“Power is the crown that eats the head,” the Jackal said to me as we planned the invasion. He spoke in reference to Octavia. But the truth reaches further than that. These Golds have had power for so long. Look how they act. Look what they want. They jump at the chance for war. They come from near, from far, ships racing to join my armada as they learn that I have called for an Iron Rain, the first in twenty years. I used the Jackal to spread the news, along with footage of Pliny’s fall. Many of them are second sons and daughters, who will not inherit their parents’ estates. Warmongers, duelists, the glory-hungry. And each bring their attendants of Grays and Obsidians. The worlds of the Society wait with bated breath to see what happens today. If we lose, the Sovereign rules on. If we win—complete civil war. No world can stand apart.
Legions marshal within my ship as my armada gathers around the dock moon of Phobos. I carry my razor curved as a slingBlade; crooked and cruel, it is my scepter. My iron House Mars ring tightens as I flex my hand and stare through the viewports. The pegasus bounces against my chest.
I cannot see my enemy—Bellona and much of the Sovereign’s local fleets—but they lie between me and my planet. The Sovereign’s ancient Ash Lord comes fast from the Core to aid with his Scepter Armada, but he is still a week away. He cannot help the Bellona today.
My Blues watch me, and my generals—of Victra au Julii’s personal fleet, who abandoned her mother’s forces, of House Arcos, of the House Telemanus, and the bannermen of Augustus.
Mars is green and blue and pocked with shielded cities. White caps mark her poles. Blue oceans stretch along her equator. Fields of grass along with thick forests coat her surface. Clouds swirl about her, a cotton shift to hide her sparkling shielded cities. And there are guns. Great stations in the deserts, around the cities, where shipkilling railguns point to the sky.
My thoughts dip below the surface of the planet. I wonder what my mother is doing now. Is she making breakfast? Do they know what comes? Will they even feel it when we do?
My fingers don’t tremble even on the brink of battle. My breath is even. I was born to a family of Helldivers. I was born to a bloodline of dust and toil, born to serve the Golds. I was born to this velocity.
Yet I am terrified. Mickey carved me to be a god of war. But why do I feel like such a boy standing in silly armor? Why do I want to be five years old again, before my father died, sharing the bed with Kieran, listening to him talk in his sleep?
I turn to the sea of Gold faces.
This race—what a beautiful monster. They carry all of humanity’s strengths, except one. Empathy. They can change. I know that. Perhaps not now, perhaps not in four generations. But it begins today, the end of their Golden Age. Shatter the Bellona, weaken Gold. Drive the civil war to Luna itself and destroy the Sovereign. Then Ares will rise.
I don’t want to be here. I want to be home, with her, with my child who never was.
But can’t be. I feel the tide inside me go out, baring old wounds. This is for you , I tell her. For the world you should have lived in.
And so I return to my part, feeding these wolves.
“In the fading days of autumn,” I say, voice loud and bold, “the Reds who mine the bedrock of Mars wear masks of happy ghouls to celebrate the dead claimed by the red soil, to honor their memories and subdue their spirits. We Aureate took those masks and made them our own. We gave them the faces of legend and myth to remind ourselves that there is no evil, no good. No gods. No demons. There is only man. There is only this world. Death comes for us all. But how will we shout into the wind? How will we be remembered?” I pull off one of my gloves and cut my palm very shallowly. I clench my fist till the blood coats my skin, and then press my hand to my face. “Make your blood proud long after death claims you.”
There’s the stomp of feet. Just one.
“Luna is the new Earth. It rules us and makes us bow and scrape. Our sacrifice means its gain. Again, the weak hold back the strong. After today, when we take the Thousand Cities of Mars, our ranks will swell. The Galilean Lords will swear for us. The Governors of Saturn will bow to us. Neptune will come with her ships and we will cut off the leech that is Octavia au Lune.”
And make a tyrant king. It makes so much sense to them. I don’t know how. A tyrant for a tyrant. How do they find inspiration from this? Men always have.
Another stomp.
“Every moment today will be captured by the holoCams we’ve given you.” Like it was at the Institute and when I took the Pax . The Jackal’s idea. “Each moment will be remembered. If you win glory, it will be spread across the HCs of every world. If you shame yourself or your family, it will not fade with your death.” I look to Ragnar, as though he were my headsman. Lorn rolls his eyes at the dramatic flair. “We will remember.”
