All was chaos. Tholosians and Evoli fell. Their vomited blood covered the floor of the dais.

“Eris!” Hands turned her roughly around. Strangers. Faces she didn’t recognize.

“Pick her up, pilot,” the strange woman commanded.

Pilot? Nyx. Cato. Eris tried to speak, but all that came out was an ugly, strained sound. Desperate.

“Pick her up,” Nyx commanded Cato again.

“Wait.” Another voice. Eris looked down to see her father staring up at her. His face was streaked with blood. “Discordia.”

He met her gaze but could barely move. She saw the tiny puncture where the ichor had blasted through his uniform. Your fault, she told herself. As Zoe she had blithely mentioned, the sequencer could target multiple strands of DNA—and Damocles must have imputed both Evoli and the Archon’s genetic material.

It astonished Eris that such a small blast could bring down the ruler of the entire galaxy. He’d defeated whole armies. He’d seemed invincible. Impenetrable.

“A soldier’s death,” her father whispered. “Please.” The last word sounded as if it pained him to say.

Amid the chaos, Eris kneeled beside her father. I’m sorry, she mouthed.

He shook his head, shutting his eyes. “You should be,” he breathed.

And Eris knew he thought she was responsible—just as Damocles intended. Everyone had watched her pick up that weapon. Everyone was going to watch her stab him. Her father was going to die hating her. Yet here he was, asking her to give him a last modicum of dignity.

She deserved this.

Eris took a breath and slid the sharp pin from her hair—the only weapon she had. She plunged it through her father’s neck, piercing right through his carotid artery. His death, like so many of her others, would be quick, merciful, better than most of her sacrifices to Letum.

I’m sorry, she mouthed again. I’m so sorry.

Cato scooped Eris up into his arms. He fled with Nyx through the crowd of people heading out of the ballroom.

“Eris!” someone called. Eris lifted her head to see Clo limping through the crowd, Kyla at her side. Eris felt relief—their faces were their own. “This way!”

Clo pointed to a door. Around them people were dropping, dropping, falling like trees in a forest. So much faster than that first manifestation on Ismara. Honed into a weapon. Spreading like wildfire.

“I thought you said you were going back to the ship,” Nyx was saying. Eris barely heard them.

“I said if there was trouble, I would come back to save your arse.” Clo gestured to the fleeing crowd, the bodies on the ground. “I’d say this is the fluming definition of trouble, wouldn’t you? Now follow me.”

“Where’s Sher?” Nyx asked Kyla.

Kyla said nothing, her head down.

“Dead?” Nyx asked.

“He chose the wrong side.” Kyla’s words were heavy as stones. “I’ll explain later.”