A beam from one ship careened back and hit one of its allies, cleaving the petal-shaped weapon housings clean off one side of its body. The alien ships could at least be damaged by their own weapons. Sparks flared within the breached hull. It listed to that side, off balance. Talis watched as the tiny forms of several Yu’Nyun scrabbled for purchase but fell free of the tilting deck and plummeted into the darkness below.
“Yes,” spoke Onaya Bone. “Yes!” Her eyes flashed. She proudly surveyed Meran’s work.
Talis felt the vibrations of her words in the decking, up her arms, and into her teeth. The goddess’s voice was intoxicating. Heady, strong, invigorating. She felt the surge of bloodlust again, as she had on Fall Island, but without the need of drugs. The branded flesh on her arm radiated heat, pulsing with the quickening beat of her heart.
Dug rose to his feet, knives in his hands. Sophie gripped the scimitar she’d claimed and stood. Tisker abandoned the wheel. Their shoulders rose and fell with heaving breaths. Onaya Bone’s influence would turn them all to berserkers.
Talis was unsteady. Wanted to give herself over to these impulses that were not hers. It was easier than feeling Nexus’s pull on her chest, or the fear that her reasoning mind sent coursing through her veins.
She clamped down against the bloodlust. Refused to be betrayed by that again. She cleared her throat.
“Keep your heads about you,” she called out to her crew. Her strained voice was small against the noise of battle and the hum of Meran’s energy.
Meran. Talis focused on her. The pulses of her power, washing in every direction across the deck, sent thrills up Talis’s spine. Her arms tingled. The back of her neck prickled with it. But it didn’t muddy her mind. The two forces battled within her, but she clung to Meran’s presence like a lifeline.
The damaged alien starship erupted in flame. It hung in the sky a moment longer, the hull warping and popping, before it started to spin along its vertical axis, then dropped out of the sky in slow motion.
The two closest Yu’Nyun ships pulled back, holding their fire a moment. Then the barrage resumed, the shots angled to avoid each other when the blasts refracted off Meran’s shield. Talis thought of the alien bridge and its flashing screens of plotted courses, sensor information, and running calculations. Damned fancy systems, and likely a press of a button was all it took to adjust the angle of fire. No need to physically move heavy cannons or bring the ship about to change their attack. And that communications system would let them coordinate between ships in an instant.
Meran closed the distance between her hands. With another ripple, the blue light around Wind Sabre warped again, and the aliens’ next hits reflected on a direct path, each striking the other ship squarely.
She’s stronger than they are, Talis thought, her shoulders bouncing with a small surprised laugh that scraped at her throat. The rush of adrenaline was fading, and she feared it would give way to exhausted mania.
The weapons discharge impacted the small main hull of each ship with precision. One went down without fuss, as incapable of flight as something without a lift envelope should be. The other burst into flame from one side of its small main compartment. Pockets of fire erupted in sequence along each of the petal-like appendages until it was consumed, a flaming silhouette that spit smoke into the darkness above them, a twin to the solid shape within, traced in the yellow-red glow of the flames.
As the ship followed its allies down toward flotsam, Talis noticed the skies around them were quiet. Nexus still spun, but slower, as if only from stored momentum. Helsim Breaker, Lindent Vein, and Arthel Rak were still, hovering. Watching. The remaining alien ships were also silent. The very air held its breath.
All eyes were on Meran.
Onaya Bone, chest expanded, pride evident in the curl of her dangerous smile, took a step across Wind Sabre’s deck toward the simula.
Meran let her arms fall and turned to face her. The blue shield remained in place, pulsing around them. Through them. Talis could still feel it. She finally climbed to her feet.
The Bone goddess stepped directly up to Meran and cupped her chin in taloned fingers.
Meran withstood the inspection. Talis could not see the simula’s face at that angle but could well imagine the defiant expression the untamable woman would be wearing.
She had asked what Meran would do—which of the terrible possibilities that the woman was capable of might be unleashed.
The answer was heartbeats away.
Talis felt the influences on deck change. The blood that pounded in her ears stopped whispering of loyalty to Onaya Bone. Dug and Sophie took a step forward.
Too late, Talis thought of the ring and looked back to where Hankirk lay unconscious on the deck, but he wasn’t there. A trail of blood led off around the deckhouses. Scrimshaw was gone from xist cover, too. Panic caught her breath and tore it away from her.
Gods, what have I done?
Chapter 38
“Onaya Bone!” Talis cried, taking a step forward, her hand extended in warning.
Dug and Sophie turned toward Talis, their eyes clouded and unfocused. Still enthralled, but whether by Onaya Bone or by Meran, Talis couldn’t tell.
Her crew moved to stop her. Their hands clamped on her arms, hard enough to hurt.
Sophie held Dug’s scimitar across Talis’s throat to warn her back, and Talis felt the sting of cleanly slicing skin. Little Sophie. Her eyes were steel. Cruel.
She forced Talis back to her knees with a hand on her shoulder. She was unnaturally strong, with a grip of iron. Talis resisted, but to no effect. She could only watch.
Onaya Bone’s focus had flicked to Talis when she called out, but now returned to Meran. Onaya Bone reached out to caress her jaw, her neck. Traced her shoulder with the back of a taloned finger. Meran withstood the intimate touches, her chin