Stomp .
“The cities are to be taken. The Golds who will not bend, killed. The lowColors protected. We will not collapse the mines. We will not rape her cities and despoil her verdant grounds. We are to capture the bounty of Mars. We do not want to take her corpse. She is home to many of you, so harm only the pest that destroys her from within. And when the glory of the day is over—when you wipe the blood from your sword and give the cloth to your sons and daughters, so they will remember you were party to one of the greatest battles since the Fall of Earth—remember, you have made your own destiny. It was not given to you by the Sovereign. It was not given to you by a governor. You took it like our ancestors took the worlds. We are the Second Conquerors.”
Now there’s the roar. I hate how my body shivers at the idea of glory. There’s something deep in man that hungers for this. But I think it weakness, not strength, to abandon decency for that strange darker spirit.
I look at the Jackal, at the side of the bridge. He has little importance on this day. He has done his work bringing all these men and women here. He has muddled communications and sown false information, leaving much of the Sovereign’s aid to the Bellona scattered chasing false rumors of elements of my fleet sneaking off to attack Luna. A ploy only. My forces are all here.
“Quite the puppet master you play,” the Jackal whispers to me as we wait for the Whites to enter the bridge behind the waiting Golds. Sevro scoots closer to me, as if to remind the Jackal of his place.
“You made most of the strings. I never thanked you,” I say quietly back to him.
His plain face wrinkles with distaste. “Must we become sentimental?”
“You helped Mustang escape. That’s why Pliny caught you.” He never mentioned it, never boasted or used it as leverage. It was the simple act of a brother helping a sister. I shrug. “And you tried your damnedest to save Quinn. Maybe you’re a better man than you know.”
He laughs that barking laugh of his. “Doubtful. But tomorrow, a traitor will be king, and an Empress shall be traitor, so maybe wicked men can be virtuous.”
I look out the viewport. “Are your satellites ready?”
“For the virus?” He nods. “My Greens will shut down all communications as soon as you give the word. For fifteen minutes, it will be quiet as death, for everyone. Their global and regional defensive units won’t have surveillance or sensors. Time enough to shatter most of the static positions.” He looks at his feet, as though suddenly self-conscious. “Save my father if you can.”
Sevro shifts, annoyed at our whispering.
“I will.”
I’d rather Augustus rot forever in a hole in the ground. But I need him once Mars is taken. Despite what I can do, I’m not a Governor or a king. I need his legitimacy, as Theodora reminded me last night. Without it, I’m just an arm with a razor.
“And you’re sure about Agea?” he asks. “About the prize? Otherwise it’s reckless.”
“One hundred percent,” I reply.
“Good. Good. Prime luck, then, Reaper.” He moves away.
“Replacing me already?” Sevro snorts, watching him go.
“He’s got one hand. You’ve got one eye. I have a type.”
The ceremonies continue. Two hundred Golds bend their knees as the Whites walk through their ranks. I try to think it a stupid, solemn thing, all these men and women with their pompous silence and their attention to tradition. But this is the history of mankind in the making. And there is a nobility to the moment.
Armor glints against the artificial light. Ethereal Whites wander through the ranks, virgin maidens barefoot in snow-white cloaks, with daggers of iron and laurels of gold. Child Whites carry the triangular golden standards—a scepter, a sword, and a scroll crowned with a laurel. I feel hands on my shoulders.
I feel their weight.
They say this is the way the Old Conquerors went to battle, with virgins of White wounding them with iron. They touch our brows with the laurel and cut our left palms with the iron as they whisper softly in our ears:
“My son, my daughter, now that you bleed, you shall know no fear, no defeat, only victory. Your cowardice seeps from you. Your rage burns bright. Rise, warrior of Gold, and take with you your Color’s might.”
Then each warrior smears the handprint of blood across his face and across the top of his demonfaced helm. One by one we stand in silence. Each Gold represents ten legions. This is the storm that will fall on Mars in a torrent of metal. Millions of Golds, Grays, and Obsidians.
“We do not fight a planet. We fight men and women. Cut off their heads and see their armies crumble,” Lorn reminds us all.
The assembly of warriors stands, faces now smeared with blood, and together we recite the names of our chief enemies. “Karnus au Bellona, Aja au Grimmus, Imperator Tiberius au Bellona, Scipia au Falthe, Octavia au Lune, Agrippina au Julii, and Cassius au Bellona. These are wanted lives.”
