Kill him. Her father’s voice was in her head, his constant refrain. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? Slide in the blade. Don’t ask him why. Don’t ask any questions about back in the square, why he said his prayers over their enemies.

She met Xander’s eyes and flinched. So many emotions she could now name: weariness, guilt, grief, trauma.

Discordia swallowed hard. “Those men out in the square today. You knew them?”

Xander kept still. “No.”

“But you grieved for them.” Discordia didn’t understand. He was like a puzzle she couldn’t put together, an unwinnable game of zatrikion. “You gave them last rites.”

“You don’t need to know someone to grieve for them.”

He said the words so gently. Had he seen her shame earlier? “We’re not supposed to feel anything for anybody,” she whispered. “It’s a weakness.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

Xander’s gaze searched hers. “Then why haven’t you killed me yet?”

Why hadn’t she? Why hadn’t she? What was he but some inconvenience, a corrugation in her otherwise smooth path to being her father’s Heir? It angered her that he should show up in that crowd, force her to question things, stand here so still as if he were some willing sacrifice.

Fight me, she’d commanded him. She had already killed five people today who hadn’t fought her back.

And it shamed her.

With a whispered curse, Discordia took her blade from his throat and backed away unsteadily, her hand finding his desk. A map of the Iona Galaxy was laid out there, topped with little figurines. The ophidian, the lavi, the firewolf—Old World animals whose DNA had been brought by the first generation ship to Tholos and reintroduced to certain terraformed planets. Every Old World animal was considered sacred, cherished.

Discordia picked up the firewolf, tracing her fingers across the wood. Were these pieces to Xander’s puzzle? Figures on their metaphorical zatrikion board? Discordia felt like a child again, trying to understand how the world worked. Her role in it. Her purpose.

“You made this.” Her words almost sounded like an accusation.

She heard him let out a breath as he approached. Discordia tensed—her fingers clutching her knife in one hand—but when Xander reached out, it was only to take the firewolf from her. “I made a lot of them back on Myndalia,” Xander said, studying his work. “My prefect used to break my fingers over it. The nanites healed them overnight, but I always remembered the pain.”

Discordia flinched. The Archon’s children were not allowed any interests that might be perceived as weaknesses. As too soft. Such things were problems to be solved. Discordia had enjoyed drawing. The small pictures she created on her tablet were erased daily, lest Mistress Heraia discover them.