Tonight, I kill two thousand of humanity’s great. Yet I walk with them now, untouched by decadence and condescension as never before. Pliny’s arrogance raises none of my blood. Victra’s immodest dress does not disconcert me, not even when she slips her arm in mine after Tactus offers her his. She whispers in my ear how silly she is for forgetting her undergarments. I laugh like it’s a merry joke, trying to mask the coldness that’s taken me over.
This is static.
“I suppose Darrow deserves some consolation before he leaves,” Tactus says with a sigh. “Have you seen Roque, my goodman?”
“Said he was feeling ill.”
“That’s very Roque of him. Likely coiled around a book. I should fetch him.”
“If he wanted to come, he would come,” I say.
“ I want him to come,” Tactus replies. He shrugs at the other lancers who jockey for position close to our master.
“If you need him so badly, go fetch him,” I say, tactically.
He flinches. “I need no one on my arm. But if I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re still bitter about the whole escape-pod affair.”
“You mean when you launched it without him?” Victra asks. “Why would that ever bother him?” Even now that betrayal stings me.
“I thought he was dead! It was simple calculation.” He bumps my shoulder with his fist and nods to Victra. “You understand. Had to watch out for the lady here.”
“She is a delicate little flower,” I say, pulling her away.
“Woe for the lone god of the sea,” Tactus hums melodically. “His friends, like mine, abandoned he!”
Victra adjusts the gold pauldron on her shoulder, which winds its way down her arm in a series of golden cuffs. “That darling boy is so vain he could make a thunderstorm be about him.” She notices my lack of care. “The bidding won’t begin till after the gala.” She nods to a landing aircar. “Well, I was wondering when he’d show.”
The Jackal exits the car, skin faintly pink only in patches. His Yellows did him well. He bows faintly to his father, ignoring the murmurs of the aides.
“Father,” he says, “I thought it fitting if the Family Augustus arrived at the gala with at least one of your children. We must present a united front, after all.”
“Adrius.” Augustus eyes his son for something to criticize. “I wasn’t aware you enjoyed banquets these days. I’m not sure the fare will be to your liking.”
The Jackal laughs theatrically. “Perhaps that is why my invitation was not delivered! Or was it the furor over the terrorist attacks? No matter. I am here now, and ever eager to attend your side.” The Jackal falls in, smiling broadly to all, knowing his father will never escalate family quarrels in public. He offers me a particularly sinister sneer, one others see and shrink away from. All stage. “Shall we?”
I mind myself and say little as I follow with Victra at the end of the long procession that snakes its way through labyrinthine marble halls from our villa to the Citadel Gardens some two kilometers distant. The Sovereign’s tower juts from the floor of the garden there, a grand, two-kilometer-high sword piercing a groomed garden thick with rose trees and streams.
Water runs through the garden in a thousand winding paths. Babbling brooks with colored fish lead to quiet lagoons where carved Pink mermaids swim under flowering trees crawling with monkey-cats. Rangy tigerlynx lounge below the boughs. Violets wander through these bright woods, flitting here and there like summer moths, their violins echoing in eerie concert. It is a picture of Bacchus’s night gardens without the obscene sexuality the Greeks found so hilarious—Pixies would chuckle at that smut, but Peerless do not. At least, not in public.
We glimpse other processions through the trees. See their standards, great flashing things of moving fabric and metal. Our red and gold lion crest roars in silent challenge. A raven on a field of silver marks the passing of the Family Falthe over a cobblestone bridge. We eye their lord and his lancers warily. As a matter of course, all carry razors, but other tech is forbidden—no datapads, no gravBoots, no armor. This is a classical affair.
The tower yawns above us. Purple, red, and green mosses climb the base of the great structure with vines of a thousand hues, wrapping the glass and stone like the fingers of greedy bachelors around the wrist of a rich widow. Six great lifts bear families skyward to the top of the tower.
Beautiful Pink servants and Brown footmen service the lift, all in white. Gold triangles of the Society decorate their livery.
