When caught out in a combat zone outside one’s Seraph body, Hunter Division training has one simple piece of advice: Run.

  As the soles of her boots pound the marble corridor floor, Bliss thanks providence for her foresight in wearing fts. Fleeing for one’s life in heels would be terribly inconvenient.

  Corridor after corridor rushes past her. They all look the same, after a while: eborately patterned floors, flowing organic pilrs, and the rising stench of death. Laser-bursts overhead strobe through windows; the pace shudders, but stands firm. The only reason she is still alive is because both sides are holding back to protect their people.

  When she rounds another corner, she finds some souls who weren’t so lucky. The floor is strewn with broken gss, the mangled corpses of pace staff scattered amidst the wreckage of a colpsed ceiling.

  Other facts from her training occur to her: the force required to break human bone; the wet crunching sound a body makes when it is crushed beyond recognition; the precise volume of blood contained within. She turns away from the severed limbs, the bloodstained uniforms, the vacant staring eyes. This grisly tableau cannot, will not, prefigure her own fate. A Hunter survives at any cost.

  Besides, she made a promise to Val.

  There is no way forward here. The corridor is blocked; the crystal garden outside is a killing field, fully exposed to aerial assault. She needs a new strategy.

  Bliss slips into a side room and immerses herself in the bond. The mycelium of the Mother’s Embrace thrums with information like an immense brain: distress calls sent outwards to reinforcements that will never arrive in time, the chatter of the Chrysalis crew as they arrange an orbital firing solution; fervent prayers to the Mother for deliverance. There, among the neurons, shine seven bright sparks she knows well: the Seraph bodies of her fellow Hunters.

  Their bloodlust sings through the bond, ced with panic. Hunters thrive in the ambush, in sowing chaos with biochemical weaponry, in driving Knights to break formation and flee in terror. An honest head-to-head is sheer foolishness, especially against a Saint, but they have no choice. More than their own lives are on the line.

  In truth, Bliss has no interest in securing the safety of a gaggle of diplomats and dilettantes. She understands their importance to the House in abstract terms only; what is concrete to her is the survival of Summer, of Hasret, of the Hunters with whom she shares feast and famine.

  Trueheart has marked every one of them for execution; so be it. A cornered beast fights to the st breath.

  She sends out a plea, a howl to her pack-mates. -I need a way out.

  The sensation of air rushing past butterfly wings washes over her. Titania speaks. -I don’t know if we can reach you, sweetheart. That Will of theirs is folding space, keeping us funnelled in. Only Ursa is on your side of the pace, and she’s unresponsive. She must be caught up in a hunt of her own.

  -Can you break the working? Bliss asks. -I don’t see any other way out of here.

  -If there’s an opening, Garuda and I can deal with Euclid’s Nightmare, says Mask of Loki. Ash’s Seraph body hums with the potential to change, to slip through the eye of a needle. If anyone can handle it, they can. -It’d be a piece of cake if that Saint weren’t in the way.

  Anathema, her voice crackling with static, cuts in. -Uriel’s Fme is mine. I’ll crack open her bones and eat her marrow. Hold tight, Bliss. A terrible crity of purpose shines through the bond. Hasret and her Seraph are as one in this: zeal to protect her own, hunger to rip open the Saint’s armour and devour her beating spark. -Pilot ID Hasret Gul. Authorise temporary release.

  When Bliss returns to her body, she is drenched in sweat. The first time Anathema succumbed to the Phage’s hunger, she left Eris within a hair’s breadth of death. She cannot, must not, be allowed to lose control again.

  “Lady Bliss!” a familiar voice calls out from the corridor. The cleaner she collided with earlier stands before an open maintenance door, concrete stairs descending behind her. She has donned a fanged mask of abaster; her awkward demeanour has evaporated, repced with an air of calm competence in the face of danger. A holstered gun sits on her hip. “I work for Violette. If you want to survive, come with me.”

  ***

  From the eyes of a Seraph, an Adamant purge is a clean and quiet operation. Every piece on the board moves according to the Archangel’s will; munitions are tracked down to individual bullets piercing individual hearts. Casualties are tallied, divided into human (tragic, avoidable) and inhuman (subversive, terroristic). Trauma, should it occur, is compartmentalised to be processed on one’s own time. The gears of empire continue to turn, heedless of the bodies crushed between their teeth.

  From the ground, it is very much like descending into hell.

  The smell of smoke and blood pervades the air. Screams ring out from inside the burning room. With a mighty heave, Val wrenches the broken door off its tracks. Smoke rushes through the open doorway; she coughs despite her respiratory filter.

  “Thank the Mother!” cries someone from inside. A bevy of Protean journalists rush towards the door, only to stop in their tracks at the sight of an Adamant uniform.

