I wake to the smells of the sea. Brine, seaweed, carried on a brisk autumn wind. Gulls cry. One banks and perches on the white-stone sill of the open window. It cocks its head at me and flies away into the morning sunshine. Clouds move distantly across the horizon, promising rain even as early morning dew drips down the open skylight.
She stirs at my side. Her slender body atop the sheets, coiled around my own damaged form. She’s clothed. I’m shirtless. Fresh skingrafts mark my body. Glossy things, pink and tender to the touch. Mustang stirs once more, her movement bringing me into my own body. Making me feel the aches and the pains and the comfort of her closeness. I let my eyelids drift shut and I sigh deeply, allowing myself to sink into the soft pleasures of being human. Her breath against my neck. The drumbeat of another heart against my rib cage. Her golden hair tickles my nose as cool wind blows strands into my face. The morning air is young, vital.
I breathe it deep, slipping back into sleep.
Memories of metal shatter the peace.
Screams echo in the black. Friends die.
My eyes burst open for the light, desperate to remind me where I am. Telling me I’m safe. I’m warm. There’s no metal here. Only cotton sheets. A bed. A warm girl. Yet the memories are so close. How did I survive?
I fell from the sky with Fitchner.
Ares —a truth that’s always been, but seems so new I cannot even grasp it. I woke to a Yellow’s tools inside my chest, restarting my heart. Then I woke again to a Carver’s scalpel against my skin. Agony and nausea my bedmates. Tides of vision ebbing in, flowing out. Visitors coming and going. I prefer waking to this.
I’m afraid to close my eyes again. Afraid of what I’ll see, what I’ll wake to find. As a Red child, I shared my small cot with Kieran. Every morning, I’d wake before him and lie there quietly, letting my parents’ hushed voices seep under the flimsy door as they started their day. I’d hear Father’s shuffling feet. The throat-clearing sound he’d make every morning as he washed sleep from his face. Mother would make him coffee, grinding the cubes she’d trade to the Grays for pitviper eggs or spools of silk stolen from the Webbery.
I wish it was the sound that woke me at the same time every morning. The grinding, the smell. I wish I could say it was how my body knew to return from sleep. But it wasn’t the smell of coffee or Mother’s tea. It wasn’t the morning sigh of water running through pipes or the arthritic creak of rope ladders as the men and women from Lykos Township’s nightshift made their way home from the mines and Webbery. It wasn’t the weary murmur of those of the dayshift making their way to work from home.
What woke me was the dread of a closing door.
Each morning it would end the same. First, the clay dishes would clink into the metal sink. Then Father’s plastic chair would scrape the stone floor. They would stand together at the door, whispering. A silence. I always imagined it was the moment they shared a long kiss. Then at last, it’d be the goodbye. The front door opened, creaking on rusted hinges. And finally, despite all my prayers, it’d close.
I lean close to Mustang and kiss her forehead. Harder than I meant to. She wakes delicately, like a cat stretching itself out of a summer nap. Her eyes don’t open, but she nuzzles into my side.
“You’re awake,” she murmurs. Her lashes flutter and she bolts upright, away from me. “Sorry. Must have fallen asleep.” She looks to the chair she’d been sitting in. “On the bed.”
“It’s fine. Stay. Please.” I’d forgotten we’re supposed to be cold to each other. “How long has it been?”
“Since the assault? A week.” She brushes loose strands of hair from her eyes. “I’m glad you’ve come back to us.”
“Who did we lose?” I ask carefully.
“Lose?” Her hands fidget awkwardly as she lists the casualties. A moment of silence stretches long. The numbers crushing me in my bed. I remember to breathe.
“The Sovereign?”
“Escaped. But not without a nasty wound courtesy of Fitchner.”
“Your father?” I ask.