The lift is flat, marble with gravthrusters. It sits in the middle of a clearing where green grass flutters in the wind. Several Coppers rush forward to talk with Pliny, who, as Politico, speaks on behalf of the ArchGovernor. There seems to be some confusion. The Falthe family files into the lift ahead of us.
“This is a social trap,” Augustus mutters back to his favorite ward. Leto draws closer. “The fools. See how they feign accident. Soon they will tell us we must use the lift with the Falthes, when instead they should grovel to have us go before them.”
“Could it not be an accident?” Leto asks.
“Not on Luna.” Augustus crosses his arms. “Everything is politics.”
“The winds shift.”
“They’ve been shifting for some time now,” Augustus murmurs. His sharp face surveys his aides, as if making an accounting of the razors we carry. Some wear them coiled at their sides. Others wear them around their forearms like I do with my borrowed blade. Tactus and Victra each use them as sashes.
“I want three lancers attending the ArchGovernor at all times,” Leto announces quietly. We nod, the pack tightening. “No drinking.”
Tactus moans in protest.
Expressionless, the Jackal watches Leto give orders.
Pliny returns from speaking with the Citadel staff. Sure enough, we’re to share the lift with the Falthes. But something more menacing fills the air. Our Obsidians and Grays are to be left behind. “All families are to proceed to the gala without attendants,” he says. “No bodyguards.”
Murmurs go through our ranks.
“Then we won’t go,” the Jackal says.
“Don’t be a fool,” Augustus replies.
“Your son is right,” Leto says. “Nero, the danger—”
“Some invitations are more dangerous to decline than to accept. Alfrún, Jopho.” Augustus makes a cutting motion to his Stained. The two men nod silently and join the others to the side. Genuine emotion—worry—fills their eerie eyes as we join the Falthes on the lift and ascend. The head of the Falthe house smiles. His station improves.
The gala upon the roof of the Sovereign’s tower is modeled as a winter fairyland. Snow falls from invisible clouds. It dusts the spearlike pines of man-made forests and frosts my short hair with snowflakes that taste like cinnamon and orange. Breath billows in front of me.
The ArchGovernor’s appearance is noted with trumpet calls. Tactus and some of the younger lancers cut the Falthes off, obstructing their path so Augustus can enter the gala first. A body of pale gold and bloody red, we move into a grand landscape of evergreens. The pride of Gold culture awaits us. A terrible sea of faces that have seen things the first men could never even dream. You can see glimmers of our shared past at the Institute. The charmers of Apollo. The killers of Mars. The beauties of Venus.
Beneath the spire, the Citadel sprawls, and beyond those grounds glisten the cities with all their million lights. You would never guess that beneath that sea of twinkling jewels lurks a second city of filth and poverty. Worlds within worlds.
“Try not to lose your head,” Victra whispers to me, raking a clawed hand through my hair before going to speak with friends of hers from Earth.
I walk toward our table. Great chandeliers hover overhead on small gravthrusters. Light sparkles. Dresses move like liquid around perfect human forms. The Pinks serve delicacies and spirits on plates and in goblets of ice and glass.
Hundreds of long tables spread concentrically around a frozen lake at the center of the winter land. The Pinks wear skates to serve here. Beneath the ice, shapes move. Not sexualized perversities as one would find entertaining Pixies and lowColors. But mystical creatures with long tails and scales that glitter like the stars. In another life, it would have been Mickey’s dream to have a creature commissioned for this feast. I smile to myself. I suppose, in a way, he already has.
The tables are neither named nor numbered. Instead, we find our place as we see a great lion seated upon the center of our table, nearly motionless. Each family’s table is so claimed by their sigil. There are griffins and eagles, ice fists and huge iron swords. The lion purrs contentedly as Tactus steals a serving tray of appetizers from a Pink and sets it between the beast’s massive paws. “Eat, beast! Eat!” he cries.
