Free The Diatous Wars 1: Rebel Wing by Tracy Banghart Page B

crossed her arms over her chest. “The diatous veil will sense and adjust to your clothing or lack thereof. If there’s an extensive mark of some kind on your skin, it will reproduce that. If you had a scar, you would retain the scar even while the device is active. It will add or redistribute shape and bulk, but pigment, no.”
    Aris followed Dianthe through the doorway into the kitchen, carrying the remaining dishes, trying not to limp. She kept waiting for the pain to lessen, for her muscles to adjust to the abuse. “Can I ask you one more question?”
    Dianthe grunted as she placed the dishes one at a time in a slit in the row of cupboards. She pressed a button and seconds later the dish slid back out, clean.
    Aris took the noise as permission. “If Military ended your program, why are you still doing this? Why aren’t you working on some other invention or, I don’t know, retired? You must have made a lot of money.”
    For a long time Dianthe didn’t speak, and Aris was sure she’d offended her again. But when the older woman turned, her black eyes shimmered, as if with tears. She cleared her throat. “I do this because I believe a woman should have the right to fight and die for her dominion, just like any man,” she said softly. “There’s no reason for our leaders to ban women from making this choice. So I help them make it anyway. Even if it means giving up who they are. Even if it means joining Military as ghosts.” The blank eyes of Dianthe’s snake tattoo glared at Aris. “This is not and never will be only about finding a loved one, or avenging those lost. Even for you, Aristos.”
    She slammed the last clean dish onto the counter. The noise echoed through the room. “I hope you’re prepared to live with your choice.”

Chapter 14
    Pyralis sank further into his massive chair.
    “And this goes with the coral dress, the one with the gold belt that I showed you before the red one, remember?” His wife, Bett, held up yet another necklace, this one a long strand of colorful beads.
    He tried to focus. “The red one, yes. . . .”
    “I don’t have any shoes that color, so of course I had to go to Peregrine’s,” she went on. “They had the loveliest sandals . . . wait, where did they go?” She bent to rifle through the baskets of shoes and clothes and jewelry. “You know, I had nothing to wear to the Sector Ball next month and this will be just perfect—”
    “Bett, please,” Pyralis begged.
    She glanced up. “But I haven’t even showed you the dress I got for—”
    “Desist, I beg you!” He couldn’t keep the exasperation from his voice. “This is the third time you’ve gone to Panthea in as many days. What is one more dress now, when we’re in crisis?”
    Bett dropped the necklace. It hit the floor, tinkling like a hundred small, discordant bells. Hands on her hips, she suddenly became a study of angles—sharp elbows, pointed chin, narrowed eyes—beneath her fall of heavy black hair. “We’re always in crisis. I see the vids, Pyralis. I see the burned corpses of our villages, the faces of our lost soldiers each and every night.”
    It always threw him, how quickly she could go from flighty to deadly serious.
    She stalked to a spot behind his chair and dug her strong fingers almost savagely into his shoulders, kneading the tight muscles. “How can I not, as the Ward’s wife?”
    “Not now.” Pyralis leaned forward, away from her hands. He couldn’t concentrate with her here, flitting every which way like an insistent, buzzing honey bee.
    Bett stayed where she was and gripped the back of the chair instead. “And if I want to lose myself for an afternoon? Do you think the worry, the fear just falls away? There is no escape, for me, from the horrors of this war. Not with you carrying them every day for the last three years.”
    He sighed. “It’s so extravagant, when so many are suffering. What message does it send to the people? There must be something . . . you