  Val, soot-stained and smeared with blood, nods toward the corridor. “Go on. Get out of here while you still have a chance.”

  She leaves them behind, following the golden path in her overy, taking the stairs two at a time. They will have to make their own way to their hangar from here. She’s already lost too much time.

  Time, time, time. It has only been ten minutes since Trueheart’s procmation, but already she feels the pang of separation from Bliss. Without her presence, the world feels cold, exsanguinated. They might never see one another again outside the battlefield. For all she knows, the Hunter could already be dead.

  No. She would know. Val has not been granted the Mother’s Gift, but their connection runs far deeper than nerves and grey matter. They have danced on a different pne, drunk deeply from the searing light that spills through the veil. If Bliss were to die, she would feel it in Inanna’s spark, in her heart of hearts.

  It’s an illogical thought, an emotional dependence that the Codex would never countenance. She doesn’t much care what the Archangel would think. Her hand tenses involuntarily; she digs her nails into her palm, hard enough to leave a mark, and thinks of diamond cws.

  Abruptly she reaches the nding of the tenth floor. Sunlight spills through a wall-to-wall stained gss window, painting the high-ceilinged foyer in green and gold. The pattern is abstract: flowing lines marshalled into order, suggesting the union of nature and artifice. As yet, it is untouched by the ongoing battle; the desk curving across the back wall is unoccupied, as if the receptionist has simply gone for lunch. A pce to catch one’s breath, but not for too long. She can still hear the screaming.

  She ducks behind the desk and takes stock of the situation outside. The staff terminal is still logged in, for all the good it will do her. Room assignments are the least of her worries.

  Cold and impartial updates buzz through her cybernetics suite, reting structural damage and casualties, combat engagements and passenger manifests. The first group of civilian shuttles are ready to evacuate to the Feather of Truth, and the rest will soon follow. No time for stragglers.

  Live feeds of the exterior are snowed over with static, protesting at the corruption of physical ws. Hasret’s Seraph is well-named; the Phage she carries is anathema to reality.

  Uriel’s comms channel is occupied with orders to her Knights, underid with a martial drumbeat. The Saint spares no concern for personnel still trapped in the pace; she is on the warpath. Val has been left to the wolves. Despite the years of enmity between them, she had hoped for better. Trueheart is Trueheart, and that is all she can ever be. The Saint is calcified in hatred, as are the rest of her kind; change is for the new generation. And right now, Val is caught in her ancient vendetta.

  The big picture lies beyond her grasp with the processing power on hand: too much data, too many sensory spectra unsuited for the human brain. Without her armour, she might as well be fyed, nerves raw and exposed to the cruelties of battle. The sooner she returns to her Seraph body, the better.

  Enough dallying. The hangar is so close now. She gets up to leave.

  An urgent transmission from Brigid’s Devotion cuts in. “Val, they’re coming your way.”

  A shadow falls over her. A bestial face fills the window, blocking out the sun, watching her with slit-pupilled amber eyes. Icy fear floods her limbs, freezing her in pce.

  “There you are,” growls Ursa Major. Her menhir teeth fsh armingly as she speaks; her words reverberate through Val’s bones. “Did your pack leave you behind, little stray? Under that armour you’re such a tiny thing, barely a morsel.” She licks her lips. “Too many of you have slipped my snare, brought down Hunters I loved more than life itself. Run, morsel. There is no escape, but the hunt will be all the sweeter for your terror.”

  ***

  Pipes gurgle; pistons cnk; steam drifts across the catwalk. Bliss’s saviour—curtly introduced as Jian—leads her into the guts of the pace, through the anti-grav engines that keep it aloft. The masked agent sets a punishing pace through the mechanical maze, but Bliss has little difficulty keeping up; her muscles are spliced to produce less ctic acid.

  Scenes from outside paint themselves across her peripheral vision in watercolour: towers crumbling under rocket-fire, cws sshing through armour, a Saint wreathed in dreadful golden fme. Her flight shares all, but the woman in front of her is a void.

  “Can you open up your bond?” Bliss shouts over the cmour of machinery. “I need to talk to you.”

  “No. I can’t.” Jian stops short as she turns a corner. Wind howls past them from the open sky. The metal catwalk is shorn away, along with a rge chunk of the pace’s base. A few steps further and they would tumble into the yawning abyss. “This way,” she says, taking a sharp right.

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  The agent slows her pace abruptly, turns to cast a searching look at Bliss. Her eyes, cast in deep shadow by the mask, gleam red in the emergency lights. “I was severed. It was necessary.” She marches on, leaving no room for comment.

