Kane opened the cage's voice channel.
A slender thread returned to my awareness. At first there was only pain. Then the cold of the glass, the pressure of the rings and the smell of blood from the reservoirs.
"Styx."
Her answer was weak but clear.
"Rex."
Kane stopped smiling.
He had expected hunger, a command or the mindless impulse of a beast. Styx had named me herself.
"You can hear the offer, Queen," he said. "This boy scattered your swarm and destroyed thousands. I will restore the broods and give them the whole city."
Two images lit up before Styx. On one side stood endless reservoirs, protected clutches and a golden network linking millions of beasts. On the other was my empty palm.
Kane used the external channel to strengthen the first image, and the smell of blood in the reservoirs grew sharper even to me. The queen's instinct answered the promise of food.
Styx rose as far as the rings allowed.
"Swarm," she sent.
Kane nodded.
"Yes. Your swarm."
Her next word struck him through the panel.
"Not yours."
The white lines on the cage trembled.
Kane increased the suppression. I felt the rings tighten around her wings. Styx could have shifted into her spectral state, but the grey light kept her body solid.
"Every creature chooses whoever guarantees its survival," Kane said. "People call it loyalty. Beasts call it a bond. There is no difference."
"There is," I said. "You cannot requisition loyalty."
Kane activated the egg collectors.
Tubes entered the bottom of the cage. The system tried to force Styx to begin dividing. Her body convulsed, and the first ruby egg appeared on the floor.
It did not hatch.
Styx stopped the life inside the shell from developing.
Kane increased the energy feed. The second egg remained just as still.
"She would sooner kill the clutch," I said.
"Then we will remove the cause of her resistance."
The chain basilisk rose from the floor behind me. Cole fired first. The bullet ricocheted off a white plate, and a golden ring struck the sergeant in the chest and pinned him to the wall.
I switched on the transmitter. The rhythm of blood passed through the hall. The basilisk froze in mid-step as the unfamiliar signal tangled with Kane's command.
Styx seized the moment.
Her proboscis pierced the wire of the voice channel. The puppet parasite entered not a body, but the control channel.
Kane recoiled.
Styx was inside his nervous system.
I felt the cold calculation hidden beneath his composure. The fear of losing his family name. A childhood memory: Kane's father making him stand before a bound beast and repeat that pity was a weak link in the chain. The first animal Kane had ordered killed not for disobedience, but because it had chosen someone else.
Styx reached the cardiac nerve.
One impulse would have been enough to stop his heart.
For the first time, real fear appeared in his eyes.
"Kill me," he said. "Prove that words are the only thing that makes you different."
I gave no command.
Styx withdrew from the nerve on her own.
She left the channel and let Kane remain standing.
She had refused to be his killer and my weapon at the same time.
Open in the reader