Panic fluttered through Mercy. Her new armored clothing was suddenly suffocatingly warm, the collar half strangling her. Her fingers, by contrast, went icy cold, her throat closing. She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from Vashti. The lines in the older woman’s face had deepened, highlighting her age and making her look less the dangerous trainer of assassins, and more an aunt who loved her nephew, and was desperate to save him.

“What can I do?” She had to force the words past frozen lips. Cannon was the King, known and respected by these people for his entire life. If his voice couldn’t stop this, she didn’t see how hers would be heeded.

“Just as Lilith once made these fights to the death compulsory, my Queen, you can stop them,” said Vashti.

A huge crash drew their eyes back to the center ring. Kator and Max had hit the floor, locked together as each boy used Talent and body to try and choke the life from the other. This wasn’t just Max’s life in the balance. Kator, too, might not survive. In a worst-case scenario, Mercy could see them killing one another, snuffing out two young Talents in the space of a breath.

“How?” she asked. “How do I stop this?” She looked at Reaper, then at Vashti. Her aunt squeezed her hands, having not let go of them.

“Your presence is clearly having an effect,” said Vashti gravely. “The first fight ending without a death is proof of that. Already your wants, likes and dislikes are beginning to countermand Lilith’s. But it isn’t enough yet. These boys are young and driven by their emotions. For Max, this is a matter of survival. For Kator, it is the culmination of years. They will not stop just because they may have a choice now. You will have to intervene directly.”

“I just tell them to stop?” Mercy realized neither boy had gasped for breath in the past twenty seconds. Her heartbeat kicked up, adrenaline pounding in her ears. They were out of time.

“That would be an excellent start, Your Majesty,” said Vashti.

“Don’t call me that.” Mercy stood up, pulling her hands away.

No one paid her any attention at first, not until she’d taken the first ten steps or so. Then she felt it. The prickling awareness of notice swinging her way, of eyes watching her. First it was just a few, most people still focused on the fight. Sensing that it was reaching a culmination, a few people even rose to their feet, gaining a better vantage point. The idea that watching children kill each other was thrilling to some of these people made Mercy’s stomach turn. She quickened her pace, but did not run. She had the sense that appearing to run at them in a panic would send the wrong message. She had to do this, but in a way that projected strength.

You learn quickly, said Reaper in her mind. Any perceived weakness here will give an opening to those who don’t want another Queen. The boys are evenly matched in telekinesis. Neither can quite get a crushing grip on the other. Instead, they will slowly suffocate. You have less than two minutes.

No pressure, she sent back. I don’t even know what I’m doing.

You are a Queen, Mercy. You have instincts. Let them guide you.

Mercy felt tension flood her body. Reaper’s words were so reminiscent of the things Frain had said to her. But she brushed that aside. She couldn’t focus on that now.

By this time she had almost reached the arena. Enough eyes were upon her now that she felt the attention of the whole room. A silence had fallen, one weighted with more than expectation. There was a heaviness here, one of judgment, and of threat. Mercy had a sense that what she was about to do would start a cascade, one action leading to others, a building, unstoppable force that would determine her future, or her death.

She took a deep breath. She couldn’t walk away, knowing that doing so would doom these boys, who could not save themselves.

“Stop.” She used the same voice she’d learned from Captain Hades at fifteen, spoken from her diaphragm and meant to project across the length of a spaceport dock filled with loud machinery and ship engines. It commanded respect from dock workers and cargo officials, carried the sort of confidence that kept them from questioning the ship and its cargo.

There was a brief hitch in the desperate battle between the boys, a quick suck of air that lasted barely a second before they went right back to their stalemate of imminent death.

It didn’t work. Panic tried to well up.

Don't think. Listen to your instincts, said Reaper calmly.

Mercy didn’t pause to consider his words or what they meant. As soon as she heard them, something clicked inside of her, something that felt this was the right path.

“Stop!”

This time, she spoke the word and projected it with her mind at the same time. It left her body and carried with it all of the emotion pouring through her. It emptied her of desperation, fear, anger, disgust, and determination, all of those feelings tangling together in a powerful wave of feeling that gave her voice, both mental and vocal, power.

Everything froze.

The boys stopped moving. The crowd went still and silent. For a second, or a nano-second, everything simply fixed in place like a stasis field had activated in the whole room. Mercy felt not just the weight of attention from every pirate in this room, but from every pirate aboard the ship. It held for an endless, eternal second, like when a ship jumped through otherspace, traveling light years in the moments that existed between time. Then the boys fell apart, both of them gasping and breathing huge gulps of air, chests rising and falling desperately as they lay a few feet apart, neither one able to move enough to continue the fight as they struggled to get precious oxygen back inside their bodies.

A low roar of mental sound rose up as the crowd responded to what it had just seen. Voices threatened to overwhelm Mercy a hairsbreadth before her shields tightened, shoving them out. Reaper.

Very good. Everyone here sees a woman who thinks herself a Queen. Now, make them believe it.