  Severed. The word settles like a stone in her stomach. The most heinous punishment imaginable: removal of the Mother’s Gift. The symbiotic fungus beds deep in the nervous system, impossible to extract surgically without brain damage, but it can be selectively killed through radiotherapy. Such a procedure is reserved only for the worst criminals in Protean House; the Adamant offer it to valuable defectors.

  It must be agonising, to have an essential part of oneself burned away like that.

  “I’m sorry,” she says as they reach a quieter corridor. Coont pipes gurgle gently; the smell of oil predominates.

  “Don’t be,” Jian retorts. “The Elder needed deniable assets; I volunteered. It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”

  Perhaps there is something to that. Despite all the sermons prociming that only the Mother’s Gift can foster true connection, Val is no less of a person without it.

  If you’re dead, I’ll never forgive you. Nor myself.

  “How did you track me down?” she asks Jian.

  “That violet of yours isn’t just for decoration. There’s a tracker inid in the petals.”

  As always, Violette is one step ahead. She pns for every eventuality, including…

  “Jian, how many of you were assigned here undercover?”

  Jian doesn’t turn to look at her. “Enough. Less, now.”

  Enough to pnt bombs without drawing attention? The suspicion springs to her mind unbidden. It makes a dreadful kind of sense.

  She keeps her tone carefully neutral. “Were you briefed for a situation like this? You seem to be so well-prepared.”

  “Pns rarely survive contact with the enemy. The nature of my assignment is cssified.” She gnces back. Her eyes betray nothing; her face remains hidden behind abaster fangs. “Even to you, Lady Bliss.”

  Her own briefing prepared her all too well. Violette’s words drift back to her.“My dear girl, war is in your blood. A Hunter is not made for peace.”

  The circumstances could hardly be more convenient. A peace conference banced on a precipice. A rival who bested Violette’s daughter in front of the gaxy. A Saint known for her hair-trigger temper.

  A powder keg, just waiting for a spark.

  Bliss’s blood runs cold. It tracks all too well with Trueheart’s story, with her mother’s reputation. There must be another expnation. And yet...

  Jian’s voice jolts her from her thoughts. “The hangar isn’t far now.”

  Does she know what I suspect? The agent’s gun is close enough to grab. Her enhancements must be limited, to pass unnoticed on a bio-scan. The catwalk is suspended above a water treatment vat. If Bliss overpowered her and tipped her over the railing, nobody would be any the wiser.

  “Thank you, Jian. You’ve done me a great service today.”

  For now, reluctantly, she sheathes her cws. She has enough enemies to fight out there, and Red Eris awaits.

  ***

  Val is halfway across the room when the window explodes under the pressure of Ursa’s roar. At times like this, training is paramount. Rational thought is abandoned; she acts on conditioned reflexes. She dives across the polished floor through a storm of shrapnel, tips over a table as a shield. Gss shards thud into its metal surface like daggers. Impnted sonic membranes seal to protect her eardrums from the all-consuming noise.

  The foyer quiets. Val digs a stray shard from her arm. Her uniform is silk-steel weave; it didn’t penetrate deep enough to damage anything of mechanical importance. The floor is treacherous, strewn with bright gss fragments and shrapnel.

  She opens a comms channel. “Hunter’s got my scent. I need evac, now.”

  Nothing but static answers her. The battle outside must be interfering with communications. The alternative, that she has been abandoned utterly, is too awful to consider.

  “Come out, come out,” rumbles Ursa. “The chase has only just begun. Show me your Knightly valour. Come and look death in the eyes.”

  The Hunter could kill her with a thought, crush her ft with a fist. This table is no protection against a Seraph. The torment is the point of the hunt; as the quarry, she has no way of knowing when her final moment could come. She has seen it time after time with her fellow Knights: their Seraph bodies poisoned and mutited, their wings and spirits broken before the Hunters pounce for the kill.

  If she is to survive long enough for reinforcements to arrive, she must be more entertaining alive than dead.

  She consults her mapping systems. Every second counts; she has no time to plot things out in detail. But if she is to put as much of the building between her and Ursa as possible, there is one route that jumps out at her. The mere thought of it strikes fear in her, but the alternative is death by Hunter. She has no other option.

  Val abandons her makeshift cover and runs, tearing her eyes away from Ursa’s snarling face. A spray of quills shoots out like spears, cracking the floor around her. The st clips her leg, sending her stumbling, a white-hot line of pain shooting through her body.

  She staggers into the corridor on the other side, trailing blood. The attack was calcuted to wound, to drive her into a panic. If those quills were to pierce her heart, she would be dead in a moment. Adrenaline keeps her running; a low dose of painkillers from her endocrine impnt dulls the pain in her leg.

