52
DARROW
Sungrave
“Bloodydamn Bellona. What’s he doing?There’s three of them,”Sevro says from his perch on the ridgeline behind me. In reptile mode, our armor runs cold and has adaptive camouflage. Sevro is difficult to make out on any of my ocular filters.
From our vantage south of Sungrave, he monitors the approach from the south. I monitor the northwest. It is barren of life. The Obsidians have come and gone. The story of Sungrave seems no different from the tale we saw everywhere along our route. Death. Darkness. Silence. The only difference is the cemetery of war machines that sprawls out before the city. Sungrave did not fall without a fight. We checked the machines and found frozen Blues and Greens inside—not Obsidians at all. They had scars on their necks from pain collars. But it seems the enemy recycles, and took the collars back from their corpses.
“Three,” I say absently. “Should just be Cassius and Aurae.”
“Three.”
I frown. Frost crackles under my gravBoots as I slide down from my post, then jump thirty meters to join him in the shadows. He clings to the side of the dark rock like a gargoyle. “Lyria?” I ask. “She shouldn’t be off-ship with that concussion.”
“It’s not the Red. It’s the Raa.”
I pause. “He brought Diomedes?”
“Unless Lyria gained a hundred kilos overnight. Bellona’s off-mission.He’s masturbating over his own honor still. Maybe you need to offerhimthe airlock.”
“Let me talk to him this time.”
“It’s resolved,”he says.
“What do you mean?”
“Ain’t your business.”
“Keep watch.” I descend from our position to meet Cassius at the base of the mountain. Sulfur crystals clatter as he sets down on his gravBoots. His own Godkiller suit mutates with the changing light. Nivalnight is waning, and the pitch-blackness slowly erodes into a forge-like glow sometimes caused by the refraction of the moon’s volcano light on the particle-thick air. I expect him to babble on about the armor. Instead, Cassius’s voice is like that of a man attending a funeral.
“These poor people.I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“You will again if Atalantia takes Mars,” I reply. Perhaps too maudlin. “You brought Diomedes.”
“Yes. Can’t be just you and Sevro making the plan every time. I’m more than a pretty face and an excellent pilot. The Raa needs to see this, Darrow. He deserves to see this. I know you think he’s your enemy. But I was too, once.”I nod, thinking.“Was I so wrong to bring him? To not want him tortured? I know I’ve missed the war, but maybe that’s a good thing. You and Sevro are stuck in a brawl that you can’t look up from.”
“Maybe,” I offer him. “But you should have asked, Cassius.”
“Oh, like Sevro asked to torture him?”
So much for my authority. How is it easier to control an army of millions than my two best friends? I frown. Is Cassius a best friend? Weird how comfortable I am with the thought.
Aurae’s gravBike groans to a halt behind Cassius. Diomedes looms behind Aurae in the bike’s second seat. Even with her slender lines hidden by the bulk of her pulseArmor, she looks like a child sitting in front of a golem. Unarmored, he wears a boxy EVO suit. His face is hidden behind the dusky visor. His hands are secured behind him to the bike.
“Your idea?” I ask Aurae of Diomedes as she joins us. It’s clear she has a deep emotional connection to the man. She admitted as much to me after Sevro and Cassius fought.
“No. This was all Cassius,”Aurae says.“While Diomedes was one of my masters, you seem to forget that I chose to leave him. I am a traitor to him, in more ways than one. He has not spoken to me. Only to Cassius. I said we should follow your orders, Darrow. Diomedes may be a man who cannot tell a lie, but Cassius really has no idea how dangerous he is.”
Cassius presses the issue.“Diomedes had kin here,Darrow. If you let him search for them, he’s agreed to give you his parole.”
“Aurae, you know him best. Will he keep his parole?” I ask. “I know you’re on our side, Aurae. I promise I will not think your judgment compromised.”
“He is a gentle, sensitive man—”Cassius and I both look at the hulking beast sitting chained to the bike. His list of wartime heroics sings a very different tune.“He is also fair, kind, and honorable. But I have never seen him at war. And he has never seen his home destroyed. I cannot say what he will or will not do. Especially if he thinks you are involved in this.”
“Me?”
“The Raa considered you a grave threat, a new age Hannibal. Now many of your old braves are here.”
