Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(44)

“The Elder approaches.” Nadim’s tone came across oddly flat, devoid of nuance. He cleared the ship’s wall and showed me the dizzying expanse of space. I might never get used to the wonder of having the solar system appear in an instant, floating right before my eyes. Rather than the impressive view, however, Nadim meant for me to focus on a rapidly closing Leviathan.

“Typhon,” he said.

Beatriz burst out of another room, busy dragging her thick hair back and securing it with an elastic tie to keep it out of her face. She swore in Portuguese when she realized she was heading straight for the now-transparent wall. When she grabbed at me for balance, I let her.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

The alarm died away, leaving a heavy silence.

I pointed. Typhon was already a pale spot like a very bright star, and he got closer every second. Beatriz’s fingers tightened on my arm as the Leviathan swept in, growing in immensity with every breath until it filled the view and slowed to a drift. Elder Typhon. The other ship had pale, broad scars like the rake of giant fingernails, all down the side that faced us. I saw other, deeper scars, too—blackened spots. Gouges. Typhon was old.

He had to be twice Nadim’s size. And he had . . . plating, bolted over what I assumed were vulnerable spots. Dark metallic flexible plates that covered parts of his body. Armor? You saw the holo of Nadim getting hit by meteorites. Probably meant to guard against that. I wondered when Nadim would get those upgrades. Clearly, those were manufactured.

We were supposed to rendezvous near Earth after the first week, but—

Beatriz beat me to the punch. “They’ve come for us early. What does that mean?”

Nadim hesitated a fraction too long. “Nothing good.”





Interlude: Nadim


He blocks the stars so I can no longer hear their song and casts me in cold shadow. His mind is vast, infinitely colder than the lack of suns, and I try to twist away, find the light again.

He is faster. Stop, he tells me, in booming shuddering waves that I know my Honors can feel but not understand. It hurts, these frequencies. He intends it to hurt. This is the last of your chances. You understand this.

I gather strength, though it is difficult, and reply, I understand.

Fail, as you have failed before, and you go into the wild. Alone.

Fear washes through me in a gray wave. Alone. I dread emptiness, running cold and desperate in the silences. Never hearing my name again in a song. Failure means exile, means a life of crippled solitary travel in the wastes. Others will avoid me. No Honors. No future. No great Journey. I will hear the songs, but they will never hear mine.

I will be cast out, and I feel the hard icy satisfaction in Typhon at the thought. Weak, he flings at me. You are disorderly. Prove yourself.

Prove yourself now.





CHAPTER NINE


Breaking Ranks


TYPHON DIDN’T SPEAK. At least, he didn’t speak to us, though what he said to Nadim could have been private; a strange cold rumbled through our Leviathan that left me badly unsettled. Nadim seemed very still and quiet, none of the joy and enthusiasm I’d felt when we first came aboard. It reminded me of standing at attention at the wilderness camp, not daring to show weakness because weakness just meant vulnerability. Predators liked that. They smelled it.

That’s your experience, I told myself. Not Nadim’s.

But it felt the same.

Nadim finally said, “A shuttle is coming. Typhon’s Honors will inspect your progress.”

Beatriz and I looked at each other. She raised her fine, perfect eyebrows. I raised my pierced one in response.

“Nobody said there’d be a final exam,” I said. “I hate tests.”

I waited for Nadim to reassure me, but he didn’t. I wanted to comfort him, which was stupid as hell because they were coming to evaluate me too.

Screw it. I wasn’t about to salute. I pictured all the judges I’d been in front of, usually by remote-view sentencing. Severe old farts who barely even looked at me before pronouncing my sentence and sending me off to another rehabbing opportunity.

Somehow, I doubted there were a lot of Camp Kunas out here in the black.

Something echoed through Nadim’s skin—a feeling, a shiver really, and then a quick pulse of shock mixed with anxiety. I didn’t know why he felt that way as he said, “Typhon’s Honors are here.”

I exchanged another look with Beatriz, who still stood in a sort of awkward parade rest by the data console. I made myself comfortable on the couch, stretched out as lazily as I could with my hands behind my head.

A stern voice said, “I told you she had no respect. Just look at her.”

Zhang Chao-Xing stood in the arched doorway with Marko Dunajski. But they didn’t look the same. The familiar blue Honors uniform had been replaced by bloodred with black trim, lending them a foreboding air. There were no other details, no buttons or brightness, just sharp lines and ominous shades.

But it wasn’t the clothing that made the difference. It was their eyes.

Marko’s eyes . . . I’d seen kindness in them, humor and concern. Now his eyes were simply black, with pupil, iris, and sclera occluded. Chao-Xing’s were the same. My gut impulse was to bail; there was nothing human in the void gazing back at me. But I’d faced enough walking sharks to know it was fatal to show fear.