Pliny finds me. His hair is bound behind him in a tight, complicated braid. His clothing, for once, is as severe as his pointed nose, like he means to impress the Peerless about him with his hawkish features and sparse accoutrements. “I’ll be introducing you to several interested parties later in the evening. When I signal for you, I expect you to join me.” He looks around distractedly, seeking important persons for his own aims. “Till then, cause no trouble and mind your manners.”
“No trouble.” I take out my pegasus pendant. “On my family’s honor.”
“Yes,” he says without looking. “And what a noble family it is.”
I gaze around the gala. Hundreds mill about already, with more arriving by the minute. How long should I wait? It is difficult to hold on to the rage that made me embrace this decision. They killed my wife. They killed my child. But no matter the anger I summon by reminding myself, I cannot burn away the fear that I steer the rebellion toward a cliff.
This will not be for Eo’s dream. It will be for the satisfaction of those living. To sate their lust for vengeance rather than honoring those who have already sacrificed everything. And it will be irreversible. But so is the course that has been set.
So many doubts. Is this me being a coward? Rationalizing inaction?
I’m thinking too much. That makes a bad soldier. And that is what I am. A soldier for Ares. He gave me this body. I should trust him now. So I take the pegasus and slap it on the underside of Augustus’s table, just near the table’s end.
“A toast?” someone says. I turn and find myself face-to-face with Antonia. I’ve not seen her since the Institute, when Sevro pulled her down from the cross she was nailed to by the Jackal. I flinch away, mind flashing to the night she cut Lea’s throat, all to draw me out of the dark.
“I thought you were on Venus studying politics,” I say.
“We’ve graduated,” she replies. “I did enjoy your christening . Watched it several times with my friends. Odious scent, urine.” She sniffs me. “Hard to get out.”
Nature was cruel to make her so terribly beautiful. Full lips, legs nearly as long as mine, skin smooth as river stone, and hair like spun golden yarn from that storybook about the princess of cinders. All a mask for the wretched creature beneath. “I can tell you missed me while I was away.” She hands me a goblet of wine. “So let us toast to a good reunion.”
It makes little sense to me that we live in a world where she can stand here weaving her evil webs when my wife is dead, when kind Golds like Lea and Pax have been ground to ash and shot into the sun.
“Fitchner once said something to me, Antonia. It seems appropriate now.” I raise my goblet in a polite toast.
“Oh, Fitchner,” she sighs, her breasts rising aggressively from her too-tight golden dress. “The bronze rodent has been making a name for himself here. Whatever did he say?”
“ ‘A man can never miss chlamydia.’ ” I dump the wine out in front of her and push past. She grabs my arm and pulls me back to her, bringing me close enough that I feel the heat of her breath. “They’re coming,” she says. “The Bellona are coming for you. You should run now.” She looks at my razor. “Unless you think you’re good enough with that to beat Cassius in a duel?” She releases me. “Good luck, Darrow. I will miss having an ape at the ball. More than Mustang will, at least.”
I pay no attention to her words and wander away, willing more houses to fill the gala so that I may end this soon. A host of Praetors, Quaestors, Judiciars, Governors, Senators, family heads, house leaders, traders, two Olympic Knights, and a thousand others come to bid my master a good evening. These older men talk of Outrider attacks on Uranus and Ariel, a foolish rumor of a new Rage Knight already gaining the armor, mysterious Sons of Ares bases on Triton, and a resurgent strain of plague on one of Earth’s dark continents. Light fare.
Many others take my master aside, as though a hundred eyes did not watch their every move, and with voices like syrup, tell him of whispers in the night, of shifting winds and dangerous tides. The metaphors mix. The point is the same. Augustus has fallen out of favor with the Sovereign the same way I have fallen out of favor with him.
The ships flitting above in the night sky are as distant from the conversation as I. My attention has fallen upon the Sovereign herself. How strange a thing, to see the woman just there beyond the dance floor, at the raised podium, speaking with other house lords and men who rule the lives of billions. So close, so human and frail.
