The worst had taken place on Macella, the smallest of the Three Sisters. Like at the academy, Eris’s rewards were food and sleep, and the punishment beaten into her by other soldiers while her father watched. She had learned on Macella that Mistress Heraia had only been preparing her for what was to come: her father’s training.

The Archon was a brutal taskmaster. He was not kind. He did not tolerate weakness.

Worse: Eris hated how much she and Damocles had craved his scant, often-withheld approval. She once went a full year without hearing her name on her father’s tongue. He only spoke to her by name to indicate his pleasure. No compliments. No kind words. Just the right to be called something other than “girl.” Damocles was her partner through all this torture. He could never get through a session without breaking.

Once, on the training grounds of the palace, beaten and half-starved, she’d heard the Archon call her Discordia. Eris hated how warm it made her feel.

Her father had never once spoken Damocles’s name. He was always referred to as boy.

She shoved the memory away, focusing on the ship’s slow approach.

The planet looked so welcoming, no doubt the very thing that had attracted humans to it almost a millennium before. It had been the first planet after Tholos to be terraformed for human habitation. The green and blue planet looked much like the Old World, or so the history texts said. The orbit was so similar to that planet’s, they used nearly the same units for time. The first Archon kept the months and days of the week, named after other gods, other kings.

The main difference was that on Macella—like on so many of the conquered Tholosian planets—the buildings were decorated with bones.

Macella had once been home to four-legged creatures called the Olos, who had made the mistake of communicating with early humans via rough sounds and symbols drawn into the sand. That alone was not reason enough to slaughter them, but their food sources were. When the Archon believed the God of Death called for sacrifice, it was easiest to slaughter nonhumans. The Olos had served their purpose. It was only after Eris had betrayed her Empire that she started wondering what these various life forms would have been like. What the Empire had murdered for their ravenous God.

“Eris,” Clo said, gently tapping her shoulder. “Kyla’s on the line.”

Keep it together. She couldn’t afford to be pulled into her past, the centuries of conquest her family was responsible for. There would be time enough for guilt after this mission, before she was sent on her next suicide mission.

Eris reached over Clo to press the button that would put Kyla on speaker. “Hey, commander,” Eris said. “Briefing?”