∞∞∞

  Five Years Earlier Earth Year Carrington 167

  CATHARINE - La Chambre Rouge

  The queen had been dead for three days.

  Catharine stood before her mother's vanity, staring into the dusty mirror. Her eyes were blue—not the emerald green she'd inherited from her mother. Not the eyes that should be looking back.

  "One day your voice will need to resonate," her mother had told her once.

  Yesterday, a fifteen-year-old princess.

  Today, a queen without a crown.

  She picked up the tiara from the vanity—delicate, too heavy for her head, and crossed to the credenza. The same credenza where her mother had kept her secrets. Catharine placed the crown on its corner and opened the top drawer.

  The knife was missing.

  The one her mother always kept there, strapped to her thigh beneath her gowns. The blade called Cydonia.

  Gone.

  A heavy rustling sound came from beneath the queen's chaise across the room. Echus, her mother's boa constrictor, stirred in the shadows. The snake was massive, easily three metres long and thick as Catharine's thigh. Fed fat on Mars's oversized rodents, grown even larger in the low gravity.

  On the side table near the balcony doors, a silver cloche covered something the kitchen had sent up. Catharine crossed the room and lifted it.

  A dead rabbit—itself the size of a small dog, another of Mars's low gravity mutations.

  She walked to the balcony doors and looked out at the dust storm rolling across Tharsis. Red clouds swallowed the horizon.

  Behind her, heavy scales scraped across marble. Echus emerged from beneath the chaise, muscular body coiling. When Catharine turned back, the rabbit was already disappearing into the snake's thick coils. Its forked tongue as long as her hand, flicked, tasting blood in the air.

  Her mother used to let Echus coil around her shoulders like a living scarf. Catharine had never been that brave.

  The palace walls always listened. Even now. Especially now.

  A knock at the door.

  "Enter," Catharine said.

  The Master of the Palace stepped inside and bowed. Too low, too apologetic.

  "Young Lady Catharine." His voice was soft. "I'm so very sorry."

  Catharine crossed her arms. Behind her, Echus's scales whispered across the floor.

  The Master's eyes flicked to the snake, then quickly back to Catharine.

  His eyes were red-rimmed, glimmering with unshed tears. "General Pericles tried to save her. You must believe me."

  His voice dropped to a whisper. "He fought them. His face—it's wounded. Scarred."

  "Where were you?" Catharine's voice hardened. "Why weren't you in the palace when she needed you?"

  The Master stepped closer… carefully, keeping the snake in his peripheral vision. She smelled soap on his bandages, fresh as though he'd just washed. His uniform hung loose, too big for his frame.

  "I was sent away," he said quietly. "By the king's order."

  "Do you conspire with them?" Catharine asked. "With whoever killed her?"

  "No." He shook his head. "Never."

  Echus coiled tighter around the rabbit. Bones cracked softly.

  The Master knelt, wincing, and pressed something small into Catharine's palm. "But I'm told I must leave the palace now. The queen would not want me here." His eyes met hers. "The king's orders."

  Across the room, the spherical clock chimed twice. Soft, mournful. Its metal leaves did not glitter in the dim light.

  "You must keep this safe," the Master whispered. "Keep it secret. It was found... when your mother was at peace."

  Catharine opened her hand.

  A small red gemstone lay in her palm.

  Warm. Warmer than the room. Warmer than her skin.

  Something brushed against her thoughts. Soft, quick, alien.

  Catharine blinked hard. The sensation vanished.

  Her chewed fingernails curled around the gem. "I order you to stay."

  The Master stood slowly. Behind him, Echus's massive body shifted, scales catching the dim light.

  "I am so sorry, my lady." He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, a brief, fierce embrace. "I am made to leave. I must go."

  "The king's orders," he repeated, pulling back.

  He turned toward the door, paused, and looked back at her one last time. His eyes drooped with exhaustion and grief.

  Then he was gone.

  Catharine pressed her lips tight, fighting tears.

  Across the room, Echus uncoiled from the half-crushed rabbit and slithered toward the rodent mesh in the corner—a heavy, purposeful movement. Always hunting. Always patient. The floor trembled slightly under the snake's weight.

