Eris anticipated Damocles’s next moves the way she would in the game before them: he only needed an excuse to go to Laguna, get close enough to target one person—perhaps the Oversoul, or even just a straggler celebrating the truce. Hit them from afar. It might not even hurt. That poor Evoli would stagger into another, perhaps a bystander looking to help. Diseases spread so easily that way. No one would know that all it took was one projectile in a weapon.

Damocles’s gaze flickered up to hers as he stole another one of her pieces. “Have you ever seen copies of the restricted Old World books in the Ancient Library?” At her confused expression, he explained. “Before my grandfather perfected the Oracle’s programming influence on all Tholosian citizens, some of the ancient texts were digitally copied and smuggled out of that library on data storage units. Literary pirates,” he added, leaning in as if to tell a secret. “There’s a reward for every copy found, of course, but a few of those texts still remain in circulation. I suspect they were acquired by the Novantae to inspire their pathetic little band of rebels.”

He was right, of course. Kyla acquired every book she could find on those rare old data units. Literature had been restricted since the second Archon spread the Tholosian Empire far beyond that which his father had acquired, and that emperor ruled ruthlessly. Information was carefully controlled, and literature became relegated to a single library and accessed only by those approved by the royal family. The Archon’s thinking was that if you controlled what people read, you could control their ideas.

After the Oracle was designed, and One’s program was downloaded into the brains of every lower citizen of the Empire, there was little need for such a heavy ruling hand. Only a few were born with the natural resistance to buck programming—those like Kyla and Sher, and every child born with the potential to become the next Archon—but a vast majority of citizens would never, ever pick up a book to read it.

Because the Oracle had programmed them so it would never occur to them that they could.

Eris laughed, as if the idea of reading was ridiculous to her. “Of course not,” she told him. Then, she quoted the Oracle’s programming: “‘There is no purpose to be found in books that cannot otherwise be discovered in the role you were born to fulfill.’ I was born in a merchant’s cohort, General. Weapons are a passion the God of Death has given me.”

Though there was no outward sign of it, she almost felt as if her answer had disappointed him. He moved his zatrikion figure—the Commandant—and took one of her pieces. They were tied. His skill had improved.