Home > Honor Lost (The Honors #3)

Honor Lost (The Honors #3)
Author: Rachel Caine ,Ann Aguirre

CHAPTER ONE


Lost Cause


THE WORLD OF Greenheld looked so peaceful, spinning beneath us.

Bonded as Men Shen, we were as close to invincible as anything had ever been, and with the combined power and intellect of humans, Leviathan, and Abyin Dommas . . . we understood we weren’t strong enough to defeat our enemy, Lifekiller—a damn god, pretty much—in open combat. Not even close.

Yet we would fight. Ours was a resolution that would not bend, much less break. We must be enough because there is no other. The two Leviathan could hear the singing power of the Abyin Dommas from far below, hidden in the oceans, and now there was an electric feeling, a shimmer across the surface of the water, and giant cities rose from the green liquid, towers and spires and curves in shapes that humans never dreamed.

They lifted out of the seas. Thousands of them. And launched into a glittering web around Greenheld.

Is our warshield, our Starcurrent-self said within the bond, a whisper awash in awe. Never has it been so strong.

The Zara-aspect asked, How many . . . ?

And Starcurrent-self replied, All my people sing this. All.

Lifekiller’s enormous dark presence blotted out distant suns, and millions of Abyin Dommas sang in their floating cities. Sound couldn’t travel through space, shouldn’t, and the Abyin Dommas warshield was only partly made of sound. It was pure, raw power, and it fluttered through the bodies of both Leviathan, rippled over and past the Bruqvisz mech ships that followed them, and hit the swarming Phage like a storm.

Then it struck Lifekiller, and the ancient god paused, as if pushing against a wall that wouldn’t yield.

Lifekiller receded, the song of the Abyin Dommas burning bright as stars against the skin of a dread creature from the oldest stories.

Then the god-king attacked and cracked that fiery silver shell with a lash of a black tentacle. For the first time, we felt the weight of Lifekiller’s psychic presence, and it carried the full mass of a universe, starless and heavy with hunger. Worse: it was beautiful. Even as it killed, it was gorgeous as a coiling snake, or so our combined senses insisted. As if it would be an honor to perish at Lifekiller’s command.

Screw this, our Zara-self thought, and it stung. We’re not going out like this.

Our Leviathan-selves moved, circling in elegant spirals, slaughtering the disordered Phage with massive tail strikes as we fired the physical weapons, many parts moving in harmony. Suncross and his Bruqvisz mercenaries wove complex patterns of light between us and arrowed forward, dragging a net of shimmering light that sliced apart the Phage. The net cut free to drift on and wrap around Lifekiller’s pulsing form. It tightened, and there was a burst of cold fury that shouted YOU DARE TO HURT ME?, and the net exploded into a billion sparks that died in darkness.

Our Typhon-shard struck with the full force of an armored, barbed tail. It was enough to shatter a moon, that strike, and we felt the impact of it crack the core of our bond. One of us vanished. Yusuf. Another pulled at the link, fraying it, but the rest of us tugged back strongly. No. We must hold.

The bellow of dark fury from Lifekiller washed over us like a blast wave. Do you think you can hurt me, little ones? Lifekiller’s voice came in ripples of calm, and something in us stilled at the sound of it.

Then our Starcurrent-self shrieked, a discordant alarm that jolted us out of the spell. He lies! He is injured!

Thousands of surviving Phage swarmed and drowned both our Leviathan-selves in heaving, stabbing bodies.

We hit the console and shouted, “Suncross! Kill these assholes!” We slammed our fist onto another control and braced for the pain as thick current blazed through our plating, frying many of the Phage, stunning the rest and sending them spinning. Suncross fired sticky globs that glued the Phage together and blasted them into atoms.

Another thick, glistening wave of song and power from Greenheld. Lifekiller rolled. Our tail hit again, tearing loose flesh and releasing cold liquid into colder space. The god-king was sluggish, and we concentrated our fire as Lifekiller heaved and struggled and reached for Greenheld’s life force.

We drove it back.

Lifekiller rolled away in retreat, its Phage attendants crawling over its body and attending to its injuries. We pursued, firing until the creature moved beyond our best speed and disappeared into the wider chasm of space.

Gone in the stars.

It will be back, we thought.

Lifekiller had a goal: revenge. The Abyin Dommas had, countless millennia ago, ended the rule of the Elder Gods by singing them to sleep: a slave race that had killed its tormentors. Or at least, most of them. Lifekiller had been sealed away, asleep, as close to death as they’d been able to manage.

A thick, purple thread of regret pulsed through our bond. Human regret—we’d meant well and thought we’d had little choice . . . but look at what it did, that decision. Our Starcurrent-soul’s emotions were more complex, layers of colors that spoke of anguish, certainly. Loathing. Fear. But so much more.

We broke, like a puzzle knocked to pieces—Leviathan, Abyin Dommas, and humans, scattered into smaller selves until we reclaimed all our separate skins, and I was suddenly back to just me.

Zara Cole.

Alone.

And it hurt so much.

“Bea?” I reached out, slapping the floor that was also Nadim’s skin, and Nadim instantly wrapped around me like a warm blanket—not physically: my body was ice-cold from shock, but my soul was drenched in warmth. Dangerous. I needed to get myself together and take care of my physical needs. For one thing, I felt badly dehydrated. At the same time, I needed to pee so bad it made tears well up in my eyes. “Beatriz!”

“Here,” she whispered.

I turned my head. Beatriz lay on her side, facing me. Her hair was loose, curls tumbling across her eyes, and she looked paler than she should. Trembling, like me. Too hard to get up, so I slow-rolled over and put my arms around her. She sank into me with a sigh of relief, and for a few seconds we just held on to each other while Nadim cradled us both.

Group hugs with intelligent spaceships. We might be fighting gods and monsters out here in the black, but at least we had this.

“I need to pee,” Beatriz said, and I tried not to laugh because if I did, I’d lose total control of my bladder.

“Yeah, me too,” I said, and rose onto my knees, then my feet.

I had to lean on Nadim, but I steadied enough to pull Beatriz upright. I didn’t let go of her hand; it was starting to warm up a little. She didn’t pull away either. We stumbled back to our quarters and parted there, each to our own bathroom. Intense relief, the kind that left me shaky. After I washed up and threw some cold water on my face, wrapped a blanket around me over my clothes . . . I felt more myself. I looked surprisingly good in the mirror. Healthy. I particularly liked my grow-out today. Funny how the little things mattered in the middle of fighting a god.

Nadim said, with a light touch of amusement, You are so strange.

“Damn right.” I laid my fingers against the skin of the wall. Felt a pulse and saw light zip through Nadim’s flesh like cool lightning. He liked that. So did I. “We won.”

More of an impasse, he whispered inside my head.

“Yeah, I know, but let’s celebrate a little anyway. In a couple of minutes, we can be all stressed and terrified again, but right now, just . . . be.”

I am being, Zara. The feeling that Nadim sent rushing through me stole my breath, like cool water and spring wind and sunlight on skin. Intense and personal. I am here, this moment, with you. And that is all I wish.

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