  Catharine walked to the credenza and placed the gemstone beside her mother's comm bracelet. Two mysteries. Two secrets.

  She opened her palm and looked at the gem again.

  Red. Glowing faintly.

  Still warm.

  What are you?

  Outside the balcony doors, the dust storm raged across Tharsis, swallowing everything in red.

  ∞∞∞

  CATHARINE - The Queen's Bedchamber

  Catharine stood in her mother's bedchamber, searching.

  She rummaged through the gown closet, pushing deeper into the silk and velvet that still smelled faintly of her mother's perfume. Long dresses brushed her cheeks.

  Where is the knife? Where is Cydonia?

  It wasn't in the credenza drawer. It wasn't strapped to the vanity chair. It had to be here somewhere.

  Behind her, heavy scales scraped across marble. Echus had followed her from La Chambre Rouge. The massive snake moved silently when it wanted to, but now it coiled lazily around the base of the queen's bed.

  Footsteps approached from the corridor. Slow, deliberate, too heavy for anyone she trusted.

  Catharine stepped out of the closet.

  General Pericles filled the doorway. Each boot had a shiny gold buckle. He stood as if the room were meant for him.

  Mother used to say: He whispers too much.

  Catharine looked up at him. She'd never liked the general. Never trusted him.

  Five red scratches ran down one side of his face.

  Fresh. Still bleeding at the edges.

  "My condolences, Young Lady Catharine," he said, placing a hand over his chest. "Your mother meant so much to me."

  Catharine curled her hands into fists. Her chewed nails bit into her palms.

  In her pocket, the gemstone grew warm. A thin pressure bloomed at the base of her skull—there, then gone, as if something recoiled from Pericles's presence.

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  "The queen's passing was a tragic fall," he continued softly. "But I am here now to protect you."

  Catharine's eyes narrowed. The general had always bowed too slowly. Always smiled too long.

  "You could spend more time with me," he said. His smile widened. Wrong, predatory. "Now that your mother is gone."

  Echus shifted behind her, coils scraping. Pericles's eyes flicked to the snake, and his smile faltered.

  Catharine lifted her chin. "You're married, Pericles."

  His jaw tightened. Blood seeped from the deepest scratch, running down to his collar.

  "As a princess," he said carefully, "indeed, a future queen, you need to choose loyalty with care."

  He removed one white glove and folded it slowly in front of her. His right hand was bare. Blood crusted at his knuckle.

  Echus's tongue flicked—long, tasting the air between them.

  Catharine widened her stance. "I don't walk with traitors."

  "Your father will agree, of course," Pericles said. "When I speak to him about your... defiance."

  A low rumble shook the floor. Through the tall window, a mushroom cloud rose beyond Tharsis. Thin, dark, climbing.

  The king, testing his weapons again.

  Catharine stepped to the window and watched it rise. "The king will listen to his daughter."

  She turned back to face him. "I am not weak."

  Pericles's smile vanished.

  Behind Catharine, Echus moved. A heavy, purposeful coil shifting across the bed. The snake's massive body knocked the breakfast cloche from the side table. Silver clattered across marble.

  Pericles flinched.

  "I think you should leave, General," Catharine said. "Before Echus decides you're a threat."

  For a long moment, Pericles didn't move. His eyes stayed locked on the snake. Three metres of muscle and scales, tongue flicking, watching him.

  Then his boots clicked once against the floor.

  "Your father will teach you to choose your allies more carefully, Young Lady Catharine."

  He turned and left.

  Catharine waited until his footsteps faded down the corridor. Then she closed her fist around the warm gemstone in her pocket.

  He killed her. I know he did.

  She looked down at Echus. The snake had coiled near the door, as if guarding it.

  Did you see it happen? Were you here?

  Outside, the mushroom cloud climbed higher, scattering red dust across the Martian sky.

  ∞∞∞

  CATHARINE - La Chambre Rouge - Earth Year Carrington 172 (Current)

  Five years had passed since her mother's death. Catharine had counted each day.

