I will soon die.
That is the thought I carry with me as our shuttle coasts away from Augustus’s flagship and flits through the Scepter Armada. I sit among the lancers, but I am not one of them. They know. Appropriately, they do not speak to me. Whatever bond they could make does not matter. I have no political capital. I overhear Tactus being offered a wager to see how long I’ll last outside of Augustus’s protection. One lancer says three days. Tactus argues ferociously against the number, showing the true extent of the loyalty I earned from him at the Institute.
“Ten days,” he declares. “At least ten days.”
It was he who launched the escape pod without me. I always knew his friendship was conditional. Yet still the wound gnaws deep, carving in me a loneliness I can’t express. A loneliness that I’ve always felt among these Golds, but tricked myself into forgetting. I am not one of them. So I sit there in silence, staring out the window as we pass the gathered fleet and wait for Luna to appear.
My contract ends on the final evening of the Summit, where all ruling families gather on Luna to deal with matters pressing and frivolous. That is the three-day window I have to improve my stock, to make others think that I am undervalued by the ArchGovernor and ripe for recruitment. But no matter my value, I am marred. Someone had me, then threw me away. Who would want such a used thing?
This is my fate. Despite my Golden face and talents, I am a commodity . It makes me want to tear my bloodydamn Sigils out. If I’m to be a slave, I should at least look a slave.
To make matters worse, there’s the price on my head. Not officially, of course. That is illegal, because I am not an enemy of the state. Yet my enemy is far worse. Far crueler than any government. She is the woman who sent Karnus and Cagney to the Academy.
They say every night since I stole Julian’s life in the Passage, his mother, Julia au Bellona, has sat at the long table of her family’s high-hall upon the slopes of Olympus Mons and lifted the semicircular lid of the silver tray brought to her by the Pink manservants. Every night, the tray remains empty. And every night she sighs in sadness, peering down the table at her large family only to repeat the same vindictive words: “It is clear I am unloved. If I were loved, there would be a heart here to sate my hunger for vengeance. If I were loved, my boy’s murderer would no longer draw breath. If I were loved, my family would honor their brother. But I am not. He is not. They do not. What have I done to deserve such a hateful family?” Then the grand Bellona family will watch their matriarch uncoil from her chair, her body withering from hunger, nursing instead on hate and vengeance, and they will remain silent as she leaves the room, more wraith than woman.
What has kept my heart from her plate is the ArchGovernor’s arms, money, and name. Politics, the very thing I hate, has kept the breath in me. But in three days, that aegis will be a shadow of memory, and all that will protect me are the lessons my teachers have given me.
“It’ll be a duel,” one of the lancers says. Then louder. “Can’t turn that down and keep his honor for long. Not if Cassius himself offers it.”
“Old Reaper has a few tricks up his sleeve,” Tactus says. “You might not have been there, but he didn’t kill Apollo with his smile.”
“Used a razor, didn’t you, Darrow?” another lancer asks, tone mocking. “Haven’t seen you on the fencing grounds of late.”
“You’ve never seen him there,” says another. “The Pixie avoids what he’s not good at, eh?”
Roque stirs angrily beside me. I put a hand on his forearm and turn slowly to regard the offending lancer. Victra sits behind him, idly watching the scene.
“I don’t fence,” I say.
“Don’t? Or can’t?” someone asks with a laugh.
“Leave him be. Razormasters are expensive,” Tactus notes with a sly grin.
“Is that how it is, Tactus?” I ask.
He makes a face. “Oh, come now . Just having a go at you. So gorydamn serious. You used to be more playful.”
Roque says something to make Tactus scowl and turn away, but I don’t hear. I’ve sunken into memory, where this Golden game once seemed so easy. What has changed? Mustang.
“You’re more than this,” she whispered as I left her for the Academy. Tears swelled in her eyes, though her voice did not waver. “You don’t have to be a killer. You don’t have to court war.”
“What other choice do I have?” I asked.
“Me. I’m the other choice. Stay for me. Stay for what might be. At the Institute, you made followers of boys and girls who have never known loyalty. If you go to the Academy, you abandon that to be my father’s warlord. That’s not what you are. That is not the man I …” She did not turn, but her face changed as her sentence trailed away, lips drawing a hard line.
Love? Was that what we built in the year after the Institute?
If so, the word stuck in her throat, because she knew, as I knew, that I had not given her all of me. I had not shared all that I am. Greedily, I kept secrets. And how could someone like her, someone with so much self-worth, bare herself and throw her heart at a man who gave so little in return? So she closed her golden eyes, shoved the razor into my hands, and told me to go.
I don’t fault her. She chose politics, governance—peace, which is what she thinks her people need. I chose the blade, because it is what my people need. It fills me with a strange emptiness knowing that I was enough for her when I was never enough for Eo. Roque was right. I pushed her away.
I didn’t push Sevro away. I asked him to be stationed with me, then suddenly he was reassigned to Pluto like many of the Howlers, relegated to protecting far construction operations from petty pirate raids. I now suspect Pliny’s hand in that.
My path has never felt lonelier.
“You’ll not be abandoned,” Roque says, leaning in close. “Other families will want you for themselves. Don’t let Tactus in your head. The Bellona won’t make a move against you.”
“Of course they won’t,” I lie. He can still sense my fear.
“Violence isn’t allowed in the Citadel, Darrow. Especially blood-feuds. Even duels are outlawed unless consent is given by the Sovereign herself. Simply stay on Citadel grounds till you’ve a new house, and all will be well. Bide your time, do what you must, and in a year, the ArchGovernor will feel like a fool when you’ve risen under the tutelage of another. There is more than one path to the top. Always remember that, brother.”
He grips my shoulder.
“You know I would ask my mother and father to bid for you … but they won’t go against Augustus.”
“I know.” They could spend the millions on the contract and not even notice the loss, but Roque’s mother has not sat a Senator for twenty years because of her charity. Her lot is thrown in with Augustus’s contingent in the Senate. What he wills, she supports.
“I’ll be fine. You’re right,” I say as Luna appears in the window, hushing the aides, and filling me with dread. The city moon of Earth. Orbiting satellites and installations encircle it like a steel angel’s halo wrapped around a ball of amber held to the sun. “I’ll be fine.”