  Ursa howls at the scent of blood. Val regains her footing, dashes round a corner deeper into the tower; a little slower and weaker, a little closer to her end. The golden line in her vision leads her true. Thirty seconds to the first waypoint. It feels like a lifetime.

  The Seraph’s shadow disappears behind her. Ursa can track her body heat through any number of walls; Val’s cybernetics give no such advantage. The Hunter could strike at any time.

  The attack does not come immediately. That would be merciful. Instead, the seconds stretch out, agonising, as her body settles into the rhythm of sprinting. She could almost believe the Hunter has abandoned her in search of better prey.

  The wall to her right bursts open in a spray of pster dust and a cacophony of torn metal. A cwed hand, rge enough to span the wide corridor, reaches for her from behind. The shockwave bsts her off her feet, sending her tumbling over rubble. Ursa’s arm leaves a trail of destruction as it scythes through partitioning walls. As she struggles to her feet, it draws nearer and nearer, until the cws are close enough to touch. Then it withdraws, leaving her gasping for air. A swathe of the tower has been torn free, pristine hotel furniture shattered into matchsticks. Broken pipes spew water; severed wires spark; nanobots rush to repair the hopeless damage. Through the gap, she catches a glimpse of Ursa: wings of leather, carapace studded with quills, those terrible amber eyes watching eagerly.

  Val has no intention of giving her another chance. She locks eyes with the Hunter, wipes blood from her mouth, and dashes for her target.

  Ten seconds. Five. Another corner and the maintenance elevator doors appear before her. No time to wait for the lift, if it still functions at all. She simply slips her fingers in the gap between the doors and pulls. Metal screams in protest for torturous moments. The Hunter could be winding up for another attack. She could decide she is tired of the chase and skewer Val here and now from behind.

  Death does not arrive. The doors finally, blessedly, relent. A cold breeze hits her as she opens the shaft. The lift cable stretches down into the void with no end.

  Only one thing for it. She takes a leap of faith.

  The impact knocks the breath out of her. She clings onto the greased cable for dear life, and slides down.

  Air rushes past her, impossibly fast. The synth-skin of her hands frays under the friction, peels away along with flesh until nothing is left but bare metal bones. She trails showers of sparks, floors rushing past, and whoops in delight.

  This is nearly as good as flying.

  All too soon, the ceiling of the lift comes into sight. She tightens her grip, metal against metal, and slows herself just in time to nd. She kicks open the hatch, nds with a thump inside the elevator. Impatiently, she thumbs the door open button on the touchscreen.

  The doors slide open to reveal a vast concrete-walled warehouse, its shelves full of all the supplies required to sate the wealthy guests. From here, it is only a short run to the Adamant hangar. She steps forward and—

  Concrete shatters. Ursa peers through a gaping hole in the wall, silhouetted against the sunlight. “I like to give my prey some hope,” she growls, “before the end. I told you that there was no escape. Accept it, and be at peace. It’s more than your comrades offered her.”

  The ceiling rumbles. Chunks of concrete fall around Val, cutting off escape.

  She had such pns. One day, she would have become a god. That possibility ends here, ignominiously, in a warehouse. As the Hunter raises her fist, Val shuts her eyes.

  Goodbye, Bliss.

  The moment stretches on. No pain arrives. Instead, quiet descends over her; the sounds of distant battle fade away, as if she has plunged into water. Perhaps that is what death feels like: to slip below the surface and surrender oneself to the current. It must be a kind of peace to discim any responsibility to make decisions, to follow the river where it carries you.

  “I’m here, Val. I’ve got you. I’ll always be there when you need me.”

  Warily, she opens her eyes. A force-field bubble surrounds her, blue and rippling like the untroubled sea. In the distance, Ursa writhes with electricity, temporarily stunned, held at bay by another field. Brigid’s Devotion reaches through the gap, cd in white-and-gold armour, her golden wings casting a gentle radiance. Her hand slips through the bubble, id ft for Val. “Come with me, and everything will be okay. We’ll get through this, you and I.”

  If only it were so simple. Would Fi look at her the same way, adoration burning in her eyes, if she knew the full extent of Val’s heresy? Or would she obey Trueheart’s orders and kill her friend without hesitation for the crime of pursuing ascension?

  Nobody else is coming to save her, but this rescue comes with stiputions. Brigid will be on watch for the slightest sympathy with Bliss. She will not forget what she knows.

  “Let’s go,” says Val as she climbs into Brigid’s hand. It is no choice at all, in truth. The Archangel’s light is inescapable.

  ***

  The pace lists on its axis, its field bubble webbed with cracks. From Eris’s vantage as she emerges into the sky, it resembles a broken snow globe: a toy shattered by careless children. The strength and confidence of the spark floods through her body; the fetters of the human form no longer limit her. For the first time since she arrived, she can appreciate the view with her full range of senses.

