“Lysander, I am scared. For you. For me. Of every shadow, every glass of wine.”
“Maybe you should quit drinking then,” I say. I apologize immediately when I see the pain on his face. “Glirastes, you have no reason to be afraid. I will protect you. I promise. But, honestly, what would you have me do?”
“I’d have you listen to the people. You are loved, so be loved. Do not play Atalantia’s game. Play your own. Abandon this pursuit of an army and a fleet. Focus your time and money here. Let Mercury’s prosperity be your campaign for the Morning Chair.” He reaches to grasp my right hand. “It would break my heart to see you get caught in a Gold knife fight. You’re better than that. You must be.”
“Maybe I am, but without power, everything else is just good intentions. Now, I have guests waiting.”
Glirastes pouts but does not protest when I reactivate the lift. Pytha waits on the executive level with Rhone. Rhone’s gravBoots shimmer with heat from his ascent. “Sorry, I must have tripped,” he says to me with a glance for Glirastes. Glirastes doesn’t follow me out of the lift.
“You go on,” he says. “I haven’t the stomach for your guests or guards today.”
Annoyed, I leave Glirastes behind. Pytha, the Blue pilot who watched over me for so many of my formative years on theArchimedes,raises an eyebrow. “You want me to fly him home?”
“You’ll miss the race,” I say.
“Please. Chariots? They don’t even have engines.”
Pytha chose to follow me instead of Cassius. That loyalty, and her belief in my vision for the Society, has more than earned her the post that will make her the envy of all Blues in the Society—captain of theLightbringer.That is if the ship actually flies. Otherwise she’ll be alaughingstock, and me with her. Our fates are entwined. I thank her and head for the box with Rhone.
“Vodka on his breath and it’s not even noon,” Rhone says. “I thought Mercurians were supposed to be industrious.”
“Mind your own self, Flavinius. I’ll not have you sniping at each other. Now put on a smile for my guests,” I snap and plunge into the pulvinar.
The Golds drinking inside the suite raise their eyebrows at Pytha and Rhone. They shift away altogether from Kyber, thinking her a Copper because of her disguise. But Rhone is popular. His service record, if not the myriad teardrops on his face, would demand respect from even Atalantia. I greet my guests with alacrity and mannered courtesy until a roar a few minutes later draws me beyond the protection of the silk awning and into the sunlight.
In the stands below, lowColors rush up through the tunnels from the vendors toward their seats, arms laden with fennel sausages, candied pecans, oysters, and sloshing gourds of wine. To the two hundred fifty thousand who cram together on the tiered marble bleachers, the sound of the hooves on the street outside is still distant. But already the crowd hollers in anticipation. The voice of the Hippodrome gargles like infant thunder. Only when the first wild sunblood enters the stadium does the discordant noise coalesce into a single voice.
“AD…ASTRA…AD…ASTRA…AD…ASTRA.”
The horses pour onto the racing sands. The youths gallop after them, herding the horses into running a lap. Great flames light around the stadium to signal the beginning of the games. As the dust-caked youths pass the pulvinar, my box, they stand in their stirrups to salute me and my Peerless guests. The youths resemble dusty birds of prey. Their faces and eyes are severe, their bones still thin, but though not one is over fifteen, there is not a trace of youth left in them. I have seen that look before. It is the look of having already chosen one’s fate. It worries me to see it in those so young.
I wonder if I wore such a look when I sat by Kalindora’s deathbed as she succumbed to the poison on Darrow’s blade, and confessed her part in the assassination of my mother and father. An assassination planned and executed by my mother’s best friend—and my betrothed—Atalantia. Considering Darrow has no reputation for poisons, it’s not hard to guess who was really responsible for Kalindora’s demise.
“Less than three hundred graduates. A pittance compared to Atalantia’s Institutes,” Rhone drawls, surveying the young horsemen and horsewomen. While most of my guests remain reclining in the shade deep within the box’s air-conditioned recesses, Rhone sweats with me in the early morning sun. “Dominus,what I said about Glirastes—”
“Wasn’t wrong, but I won’t have Glirastes defamed. Ever.” I look over so he sees how much I mean it. “You were not informing me. You were playing politics. Now, let us move on.”
He nods and goes back to business.
“Our spies on Venus report Carthii Institutes are churning out young Peerless,” he says. “The Saud are not too far behind. Still, if you ask me, you chose the right Color to invest in.”
He eyes the thick band of Grays that claim the front rows around the racing sands.
I agree and scan the promenade level in distaste. Though Atalantia is occupied solidifying her hold on Earth and laying siege to Luna, little escapes her gaze, even less her taxes. Her Gold allies, and they are many, populate nearly half the boxes of the promenade level. The boxes were to be sold at auction to help finance these costly games. Instead, Atalantia helped me spiral toward bankruptcy by insisting none of her friends be required to pay.
“Ravenous lot, aren’t they?” a voice murmurs. I turn to see a slender, deeply tanned woman of middling height. Horatia au Votum, Cicero’s younger sister, is not a warrior despite the Peerless Scar on her heart-shaped face. A master administrator, her narrow eyes shimmer only for numbers. She’s far more at home amidst a coterie of Coppers than she is on a warship or battlefield. “They’ve not come for games. They’ve come to see us fail.”
She means they’ve all come to see theLightbringerlaunch, or rather not launch. As the project manager in charge of refurbishing Darrow’s crashed ship, she takes that personally. More liberal and political than Cicero, Horatia has assumed their father’s place of prominence amongst the Reformer bloc in the Two Hundred. Our politics are strikingly similar but hardly popular. We pray we’re not naïve for believing that’s only because the tyrants of Atalantia’s Iron bloc have the lion’s share of war prestige and military might. “The wine you’ll buy for these Golds alone would buy armor for half a legion. To say nothing of the food.”
“Or Pinks,” I reply.
“Or Violets.”
“They’re not our worst guests, I think,” Rhone says.
“No?” Horatia is not over-fond of smiles, but she graces Rhone with one. “So which guest of honor holds that claim? Rath or Carthii?”
“The Venusians. Always.” With a sour look, Rhone glances behind us at the brood of House Carthii lounging in my box drunk on my wine. I’d rather have hosted the Rim deputation, especially their rising hero, Diomedes. But Consul Dido’s reply to my invitation was a single line:Mars Must Fall. So instead of honorable, worthy Peerless knights of the Rim I’m beset by Carthii philistines so cultured they’ve forsaken the use of manners.
