I think of my uncle as I cradle the charred stump of my right arm, shivering from pain. Is he with my father now? Does he sit with Eo by a woodfire listening to the birds? Do they watch me? Blood weeps through the blackened flesh at my wrist. The pain is blinding. Overtaking my entire body. I’m strapped beside Mustang into a seat in two parallel rows in the back of the military assault craft amidst thirty Boneriders. The overhead light pulses an alien green. The ship shudders from turbulence. Luna is in storm. Huge thunderheads swaddling the cities. Black towers penetrating the murky clouds. All along the rooftops, motes of light dance from the headlamps of Oranges and highReds, my own brethren, who slave under the military yoke, preparing weapons that will fell their Martian kin. Brighter flood lamps bathe military scenes. Black shapes trimmed with evil red beacons zip and float between towers as squadrons of ripWings patrol the sky and Golds in gravBoots jump between towers kilometers apart, checking on defenses, preparing for the storm above, saying last words to friends, to schoolmates, to lovers.
Passing the Elorian Opera House, I see a line of Golds perched on its highest crenellation, staring up at the sky, their glorious war helms spiked with horns so they look a troupe of gargoyles balanced there, silhouetted by lightning, waiting for hell to rain.
We drive toward the cauldron of clouds that swirls around the highest skyscrapers. Beneath the cloud layer, the interlocked skin of cityscape is quiet. Dark in anticipation of orbital bombardment, except for the veins of flame that bleed across the horizon from riots in Lost City. Flashing emergency vehicles dive toward the blazes. The city has gathered its breath for hours, for days, and, with exhalation bare moments away, her seams strain and her lungs stretch to bursting.
We taxi onto a circular landing pad atop the Sovereign’s spire. There, Aja and a cohort of Praetorians meet us. The Boneriders unload with gravBoots before we land, covering the craft as it settles onto the pad. Cassius comes out, manhandling me along. He drags Sevro with his other hand like a deer carcass. Antonia shoves Mustang along. The weary winter rain of the city-moon drips down Aja’s dark face. Steam rises from her collar and a brilliant white smile slashes the night.
“Morning Knight, welcome home. The Sovereign awaits.”
A kilometer beneath the surface of the moon, the great gravLift known only in military myth as the Dragon Maw stops, hissing open to lead down a dimly lit concrete hall to another door emblazoned with the pyramid of the Society. There, blue light scans Aja’s irises. The pyramid fractures in half, gears and huge pistons whirring. Technology here older than the Citadel above, ancient, from a time when Earth stood the only enemy Luna knew, and the great American railguns were the fear of all Luneborn. It’s a testament to the architecture and the discipline of the Praetorians that the great bunker of the Sovereign has not had to change substantially for more than seven hundred years.
I wonder if Fitchner knew its inner workings. Doubtful. Seems a secret Aja would hoard. But I wonder if she even knows all the secrets of this place. Tunnels to the left and right of the narrow hall we pass through are long-ago collapsed, and I can’t help but wonder who once walked through them, who collapsed them and why.
We pass heavily guarded rooms aglow with holo lights. Synced Blues and Greens lying back in tech beds, IVs hooked into their bodies as data streams through their brains via uplink nodes embedded in their skulls, eyes lost to some distant plane. It’s the central nervous system of the Society. Octavia can wage a war from here even if the moon falls to ruin around her.
The Obsidians here wear black helmets with draconic shaped skulls and dark purple on their body armor. Gold letters spelling cohors nihil wind along the short-swords at their sides. Zero Legion. I’ve never heard of them, but I see what they guard: one last door of solid, unadorned metal, the deepest refuge of the Society. It dilates open with a groan and only then, a year and a half since I jumped out the back of her assault shuttle, do I see the silhouette of the Sovereign.
Her patrician voice echoes down the hall. “…Janus, who cares about civilian casualties? Does the sea ever run out of salt? If they manage an Iron Rain, you shoot them down, whatever the cost. The last thing we desire is for the Obsidian Horde to land here and link with the riots in Lost City….”
