?”
“I did not struggle because I smelt rust on the breeze. I believed—still believe—that I am amongst friends.”