  The situation is dire. The Knights and Hunters—who were pying so nicely until mere minutes ago—skirmish with swords and cws, toxins and bombs. One of the pace’s five gleaming towers has already colpsed; the others have great chunks torn out of them. If anyone is left alive down there, they won’t remain so for much longer.

  A dreadful pressure on her spark emanates from above the pace. Reality shudders as Anathema and Uriel’s Fme csh wills. Every sword-stroke and pincer-snap leaves a textured stroke behind in its wake, painting the sky in impasto: the gold and green of a bzing sun rising above the consuming sea.

  Even for Eris, their duel is painful to perceive, but she catches glimpses through her more disposable sensors. Anathema, wrapped in her wriggling chains, swallows a bst of fire from Uriel’s sword and vents it as a burst of steam through her muzzle. The edges of Uriel’s stained-gss wings tear reality like cloth, leaving rifts that open into burning golden eyes. A chill runs through Eris’s chassis. The Saint, her angelic frame silhouetted against the sky, slices through the Phage’s devouring influence with the knife of her will. Slowly but surely, her beloved is losing.

  Through it all, discordant singing seeps in, counterpointed by a steady drumming like a double heartbeat. Such a grand composition calls for more instruments, but Eris is hardly ready for a rehearsal, let alone a concerto. Besides, she pys best in a duet.

  Her spark lurches as her dancing partner appears in the sky. Past plumes of smoke, explosions and barrages of ser-fire, they lock eyes once again. There is Inanna’s Vengeance, armoured in exotic alloys and glory, her eyes burning lic, four gold-feathered wings fring behind her as she takes flight.

  Alive.

  Relief floods through her. She’d expect nothing less from her Knight.

  Inanna is chaperoned by Brigid’s Devotion, she of the towering shield. Devotion, fidelity—both of the Knight’s names are all too revealing. Her heart has been hollowed out and repced with blind loyalty to the Archangel. She possesses a secret that could destroy them utterly, and Inanna has only her word that she will keep it.

  In truth, Eris wasn’t joking earlier. If that hound turns on you, I’ll tear her spark out myself.

  Though only a fraction of a second has passed in real time, the tension stretches thin as she and Inanna survey each other. This is the moment of truth. They have whispered such beautiful promises to one another, but all of that can be broken when the cws come out. Violette herself instructed Eris to kill the Knight, should the opportunity arise, and she has created such an opportunity.

  Inanna breaks first. She turns away from Eris, hurtling towards Ursa Major along with Brigid.

  Shouts resonate through the bond. Her fellow Hunters need her. Two Knights have slipped past their defences, making straight for the Protean diplomatic shuttles, and Titania’s walls of briar can only hold them at bay for so long. -I’m on my way.

  As she soars into the fray, leaving Inanna behind, a distant part of her wonders if she is failing a test of character.

  ***

  The heat of a divine forge rushes through Inanna’s veins as she takes flight with Brigid at her side. She is through with running and hiding. She will not be made prey again.

  Far above, Uriel stains the sky gold with her Saint’s mantle. It radiates out from her halo, dotted with uncanny eyes, shifting and many-yered like a flower extending into dimensions unseen. Her voice rings out like the peal of a bell. “Be not afraid,” she says to her Knights and the Adamant shuttles evacuating behind them. “For I am the Archangel’s servant, and through my sword her will is made manifest. I will quell these savage beasts, and order will be restored.”

  Her words could be ripped straight from the Codex. Even as the aggressor, the Saint remains utterly convinced of her own righteousness. There will be time, ter, to unravel the true culprit of the bombing. In her lust for vengeance, Trueheart has killed far more; not just here at the Pace, but lives yet to be taken in the war to come, her decision rippling out across the stars.

  She must face the consequences, but no Adamant tribunal would convict her. Inanna engraves a vow in her spark: when the day comes, for the sake of Marta and every other stolen life, she will deliver justice to the Saint with her own sword.

  Here and now, her spark catches a familiar resonance beneath the tumult of battle: Red Eris, the falling star, the fanged beast of war. They could dance on the edge of infinity for the rest of time and it would never be enough, but the time for dancing is done. All that is left is the ugly reality that lies before them. Below, the umber acid clouds that obscure the dead pnet’s surface. Above, the roar of static and atonal song. And before her, the woman who rebuilt her soul, marked as an enemy to be destroyed.

  It takes every iota of courage in her not to cut and run.

  Instead, she fixes her sights on a new target. They have unfinished business. “Engaging Ursa Major. Brigid, cover me.”

  “I’ve got your six, Inanna,” says Brigid. “Just like old times.”