The ruler of all I’ve ever fought against stands in a depressed circle at the center of a large gray and black room bathed in blue light from the Praetors and Ash Lord who surround her in holographic form. There’s more than forty in a semicircle, the veterans of her wars. Pitiless creatures watching me enter the room with the dark, smug contentment of cathedral statues, as if they always knew it would come to this. As if they earned this end of mine and didn’t luck into it just as they lucked into their birth.
They know what my capture means. They’ve been broadcasting it nonstop to my fleet. Trying to take our coms with hacking attacks to spread the word among my ships. Spreading it to Earth to quell the uprisings there, pimping the signal to the Core to forestall any more civil unrest. They’ll do the same with my execution. The same with Sevro’s dead body. And maybe Mustang, despite the deal Cassius thinks he’s struck. Look what befalls those who rise against, they will say. Look how even these mighty beasts fall before Gold. Who else can stand against them? No one.
Their grip will tighten.
Their reign will strengthen.
If we lose today, a new generation of Gold will rise with vigor unseen since the fall of Earth. They will see the threat to their people and they will breed creatures like Aja and the Jackal by the thousands. They’ll build new Institutes, expand their military, and throttle my people. That is the future that could be. The one Fitchner feared the most. The one I fear is coming as I watch the Jackal move past me into the room.
“His Obsidians are not trained in extraplanetary warfare,” one of the Praetors is saying.
“You want to tell that to Fabii?” the Sovereign asks. “Or perhaps to his mother? She’s with the other Senators who I had to corral in the Chamber before they could flee like little flies and take their ships with them.”
“Politico cravens…” someone murmurs.
Aside from the glowing holographs, the room is occupied by a small host of martial Golds. More than I expected. Two Olympic Knights, ten Praetorians, and Lysander. Ten years of age now, he has grown nearly half a foot since last I saw him. He carries a datapad to take copious notes of his grandmother’s conversation and smiles to Cassius as we enter, watching me with the wary interest you’d watch a tiger through duroglass. His crystal Gold eyes take in my bindings, Aja, and my missing hand. Mentally tapping the glass with a nail to see just how thick it is.
The two Olympic Knights greet Cassius quietly as we enter, so as not to disturb the Sovereign in her debriefing, though she’s noted my presence with an emotionless glance. Both knights are heavily armored and ready to defend their Sovereign.
Above the Sovereign, a globular holo dominates the domed ceiling of the room, showing the moon in perfect detail. The Ash Lord’s fleet is spread out like a screen to cover Luna’s darkside, where the Citadel is, like a concave shield. The battle is well under way. But my forces have no way of knowing that the Jackal is just waiting to swing around their flank and hammer them against the Ash Lord’s anvil. If only I could reach Orion, she might find some way to salvage this.
The Jackal quietly takes a seat to the side, patiently watching the Ash Lord give instructions to a sphere of torchShips.
“Cassius, you gorydamn hound,” the Truth Knight says, voice a deep baritone. His eyes narrow and Asiatic. He’s from Earth, and he’s more compact than us Martians. “Is it really him?”
“Bones and heart. Took him from his flagship,” Cassius says, kicking me to my knees and hauling back my head by my hair so they can better see my face. He tosses Sevro on the ground and they inspect the kill. The Joy Knight shakes his head. He’s thinner than Cassius and twice again as aristocratic, from an old Venusian family. Met him once at a duel on Mars.
“Augustus too? Don’t you just have all the luck. And Aja bagged the Obsidian. Fear and Love are going to get Victra and that White Witch….”
“I’d kill to snag Victra,” Truth says, walking around me. “That’d be a dance. Say, didn’t you bed her, Cassius?”
“I never kiss and tell.” Cassius nods to the battle. “How do we fare?”
“Better than Fabii. They’re tenacious. Hard to pin down, keep trying to close so they can use their Obsidian, but the Ash Lord’s keeping them at a distance. The ArchGovernor’s fleet will be the hammer that wins this. They’re already coming around their flank. See?” The knight looks longingly at the holo. Cassius notices.
“You could always join,” Cassius says. “Order a shuttle.”
“That would take hours,” Truth replies. “We’ve four knights in engagement already. Someone has to protect Octavia. And my ships are being held in reserve protecting the dayside. If they make landfall, which is doubtful at this point, we’ll need martial men on the ground. We’ll have to wash his face.”
“What?”