Octavia au Lune stands with her coterie of women, the three Furies—sisters she trusts above all others. For her part, the Sovereign is more handsome than beautiful, face impassive as a mountain’s. Her silence is her power. I see her speech is seldom, but she listens; always, she listens to words as the mountain listens to the whispering and screaming of wind through its crags, around its peaks.
I see a man standing alone near a tree. He’s near as thick around as its trunk. A hand dwarfs his small goblet, and he wears the mark of a sword with wings, a Praetor with a fleet. I approach him. He sees me coming and smiles.
“Darrow au Andromedus,” Karnus growls.
I snap my fingers at a passing Pink. Taking two of the wine goblets from his ice tray, I pass one to Karnus. “I thought that before you come to kill me, we might as well share a drink.”
“There’s a sport.” He downs his own drink and takes the one I offer him. He eyes me over the glass. “You’re not a poisoner, are you?”
“I’m not so subtle.”
“Equal company, then. All these snakes about …” He grins like a crocodile, dark Gold eyes tracing the men and women. The wine is gone in a moment. “It’s strangely decadent tonight.”
“I hear Quicksilver arranged the festivities,” I say.
“Only on Luna would they let a Silver pretend he’s a Gold.” Karnus grunts. “I hate this moon.” He takes a delicacy off a passing tray. “Food’s too heavy. Everything else too light. Though I hear the sixth course will be something to die for.”
Noting his strange tone, I cross my arms and watch the party. It’s a strange comfort being around this hateful man. Neither one of us has to pretend to like the other. No masks here, at least not as much as usual.
He chuckles deeply. “Julian would have liked this fancy fare. He was a simpering, vile child.”
I turn to examine the killer. “Cassius said only pretty things about him.”
“Cassius.” He snorts out something like a laugh. “Cassius once wounded a bird with a slingshot. Came to me crying, because he knew he had to kill it to put it out of its misery, but he couldn’t. I dropped a rock on it for him. Just like you did.” He smirks. “I should thank you for sweeping away the genetic chaff.”
“Julian was your brother, man.”
“He pissed the bed as a boy. Pissed the bed. Always tried hiding the sheets by giving them to the laundrywomen himself. Like we didn’t own the laundrywomen. He was a boy who did not deserve his mother’s favor or his father’s name.” He grabs another glass of wine from a passing Pink. “They try to make it tragedy, but it isn’t. It’s natural law.”
“Julian was more a man than you are, Karnus.”
Karnus laughs in delight. “Oh, do explain that one.”
“In a world of killers, it takes more to be kind than to be wicked. But men like you and me, we’re just passing time before death reaches down for us.”
“Which will be soon for you.” He nods to my razor. “Pity you weren’t raised in our house. We learn the blade before we learn to read. My father had us make our blades, had us name them and sleep beside them. You might have stood a chance then.”
“Wonder what you would have been if he had taught you something else.”
“I am what I am,” Karnus says, taking another drink. “And they sent me after you, me of all the sons and daughters, because I am the best at what I am.”
I watch him for a moment. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“You have everything, Karnus. Wealth. Power. Seven brothers and sisters. How many cousins? Nieces? Nephews? A father and mother who love you, yet … you are here, drinking alone, killing my friends. Setting the purpose of your life to ending me. Why? ”
“Because you wronged my family. No one wrongs the Bellona and lives.”
“So it’s pride.”
“It’s always pride.”
“Pride is just a shout into the wind.”
He shakes his head, voice deepening. “I will die. You will die. We will all die and the universe will carry on without care. All that we have is that shout into the wind—how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall.” He leans forward. “So you see, pride is the only thing.” His eyes leave mine and look across the room. “Pride, and women.”
I follow his eyes and I see her then.
She wears black amid a sea of gold, white, and reds. Like a dark specter, she glides in out of the lift near the edge of the fake forest. She rolls her flashing eyes, twists her smirking mouth at the heads that turn in her direction to stare at her funereal gown. Black. A color to show disdain for all the merry Golds about. Black like the color of the military uniform I now wear. I’m reminded of the warmth of her flesh, the mischief in her voice, the smell at the nape of her neck, the kindness of her heart. I stare so hard I almost miss her escort.