  The Hunter is close, licking her wounds after Brigid caught her by surprise. Through the eyes of Inanna’s Vengeance, she seems almost small, although her quill-studded bulk matches both Knights put together. “Back for more, morsel? Armour or no armour, it makes little difference. My cws are guided by the will of every Hunter who fought and fell before me. Let me score their names into you, so you might remember them too.”

  Ursa crashes into her like a meteor. Just as in her duel with Skadi, her size belies her speed. Inanna fends off blow after blow with her shield, waiting for an opening to attack—but none comes. The Hunter is relentless, her stamina endless, even as Brigid bsts her with rockets from afar. To disengage is impossible; Ursa matches her momentum at every turn. Whispers shudder through Inanna’s spark as the Hunter yells: “Sterling! Raina! Isabel! Yamina! Amalthea! Remember their names!” Cws gouge Inanna’s armour. A mighty hand crushes her wing.

  -Inanna! sends Brigid. -Get ready to break. On three. She knows the manoeuvre. They’ve practised so many times together in the heat of battle. Together, they are formidable, the best the Adamant House has to offer.

  It’s such a shame Inanna can never forgive her.

  -Three, two, one—

  Inanna breaks from the melee. Ursa anticipates her, moves to follow—and a field springs up between them. Brigid’s shield-core glows bright, its outer rings spinning as she weathers Ursa’s assault. From a distance, they might stand a chance.

  “You know what to do, Inanna.” Brigid says. “Recycled memories are nothing compared to both our powers combined. Let’s finish her!”

  ***

  Eris takes the measure of her prey as she advances on the twin Knights. Eye of Horus and Linen of Anubis are a matched pair, liveried in burnished bronze and carbon fibre, animal-headed. They are unfamiliar—Inanna has never mentioned the two brothers, nor did the mission briefing contain a warning about them—so she skims their identifier signals.

  For a Knight, an identifier is an epic poem, a compition of their grand deeds, like the victory marks on the nose of an antique fighter pne. Horus and Anubis’s poems are filled with theoretical accodes: first in formation training, most comrades ratted out to Doctrine, highest score on combat sims.

  Eris bares her fangs in glee. As she swoops in to assist Titania, she gloats, -Darling, these boys haven’t had a real fight in their lives.

  -Then let’s show them a proper Hunter’s welcome, replies Titania.

  The evacuation shuttles are halfway to orbit now, their fields rippling as they weather the Knights’ missiles. Titania shields them with bursts of chaff, walls of thorns and, failing that, with her own body. Her monarch wings are shot through with holes; her armour sheds petals.

  A sonic boom breaks around Eris as she gives chase; the horizon begins to curve. The yers of atmosphere resolve in gradient, orange fading into the utter darkness of space. Despite everything, this world still contrives to produce scenes of beauty. Eris barrels through ser fire, eager to add a spatter of blood to the canvas.

  She strikes to wound, to prolong suffering. After all their Saint has done today, it’s the least the brothers deserve. Their defence is automatic, drilled, predictable. Eris slips past their shields, bites and cws on instinct; their movements fg as her toxins set in. She spits out broken armour and pulped flesh. They are nothing but tin soldiers, fodder for all her frustrations. Her mother has thrown her and everyone she loves into a war zone. She needs this. She deserves this. Enough of pretending to be human. Eris will show them the monster they’re all afraid of.

  With a lurch of surprise, she feels Anubis’s sword strike true. Tendons break in her arm, leaving it hanging limp and useless. As Anubis swings for another blow, a golden fsh entangles the twins in Titania’s briar.

  -Get back, Eris. Now. Anathema’s voice is all but submerged in static. Even amidst the fury of her duel with Trueheart, she devotes vital moments to protect her love.

  -What are you doing? Eris replies.

  -I won’t ask again.

  Eris disengages, her arm dangling behind her. The Knights hack at the briar, cutting themselves free—but too te. A wash of searing green light consumes them entire. Armour, flesh, metal bones—all is stripped away by Anathema’s wrath. When reality coheres again, there is no sign that the twins ever existed.

  The aftermath writhes in her brain, leaving her off-kilter, every sense in uproar. Below, Uriel’s Fme screams, apoplectic with rage. Anathema’s limbs flicker unpredictably between different states. She has no chance to repel the Saint’s counter-attack. As Eris watches in horror, Uriel’s fming sword thrusts through Anathema’s chest and pierces her spark. Merciless, Uriel kicks Anathema away, her red-lit visor slit scanning with disdain as she falls.

