He scoffs at the knicks on my chin, and begins to shave his beard right in front of me. “Social conditioning,” he says and continues both chattering and shaving as we descend to the training grotto. “Pervasive marketing. It’s the companies really. They get you when you’re young.”
I tune him out and eventually he runs out of opinions on the topic. Unlike me, he doesn’t cut himself shaving once.
The seawall that once sheltered the grotto lies only a few paces above the waterline now. The statues of the gods that surrounded the grotto were too weak to face the ocean’s storms, and many of the gods who watched Lorn practice the Willow Way lie broken. I clear barnacles and seaweed from the training floor with Pyrphoros to reveal the willow tree inlaid into the stone. It is identical to the one in his old estate on Mars. I feel another deep pang of nostalgia.
Several disembodied fingers from one of the statues lie on the training floor. Setting my knee on the outsized digits, I kneel, about to say a silent prayer to Lorn. I feel Cassius watching me. “You know, when Lorn left Mars for Europa, he wanted me to withdraw from my position as Nero’s lancer and come with him to finish my training,” I say.
“You regret not going?” Cassius asks.
“No. But I always wonder what if I had.”
“Well, you’d have missed the gala.” I look up at him and he’s pointing at me like I said it. I laugh. “I think you’ve finished your training at this point. So why are we here?” he asks.
I look around. “I came to say I was sorry to him. About Alexandar.”
Cassius looks down. “Ah.” He hesitates.
“What?”
“Well, do you think that’s right?” he asks.
“What? Praying to a dead atheist?”
“Well, yes. That. But also apologizing?”
“Alexandar died as my lancer,” I say. “Lorn lost all his sons to war. He didn’t want their daughters or sons to go the same way.”
“Yes. Well. From what I hear, Alexandar died being a bit more than a lancer,” Cassius says. “Don’t give me that shrug as if I don’t know. Sevro told me some things about him. More than just the Tyche bit.” I frown. “Yes, Sevro and I are capable of exchanging information when you’re not around. Gods. You really are so arrogant. Anyway.” He sits on a god’s face. “I only knew Lorn from afar, but I think he would be flattered if people said you were a reflection of him.”
I wince at that.
“Even without the beard?” I ask.
“Even in the asteroid belt we heard stories about you. Not all worldbreaker ones either. That time you had Pax whip you at the Institute? I was pouting in Castle Mars at the time. Then eight years later some pirate in an asteroid cantina tells me about it in the middle of an unbidden lecture on leadership. Gods, she rambled on. Point is, students are always a reflection of the teacher, Darrow. Fá was for Atlas. You are for Lorn. Alexandar was for you.”
I nod. Seeing his point. “Colloway is that for Orion. And Lysander is for you,” I say, knowing he needs someone to say it and clear that last ledger for him. “In the end.” He leans back and breathes out. “Does Diomedes strike you as a man in the habit of giving compliments?” I ask.
“Gods. Not even with a gun to his head. Whatever does Aurae see in him?”
“Truth,” I say. “I’ve never met a man who means what he says more than that one. So when he says Lysander was a man of honor, that he cared about the Rim, that he saved Diomedes’s life and sacrificed his own, do you think that’s a reflection of Octavia or you?”
He grins. “Well, me, obviously. I’m famously selfless.”
“You’re actually getting that way,” I say. “It’s not unnoticed.”
“What? Did somebody compliment me?” he asks. “It’s the jawline. Isn’t it selfless, really. I take the pressure off everyone else. They don’t have to worry about being the most handsome in the room. They can justbe. Ah. Heavy is the chin that sets the bar.” He tilts his head. “Do you hear that?”
“A ship,” I say.
Our radios squawk a moment later. It’s Lyria. Cassius brightens up.
“…this is Lyria. Howler One, Eagle One, do you read?”
Cassius holds up a hand to me. “Who?”
“Lyria. Requesting—”
“Who?”
