Ariadne passed the glove-covered rock to Kyla, who donned another glove from the pocket of her jumpsuit. The commander examined the small stone, turning it this way and that. Eris thought she saw a bit of a glow emanating from the inside, but it could have been a trick of the light.

“What do you think, Eris?” Kyla murmured. “Could it be a weapon component?”

Kyla passed Eris her other glove. After putting it on, she took the rock from Kyla and smoothed her thumb across the rough surface. She held it up to the light and there it was. A faint glimmer inside, like fire trapped beneath foggy glass.

“If it is, it’s not anything I’ve ever seen,” Eris said.

“Or,” Clo said, finally losing her patience, “it’s literally just a rock.”

Nyx curled her lip. “Listen, jackass. It happens to be a rock that Prince Damocles ordered twenty of the Archon’s best soldiers to guard. Does that sound like the kind of military resources they’d waste? Come on.”

“Or,” Clo argued, “how do we know this wasn’t just some ruse to lure the Novantae out of hiding? Even if you’re not spies, you could have accidentally lead them to us. Right, Eris?”

Eris had to concede that was a good point. “She’s right.”

Kyla reluctantly showed her agreement. “The Archon has been retaliating against the Novantae since we were blamed for Princess Discordia’s death. Every pretender only makes him more determined to destroy us.” She shook her head. “For all we know, another stupid, desperate woman made the mistake of claiming to be the long-lost general and was executed over it.”

If Eris’s father suspected she was actually alive and had defected to his enemies, it would be a disaster. She and the Novantae had had to stage her death in a ship crash with an asteroid. As it was, she’d barely made it out alive. The Tholosians recovered the wrecked ship, and the rumors began when her body was never found.

After that, many, many women tried to claim they were General Discordia. Facial shifters gave them the ability to change their features to resemble those of the princess—easily done, as her icons were in every city on every Empire planet in several galaxies. Some pretenders were said to be Evoli trying to gain entrance into the royal palace on Tholos to spy on the Archon and learn the secrets of the Oracle. Others were impoverished citizens from different slums who had a natural resistance to the Oracle’s brain uploads, seeking what they assumed would be a better, more privileged life.

But the Archon knew his daughter. No one could mimic the results of how he’d trained her. To prove themselves, he would show pretenders the same brutality she’d endured once and survived without complaint, without tears.

Above all, without screaming.