Mercy fisted her hands at her sides.

I am not my Grandmother. I don’t want to be.

Then tell them.

I don’t want to be your Queen!

Cannon’s voice was suddenly in her mind, resonating, deep. Don’t think about that now. You’ve opened a door, and you must continue walking through it if you want to minimize the impact. Don’t talk about being Queen; just talk about why you did this. Do it now, and be as truthful as you can. Enough of us can sense lies that you must be honest, above all else.

Mercy took a breath, lifting her chin.

Not a problem, she sent back.

Before she spoke, she gestured a hand to both boys. A tremor shook it, one she hoped no one else could see.

“Is this what you want?” she asked, sweeping her eyes around the room. She turned a circle, so as not to miss any one section. “I have been here, awake, for less than a day. I have heard the story of the virus that decimated your population. And the first thing I see of your culture is children, killing each other for sport.” Her eyes narrowed, and she let her personal sense of outrage color her words. “You—”

We, said Cannon in her mind. Make this about all of us.

“—we are a people dying, more each day. We are desperate to have more children, to raise our population and not let them win. Yet here you are, helping our enemies to gain more ground. The Commonwealth. The people who sent the virus. Those who kidnapped me. Do we not have enough enemies, without turning on each other?”

She stepped over to where Max and Kato struggled to sit up.

“No more.” Leaning down, Mercy helped first Max, and then Kator, to stand. She nearly staggered trying to aid Kator, and then she felt his weight lighten and knew someone was helping with telekinesis. Probably Reaper, or Vashti. Both youths blinked at her, confused. Perhaps unknowing, they stood and swayed close together in an unconscious seeking of support, for this one moment united in their bewilderment.

Finish it, said Cannon. Make your will clear.

“From this moment, there will be no more fighting to the death in the arena, for any reason.”

They must have an outlet, Cannon said. Something to focus on. And we must be able to kill when we need to.

“Save your thirst for blood to serve our enemies.” She was suddenly grateful for the brief glimpse Reaper had given her into their politics. “For now, only your King and the Core will sentence any pirate to death. If you must kill one of our own in self-defense, be prepared to prove the necessity. The virus is still killing us. Every life we have is precious. Every life must be protected and nurtured if we are to survive.”

For the first time since she stepped into the arena, a voice challenged her.

“Who are you to dictate to us?” It was just one in the crowd, but Mercy felt the agreement of many.

She hesitated.

Own it, said Cannon.

She scowled, suddenly angry at him, at all of them. I don’t want to be your Queen.

He said nothing, the silence its own answer. To her annoyance, Reaper too remained silent, though she could feel his presence.

Fine. She glared at the crowd.

“I am Mercy Kincaid. Pallas was my mother. Lilith was my grandmother. I may not know all of you, but you know me. Don’t insult us both by pretending otherwise.”

She turned her back to them all and walked, not back to Vashti and Reaper, but in the opposite direction, to the door. She walked right out into the hallway beyond, and kept going. Until the minds behind her faded from her awareness. Until she was alone enough to realize that she was well and truly lost, and had no idea what part of the ship she was on, much less where she was going. She’d bite her own tongue before she asked Reaper or Cannon right now.

Stepping up to the wall, she touched it, and a blue and green diagram lit up beneath her fingers. She studied it for a few seconds. It was only the deck she was on, and it didn’t tell her things like where her quarters were. But some ships, particularly military vessels, had voice activated AIs that could help with that.

She hesitated. The question was, where did she want to go? She didn’t actually want to be alone, she realized. She wanted her family. The only family she’d ever really had.

Mercy cleared her throat.

“Nemesis, show me how to get to the infirmary.”

* * *

“It’s a start,” said Vashti, clearly pleased. “And it went quite well.”

Reaper gave her a long look, one she returned with an arched eyebrow.

“Oh, don’t think to intimidate me, boy,” she said. “It’s many years too late for that.” She stood up and moved in her unhurried way across the floor to Max’s side, her robes swishing around her. Griffin and Cage followed dutifully in her wake, as ever.

Reaper stayed where he was, his own thoughts more complex than he’d anticipated. He’d played his own role in what had just happened. Convincing Mercy to come here was only part of it. From the moment they entered the arena, his actions and words had helped to create this moment. He’d even been the one to suggest it to Cannon. If you want the fights to change, there is only one person who can accomplish that, and she just came aboard this ship. His words.

So why did he feel uncomfortable with the outcome? It was an odd feeling for him. A kind of disquiet. He could kill with no feeling, no regard for his actions or the results. Yet it bothered him that Mercy had shut him out.

He could force his way past her shields. They were still fledgling things in need of strengthening, but to do so would destroy whatever fragile trust existed between them. No, there was nothing to do but wait. Wait for Mercy to be ready to talk.

Reaper was not accustomed to waiting on others and their comfort.

How the mighty have fallen.

