The jarls all look at those with whom they have a grudge. For a moment, no one is looking at Sevro except Volga.
“So! With your consent, we will be your mediators in this transition period. Twenty-four hours from now you will meet on this island—furthest from my step stool’s favor—where you will vote on your new monarch. Each jarl will have two votes. Two! One for themselves. One decided by their braves. The braves cannot, I repeat, cannot vote for their own jarl. Recall your men. Bring your ships above these islands. If anyone leaves without a Howler escort, if anyone steals, if anyone kills, if anyone cheats, if anyone intimidates, they break Tyr Morga’s peace, and will earn hisashvar.” He gestures to me like I’m a show pony. “As you have seen, he’s gotten a lot scarier since you last saw him.But. He. Will. Not. Be. Your. King. He is not on the ballot and will not interfere.” Diomedes looks my way. “Ifyou do not like these rules, let’s have it now.”
I walk to a flat spot and draw both of my blades and wait in the silence.
“Good,” Sevro calls after half a minute passes. “Now sober up! Wash your beards! You’ve campaigning to do. If you haveanyquestions, I’m going to be on my wife’s ship testing out my new knives.”
He takes off. I offer Lyria a lift, but she turns me down. I follow Sevro into the air. We land a few minutes later in a hangar of thePandorathat Athena and Diomedes secured. Diomedes and Cassius land behind me. Gunfire rattles from deeper in the ship.
“Ascomanni are dug in throughout the ship,” one of the Kalibar Gold knights reports to Diomedes. “Resistance is stiff.”
Sevro gasps at the arcane symbols and religious totems erected by the Ascomanni in the hangar. “Jove’s putrid cock, this place is filthy.”
“Oh, now you care about a ship being clean?” Cassius says. “That’s rich.”
Athena rushes over from tending the wounded. “Is it done?” she asks.
“Fá is dead, but the menace remains,” Diomedes says. “Darrow hasseen fit to experiment with demokracy for his Obsidians at the expense of our people.”
Athena is torn at hearing that. “We agreed you’d get them off Europa, Darrow.”
“I will, and I’m trying to make sure they don’t nuke the place as they go, or steal millions of your citizens,” I reply, more than a little peeved by their pedantry.
Diomedes gets very close to my face. “We agreed: they would surrender all the people they have enslaved, all the loot they have taken, and leave. Now you will have chaos. Now the Ascomanni will flee and infest the Garter. You have puteverythingat stake.”
I take a deep breath. “They already infest the Garter. Do you have an army to cleanse that infestation? Do you have an army to smash the Volk? No. So your only hope is that that Volk army out there chooses to let shine the better angels of their nature. Your only hope, Diomedes, is that they help you. So please get out of my face.”
He is furious, and whips around when Sevro clears his throat.
Sevro and Cassius have their weapons out. “Victra’s employees are in slavery on this ship and have been for a year. My employees,” Sevro says and takes the Twilight Helm from, of all people, Cheon. Four dozen Black Owls await his orders. “So we gonna whine or we gonna go—”
“Sweep your halls?” Cassius drawls. “Waiting on you, Ares.”
“Idiot,” Sevro mutters, puts on the helm, and runs toward the gunfire with Cassius at his flank. Diomedes and I exchange another glare and follow with the Black Owls. We can argue later. For now, there’s killing to be done.
PART IV
BROTHERS
For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother.
—Homer
77
DARROW
Old Stoneside
Twenty-three hours after weleft the Volk jarls to begin their campaigning, I set down on an island in the northern Discordia Sea with Cassius. The light is a bruised blue. The water restless dark. There is not another island to be seen in any direction. Even in my armor, without its heater on it is cold this far north of Europa’s equator. I shiver. Cassius doesn’t. I wrap my thermal cloak tighter.
“So should I let you go in alone?” he asks.
“You’re the one who insisted on coming,” I say.
“Well, you’re injured and need a bodyguard,” he replies. “Savages about, not to mention Atlas.”
“If he’s not already back in the Core,” I reply. “Walk with me.”