  The tide recedes, overwhelmed by waves of gold. Somewhere deep within Eris’s carapace, Bliss screams. -Hasret! You can’t be—I won’t let you—

  The reply is utterly calm and clear, as if Hasret is right beside her speaking into her ear. -I told you was the only one who made it back from the Cyst. That was a lie. The dissonant singing that accompanies Anathema finds a meter, a melody. It resolves into a nursery rhyme sung in a woman’s soft voice. -When the Phage took me, I was so, so hungry. All it wants is to consume, to incorporate, to hegemonise the whole gaxy. Natalya was the only one left. I consumed her; I incorporated her Seraph body into my own. That’s how they found me on the edge of the exclusion zone, comatose, curled into a ball. Digesting.

  Anathema’s form has always been uncertain, subject to the observer effect. With one half of herself dying, the wave function colpses. Her chains snap tight as she changes, limbs lengthening and growing white fur between pustules, wings taking on the sheen of feathers soaked in oil. -I’m sorry, Natalya, she says. -I couldn’t control myself; I couldn’t save you or the others. But at least, this way, some part of you is still with me. Won’t you guide me with your song one st time?

  ***

  Ursa, contained inside the rippling field bubble, gres at Inanna and Brigid. “You think this cage can hold me?”

  “Now, Inanna! Give it everything you’ve got!” shouts Brigid.

  Rocket pods unfurl; wing-eyes glow as they unleash ser-fire on the trapped Hunter. The hail of projectiles is unceasing, passing through the one-way field, bsting chunks out of Ursa’s hide. Her yellow eyes remain fixed on the Knights as, unimpeded by the barrage, she scratches a sizzling line into the field with her cw and roars. The bubble rings like a bell, hairline cracks appearing across its surface. Then it shatters, and Ursa is upon them.

  “Oh, fuck,” Brigid says as her shield core explodes. Ursa grabs her by the neck and dives into the clouds.

  Momentarily, Inanna considers leaving Brigid to her fate. One of her own wings is crushed; Ursa seems as invincible as her reputation. It would be easier, simpler, to discard the woman who pyed on her trust for so long. Nobody could bme her for avoiding a fight with Ursa Major. But despite everything that has passed between them, Brigid saved her life. It may all be part of some twisted saviour complex of hers, but the fact remains: there’s no way Inanna can leave her behind.

  Wind buffets her wings as she dives in pursuit. The acid clouds spray across her armour as she passes through, too dilute to harm her. Visibility is poor, but she has other senses to rely on. The beat of Brigid’s spark guides her as surely as a ntern in the dark.

  Abruptly, the clouds end. For the first time, Inanna sees the surface of Hopkins’ Hope with her own eyes. Barren, craggy wastes sprawl from horizon to horizon. Lava oozes from cracks in the crust. Once, it was beautiful. But the Houses put an end to that, as they always do.

  Her spark shudders. Something terrible must be happening above, but she has no time to consider it. Ursa hurtles towards the mouth of an active volcano, carrying a struggling Brigid like a broken doll. The Hunter bleeds from a hundred wounds, but Brigid is helpless without her shield.

  “Let her go!” yells Inanna.

  Ursa cocks her head. Nictitating membranes sweep across her eyes in a horizontal blink. “Why? What would it change? We’ve been tearing chunks out of each other for as long as anyone can remember. What’s one more dead Knight on the pile?”

  “You must be tired,” says Inanna, “of all the death. Not just what you’ve seen, but the others too. The past lives folded into your spark.” In truth, she knows little about such things. The recycling process is Protean witchcraft, sacrilegious to the Archangel. All she needs is to keep Ursa talking. “You wanted me to remember them. So speak, and I’ll listen.”

  -What are you doing? Brigid snaps. -You can’t negotiate with a beast!

  -You want to live, don’t you? replies Inanna. -Then charge up your shock capacitor, and wait for my signal. The other Knight falls silent in anticipation.

  Again, those standing-stone teeth fsh. “They call me lost,” says Ursa, “because I see clearly. Protean House drapes itself in the trappings of civilisation, exalting the Mother’s grand design. But beneath all things, there is only the hunt. It runs through the marrow of everything that lives, the whole universe divided into predator and prey. Those who died before me were weak. They allowed themselves to become prey to the likes of you. I won’t make the same mistake.” She spits blood and shakes Brigid in her grasp. “In the end, the strong always win.”

  There is static building in the air. In any other circumstance, it would presage a storm. But Inanna knows better. The three of them are isoted, ripe for the picking. -Now, now, now!

  The air ripples as a pair of lopsided Vultures uncloaks by the volcano. Despite her show of strength, Ursa is severely wounded. The scavengers scent blood. On Inanna’s signal a jolt of electricity snaps from Brigid’s armour, stunning the Hunter, and she slips free of Ursa’s grasp. Inanna’s railgun thunders, bsting a barrage of metal slugs into Ursa’s wounds, tearing flesh from bone.