In the halls of my enemy, they will recite my name, and the names of my friends. He who kills the Reaper will have bounty and renown. Individual hunters and killgroups will scan our com signals, searching for me. And in packs they will descend, some for single battle. Others for the sly kill of a sniper’s bullet. Some will not even participate in the battle for Mars. They are Gray mercenaries. Freed Obsidian bounty hunters. Knights of Venus and Mercury here only for my head, using their family assets, family soldiers, to help them privately stalk me and make their own glory. The Jackal intercepted a communiqué that three of the Olympic Knights are here. They all will have watched me, studied my recordings, my victories, my defeats. And they will know my nature, the nature of my Howlers. But I will not know them.
Let them come make their introductions.
I’m more interested in meeting Cassius. At least that’s what I told Lorn. But he knows that’s not true. A deep shame burns in me for how I yelled like a monster at his family. I beat him fairly, but I didn’t have to like it as much as I did. Sometimes I wonder if he were raised a Red and I a Gold if he wouldn’t have ended up a better man than I am now, and I a worse man than he ever could be.
For some reason I think I could have been capable of great evil. Maybe that’s the guilt. Maybe that’s the fear of a life where I never knew Eo. I don’t know. Or maybe it’s the fear of knowing how easily I fall to pride.
My warriors disperse back to their own family vessels. I watch out the viewport as half a hundred shuttles streak away to the great armada we’ve assembled. Though they know we’re here now, our enemies did not expect us to come to Mars so quickly.
I turn my attention to my remaining commanders. Orion will lead the Pax and Roque will lead the fleet in conjunction with Victra. I approve of their plan. The rest of my inner circle lingers, except for Mustang, who goes ahead to the hangars.
I reach up slightly to thump both of the Telemanuses on their shoulders. “Pax would have looked brilliant this day.” Sophocles curls around Kavax’s ankles.
“My brother always looked brilliant,” Daxo says warmly. “Silly, shouting, trying to be like Father. But brilliant nonetheless. We’ll kill Tiberius au Bellona, don’t you worry.”
“Do I look worried?”
Both Titans nod their giant heads. Kavax has gone into his battle quiet. He cannot speak except to mumble, so Daxo continues to speak for him. “Take care of yourself, Reaper.” He spares a look back at the Jackal. “We know it’s a marriage of necessity, but don’t trust him.”
“You know I don’t.”
“Do not trust him,” Daxo repeats.
“I trust only friends.” We say our goodbyes.
Orion’s brow is wrinkled in thought. I ask her if anything is the matter as she leans over the scanner display. She’s assessing the enemy disposition in the sync. “They noticed us come into orbit an hour ago. We were vulnerable while filtering in, but they remained in defensive formation over Agea.”
“It is odd,” Roque agrees. “They cede much of the planet without a fight. Perhaps it’d be better to orient your drop to the south.…”
“I want Agea,” I say coldly.
“We’ll be shooting you into the thick, brother. The capital can wait. Seize the other cities and we can take it without assault. Why such a wild rush?”
“If we take the capital, the other cities fall.”
“And many men die.”
“It is war, Roque. Trust me on this one.”
“It’s your war.” Roque salutes. After catching a glare from Victra, he pulls me close. “Fare thee well, Primus.” He kisses both my cheeks, surprising me.
“It’s been a long road,” I say carefully.
“And we’ve miles to go before we sleep.”
“My brother.” I clasp the back of his neck and bring his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I shake my head. “For Quinn. For Lea. For the gala. For a thousand slights I’ve laid upon you. You’ve been my dearest friend.” Pulling back, I avoid his eyes. “I should have said it earlier. But I was afraid.”
“In what world should you be afraid of me?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Forgive me, for everything.”
“We’ll make amends later.” He claps my shoulder. “Prime luck.”
I leave him. Lorn and I draw up just outside the bridge, where our paths diverge into different halls. He’s shaved for war, and he wears his old Rage Knight armor. He looks brilliant but smells terrible. These old knights are like the Howlers. Superstitious and unwilling to wash their gear for fear of washing away whatever luck kept them alive thus far.
“I’ve received communiqués from many old friends,” Lorn says. “They side with Bellona.”
“All old men and women?”
“The old have weathered many seasons of the young.” There’s a twinkle in his eye. “But they ask me about you. They ask if the boy warlord is really four meters tall. Is he really followed by a wolfpack? Is he a worldbreaker?”