“Barca’s face. It’s too bloody. We’ll make the broadcast soon, if we’re not hacked again. Saboteurs were wrecking operations. More of Quicksilver’s boys. All sorts of tech-head demokratic filth with delusions of grandeur. But we hit one of their dens last night with a lurcher squad.”
“Best way to stop a hacker? Hot metal,” Joy adds.
“The enemy is brave, I’ll give them that,” the Ash Lord is saying in the center of the room, his hologram twice again the width of his adjuncts’. “Cutting off their escape but still they’re standing toe-to-toe.” He’s on a corvette in the back of his fleet, his signal being rerouted through dozens of other ships. The Ash Lord’s fleet moves with beautiful precision, never allowing my ships within fifty kilometers.
Roque cared about casualties. Cared about not destroying the beautiful three-hundred-year-old ships I’d captured. The Ash Lord has no such restraint. He thuggishly smashes ships to oblivion. Damn their heritage, damn the lives, damn the expense, he’s a destroyer. Here with his back to the wall he will win at all cost. It aches to see my fleet suffer.
“Report when you have further news,” the Sovereign says. “I want Daxo au Telemanus alive, if possible. All others are expendable, including his father and the Julii.”
“Yes, my liege.” The old killer salutes and disappears. With a tired sigh, the Sovereign turns to look at her Morning Knight and extends her arms as if greeting a long-lost child. “Cassius.” She embraces him after he bows, kissing his forehead with the same familiarity she once had for Mustang. “My heart broke when I heard what happened on the ice. I thought you were slain.”
“Aja was right to think I was. But I’m sorry it took so long for me to return from the dead, my liege. I had unfinished business to attend.”
“So I see,” the Sovereign says, caring little for me. Focusing on Mustang instead. “I do believe you’ve won the war, Cassius. The both of you.” She nods without a smile to the Jackal. “Your ships will make this a short battle.”
“It is our pleasure to serve,” the Jackal replies with a knowing smile.
“Yes,” the Sovereign says in a strange, almost nostalgic way. Her fingers trace the scars on Cassius’s broad neck. “Did they hang you?”
“Oh, they tried. It didn’t quite take.” He grins.
“You remind me of Lorn when he was young.” I know she once said to Virginia that she reminded her of herself. The affection is more real than the Jackal has for his men, but she’s still a collector. Still using love and loyalty as a shield to protect herself. The Sovereign gestures to me, wrinkling her nose at the metal muzzle around my face. “Do you know what he’s planning? Anything that will compromise our endgame…”
“From what I glean he’s planning an attack on the Citadel.”
“Cassius, stop….” Mustang snaps. “She doesn’t care about you.”
“And you do?” the Sovereign asks. “We know exactly what you care about, Virginia. And what you’ll do to get it.”
“By air or ground?” the Jackal asks. “The attack.”
“Ground, I believe.”
“Why didn’t you mention this in space?”
“You were more concerned with chopping off Darrow’s hand.”
The Jackal ignores the barb. “How many clawDrills are there on Luna?”
“None working, not even in the abandoned mines,” the Sovereign says. “We made sure of that.”
“If he has a team coming, it’ll be Volarus and Julii,” the Jackal says. “They’re his best weapons and helped him take the MoonBreaker.”
“Volarus is the Obsidian?” the Sovereign asks. “Yes?”
“Queen of the Obsidian,” Mustang says. “You should meet her. You’d remind Sefi of her mother.”
“Queen of the Obsidian…they are united?” the Sovereign asks Cassius warily. “Is that right? My politicos said pan-tribal leadership was impossible.”
“And they were wrong,” Cassius says.
Antonia seizes a moment to stand out in the Sovereign’s eyes. “It’s only the Obsidian in Darrow’s fold, my liege. An alliance of the southern tribes.”
The Sovereign ignores her. “I don’t like it. We have hundreds of Obsidians in the citadel alone….”
“They’re loyal,” Aja says.
“How do you know?” Cassius asks. “Are any from Mars?”
Octavia looks to Aja for confirmation. “Most,” Aja admits. “Even Zero Legion. Martian Obsidians are the best.”
“I want them out of the bunker,” Octavia says. “Now.”
One of the Praetorians moves to do her bidding.