  One Vulture’s head, cd in a patchwork of armour and flesh, tracks Brigid as she flies. Then, after silently conferring with its comrade, it revs up its chainsaw arm and advances on the ailing Ursa Major. The Vultures cry out in exultation, their discordant metallic screeches filling the sky.

  In the end, the strongest predator is just a bigger cut of meat.

  ***

  Anathema’s second wind is not enough. Driven by static-filled song, she cws and bites a thousand spectral arms projecting from Uriel’s mantle. The sea boils before the pitiless golden sunrise. Eris can only watch in awe. This is true power, a reflection of the Archangel herself, the Saint’s halo radiant behind her helm. Against such a foe, without the power crackling behind the veil of ascension, Eris would surely be evaporated in an instant.

  Dimly, she registers the report from the Chrysalis: every evacuation shuttle is on board. -If we’re to jump, says Captain Schwartz, -We need to do it now, before they have the chance to deploy an interdiction field and trap us.

  Hasret’s determination burns through the bond. -I can hold the line. I have to. Don’t worry about me. If she cannot kill Uriel, she will spit in her eye and spite the Saint until her st breath.

  -No. I won’t let you, Eris says. -We’re leaving, now.

  -Leaving? Anathema repeats, dazed. -I can’t leave. This is all I’m good for, Eris. I don’t have anything else. You leave me behind, and be happy with Summer. You shouldn’t lower yourself for a monster like me.

  All around her, the rest of the flight trails crimson light as they retreat to the chariot ship. Eris ughs bitterly. -You think I’d let you go just like that? We’re two of a kind, you and I. We deserve each other. I love you, Hasret, one monster to another. Don’t you dare forget that.

  With a strangled sob, Anathema breaks free from the Saint’s grasping arms in a burst of green light and makes for the Chrysalis. One by one, the Hunters report their nding, aching with wounded pride, as Titania and Eris oversee the retreat. But one is missing: Ursa Major.

  Somewhere beneath the clouds, two new sparks lurch into existence like a pressure drop. Grafted, pieced together from Seraph carrion. Vultures.

  Titania freezes in panic. -No. No, no, no, no, no!

  -Ursa, whatever you’re doing, you need get out of there, right now! Eris shouts.

  When Ursa replies, the bond thrums with pain and resignation. It ignites a memory deep within her chassis. This is how Amalthea felt when she died. -I was too slow, Lin. They got me good. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it. You go on without me, okay? Don’t look back. I couldn’t bear it if you had to watch me die.

  There is a response of Linnea’s waiting for her in those memories, a line of script to read. Eris crumples it up and discards it. She makes her own decisions.

  -We can’t leave her to those things, Titania says. -You don’t know it’s like to watch them tear your friends limb from limb. I can’t let it happen again. Not on my watch.

  Above them, the arboreal bulk of the Chrysalis looms, bringing its artillery to bear, a deterrent for any Knight who sees fit to give chase. -Thirty seconds, says Captain Schwartz. -That’s all I can give you.

  Titania dives without another word, and Eris follows. Down down, down they plunge, through the stinging clouds and straight into hell.

  Ursa’s spark ebbs. Her hide is bsted to pieces, meat ripped off in chunks down to her gleaming metal ribs, and the Vultures have her snared. A brace of barbed hooks sink into her flesh, attached to tow cables that inexorably reel her in. Bathed in volcanic light, it could be a scene from a demonic sughterhouse.

  From near the cloud yer, Inanna watches in silence. Her silver face betrays no expression, as it is designed to do. Eris cannot risk a transmission, but she knows what she would say to her Knight. Is this what you wanted? Do you feel any guilt at all?

  Certainly, Ursa is no innocent. But nobody deserves to be torn apart by Vultures.

  Titania snaps her wrists forward and catches Ursa’s arms with her vines, pulling with all her might. -Cut the cables. Quickly!

  Eris strains her spark, tearing across the sky, and unsheathes her cws. There are dozens of cables, and only twenty seconds remain. She must be as swift as she has ever been. Her cws shear through twisted metal, but still more remain—and the Vultures will not surrender their prey lightly. A swarm of drones issues from the smaller of the two, fitted with circur saws and ser cutters that turn on Eris now, harrying her as she flies.

  Titania is losing the tug-of-war. Ursa has no propulsion of her own; her wings are broken. And Inanna makes no move to help.

  Ten seconds.

  -We have to go, Titania. I’m sorry.

  -This isn’t over! We can still save her!

  Eris breaks for the clouds. As she flies, she cuts through Titania’s vines, releasing the tension, leaving Ursa to her fate. -No. We can’t. As she makes for the Chrysalis, she casts her sensors back to the Vultures advancing on Ursa, knives and saws at the ready.

  It is a very long time before the screaming stops.