The tip of his razor wobbles just two fingerbreadths from my heart.
Even though I have made a ruin of him, I cannot tell if he could not kill me or would not kill me. Nor can I tell if he opens his arms to embrace me or if he’s simply teetering forward. A seizure wracks his once-powerful body. The blade falls out of his hands. I catch him and carry him to the ground, desperate for one last word from him. But Cassius is already dead and he is smiling.
The rest of the world vanishes. I see a black door. A hand pushing it. A chair waits for me between shafts of light. On that chair I see a boy whose feet don’t touch the ground. In his hands he holds a candle and with a single breath, he blows it out, and with it go all the shafts of light.
The hangar is quiet. My broken scarabSkin creaks as I twist around. I am alone. I am in an agony in which the pain of wounds is a welcome distraction. It is quiet, but for the first time all the strings are cut.
Gentle now that I can afford to be, I strain and lift Cassius to the side. Beneath him lies the pack. The solution to disunity. The greatest fear of my life grips me and I look at Atlas and his bored smile, then back at the bag. What if it is empty? The gun is still in my hand. Odd. I thought I’d cleared the clip. There is one bullet left, in the chamber. I set the gun within reach and I open the pack.
—
I stumble through the halls smearing blood as I go. I depress Kyber’s whisper beacon. “Kyber, need you.” An Orange mechanic ahead in the hall stares at me and my mutilations in horror. Cassius’s razor is in my chest now, just above the heart where I planted it. The Red fire team rushing down the hall to put out the evidence-destroying blaze in hangar 17B grinds to a halt as they see me dripping my way along.
“Assassins…” I hiss. Blood pulses through the wound in my cheek. The Reds form a human wall around me. Alarms begin to blare. “Get me…to safety.” I stagger and fall. The Reds catch me and carry me. Others form around like legionnaires to escort me to safety. They run with me through the halls, roaring for others to clear a path until Praetorians finally arrive and order them to put me down.
The Reds refuse at first and shout at the Praetorians, demanding to know why they didn’t protect me. I had to embarrass the guard. That was almost as important as burning Atlas’s body beyond recognition. To bind them to me, I had to make the arrogant guard look like fools who failed me, again. The Reds relent only when I whisper to them to hand me over. I raise a hand in thanks as the Praetorians rush me away to safety.
Demetrius storms up and almost blocks the way into the medBay when my Praetorians arrive with me in their arms. He is a totem of terror, but he lets us pass into the bay. Coriolanus, and others of his cabal, form a cordon around us after I’m set on the medical bed.
“What happened?” Demetrius demands.
“Assassins. One dead. May be more. Had help.” Each word is a misery with the wound in my mouth. “Find them, Demetrius. They killed them. They killed Rhone and Atlas. Markus and Drusilla too.”
Death enters Demetrius’s eyes. The suspicion toward me is there, but he’ll investigate first then turn that death on me if I’m to blame. For now, he wants immediate retribution. “Who?”
“The Raa prince…Dustwalkers. Find them. Kill them.”
He storms off with purpose, his cabal pounding after him. I will not see him again, I hope. Kyber comes to my side after the medici have removed Cassius’s razor. I shoo the medici from the room. “You need me,dominus?” she asks.
I pull her close and whisper. “Kyber, my defender. A coup. Surely you have felt it? In the guard?” I feel the lean muscles of her shoulder stiffen.She nods. “It was the cape on Phobos. Rhone poisoned me.” Her eyes go flinty. No doubt thinking of the sniper who prevented her from joining us on theDustmaker.“He was with the Fear Knight. They were trying to control me.I don’t know if there is anyone I can trust.”
“Me,dominus. I am your whisper.”
“Thank you, Kyber. It will ruin the guard if this comes to light. You have your own circle of trust?”
She nods.
“Demetrius and all in his cohort are to be found dead. Killed by the same Rim assassins who did this to me. Yes?” She nods again. “There are Gorgons hidden in level thirty-one, block C…make them disappear. Arrest Captain Pytha, no harm is to come to her. Will you do this for me, for the guard?”
“Thirteen isyourbody,” she says. “Demetrius. Slow or quick?”
“Quick, always. When we can.”
She almost smiles at my nobility.
“One more thing, Kyber. I dumped a black bag down the hangar’s waste chute. It will be in the recycling queue on level nineteen. Before anything else, retrieve that bag and hide it in my quarters.”
“Your will be done.” She salutes and slips way.
The medici drift in. “Patch only what you must to preserve my life,” I tell them. “My allies and the crew must see my state. We cannot sanitize the truth any longer.”
85
DARROW
Dusk and Dawn
Nivalnight approaches, and stillall I can think about is Cassius up on theLightbringerwith Lysander. A dozen of Gaia’s Dustwalkers lead me across Plutus’s skyway. I watch theLightbringeras we walk. Its spear shape is distorted. They’ve gotten a shield back on over the city, but it will take years to repair the damage from Fá’s attack.