  She stood in La Chambre Rouge—her mother's old sanctuary, now hers—when her wrist comm chirped once. Clipped mid-tone.

  She frowned and tapped the side of her wrist.

  Static crackled.

  Then a whisper of something. Mechanical? Organic? A sound like molten metal cooling in fast reverse.

  Her display blinked.

  For a heartbeat, a green sigil she didn't recognize rippled across the interface. Six points folding inward, devouring the outline. A shape that hurt to look at, every angle bent the wrong way.

  Then it vanished.

  Behind her, Echus moved. The massive snake's body scraping against the credenza. The furniture shifted, legs squeaking on marble.

  Not even secret Phobos transmissions looked like this. The comm returned to palace formatting. Polite. Empty.

  "Another glitch," she murmured, exhaling slowly.

  The lie felt thin. The silence did not.

  An unspoken direction? On Mars?

  A six-sided shape burned itself behind her eyes. Not the old dream of the green planet, but something sharper. She looked at her chewed nails. Catharine crushed her fingers together until her skin turned white.

  Through the window, Pavonis Mons trembled faintly. Or was it her eyes? Her hand?

  Catharine touched her wrist comm again, unsure whether the silence afterward felt too quiet.

  Or not quiet at all.

  ∞∞∞

  KRREL - Sisyphi Bastion, Hellas Planitia

  Mars tasted like rust on Krrel's tongue, grit gathering between his teeth.

  He stood on the battlement of Sisyphi Bastion, the ancient fortress perched on the rim of Hellas Planitia. Below… hundreds of metres down the crater's slope, miners drilled into the rock. The wind pulled at his coat.

  Beside him, Branik stood watching the work crews.

  "My great-grandfather stood on this very rim," Krrel said. A new drilling rig vanished into a tunnel mouth far below. "Two centuries ago."

  He reached over and folded Branik's collar neatly, brushing dust from the miner's shoulder. "A leader needs to look the part."

  Branik's jaw tightened but he said nothing.

  "Two centuries ago," Krrel continued, "the crater's rim was a red gale and a death clock. Earth cut us loose. Pirates circled." He gestured out across the vast crater. "We fed them rations and lies until they wore our colours. Those new loyalists cut the first channels. That is how Mars survived."

  Jupiter hung low over the Hellas rim, massive and pale in the Martian sky.

  "Remember that," Krrel said, "when Pericles tells you you're nothing."

  He lifted his hand, framing Jupiter's vast disc in his palm as though the gas giant itself waited for his command. "That is how I will finish him. Like Jupiter crushing a moon. Inevitable."

  "On our backs, buddy," Branik scoffed, bitterness threading through the humor.

  "Indentured," Krrel corrected. The miner's smell: sweat and rock dust, clung to the air. They were necessary. For now. He clasped his hands behind his back, stilling the familiar tremor. "You will have your place in my new Mars."

  "Under the heel of the gods, lad." Branik looked up toward the sky and squinted, raising one hand against the glare.

  Overhead, the Sol Malea orbital mirrors focused sunlight into the crater. A perfect circle of brilliance spreading across Hellas as far as the eye could see.

  Krrel smiled.

  "You are a believer, then... in the gods of Olympus." Krrel stepped closer, blocking the sun. His shadow fell across Branik. He let his height speak the rest. "You will see the gods kneel."

  Branik didn't flinch.

  "Disrespecting the gods is dangerous." Branik pinched his lower lip, gaze rising to meet the Grand Marshal's.

  There was truth there, and bravado, and something else Krrel couldn't name. Something that unsettled him.

  ∞∞∞

  BRANIK - Tunnels Beneath Hellas Planitia

  No pickaxe struck ore in Krrel's new tunnels.

  Deep in the bowels of Hellas Planitia, the air vibrated with machinery that stank of oil and steam. Gears whirred; steel tracks grated across the rock floor. Thick red conduits ran along the tunnel walls, as big as water mains, sweating with condensation, before vanishing into the dark where Krrel claimed his "new Mars" was taking shape.

  Every bolted joint reeked like burnt garbage. Even the walls burned too hot for bare skin.

  Three short sirens erupted from the speakers. Klaxons followed.

