The panel doesn’t accept my touch. It wants authorization. I press Rafe’s ring to the surface and whisper a prayer to my God and to one of Lorian’s goddesses. “God of my childhood, you never stopped the nuns, the tragedies, or even the galactic cages, so I don’t expect much from you now. But please, if you were waiting to help me once in my life, let it be now. Let me escape this fate.” I wait and nothing happens, then I say, “Severin, goddess of transformation, hear me instead. I am changing on this side of the galaxy. I am cutting myself loose, and I am not kneeling. If I am one of your Lost People, and you remake those who endure, then watch and remake me as I endure this in your name.” Then I wait, and for one terrible second nothing happens. Then, slowly the glyphs begin to glow and realign themselves as the stone irises open, just enough for me to slip inside.
The chamber beyond is small and cold, but humming with power. Cables as thick as my arm snake into a central console grown directly out of the palace wall.
The moment I touch it, pain lances through my skull. I taste copper. My vision blurs. But then something else happens. The system hesitates. It does not recognize me as authorized. But it recognizes the ring. And the ring recognizes me.
A thin lattice of light spreads across the console.
LIMITED ACCESS GRANTED
flashes in Standard Imperial.
That’s enough.
I close my eyes and pull the memorized sequence for Terra Ka from the darkest corner of my mind.
My fingers hurt with every touch to the console that results in a shock, but I manage to route power away from palace surveillance, just long enough to open a dead comm band and then override the palace’s outbound filters, and punch the channel through.
My hands are shaking so badly I almost miss the final input.
“Terra Ka,” I whisper in English, hesitating as the words feel unfamiliar. “This is Eve. Obsidian Palace. Alba. I have escaped. I need help.”
For a split second, there is nothing but static and the sound of my own pulse.
Then the channel opens.
A voice comes through, distorted and accented in English and real. “Eve Eden,” it says. “Run in the opposite direction of Alba and get as far away from the Obsidian Palace as possible. We will find you.”
I press my forehead to the cold stone next to the console and close my eyes.
“Eve?”
“I’m here.”
“Run now. End transmission.”
The computer goes dark, and I leave the room. Back on the ledge, I try to figure out how I am going to get down and out without being noticed by security.
However, I don’t make it very far when I hear, “Containment override engaged.” An AI says, its voice calm.
Then a spotlight and security guards surround me. Above me, I see Gai looking down at me, his silhouette framed by the violet light.
“You still don’t understand obedience.” He gestures with something, and I’m hit with a blast of blinding white pain behind my eyes and then nothing.
I wake and my wrists are cuffed behind me, the restraints humming with a low current—enough to sting whenever I shift. And I notice something. The familiar weight of Rafe’s ring is gone. I lost it. Tears begin streaming down my cheeks.How could I have lost my one possession?
Gai enters the room and says nothing about my crying. “Eve, I’ve had to formally cite this.” And then reads off his datapad.
Then he leaves and the door seals. I lie there listening to the hum of the cuffs and wonder what’s going to happen next.
I’m not allowed to wash. Apparently, Gai wants the smell of failure still on my skin when the guards escort me into the Hall of Judgment.
Two guards drag me by the arms through a corridor that I have never seen before. Every step of their boots echoes off the narrow walls, and I try to keep my head up, but one of them presses his hand against the back of my neck, forcing me to bow as we pass through the great doors.
Thehall is smaller than other important rooms in the palace, and it’s circular, carved into black stone shot through with organic veins of light. Inside, there’s only myself, Gai, Autumn, and the guards who brought me here.
Gai stands at the center beneath the goddesses’ emblem—twelve starbursts circling a silver womb. Autumn kneels beside him, her hands folded, and her eyes fixed on the floor. In front of Gai waits a low platform of transparent alloy. I know what it is even before the guards push me toward it.The Scorn’s Cage.
“Remove her restraints,” Gai says.
