Kyla’s eyes flashed. “Do you want to know what happened to the peace-and-love movements? They didn’t even put up a fight when they were caught, flayed alive, and left in front of the palace grounds as a deterrent. I make the difficult, ruthless choices so we can still fight. If you don’t like it, no one is stopping you from leaving.”

Nyx shifted, but Rhea put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Don’t. Not now.” Rhea sucked in a breath. “All right. I’ll take that offer.”

Nyx turned to her. “No. We’re not going back to the Empire.”

“We have to,” Rhea said, “if we want to start over somewhere else. If we really want to stop running. You know we do.”

Nyx looked to Ariadne for help, but Ariadne already knew her answer. “I’ll do it.”

“I said no,” Nyx said. “How could you even consider this after what the Oracle did to you?”

Ariadne’s shoulders hunched. She’d told Nyx and Rhea some of what she’d gone through but not the worst of it. Never the worst of it.

Nyx was only getting started. “The Empire treated me like I was just a weapon to aim and fire,” she said. “I wasn’t any different from the Mors in my hand. You can’t even begin to imagine how many people I killed. And Rhea”—she swung her head toward the other woman—“they treated you like you were property. They dressed you in all those gold trinkets and had you lay naked on top of the dinner table like you were a centerpiece. To the Tholosian royalty, we are things. Possessions. Dona.”

“Nyx . . .” Rhea started, but the name caught in her throat.

Nyx breathed raggedly, her hands curled into fists. Ariadne had seen this in other soldiers who had managed to break through the Oracle’s programming and then come to her to be re-coded. Mercenaries like Nyx were so used to channeling their anger into violence, or the Oracle would dampen it down deep, only to arise when they needed to kill. Nyx didn’t know what to do with this flood of fury.

“If we go back,” Nyx said. “If we are caught, they’ll turn us into gerulae, if they keep us alive at all.” Humans so rewritten by the Oracle’s programming there was nothing left. Ariadne had helped craft the code.

Instinctively, Ariadne reached out to touch her, but Nyx jerked away. The younger girl almost recoiled from the heat of it. “If you and Rhea want to go on this mission, fine,” Nyx said through her teeth. “But I’m not exchanging one set of chains for another.”

Nyx strode from the room, posture military-taut.

When Rhea moved to go after her, Eris stopped her. “Kyla needs to brief you on the mission. Let me speak with Nyx.”

Ariadne sniffed.

“You don’t know her,” Rhea said, frowning.