  "Conductivity test in six minutes."

  "Look at this, boss." The foreman bumped Branik's shoulder. "Drills! Nothing like this in the guts of Pavonis."

  "P-sixty-nines," Branik said. "They drill hard and deep, buddy. King's got somethin' up his sleeve, lad."

  Dragging wires and hoses like black umbilicals, the track drill crawled down the shaft, leaving oil and rock chips in its wake. The noise shook Branik's teeth.

  The foreman tugged him aside, away from the glare. "There's a secret, all right."

  Branik leaned in, catching only fragments between hammer strokes. "Tell me."

  "Tunnel nine." His voice dropped. "The light bends wrong… like looking through water that isn't there. Even plasma drills won't bite there."

  "By the gods. You seein' right?"

  He'd seen men spooked before. Never like this.

  "Dunno. Crews won't go near it. Not the best of 'em." The foreman's eyes shifted. "Best you don't either."

  Sirens again.

  "No time for sight-seein', pal. That's the three-minute warning. Let's haul. Everyone to the refuge."

  The foreman moved off, hoses looped across his arms.

  Branik didn't follow.

  "Saints of Olympus," he muttered, tracing the sign of shade across his chest. His boots carried him the wrong way—toward tunnel nine—before he could stop himself.

  Raf saved me. He'd want to know.

  The lock hasp clicked. A metallic gust brushed his face. For a second, the tunnel stole his breath.

  "Aye. Normal enough," he said, not convincing himself. "Nothin'..."

  But the air rippled. The ceiling bowed where it shouldn't.

  He tapped his oxygen canister out of habit, not need.

  Moisture gathered on his skin. A cold sweat, yet his lungs burned hot.

  One more step.

  The world blinked.

  His heart lurched, stilled, then hammered. Light twisted ahead. Dust hung in midair. All sound vanished, then roared back like an explosion in the mines.

  A weight pressed at his eyes from the inside.

  Beneath his boots: a void.

  A borehole too perfect to be human. Fifteen centimetres wide, its walls smooth as glass. Black. Bottomless.

  Something in that darkness waited.

  "Saints..." He braced both hands on the ground and leaned closer.

  The dark didn't stare back.

  It simply waited.

  ∞∞∞

  A pressure popped in his ears, sharp enough to make him wince.

  Then stone slammed into his back, or he slammed into it. The moments didn't line up. His vision jittered. Dark, then bright.

  "Boss! Wake up!" The foreman's voice cracked through the hum of drills. A fist thudded into Branik's chest.

  "Heart's beating. He's coming to."

  "Saints of Olympus." Branik's breath rasped, shallow and raw. "How'd I get here?"

  Hands hooked under his arms, hauling him upright. Boots scraped on stone. The tunnel tilted around him.

  "Can you stand?" The foreman's grip clamped his shoulders, forcing his eyes open.

  "We found you flat out," the foreman said.

  Branik blinked, still dazed. "I was..." He pressed a shaking hand to his forehead, trying to catch the thought before it slipped. "By tunnel nine. Argh, my legs aren't under me."

  "No, we found you here. By the main hub… fifty metres from tunnel nine. Flat on your back." The foreman squinted at him. "You seein' straight?"

  "No heartbeat either," another miner muttered behind him, eyes wide.

  Branik braced a palm against the tunnel wall.

  Freezing.

  He jerked back. Crystals of ice clung to his skin, sharp and translucent.

  "Feelin' sick, lads."

  "Your hand!" the foreman barked.

  His stomach dropped.

  The tunnel rippled ahead. Slick, wrong. Like the ice caverns in the northern fractures, not a Martian furnace shaft. Far down the corridor, he heard the whine of a plasma drill chewing rock, welders stitching conduit in place.

  Familiar noises.

  But nothing in him believed this was ordinary.

  Sirens sliced the air. "Clear the shafts."

  Branik stared at the frost blooming across his skin.

  "The wall is wrong," he whispered.

  A silver glint caught his eye. The light bending into a warped ring.

  A word formed behind his eyes.

  Accretion.

  ∞∞∞

  Instead, something else began to speak.