The drone brakes hard, lenses irising. A tiny port clicks open.
“Friendly?” I ask.
“Unknown.” She closes the distance in three strides, snags the drone mid-air, and slams it into the pillar. The carapace hisses; a spark spits. Ren twists something I can’t see. The drone goes limp, then droops in her grip like a stunned insect.
She glances back. “I never wait for certainty, though.”
An unexpected round of applause floats up from the end of the catwalk.
Lady Isolde steps out from a stairwell alcove, haloed by the overhead lights. She’s dressed in silks and jewelry that catches every glint, a courtier built for attention. A pair of Venus aides hover a respectful distance behind her.
“Marvelous demonstration,” she says, voice carrying that distinctivelilt. “If we could teach half our court to move that decisively, we’d cut our casualty reports in half.”
Ren is unimpressed. “My Lady … are you shadowing my routes?”
“I prefer, ‘ensuring our newest contender arrives at her first public appearance looking composed.’” Lady Isolde’s smile is all invitation. Her gaze settles on me, taking in my rumpled clothes and the exhaustion I can’t hide. “Excellent, darling … you wear sleeplessness well. Makes you look determined rather than desperate.”
She touches my forearm lightly. “I’m here to offer you support, Cyra. Let me help. Politics is a language. I can teach you to hear it faster than they can weaponize your silence.”
The offer catches me off guard.
Why would she help me? We’re competitors now. She gains nothing from making me stronger…
Unless she does. Unless this is another play I’m too naive to see coming.
But there’s something in her eyes that doesn’t feel calculated. Not warmth, exactly. More like recognition or understanding. Itfeelstrustworthy and sincere … I’ll just have to keep my guard up until I know I can trust her.
I nod slowly. “I’d appreciate that, Lady Isolde.”
Ren’s eyes narrow.
Her Grace’s smile softens as she touches my arm. “Cyra, if we’re to speak as allies, I must insist on one thing. Call me Isolde. Titles are for audiences, not for moments like this.”
The warmth of her hand lingers as she gestures subtly toward the maintenance bay below, where a group of technicians watches us through the grated catwalks. “Then my first piece of advice is … in our world, you’re always performing, even for people who’ll never set foot in a throne room.”
She leans in, her breath brushing my cheek. “Today is all posture. You will be studied, parsed, reduced to a rumour. But there are ways in which we canchoosewhat that rumour is.”
Rumours. They built my father into a god and a monster. One careless moment and the same stories will grow around me.
A door hisses open at the far end of the gallery. Zevran fills thethreshold. Formal coat, blade at hip, colour back in his face but that careful way of holding himself that tells me the pain hasn’t gone far. I hold my breath as he approaches.
“Your clearance doesn’t include this level,” Ren says without looking at him. Her stance shifts just slightly in front of me, protective without touching. It shouldn’t make warmth crawl up my throat. But it does.
Zevran ignores her and takes me in quickly: sweat at my temples, the way my fingers worry the hem of my sleeve. His eyes narrow for half a heartbeat, like he recognizes the signs. But if he does, he thankfully doesn’t broach the subject.
“Weapons training,” he says curtly. “South practice hall at dusk. Staves first, then blades.”
Isolde’s amusement brightens. “How verymartialof you, Lord Zevran.”
“She needs to know how to defend herself.” His eyes stay on me, then flick briefly toward the corridor behind him. His weight shifts subtly, like he’s aware of who might be watching.
He doesn’t want it to look like he’s allying with me,I realizeas I remember our conversation just before the kiss. The people of Mars would view him as a traitor if he allied with the daughter of the Sun King … the tyrant who took so much away from them...
Something twists in my chest. Gratitude that he would risk helping me at all, maybe. Or the possibility that he doesn’t hate me for what I am. That he might still see me as someone worth protecting. But grief sits underneath it all, heavy and unmoving. We can’t go back. The kiss was a moment. This is what remains.
“Then it’s settled, Cyra,” Isolde says smoothly. “I’ll take mornings for diplomatic protocol. Zevran will take evenings for your percussive education.”
Zevran gives a short nod, and then he’s gone.
