Even wounded, Cassius keeps his defensive discipline. He redirects Atlas’s blade into the deck, stomps on the tip with his boot, and backhands his razor toward Atlas’s head with his left hand. At the last moment, he converts his razor into a whip.
The whip snakes around Atlas’s neck with a snap.
Beautiful.
Atlas goes still. His hasta is stuck in the deck. Cassius holds him on a leash. The two fighters pant for breath. It’s only then I see the blisters on Atlas’s skin. Hewasboiling inside the shield when Cassius first opened fire on him. Cassius doesn’t dare take his eyes off Atlas.
I turn, scan the hangar. It is quiet. The jamField is still up.
The light is green. I wish Pytha could see. We’ve won. We’ve won. I stumble toward Cassius, searching the deck for my prize.
“Drop your blade and get on your knees,” Cassius orders. Atlas does not obey. “Lys?” Cassius calls when he hears me limping toward them. My legs give out and start to cramp. I fall to a knee. “You prime?”
“Prime,” I say.
“Flavinius?”
“Dead. Kill Atlas.”
I see my prize. Atlas’s pack: it’s halfway between Cassius and me.
“Kill him,” I tell Cassius again.
Atlas looks over at me like I’m a worm that has crawled out from an apple he was eating. “Ask Lysander about the weapon,” he says.
“What weapon?” Cassius asks.
“Silenius’s. Biological.Eidmi.It can target a Color. Any Color. On any—”
I shoot Atlas au Raa in the head. Everything above his eyes turns to mist. He teeters, takes a step, and falls. His bored smile remains. Mocking me.
I wait for something terrible to transpire. For Gorgons to rush in. For theLightbringerto break apart. For gas or snakes to hiss out from Atlas’s corpse. Nothing happens. The man is quite simply dead. Part of me didnot believe he could die. Watching his blood flow around the bits of his fragmented brain, I begin to accept it.
I push off the ground with the pistol and stumble up toward the pack. A weight slides off my chest, replaced by one far worse. Cassius turns on me with a strange expression.
“Lysander.”
“You need to leave before anyone sees you,” I say.
His eyes have fallen on the pack. I’m not far now. Only a few more steps.
“Lysander.Stop.”
My boots scrape forward.
“Take one of the nightRaptors…let Diomedes and Darrow know the deed is done.” I spit blood. My vision is clearing a little. “I’ll let you know when I have control of the ship. Then…we can talk accords.”
The pack is at my feet. I bend down to unlatch its clasp. It opens a little, but I dare not give it any more attention. Not with how Cassius is looking at me. I straighten. My heart sinks, because even Atlas’s last words have sown misery.
“Lysander, what did Atlas bring back?” Cassius asks.
“Peace.”
“Is that what he told you?” he asks. “Lysander, what is that?Eidmi.My linguistic education was not as expansive as yours, but that sounds like ‘I eat’ to me.” He takes a step forward, his razor bloody and straight in his left hand.
A loaded pistol can weigh twenty-four ounces or a lifetime of regret. At my side, Rhone’s is heavy in my hand. The magazine is full with armor-piercing rounds. I let Cassius see it.
A small laugh of surprise escapes him. The betrayal in his eyes shakes me. I never wanted to hurt Cassius, just like I never wanted to hurt Glirastes. Not ever. But war is a game of double down. Once it starts, if you flinch, it’s all for nothing.