“Is she as formidable as her brother?” Aja asks Cassius.
“Worse,” Mustang says from her knees with a laugh. “Far worse and far brighter. She fights with a pack of warrior women. She has sworn a blood oath to find you, Aja. To drink your blood and use your skull as her chalice in Valhalla. Sefi is coming. And you cannot stop her.”
Aja and Octavia exchange a wary look. “They would have to land first before making an assault on the citadel,” Aja says. “It’s impossible.”
“How are they coming?” Cassius asks me. I shake my head and laugh at him behind my muzzle. Aja kicks the stump of my right hand. I almost black out as I curl around the wound in pain. “How are they coming?” Cassius asks. I don’t reply. He motions to the Joy Knight. “Hold out his other arm.” Joy grabs my left arm and pulls it out. “How are they coming?” he asks not me, but Mustang. “I will cut his other hand off if you do not tell me. Followed by his feet and nose and eyes. How is Volarus coming?”
“You’re going to kill him anyway,” Mustang sneers. “So fuck you.”
“How slowly he dies is up to you,” Cassius says.
“Who said they didn’t already land?” Mustang asks.
“What?”
“They came in the grain ships from Earth, compliments of Quicksilver. Landed hours ago. And they’re pressing for the Citadel now. Ten thousand strong. Didn’t you know?”
“Ten thousand?” Lysander murmurs from his chair to the side of the holopit. His grandmother’s Dawn Scepter lies on the table before him. A meter long length of gold and iron, it’s tipped with the triangle of the Society and the withered heart of the Obsidian warlord who led the Dark Revolt nearly five hundred years ago. “The Legions are deployed to halt an invasion. The Obsidians will overrun our defenses before they can return.”
“I will make ready the Praetorians and recall two legions,” Aja says, striding for the door.
“No.” Octavia stands motionless, thinking. “No, Aja, you stay with me.” She turns to the Praetorian captain. “Legatus, go reinforce the surface. Take your platoon. There’s no need for them here. I have my knights. Any ship approaching the Citadel should be fired upon. I don’t care if it claims to carry the Ash Lord himself. Do you understand?”
“It will be done.” Legatus and the remaining Praetorians rush out, leaving the room deserted save for Cassius, the three Olympic Knights, Antonia, the Jackal, the Sovereign, three Praetorian guards, and us prisoners. Aja presses her palm into a console near the door. The sanctum seals behind the Praetorians. A second, thicker door appears from the walls in a corkscrew, slowly locking us off from the world beyond.
“I’m sorry, Aja,” Octavia says as the woman returns to her side. “I know you want to be with your men, but we already lost Moira. I couldn’t risk losing you too.”
“I know,” Aja replies, but her disappointment is obvious. “The Praetorians will deal with the Horde. Shall we attend the other matter?”
Octavia glances over to the Jackal and he gives her the barest of nods. “Severus-Julii, come forward,” Octavia says
Antonia does, surprised to have been singled out. A hopeful smile works its way onto her lips. No doubt she’s to receive a commendation for her efforts today. She clasps both hands behind her back and waits before her Sovereign.
“Tell me, Praetor, you were conscripted to join the Sword Armada as it subjugated the Moon Lords in June of this year, were you not?”
Antonia frowns. “My liege, I do not understand….”
“It’s a fairly simply question. Answer it to the best of your abilities.”
“I was. I led my family’s ships and the Fifth and Sixth Legions.”
“Under the pro tem command of Roque au Fabii?”
“Yes, my liege.”
“Then tell me, how is it that you are still alive and your Imperator is not?”
“I only barely managed to escape the battle,” Antonia says, seeing the danger in the line of questioning. Her voice modulates accordingly. “It was a…terrible calamity, my liege. With the Howlers hidden in Thebe, Roque…Imperator Fabii, fell into the trap twofold, through no fault of his own. Any would have done the same. I made an effort to rescue his command, to rally our ships. But Darrow had already reached his bridge. And torchShips were burning all around us. We did not know friend from foe. It’s haunted my dreams, the sounds of the Obsidian Horde pouring through their ships….”
“Liar.” Mustang snorts her derision.
“And so you retreated.”
