Someone brushed her shoulder softly—a quick, light touch, as if by accident. But Nyx felt a quick probe of empathic abilities. It was different from Rhea—the courtesan was so subtle that Nyx hadn’t noticed it before Ismara. This was a more blatant nudge. Like a barb. An invasion.

Nyx couldn’t fake emotions of joy or delight, because she didn’t feel those things. They were foreign to her. So, she tried for contentment instead, what she felt when Ariadne had held her hand earlier.

The touch disappeared and she heard a muttered apology. Across the room, the soldier still watched her.

Nyx put a hand up to hide her lips. “Dance with me,” she breathed to Cato.

“Oh,” he said. “Do I have to?”

Nyx rolled her eyes. “Shut up and dance.”

Reluctantly, Cato pulled Nyx closer. It was a Tholosian royal dance, one familiar to Nyx only because she had been forced to perform it during the military’s grand tour after the Battle of the Garnet. The steps between them were uneven, not cohesive at all. More about the performance than the actual movement.

The music slid through the crowd, mingling with the tinkling of jewels, the scuff of expensive shoes. Half a dozen perfumes blended into an overwhelming scent. It reminded her so much of other balls she’d been to—so many over the years. All of them in celebration of victory, the blood of battle only just recently washed away.

This one felt like a sign of death to come.

Cato hid his face in Nyx’s shoulder. “Any sight of the general or Eris?”

“No.” Nyx kept her voice deliberately low. “If Sher doesn’t manage to intercept him, Damocles will wait for the right moment.”

“The right moment?”

“Yes. Remember what Rhea said? The maximum effect.”

A new song began, some steady tattoo that kept the pace of a heartbeat. An Evoli song; she was certain of it. She remembered hearing such drums on the battlefield in the distant Evoli camps.

The sound of it made her blood stir—too many memories. It brought her right back to being a soldier, fighting for her ruler, her planet, her empire.

Stop, she told herself. Not your emperor, not your planet, not your empire. You fight for Ariadne. For Rhea. For the rest of the crew. Even Eris. Even yourself.

Another Tholosian song began. A strong, strident and deep thrum that wove itself with the beat of the Evoli instruments. Both echoed off the walls, intended to be a song of unity, of a new, harmonious future.