Maybe others did, too.
If anyone else took advantage of the disruption to move against the Imperium for their own reasons, she didn’t hear about it.
The names of the war-kites, recorded in the Imperium’s administrative language, are varied: Fire Burns the Spider Black. The Siege of the City with Seventeen Faces. Sovereign Geometry. The Glove with Three Fingers.
The names are not, strictly speaking, Imperial. Rather, they are plundered from the greatest accomplishments of the cultures that the mercenaries have defeated on the Imperium’s behalf. Fire Burns the Spider Black was a silk tapestry housed in the dark hall of Meu Danh, ancient of years. The Siege of the City with Seventeen Faces was a saga chanted by the historians of Kwaire. Sovereign Geometry discussed the varying nature of parallel lines. And more: plays, statues, games.
The Imperium’s scholars and artists take great pleasure in reinterpreting these works. Such achievements are meant to be disseminated, they say.
They were three days’ flight from the next target, Base 894 Sao, when the shadow winged across all the tapestries. The void was dark, pricked by starfire and the occasional searing burst of particles. The shadow singed everything darker as it soared to intercept them, as single-minded in its purpose as a bullet. For a second she almost thought it was a collage of wrecked flyers and rusty shrapnel.
The ghost cursed. Lisse startled, but when she looked at it, its face was composed again.
As Lisse pulled back the displays’ focus to get a better sense of the scale, she thought of snowbirds and stormbirds, winter winds and cutting beaks. “I don’t know what that is,” she said, “but it can’t be natural.” None of the Imperial defenses had manifested in such a fashion.
“It’s not,” the ghost said. “That’s another war-kite.”
Lisse cleared the control panel. She veered them into a chancy voidcurrent eddy.
The ghost said, “Wait. You won’t outrun it. As we see its shadow, it sees ours.”
“How does a kite have a shadow in the void in the first place?” she asked. “And why haven’t we ever seen our own shadow?”
“Who can see their own soul?” the ghost said. But it would not meet her eyes.
Lisse would have pressed for more, but the shadow overtook them. It folded itself back like a plumage of knives. She brought the kite about. The control panel suggested possibilities: a two-headed dragon, a falcon, a coiled snake. Next a wolf reared up, but she quickly pulled her hand back.
“Visual contact,” the kite said crisply.
The stranger-kite was the color of a tarnished star. It had tucked all its projections away to present a minimal surface for targeting, but Lisse had no doubt that it could unfold itself faster than she could draw breath. The kite flew a widening helix, beautifully precise.
“A mercenary salute, equal to equal,” the ghost said.
“Are we expected to return it?”
“Are you a mercenary?” the ghost countered.
“Communications incoming,” the kite said before Lisse could make a retort.
“I’ll hear it,” Lisse said over the ghost’s objection. It was the least courtesy she could offer, even to a mercenary.
To Lisse’s surprise, the tapestry’s raven vanished to reveal a woman’s visage, not an emblem. The woman had brown skin, a scar trailing from one temple down to her cheekbone, and dark hair cropped short. She wore gray on gray, in no uniform that Lisse recognized, sharply tailored. Lisse had expected a killer’s eyes, a hunter’s eyes. Instead, the woman merely looked tired.
“Commander Kiriet Dzan of—” She had been speaking in administrative, but the last word was unfamiliar. “You would say Candle.”
“Lisse of Rhaion,” she said. There was no sense in hiding her name.
But the woman wasn’t looking at her. She was looking at the ghost. She said something sharply in that unfamiliar language.
The ghost pressed its hand against Lisse’s. She shuddered, not understanding. “Be strong,” it murmured.
“I see,” Kiriet said, once more speaking in administrative. Her mouth was unsmiling. “Lisse, do you know who you’re traveling with?”
“I don’t believe we’re acquainted,” the ghost said, coldly formal.
“Of course not,” Kiriet said. “But I was the logistical coordinator for the scouring of Rhaion.” She did not say consolidation. “I knew why we were there. Lisse, your ghost’s name is Vron Arien.”
Lisse said, after several seconds, “That’s a mercenary name.”
The ghost said, “So it is. Lisse—” Its hand fell away.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
Its mouth was taut. Then: “Lisse, I—”
“Tell me.”
“He was a deserter, Lisse,” the woman said, carefully, as if she thought the information might fracture her. “For years he eluded Wolf Command. Then