“At grave cost, yes, my liege. I saved as many ships for the Society as I could. I saved my men, knowing they would be needed for the battle to come. It was all I could do.”
“It was a noble thing, saving so many,” the Sovereign says.
“Thank—”
“At least it would be if it were true.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t believe I have ever stuttered, girl. I do, however, believe you fled the battle, abandoning your post and your Imperator to the enemy.”
“You are calling me a liar, my liege?”
“Obviously,” Mustang says.
“I will not stand aspersions against my honor,” Antonia snaps at Mustang, puffing up her chest. “It is beneath…”
“Oh, be still, child,” the Sovereign says. “You’re in deep waters here, with larger fish than you. You see, others escaped the battle, others who transmitted their battle analytics to us so we would know what happened. So we could assess the calamity and see how Antonia of the Severus-Julii disgraced her name and lost us the battle, abandoning her Praetor when he called for aid, fleeing for the belt to save her own hide, where she then lost her ships.”
“Fabii lost the battle,” she says vindictively. “Not I.”
“Because his allies abandoned him,” Aja purrs. “He might still have saved his command had you not thrown his formation to chaos.”
“Fabii made mistakes,” the Sovereign says. “But he was a noble creature and as loyal a servant to his Color. He was even honorable enough to take his own life, to accept that he had failed and to pay justly for it and ensure he would not be interrogated or bartered. His last act in destroying the rebel docks was the act of a hero. An Iron Gold. But you…you scurrilous craven, you fled like a little girl who pissed her Whiteday dress. You abandoned him to save yourself. Now you slander him in front of all. In front of his friend.” She gestures protectively to Cassius. “Your men saw the reptile underneath, that is why they turned on you. Why you lost your ships to your better sister.”
“I would see whoever lays these claims against me in the Bleeding Place,” Antonia says, trembling with anger. “My honor will not be smeared by faceless, jealous creatures. It is sad that they would manufacture evidence to smear my good name. No doubt they have ulterior motives. Perhaps intentions against my company or my holdings or they seek to undermine Gold as a whole. Adrius, tell the Sovereign how ridiculous this all is.”
But Adrius remains quiet. “Adrius?”
“I’d rather have the loyalty of a dog than that of a coward,” he says. “Lilath was right. You are weak. And that is dangerous.”
Antonia looks about like a drowning woman, feeling the water coming over her head, undertow pulling her down, nothing to grab onto, nothing to save her. Aja swells behind her like a dark wave as Octavia denounces her formally. “Antonia au Severus-Julii, matron of House Julii and Praetor First Class of the Fifth and Sixth Legions, by the power vested in me by the Compact of The Society, I find you guilty of treason and dereliction of duty in a time of war and hereby sentence you to death.”
“You bitch,” Antonia hisses at her, then to the Jackal, “You can’t afford to kill me. Adrius…please.” But she has no ships anymore. No face. Tears stream out of swollen eyes as she seeks some hope here, some way out. There is none, and when she meets my gaze, she knows what I am thinking. Reap what you sow. This is for Victra, and Lea, and Thistle, and all the others she would sacrifice so she could live. “Please…,” she whimpers.
But there is no mercy here.
Aja grasps Antonia’s neck from behind. She shivers in horror, shrinking to her knees, not even attempting to fight as the huge woman slowly closes her hands and begins to strangle her to death. Antonia snorts, wriggles, and takes a full minute to die. When she has, Aja completes the execution by snapping her neck with a violent twist and tossing her atop Sevro’s corpse.
“What an odious creature,” the Sovereign says, turning from Antonia’s body. “At least her mother had spine. Cassius, your shoes are filthy.” Blood crusts the rubber soles of his prison slippers and spatters the green jumpsuit’s legs. “There’s a complex of sleeping quarters through there, a kitchen, showers. Clean yourself. My valet has been attempting to foist a meal on me for hours. I’ll have him serve it here for you. You won’t miss the battle. The Ash Lord has promised it will last another several hours, at the very least. Lysander, will you show him the way?”
“I won’t leave your side, my liege,” Cassius says very nobly. “Not till this is through and these monsters are put down.” The Truth Knight rolls his eyes at the display.
“You’re a good lad,” she says before turning toward me. “Now it’s time we dealt with the Red.”