The words and the voice that went with them were an instant irritant, like a fleck of dust caught in his eye. Reaper stood, and began making his way out of the arena. One never knew how conversations with his youngest brother would go, and he preferred not to have them surrounded by people who could get caught in the mental crossfire.

Treon, he said, his mental voice utterly neutral. Reaper had learned long ago not to give his brother the smallest morsel of inflection to respond to. Treon might not have been a Killer, but in his own way he was just as dangerous.

Back when the Talented were created, Commonwealth scientists had their own way of classifying Talent and rating individuals’ power on a scale. The pirates had thrown aside such classifications when they went into exile. They knew, better than any null scientist could understand, that the lowest level of Talent was still capable of miraculous things, and no one should be discounted. Some Talents didn’t need raw power to have a devastating effect, Reaper’s being one such.

In the time since the virus, however, the pirates had begun developing their own system, purely for categorizing Talent in family lines. It was all Doc’s brainchild, a way of planning what bloodlines would beget the best results in the next generation. He and a few other scientists developed a series of tests to measure Talent. It was controversial, and not everyone had embraced this new classification system. Doc forged ahead, determined, until he tried the test on Treon.

Treon’s telepathy test produced the impossible: a perfect score. The test was designed to be adaptive, gaining in difficulty based on the individual’s response. It used an algorithm designed to go to infinity. In Doc’s words, the test did not have an end, and therefore it wasn’t possible to achieve a perfect score. It could not be beaten.

And yet, Treon had done so.

Doc was convinced he’d cheated somehow, in protest. Reaper, having grown up with Treon, wasn’t so sure. Either way, Treon’s results had put Doc’s program on temporary hold, something that had delighted more than a few pirates. Reaper was pretty sure his brother hadn’t needed to buy his own drinks since.

What do you want? Reaper moved through the crowd beginning to spill into the hallway with little effort. People moved out of his way, always afraid to let a Killer touch them. When he moved into the lift, no one stepped inside it with him.

He remembered Mercy standing in the lift with him earlier, how she wrestled with, and overcame, her fear of him in the time it took to move from one deck to the next. Extraordinary.

I must admit, I wasn’t at all sure it was true.

Reaper frowned, his attention once again pulled to his brother. He leaned against the lift wall, crossing his arms.

That I found Pallas’ daughter? He asked the question more to irritate Treon than anything. Reaper knew what he was really saying.

That you found a new queen. More, that you would find a queen and bring her back. I believe you once vowed to kill any such person.

Do you have a point, Treon?

Yes, I believe I am making it. I knew she had to be extraordinary if you let her live. What we just witnessed confirms it.

It was no coincidence that his brother used the very word Reaper had been thinking of only a moment ago in relation to Mercy. Those thoughts had been beneath his inner shields, hidden below the surface conversation they were sharing. Not that Treon respected such things. Reaper sighed.

You get more annoying with each conversation we have, he said. Go away, Treon.

I want an answer first.

Reaper sighed as the lift came to a halt, and he stepped out. A man wearing the overalls of an engineer was waiting in the hallway. He blanched when he saw Reaper, and nearly tripped over his own feet stumbling back.

You haven’t asked me a question yet, Reaper told Treon resignedly, ignoring the man’s reaction.

Do you think she can do it?

There was a sudden seriousness to Treon’s voice that had been lacking until now. Reaper realized then that his brother had not simply contacted him in order to peck and goad. He knew what Treon was asking, but he held his silence as he weighed his answer. Long enough that his brother spoke again.

Do you think she can save us?

Yes, Reaper said at last, turning into the doorway to his own quarters. If she decides to stay, and embrace what she is. If she wants it badly enough.

He was somehow not surprised to see his brother already inside, standing at the bar and pouring two glasses of whiskey. He’d long ago given up on keeping either of his brothers out of his private space. In the end, they were the only two people who ever invaded it, and not so often as to be inconvenient.

They looked nothing alike, the three of them. Treon least of all.

Though not as dark as Dem, Reaper’s skin was still more brown than pale, his eyes the cold blue of a Killer, his dark hair cut almost military short. Treon was pale, his skin almost alabaster white, a fact emphasized by the sweep of black hair that brushed the neck of his shirt. His angular face held arrogance, but also an empathy and emotion that Reaper lacked. His eyes were their mother’s: a liquid, golden brown not unlike the whiskey in the glass he held. He was beautiful where Reaper was terrifying.

For the first time in his life, Reaper almost envied Treon that. It was not a feeling he wanted to analyze closely. When his brother offered him a glass, he accepted, taking a cautious sip. One never knew what to expect with Treon. He did so enjoy his little games and jokes. But only the clean burn of alcohol hit his mouth and throat, a soft and rolling flavor with it.

Treon lifted his own glass in a kind of salute.

“Then we just have to ensure it,” he said, drinking.

Reaper frowned at him.

“Ensure what?”

Sometimes Treon liked to talk in riddles. Or maybe Reaper just didn’t care enough to pay him close attention.

His brother smiled.

“That your little Queen will want to save us. Very badly, indeed.”