Free Chill by Elizabeth Bear

flicker of motion showed as it glanced over its shoulder, oil-shiny eyes gleaming. When it looked back, Benedick followed the line of its gaze and deduced that whatever held its attention so intently must be advancing along the corridor that would lead perspective-up. The one that, if followed, would lead eventually—and through many adventures—to Rule.
    With his left hand, Benedick sealed his helm.
    He had not long to wait. An armored female figure hove into view down the curve of the tunnel—feet and legs and hips, waist and arms, chest and face. Benedick knew her from her stride before she stood half revealed, and lowered the weapon he’d trained on her shadow. He unsealed his helm again to reveal his face—a sign that he did not mean to provoke combat—but he did not depower.
    Instead, he strode forward across the lobby to meet his sister, calling her name.
    Chelsea Conn paused at the bottom of the serpentine curve of the passageway, one hand resting on the hilt of a blade at her hip. Not an unblade—there had never been many of those, and as far as Benedick knew they had all been unfashioned when the angel was made—but an impressive weapon nonetheless, potent and storied enough to bear the virtue-name Humility. She studied him a moment, as was her wont, her narrow face unreadable.
    He had always fancied that, at such moments, she was deciding what she would feel. When, after slightly longer than a second, a broad smile broke across her face, it did nothing to disabuse him of the conceit.
    “Brother!” she cried boldly, tossing her braids backout of her armor, and strode forward with a springing step.
    They embraced with a great clatter of reinforced ceramic, armor rattling on armor, fists pounding backplates, making a show of their glad warrior cries. At least from Benedick’s perspective, it was not dissembling.
    Chelsea wore a gray and violet color-shift, so bands of lavender and plum shimmered across the surface of her armor like light reflecting off opals. She made him wonder a great deal, did Chelsea Conn. She was closed up like a bud, giving no hint of the leaves or petals within. Among all the things he wondered—what she wanted, what she feared—the one currently most on his mind was if she’d chosen those colors with intention, to tweak their father’s sensibilities.
    Although it was entirely possible she’d never known that Caithness had worn them as well. Alasdair Conn had gone to great lengths to expunge his eldest daughters from the family record, so Benedick would not be surprised if Chelsea had never heard the name.
    He could ask her. Perhaps now that their father was dead, he would find the time.
    He set her back at arm’s length—he was considerably taller—and said, “You came from Rule.”
    She nodded. This time, he did not think the thumbprint shadow that darkened the space between her brows was calculated, but it was too fleeting to be sure of what it meant. She drew a breath and said, “It’s gone.”
    He considered his answers and settled upon, “I know. What did you see?” He held up a hand before she could answer, and amended the question. “Would you know the Engineer Arianrhod Kallikos on sight?”
    “Unless she’s changed her face.” Chelsea lifted a shoulder and let it drop.
    “Did you see her between Rule and here?”
    “Brother mine, I saw a great
deal
between Rule and here. I saw devastation and feasting rats. I saw Go-backs run wild with fear, hunting in packs like animals.” She touched a rippled scorch mark on the shoulder of her armor. “I saw ruptured acceleration pods and holdes torn open to space, the frozen bodies of the dead, machinery weeping for its masters. But I did not see Arianrhod Kallikos.” She paused, considering. “In her own face and colors, anyway.”
    He let her see him frown. “And Rule?”
    “Empty.” She shook her head. “It’s all empty. Father’s domaine is there. The house, untouched. Intact. But everyone is …” She