“Keeping an eye on Fá’s main fleet. The four Volk dreadnaughts are always with thePandora. They’re his wrecking ball. I want eyes on them at all times.”
“What of Sungrave?”Dido asks, no doubt thinking of her three children she left behind in the Raa mountain city.
“Sungrave is besieged, as suspected. But it holds, as does the Garter. Vela is in command. But let’s not keep your children waiting any longer than we have to, Dido. Diomedes, begin the contraction to fit the fleet into Kalyke’s shadow.I’ll be taking theDustmakerback under my command for the ghost sail, so have your phalanx prepare for transfer. I want them on your destroyer for the battle at Io. Tip of our spear.”
Diomedes is happy to hear it. Helios au Lux signs off and a little weight slides off Diomedes’s shoulders. He caresses Binds of Zeus and sighs. He had theDustmakerand he didn’t slag it up. That’s all one can do when you’re not Helios au Lux. He catches me staring at him, but offers me a rare smile.This is it.
Still some thirty minutes out from Kalyke, Dido’sDragon Songorders the Armada to contract alongside the Dust Armada. The dreadnaught’s belly slides overtop the largerDustmakeruntil barely a kilometer separates the ships of the two consuls. As we slow on our approach to Kalyke, Helios’s torchShip and its escorts merge with the combined fleet. His shuttle lands in the hangar bay and he rides the gravLift up the protected shaft to the bridge.
Helios enters through a rhomboid executive door opposite the bank of escape pods. The metal slab seals behind Helios and his bodyguards with a clunk. I’m the only one on the bridge who doesn’t salute when Helios limps in with two Golds and four Grays in battered orange and gray Phoenix Phalanx armor.
Helios is hunched from what must be a torso wound. His white Olympic cape is as filthy as his pulseArmor. He carries several heavily decorated axes and spears. Diomedes holds his salute until Helios returns it on the command deck and tosses the captured weapons down with a clatter.
The master of the ship has returned, and he’s brought trophies.
“For the battle shrines,” Helios growls to Diomedes with a toothy smile. Helios’s bald head is filled with new angry, red notches. He spares me a cursory nod. The man may be exhausted and obviously wounded—he walks with a very heavy limp in addition to his hunch—but his energy still crackles. His Golds and Grays cluster together down below. I recognize the two Golds from his old guard. War seems to have made them younger, sprier.
Of special interest are the Ascomanni spears. They are long instruments with hafts of sleek black metal etched with runes. Their black heads are nearly as long as my calf and made of a different, shinier metal. “You look frightened, Lune. First blackspår you’ve seen?”
I nod. “Is that metal oxinium?”
“Found only in the Kuiper. Almost a match for polyenne fiber if mixed with carbon. Will slide right through a pulseShield or a hull. Let’s get on with it, Diomedes.”
Diomedes motions up Zagria, the huge bridge kidemónas. With the heavily armed woman and three veteran Dustwalkers behind her supervising the transfer of power, Diomedes faces his mentor. “Consul Lux, I relinquish imperium of theDustmaker. Do you accept her Binds?”
“I do, Storm Knight. Thank you for your steady hand.”
Diomedes pulls the Cestus off his hand and gives a code to a Green in the pit. Helios gives a code as well and the Green formally transfers the ship master controls to Helios. A Blue announces the transfer has been logged in the central chain.
Under the guard of the two Gold officers, Helios removes his gauntlet and vambrace to don the Cestus. His callused hand seems eager. Understandable. It’s been his command for what, forty years? I’d be eager to leave the fragility of a torchShip and once again become the biggest bastard in the Sea of Ilium too. I miss theLightbringermore than I thought I would.
I stand up from inspecting the spears. As I do, I see something strange. Helios’s famous hasta, Sunburn, is on his right hip. But on his left is a kitari with an iron pommel imprinted with the grapes of House Dionysus. I frown. That’s odd.
Helios’s hand slips into the Cestus in a strange way—timidly, then all at once. Like a frightened man jumping off a waterfall. Nothing happens for a moment. Helios’s eyes burn into the deck. Inside the Cestus, needles will be sampling his blood and bone marrow. Homer’s words glow on the bands of the Cestus to signify it has unlocked. Helios murmurs them. “I too shall lie in the dust when I am dead, but now let me win noble renown.” Helios looks up at Diomedes. “It is good to come home.”
Diomedes, Zagria, and Dustwalkers salute along with the crew.
I stare at the grapes on the pommel of Helios’s kitari. That is his daughter’s weapon. But his daughter’s weapon was on the wall of his niche in his office. I glance up at the man. Haunted by that second of intense focus and fear as the Cestus tested his DNA.
Whatwasthat? Diomedes did not notice. His eyes are fixed on Helios’s boots. I don’t see anything wrong with them, but I feel something wrong with the moment. Helios dismisses Zagria and activates the command triangle’s shroud. A curtain of darkness surrounds the command triangle, hiding us from the eyes and ears of the greater bridge. I don’t have a weapon. Zagria has mine. I try to get Diomedes’s attention.
“Zagria, remain,” Diomedes says to the kidemónas just before she steps through the shroud. She stops and her Dustwalkers turn back with frowns.
“What is the beauty behind the moon?” Diomedes asks. Another code. Rumi, I believe.
Helios is annoyed. “Diomedes, we already did that dance.”
“What is the beauty behind the moon?” he repeats. Zagria’s hand drifts to the hilt of her hasta. Her Dustwalkers begin a slow encirclement of Helios. Helios is amused.
“The beauty behind the moon is the MoonMaker,” he replies.
Diomedes nods and relaxes. Then, fast as a viper, he steps into Helios, grabs the Cestus, and pulls up Helios’s sleeve.
For a moment I don’t understand what I’m seeing. Helios’s muscular left forearm is buried in the bands of the Cestus up to the elbow. His skin is pale till just past the elbow, then the arm changes. The skin is rough and baked tan by the sun. The muscles are ropier, the bone thinner. A perfect pink line separates the two disparate topographies.
Zagria and the Dustwalkers draw their blades.
It might be Helios’s arm in the Cestus, it might even be Helios’s face smiling at us, but the man now in control of theDustmakeris not Helios au Lux.