“You don’t know?” She smiles awkwardly and sighs a bit too casually, trying to loosen her own tension. She scoots closer on the bed, still taking care not to touch me. “It’s going to be tedious catching you up.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“Father is alive. When the shields fell, several Golds already inside the Citadel led a lurcher squad to rescue him. Turns out my brother has a long reach. So when the Olympic Knights came to take him with Octavia, they left empty-handed.
“The HC channels are calling Roque ‘Nelson reincarnate.’ He captured more than eighty percent of the Bellona fleet.” Her tone darkens. “Which means, as leader of the engagement, he has claim to at least thirty percent of the ships, the rest going to the House Augustus.”
“Meaning he has more than I do, technically.”
“The pundits are wondering how long his loyalty will last now that—”
“The Jackal is playing his games,” I interrupt with a laugh.
“He never stops.”
“I don’t think Roque will take up arms against me,” I say. “Do you?”
She shrugs. “Power creates opportunities. I told you to mend things with him.”
“Roque is our ally. He always will be. You know him.”
“He’s been here as much as Sevro.” She smiles slowly. “Fell asleep here last night. I shooed him away earlier. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I pretended he wasn’t a potential threat to us.”
Us , I note.
“Your job?” I ask. “Which is …?”
“I’ve appointed myself your chief Politico.”
“Have you now?”
“I have. The game of court can be a nasty, duplicitous business. You’re much too earnest for it. Like a lamb thinking it an honor to be invited to a banquet thrown in its honor by wolves.”
“And what if it’s you I need to be protected from?”
“Well.” She arches her left eyebrow. “Then I suppose you’ve already lost.”
I laugh and ask about Sevro.
She pretends to look around. “He’s not asleep at the foot of the bed? I think he’s off with his father. I only returned from visiting Kavax in orbit last night, but Theodora says Sevro departed shortly after dinner with Fitchner. Thought he hated the man.”
“He does.”
“What’s changed?”
I shrug and wonder how long Sevro has known about his father’s true identity. Seems impossible he was as blind as I. Was someone lying to me for a change?
“And Lorn?” I ask.
“He’s with that harpy, Victra.”
“What’s wrong with Victra?”
“Aside from the fact that she flirts with everything that moves? Nothing.”
“Wait. She flirts with you? Tell me more about that.”
“Shut it.” Mustang swats at me. But her smile falls just as quick and she pulls her hand back. “Lorn’s taken Victra under his wing. Seems he’s comfortable allying his family with the Julii. Victra’s mother has agreed to the pact. Three of the most powerful houses on Mars united under my family. A triumvirate against the Sovereign. The Governors of the Gas Giants are on their way to Agea for a summit. So too are the Reformers. You were right. We take Mars, we have a chance against Octavia. This isn’t just a battle any longer. It’s a civil war. And not a pointless one, it seems. Father is making talk of giving the Reformers a chance at the table. That … this means something.”
I remember my conversation with the man. “And you believe him?”
“I do, Darrow.” She smiles hopefully. “For the first time in a long time, I really do.”
I am not so sure. “What about …”
“Cassius?” she guesses quietly. “His father was killed by the Telemanuses, and he fought Ragnar on the wall. All his brothers and sisters are reported dead. But he and his mother are missing.”
I note her quiet. “Are you worried he’s dead?”
“He is our enemy,” she says flatly. “His welfare isn’t my concern.” She examines my eyes closely. “Are you worried?”
“I don’t know.” I consider.
“Goryhell. You’re so tender sometimes. Do you regret cutting off his arm, too?”
“I regret killing Julian.”
“We’re all stained by the past.” Mustang considers. “You forget I had to kill someone in the Passage too. Every Peerless Scarred you’ve ever met—Lorn, Sevro, Pebble, Tactus, Octavia, Daxo, we all started there. Often I think there’s too much to regret.”
Is she talking about us? Am I a regret?
“I want to hate Cassius,” I say slowly. “I really do. Even thinking of him makes me want to crush something. Break a window. Or, preferably, his ugly, smug face.”