I wish I had missed him.
It is Cassius.
He of the bloodydamn golden curls is with the girl who nursed me to health in the winter, who helped me remember Eo’s dream. His hand on her waist. His lips whispering into her ear. As surely as Cassius au Bellona put a sword in my stomach, he now sticks a dagger in my heart.
His hair thick and lustrous. His chin cleft, hands steady. Shoulders powerful, made for war. Face made for the hearts of court. And he wears the rising sun of the Morning Knight. The rumors are true. It rips through the party. The Sovereign has made him one of the twelve. Despite the fact that I won the Institute, he’s risen higher, tearing through the Dueling Circuit on Luna like an ancestor possessed. I’ve watched him on the HC, watched him stalk around the Bleeding Place as another Gold lies near death.
But here, now, he dazzles, charms. Face split with a white smile. In his Golden body he has all I have and more. He is faster on his feet than I. As tall. More handsome. Wealthier. He has a better laugh and people think him kinder. Yet he has none of my burdens. Why too does he deserve this girl, who makes all but Eo pale in comparison? Does she not know how petty he is? How cruel his heart can be?
I cannot go to her, not even when I draw close enough to hear her laugh. If she saw me, I think I would shatter. Would there be guilt in her eyes? Awkwardness? Am I a shadow over her happiness? Will she even care that I see her with him? Or will she think me pathetic for approaching her?
It aches, not that I suspect Mustang is being petty in seeking my enemy, but because I know she is not petty. If she is with Cassius, it is because she cares for him. It aches deeper than I thought it would.
“And so you see …” Karnus’s hand falls heavily on my shoulder. “… you will not be missed.”
Tightness spreads through my chest as my shoulders carve a path out of the gala. I take a smaller lift down, away from these people who know only how to hurt. Away into the woods where I find a bridge that spans a fast-flowing stream. I lean over the polished railing, gasping for air, each breath a statement.
I do not need Mustang.
I do not need any of these greedy creatures.
I’m done with their games of power.
Done with trying to go it on my own.
I was not good enough to be a husband.
Not good enough that my wife would let me be a father.
Not good enough to be a Gold.
Now I’m not good enough for Mustang.
I’ve failed to do what I set out to do.
Failed to rise.
But I won’t fail now. Not now.
I take the ring the sons gave me. Hand trembling. Nerves stampeding. I want to retch, there’s so much wrong inside of me. I take the cold ring to my lips. Say the words and the corrupt perish. Say “Break the chains” and Victra vanishes. Cassius evaporates. Augustus melts. Karnus dissolves. Mustang dies. Across the Solar System, bombs ripple and Red rises to an uncertain future. Trust in Ares. Just trust he knows what he is doing.
Break the chains.
I try to say the words, Eo’s last before she hanged. But they do not come. Force it out. Dammit. Make my mouth work. But it won’t. It can’t, because inside I know that this is wrong. It isn’t the violence. It isn’t compassion for the people I would kill. It’s anger.
Killing them proves nothing. It solves nothing.
How could this be Ares’s plan?
Eo said if I rose, others would follow. But I’ve not yet risen. I’ve not yet done as she asked of me. I am not an example. I am an assassin. I do not have an excuse to give up. To hand over her dream to others. Ares never knew Eo. He never saw the spark in her. I did. Before I draw my last breath, I must build the world she wanted to raise our child in. That was her dream. That was why she sacrificed, so others would not have to. And I will not let others decide my fate. Not now. I do not trust in Ares if it means I must reject Eo.
Not if it means I must sacrifice my trust in myself.
I wipe the tears from my face, anger replaced by purpose. There must be another way. A better way. I have seen the cracks in their Society, and I know what I must do. I know what the Golds most fear. And it has nothing to do with Reds rising. It has nothing to do with bombs or plots or revolution. What terrifies the Golds is simple, cruel, and as old as mankind itself.
Civil war.