“And what do you say?”
“I said you are five meters tall, you’re followed by a midget and a giant, and you eat glass with your eggs.” We share a laugh. “I don’t like that you brought me here. I don’t believe you’re being the man you want to be. If you survive this and I don’t, be better than the man who tricked his friend.”
A dull ache grows behind my eyes. It’s a plea he makes. Not for me to feel guilty, but because he truly cares. I should be better. I want to be. I am being better in the end. But with the means to reach that end … am I just like all the other lost souls? Am I just another Harmony? Another Titus?
“I promise,” I say, meaning it even as I intend to hurt him again and again.
“Good. Good.” He pops his leathery neck. “So after Agea, you take the northern hemisphere. I’ll take the southern. And we meet back here for whiskey. Deal, my goodman?”
I nod, but still he does not separate.
He stares at me for a moment and glances down, unable to meet my gaze. Emotion thickens his voice. “Each time I returned to my wife, I told her that her boys died well.” He fidgets with his ring. “There’s no such thing.”
“Achilles died well.”
“No. Achilles let his pride and rage consume him, and in the end, an arrow shot by a Pixie took him in the foot. There’s much to live for besides this. Hopefully you’ll grow old enough to realize that Achilles was a gorydamn fool. And we’re fools all the more for not realizing he wasn’t Homer’s hero. He was warning. I feel like men once knew that.” His fingers tap his razor. “It’s a cycle. Death begets death begets death. It’s been my life. I—I don’t think I should have killed the boy. Your friend.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I see the way the rest of them look at you. I think they’d do anything for you because you believe in them.”
I move suddenly, leaning down to kiss him on his weathered cheek the way Reds kiss fathers and uncles. “Tactus wouldn’t have blamed you. And neither do I. You’ve another grandson to raise. Maybe you can teach him the peace you couldn’t teach me. So do us a favor, don’t die, old man.”
“Ha,” the grizzled lord laughs, falsely at first. Then more forcefully as he turns on a heel. “Ha! They’ve yet to make a man who can kill Old Stonesides!” His old knights, craggy men and women, flank him, not one younger than seventy, but I recognize all their faces from the histories of the Moon Rebellion and other great wars. Their friends and former comrades wait for us on Mars.
I leave for the hangars, saying a quick farewell to Victra. She calls me back. I feel Roque watching us. She looks about to say something. The red sun of her black armor weeps blood. Black warpaint streaks diagonally across her face. Eyes burning out of it, yet they are vulnerable, gentle as they search mine for a reflection of what she feels.
“After today, the name Julii will mean more than money,” I say. Her plan will turn the tide of the space battle.
“I don’t care about that.” Her fingers touch my breastplate and I see her lips sliding sharply into that wicked smile of hers. “If you die, I want your last thought to be how great a mistake it was to spend all those nights alone in your stateroom at the Academy.” She flicks my armor, making a pinging noise. “What a beautiful mess we could have made of each other.”
Theodora waits for me in the hall, giving me a look.
“Oh, shut up.”
“She would have eaten you up and spit you out, dominus .”
“Why aren’t you in the staterooms where it’s safe?”
“It’s not safe anywhere.” Theodora motions me to bend my head. She puts a small red flower clip, the sort a young girl would wear, into my hair. “All knights need their tokens,” she says, tearing up. “Don’t be too much a hero. You’re too clever to die in a stupid battle.”
She leaves, squeezing Ragnar’s forearm as she passes. I didn’t know they were familiar. Ragnar follows along, hanging back like a hesitant shadow as Sevro and I speak on the way to the hangars.
“So it is done?” I ask Sevro.
He shrugs. “I sent it.”
“You spoke to him ?”
“A holoNet dropCache,” he says. “I send a message. They get it. Hopefully.”
“You mean you don’t know if they got it?”
“How should I know? I said I sent it. Followed protocol.”
I curse quietly. He whistles that damn tune he sang Pliny. I swat at him. We turn a corner and pass six dozen Gray special ops troopers heading for the tubes at a jog. Six Obsidians follow behind them, opening their palms to Ragnar and me as signs of respect.
“You see what they were wearing? SlingBlades on their armor.” Sevro smirks over at me. “It spreads.”
“Have you thought about what happens if your father is down there?” I ask.
“No,” he says, losing his smile. “No, I haven’t.”