“Ugly?” she asks skeptically.
“So pretty he’s ugly.”
Mustang laughs at that. “But it’s hard to keep the hate going, isn’t it?” she asks.
I nod. Hate is what made Cassius’s family throw themselves against Augustus’s. Look what that brought them. “I pity him. Wherever he is.”
“Earlier I told you not to trust my brother,” Mustang says, redirecting the conversation. “I meant it. I know you continued your alliance with him. His companies are making you seem like a god. But it has to end. You owe him nothing. Be cordial. Be polite. Don’t disrespect him in public. But no more meetings. No more promises. Cut him off. You don’t need him anymore. You have me.”
This girl. Would that I could introduce her to Mother, to Kieran and Leanna. They’d like her fire. My throat tightens slowly. Eo would like her too.
“I don’t have you,” I say.
“Darrow …”
Something strange twists inside me. Like a tight spring of emotion finally allowed to uncoil. “When I was on the bottom of the river … I knew I wouldn’t see you again.”
She hesitates, wanting to reach for me, but resisting because of all we’ve said before. “You know you don’t have my leave to die,” she jokes instead. “Anyway, Sevro and the Howlers would never forgive you if you tried. None of them would. You’ve so many friends, Darrow. So many who’d run through fire for you.”
So many who have been burned. Shuddering, I take a long breath and close my eyes, trying not to let the guilt swallow me. The tears come quietly, trickling out the corners of my eyes.
“Darrow. Don’t cry ,” Mustang whispers, reaching for me now. She scoots closer, holding me. “It’s all right. It’s all over. We’re safe.”
The sobs come, racking my chest.
She’s wrong. It’s not over. All I see behind my eyelids is a world of war. There is no other future for me, for us. Yet how many times have I already been pieced back together? How much longer can all these stitches hold? In the end, will there even be pieces left of me? I can’t stop crying. Can’t even catch my breath. Heart thundering. Hands shaking. It all comes out of me. Mustang, barely half my weight, holds me with her gentle arms till I’m exhausted and can do nothing but sink back into the bed. In time, my heart slows, finding rhythm to match hers.
We sit that way for what must be an hour. Eventually, she kisses my shoulder, my neck, lips pausing along the jugular as it pulses. I adjust my hands to move her away, but she pushes them to the side and cups my face with a hand.
“Let me in.”
I let my hands fall to the bed. Her mouth crafts a warm path to mine. There we share the taste of my tears as her top lip slides between my own and her tongue warms the inside of my mouth. Her hand slides up my neck, nails grazing the skin, till she finds purchase in my hair, tugging slightly at the tangle. Shivers lance my body.
Gone is any semblance of resistance. All the guilt that kept me from betraying Eo with Mustang is swept away in the chaos inside me. All the guilt I have for knowing she is a Gold and I am a Red vanishes. I’m a man, and she’s the woman I want.
My hands find Mustang, pulling her body onto mine, shadowing the length of her legs to the swell of her waist. Long-suppressed hunger wakes in me. Filling me with heat, aching for her. All of her. Forget my restraint. Forget my sadness. This is all I need. I won’t run. Not this time. Not when I know how close I came to never seeing her again.
I peel apart her clothing with slow force. Under my hands, the fabric is like wet paper. Her skin is smooth, hot marble warmed in the sun. Muscles coil and tense underneath as she arches her back. Hers is a body made for movement, mocking, coiling around mine. I trace my fingers along the curve of her lower back. She pushes into me, pulsing with breath, hips grinding me into the bed.
It may have been a week to her, but for me it was minutes, seconds ago that I kneeled against cold steel warmed by my own blood, waiting for men to cut off my head. This a moment I thought I would never have again as I dug Eo’s grave with my own trembling hands. A moment with a woman I want and love. And what is the bloodydamn point of surviving in this cold world if I run from the only warmth it has to offer?