“You think the PsyNet is doing this to us. That as it sickens and dies, so do we—and because of that, past anchors were murdered as infants and toddlers.”

Such a short, concise summation of horrific ugliness. “Prior to initialization,” Canto said, “anchors are just ordinary children with medical issues.”

“Your theory also explains the high incidence of mental instability in our designation. As the NetMind began to lose coherence, so did we.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think.”

PAYAL knew she had to keep her distance from the relentless force that was Canto Mercant for her own safety. But she opened her mouth and said, “I will assist you.” The anchor problem was too critical to the future of their race for her to allow personal concerns to hold her back.

But Canto wasn’t done. “Will you be the face of our organization, the one who speaks to the Ruling Coalition?” Galaxies that threatened to suck her under. “Majority of As are ready to join the organization—I don’t foresee problems with the more hesitant, either. They just need a little hand-holding.”

“I’m considered robotic,” she pointed out. “I have no charisma.”

“You’re wrong.” Implacable. Absolute. “When you talk, people listen. You also have a spine of steel—and Designation A needs that steel, because what we’re going to say and demand is going to come as a shock.”

“Why not do it yourself? Your own will isn’t in question.” For one, he’d tracked down the loner members of a secretive designation and talked them into becoming part of a group.

“I have zero patience for politicking of any kind.” Thunder on his face. “I’d yell. A lot.”

Payal blinked. No, Canto Mercant was not predictable. “Why do you believe I can be a politician?”

“You can’t. But according to all my sneaky spying—”

Fascination had her interrupting. “Sneaky spying?”

He grimaced. “Damn bears.” Not explaining that response, he returned to his previous subject. “You’re no politico, but I have plenty of evidence that you never lose your temper. You just keep going until people listen. There’s a silent, inexorable grit to you.”

“The last time I was in negotiations with Gia Khan, she said I might as well be made out of cold iron, I was so inhuman.”

“Gia Khan is full of shit—and a sore loser.” Canto shrugged away the insult, as if it was so ridiculous it didn’t bear scrutiny. “You’re exactly who we need as our general, Payal—generals don’t care about hurting feelings or about charisma; they’re there for the battle—you didn’t break as a child and you won’t break as an adult.”

No one had ever framed her bullish and often ice-hearted tendencies in such a positive light. It … meant something to be valued. Especially by him, by the boy who’d seen her at the very worst, before the medications, before the therapies, before she’d thrown herself into mental and psychic training.

“Fine. I can be the face of Designation A.” The screams rising at the back of her mind, she rose to her feet. “I have a business meeting I can’t miss. Are we to have an A advisory board? We can’t speak for all As without their mandate.”

“I have a list of candidates—most of the other As just want us to deal with the situation and don’t care how we do it.”

Payal gave a curt nod, then teleported out.

Running from Canto. Running from the past. Running from the keening madness of who she’d once been … and could one day again become.

Chapter 10

Honor born

Knight to a king

My blood my coin

—“Loyal” by Adina Mercant, poet (b. 1832, d. 1901)

PAYAL STARED AT the nutrient bar in her hand as she stood in her private apartment in Vara. Her throat was dry and her heart, it beat too fast.

7J had given her food again.

“Not 7J,” she rasped. “Canto.”

But this bar she held, warm from her body heat, it told her that 7J remained alive inside the stranger who was Canto Mercant. The boy who’d cared to hear her opinions had grown into a man who thought who she was—rigid, robotic, uncharismatic—had value.

He’d compared her to a general.

He’d be disappointed when he discovered 3K was dead, buried so effectively that she’d never again be the girl he’d known. 3K couldn’t exist if Payal was to live a life of sanity. But he hadn’t yet learned the bitter truth, so perhaps she could continue to interact with him in this strange way. With a kind of raw honesty that stripped away the barriers people put between themselves and the world. In Payal’s case, those walls were so high that no one else had ever been invited in.

Her sister, Kari, was too young for them to have that kind of a relationship. And though Payal knew there were people in the Rao empire who were loyal to her, those people were all also beholden to that empire for jobs and security. The power imbalance was an ever-present part of their interactions.

Canto, however, needed her for nothing on a personal level.

Even the anchor work—had she said no, he would’ve been able to find another suitable individual, she was sure. She’d been his first choice, but not his only one. Still, to be anyone’s first choice …

All her life she’d had to fight and fight. Every role, every position, she’d won it through white-knuckled combat of a kind that left no physical bruises. Canto had just offered her the position of head of the anchor union. He’d also done so before he knew she was 3K, so it had nothing to do with the bonds of the past.

Payal allowed herself a quiet exhale, then unwrapped the bar with extreme care before taking a bite. Only after she’d finished the whole thing did she get a sealed bottle of water from her tamperproof cooler and drink. Then she did a foolish thing. She smoothed out the wrapper and placed it within the pages of one of the hard-copy books she had on the shelves in her bedroom.

The book held artwork created by Karishma. Payal only dared display one piece—a large painting of Vara on canvas that her sister had done for her final grade the previous year. Unsigned and with an aged look to it, it could pass as décor that had been in the mansion prior to Payal’s usage. Everyone in Vara was used to the amount of art—hidden and out in the open—that lay in its history.