I follow Cassius to find him reaching the bottom of the ramp to the cargo bay. Halfway to the machine shop, Sevro turns on Cassius and draws a knife from his boot. “Rich boy want a tickle too?” The blade is long, lean, and crooked. “I call this one Lysander.”
“Torture your prisoners. Hide behind a knife. You aren’t an Imperator. You’re a lonely little savage is what you are,” Cassius says.
Sevro plays offended. “It’s pronounced Goblin.”
“That man saved my life. He’s injured and a prisoner. It isn’t right…”
“Come again?” Sevro asks. “Sorry, can’t hear you. You’re too deep in the bottle. Echoing sound. Say it louder. Use that big Bellona chest.”
Sevro’s eyes twinkle like a kid’s with matches. These two have anger to exorcise and neither of them has fought anyone since Venus. I can at least try to contain this here. I feel a surge of petulance and contempt for the both of them. I wrestle down that emotion and try to remember what the book says:If you wish to be straightened, you must first be bent crooked.
Let them get bent then. I sit on a crate to observe and make sure they don’t kill one another.
Lyria rushes in, and I motion her to sit beside me. Confused, she heeds me.
“Diomedes is a prisoner of war,” Cassius says with princely dignity. “He has rights.”
Even I roll my eyes.
A sour giggle worms through Sevro’s teeth. It contorts into a chest-heaving laugh. Then it stops as suddenly as it began, his voice weirdly calm. “Your problem, shithead, is that you claw for every chance you can get to be the hero, because you know you’ll always be the villain. Can’t shake that Golden taint.” He winks. “Same reason Aurae will never give you the time of day. You’re stained, boyo.” He grins. “You are such a big pretty nothing. Couldn’t handle your brother dying in the Passage, even though those were the rules you people made. Had to pout. So big, so small. Needy little Bellona. Sad, lonely Cassius. You’re hollow, man. Can’t even stand straight without a woman inflating your spine.”
Sevro wags his knife at Cassius.
“Couldn’t save Julian. Couldn’t protect Quinn, couldn’t keep Mustang intrigued. You’re the shallow end of the pool. Couldn’t save your Sovereign, because you’re a traitor, then you couldn’t join the Republic, because you’re not welcome. Whole Ares thing. But the saddest shit is, you spent years on that Lune brat. Only to have him ditch you for the world that chewed you up and spat you out at the first opportunity he could get. Failures like that only come around once in a lifetime. Darrow’s too nice to tell ya, but hey. That’s what I’m here for.” He pouts. “Gonna go drink to numb the boo boo? You’ll still hate yourself tomorrow, fraud.”
The Lysander insult carves the deepest gash in Cassius’s heart. I feel sad for my friend, for the loneliness in his life after we killed Octavia, after Adrius killed his brother and sister. But I can’t stand up for him. He has to get through his guilt for killing Ares and stand up to Sevro himself.
Sevro’s tirade has the effect he wanted. Cassius takes a fighting stance and goes at him. Sevro sheaths his blade. Fists it is. Cassius feints a left hook, and puts a significant amount of his powerful frame into a line-drive of a right jab. Powerful or not, the jab is affected by the gin he’s had. Sevro is dead sober and spent his whole life baiting bigger men into unwise confrontations. He ducks and puts all his weight into punching Cassius in the testicles. Air gushes out of the bigger man.
Before Cassius can even double over, Sevro lunges up like a frog andbrings the crown of his head into Cassius’s jaw. Cassius’s teeth clack together. Cassius doesn’t go out, and it’s a miracle his jaw doesn’t break.
He staggers back and spits out half of a front incisor before squaring up again. Sevro never stops coming at him though and catches him with a flurry of jabs to his left ear, then almost breaks his ankle with a sideways stomp. Harried, Cassius stumbles back after an exchange of elbow strikes and gets some distance with a push kick that lands on Sevro’s lower chest.
“Stop him,” Lyria snarls. “He’s a monster. Stop him.”
“That’s up to Cassius,” I say.
“Look at the Morning Knight,”Sevro mocks and darts forward to daze Cassius with a jab combination that sends blood pouring from Cassius’s nose.“Losing again.”Cassius rushes him. Sevro evades easily and jabs him twice in his right ear.“That’s all you’re good for. Drinking and losing and—”Sevro lines Cassius up for an uppercut. It doesn’t land. Cassius steps into Sevro suddenly, crowding him and making the blow awkward just as he swings his left elbow into the exposed side of Sevro’s head. It hits Sevro’s skull with a crack. Sevro leans with the blow just enough to not get knocked out, but Cassius follows with a swing of his right elbow that hits Sevro in the side of the head. Crack. Sevro stumbles back, dazed, and Cassius delivers a right kick that smashes into Sevro’s guard. Sevro is lifted off his feet, hurled in the air to rebound off a crate. He wheezes for air, holding his ribs.
Cassius squares up and shakes his fists out. “Stay down.” He grins like his old self. The rotten self I thought he’d outgrown. “It’s not my fault you weren’t there when your wife needed you most.”
I must be missing something because it’s like Sevro’s been hit with a block of ice. He goes pale, and glances at Lyria with a look so wounded I realize there’s something I don’t know. Something terrible. Lyria is horrified.
“Cassius, stop—” she begs.
Sevro rushes Cassius in silence. He jukes sideways and under another of Cassius’s kicks and puts his shoulder into Cassius’s groin. They go down. Sevro clambers atop Cassius, and tries to bite his face. Cassius uses a kravat counter-leverage move to roll the two of them toward us. Sevro’s teeth snap at empty air. He ends up behind Cassius, raining blows on the back of Cassius’s head.
Lyria springs at them.
I grab for the scruff of her neck, but she’s oily from working on the ship and slips my grip. Shit. I jump up. Neither man sees her coming. Cassius thrusts back against Sevro with his hips, throwing Sevro off balance, and inverts their positions. As he does so, he brings back his fist to pound Sevro’s exposed face. But his elbow cracks right into Lyria’s face on his backswing. She reels back as if kicked by a sunblood.
She’s snoring before she hits the ground.
I shout for them to stop. Cassius glances over his shoulder to see Lyria twitching on the floor. Her nose smashed flat. Blood pours out. A second vile snore rattles out of the small Red girl. Cassius’s face falls. “No no no no no no.”
Sevro isn’t done. He scrambles to his feet and rushes Cassius. I slip from the box and kick him under his left shoulder so hard he’s lifted clean in the air and sent crashing into cargo boxes. He stumbles up oozing blood from his face, his left eye hidden beneath a mass of swollen, purpling tissue.
“Enough,” I demand.
