“Just over three hours from now.”
Even though I feel for the Rim, it is impossible not to think of my own plight. Without their ships, their troops, my faction will be hard-pressed to maintain the siege, much less take the surface. I feel a second schism forming, all our progress reversing. My allies will be furious at being abandoned. Somewhere Atalantia will be laughing, the Republic wiping their brows. But Pytha would not wake me unless there was something I could do about this calamity. Filled with immense love for her, I narrow my eyes at Diomedes.
Is it just the pain, just the drugs, or is he far more talkative and open than usual?
“Then why wake me?” I ask.
He considers for a long time. “When you came to Ilium, when you promised an alliance, I thought you were a boy who wanted to matter so badly he’d bend everything to do it. Even the truth. On Mercury, I felt that suspicion confirmed. But then you stood in Rome. Then you spoke. Then you sailed. Then, when blood was demanded here to turn pretty promises into hard truths, you opened a vein. You did what you said you would do. I worry…I know Atalantia is not that sort of leader. I fear her. If we leave, the alliance will break, but we must leave, so you must come with us. Prove to Helios, to all, this alliance is more than convenience. Prove it is the future. We do not live in the shadow of Rhea. We make our own light.”
I have never seen him so passionate.
I do not take his hand despite the emotions riding in me. “If I do…sail with you, what assurances do I have…you will return to finish what we started here?”
“I bind my honor to this. We will give you the Shield of Akari.” He smiles. “And my consul, Dido au Raa, has granted me the right to bind her honor to that pledge as well. Help us, the Dragon Armada will come back and help you.”
—
“The Shield of Akari?” Lady Bellona says. “They haven’t given that relic to a Core Gold since Silenius died. It must be under a meter of dust in Plutus.”
Unable to stand, I must look pathetic to my allies in the floating chair I rode to the emergency summit held in Julia’s new base of operations—Quicksilver’s former estate. Horatia has gone home to manage Mercury. Cicero stands at my side, firmly backing my petitionto my allies to aid the Rim. Naturally, Apollonius was the last to arrive. He rode into Quicksilver’s former palace on a winged chimera he took as a spoil of war from Julii’s household menagerie. After the beast was led out by nervous Bellona guards, I informed my allies of the Rim’s plight and Diomedes’s offer.
“The shield is only given to signify a century pact,” I reply with a nod. “There has not been one since Silenius died. We change that, we can turn this tragedy into unity.”
“Diomedes offered it to you?” she asks, skeptical.
“He did, backed by his mother and the Dragon Armada.”
Apollonius laughs heartily. “The Obsidians have attacked Ilium. The fools. A Sicilian Expedition worthy of Alcibiades. What ruinous ambition this Fá has. Do we have a picture of the devil?”
“The Republic might, but we don’t,” I say trying my best to mask the pain I’m in.
“Delicious. A mystery. But Flavinius was right. Better to slumber through the low affairs and save your vigor for the clarion call of worthier contests. The field of fame is Mars. As soon as Darrow slithers in, all the names will await our glittering spears.”
With his servants excluded from the meeting, Apollonius is reduced to combing his own hair. He looks awkward doing it, and tugs at a knot with a grimace. He must have grown bored of his inconvenient and ghastly bullet wound. It is covered with the first layers of a carver’s work.
Apollonius is not done. “Surely you lower yourself by journeying to that dismal shadowland to hunt mongoloids. Much remains unfinished here, Lysander.”
Julia watched Apollonius throughout his monologue with a look of weary tolerance.
“Shield or no shield, I believe I agree with Rath, though he does his best to lose the plot.” Julia fixes me with a banker’s gaze, tallying both my proposal and my infirmity. “How dire is the threat, truly? Even Fabii couldn’t crack Io, much less Sungrave or the Garter, and he had the Sword Armada.”
“It is dire enough to recall their whole fleet,” I say.
Her eyes flick to Rhone, who stands behind me. “Do you agree, Flavinius?” Rhone hesitates, and glances at me.
“You can answer,” I say.
“He already did with his eyes,” Julia says. “But he’s a loyal man. Don’t put him on the spot. The calamity this causes our campaign—”
“Will be felt whether I go with them or not,” I say. “We simply cannot take Mars without support from either House Grimmus or House Raa. If my condition is any indication, the former will never happen and we’re teetering on open war with Grimmus. That is a fact. We cannot stop Diomedes from leaving. Another fact. But if they go, their isolationist faction is champing at the bit to use our lack of participation as a pretext to end the alliance and not return.”
“I see the problem and the opportunity,” Julia says. “If we don’t bend, we set ourselves up to break. But what exactly do you have in mind?”
I take a deep breath and fight back the pains that wrack my gut.
“Houses Rath, Bellona, and your respective clients will maintain the siege of Mars and continue repairs to Phobos and ship production. House Lune and Cicero, with a few of his ships, will lend aid to the Rim. As myLightbringercannot match the speed of their armada, my Praetorians and I will go ahead on Diomedes’s or Dido’s ship. Cicero will follow with theLightbringer,my house legions, and his own ships.” Anticipating their objections to the risk of my person, I quickly explain. “There is a high chance that the Rim will meet and destroy the Obsidian fleet before our ships even make it to Ilium. I don’t want to waste this opportunity by having our contribution dismissed as theater. If there is a battle, I will play some part in it so no one can say I did not help my allies.”
Julia frowns. “Votum, this unity madness has bitten you too?”
