“My son Atlas knows that my duty to the hierarchy supersedes all others. Even my great love of Rim independence. That is why he told me of his work here face-to-face. He knows I will be trapped in silence. He knows I understand the chaos that will awaken if his work here seeps into the light of day. He even granted me a boon, and said Fá would solve the problem of the Daughters for me. His last words were, ‘Do your duty, Mother.’ ”
I stare at Diomedes. His face is unreadable. “Diomedes, you can’t really go along with this. You can’t be that full of shit—”
Gaia looks at her grandson with absolute love. “Diomedes is a servant of the Dominion, of his ancestors, of the hierarchy.” She extends Pyrphoros to him.He takes it. “The blood of Akari swirls in his veins, so he will do his sworn duty. He will keep his silence, he will bear this disgusting lie for the greater good. And he will kill you. Here and now.”
“What of my guest rights?” I ask.
“Have you eaten bread?” she asks.
I almost laugh again. I’ll die because of a bloodydamn technicality?
“So what does she make of your new oath, Diomedes?” I ask.
“I was waiting for the proper moment to tell her. It is now.” He looks at the guards by the door. “Leave.”
They wait for Gaia to nod before obeying.
When they have gone, Diomedes stares hard at me, then wraps Pyrphoros around his own neck, hands his grandmother the handle, and then goes to his knees. Gaia stares in shock. “What is this?”
I feel exultant and watch Diomedes in admiration. A true man of honor.
He looks up at his grandmother and says, “Gold has failed its duty, Grandmother. In the Core, and here. When we failed to protect thepeople even from our own blood, the Daughters of Ares had to for us. How then are they terrorists? On Europa, they saved millions, both by harboring refugees and taking part in the assault on Fá. When defense was needed, they offered it freely and paid with their lives. I have sworn to protect them, to take up their cause as my own. Tonight, when I become Hegemon, I will deal with the matters before us, but I will, in time, pursue the cause of dismantling the hierarchy. I will reform our laws. I will demolish the Krypteia. You’ve said it yourself. The Achilles’ heel of the Core has always been greed, and ours has always been pride. I tire of both, so do the people. Gold has failed. We need order, yes. But not the same order that brought us here.”
Horrified, Gaia looks about to reply, but Diomedes is on a roll. It is the most verbose I have ever seen the man.
“I will not swallow this monstrous lie of Atlas. I will not make nice with Atalantia, who treats the lives of millions as a game. Akari asked for Gold to be philosopher kings. Maybe we were that way once. Now we are just dragons guarding our treasure. We may be superior in intelligence, in our life spans, in our capacity for violence, but not in our humanity. We failed, Grandmother, long before Atlas set his warlord on us, long before Rhea. We are medieval. We are grotesque. I love you with all my heart. But you represent a past that fears the future. I will not accept that. So, if it is true that the young cannot teach the old, and the old must always teach the young: kill me, for I will learn no other way.”
If anyone else had said such a thing to Gaia, she would laugh at them, but Diomedes is not a man fond of hyperbole. Gaia watches him with shock, then disbelief, then horror, then anger, and finally absolute misery. A burst of grief escapes her mouth. Tears stream. “No. Diomedes. No. No.” She flings away the handle of the weapon and tries to pull him up but it’s like moving an anvil. He pushes the weapon back into her hands.
“Diomedes stop this. It’s because of her. Isn’t it? That viper in our garden.Aurae.She’s cast a spell on you.” She slaps him. “Wake up.” She slaps him again. “You betray all your ancestors. Our family has been devoured! You are our future!”
“I am,” Diomedes says. “So believe in me. I will honor Akari. I will protect the people. I will bring order, but in my own way.”
Gaia looks up to the ceiling as if to ask the heavens why they cursed her with this affliction. Then she hardens, looks at her grandson, wrests her thumb on the retraction toggle on the handle of Pyrphoros, as ifshe’s about to take off his head. He watches her in sadness, but he will not yield, he will not bend, his convictions are iron, and when she realizes that, Gaia breaks. The weapon falls from her hand and she sinks to the floor in grief.
Diomedes unwraps Pyrphoros from his neck and wraps his arms around his grandmother. He whispers to her and she buries her head in his chest. All the grief from these last months, and maybe even this last decade, pours out of her. Her frail body shakes for some time before growing still. After a few minutes, Diomedes helps Gaia stand. “The summit is nigh. I will need your support, Grandmother. This family has more to do.”
Her eyes are raw and red from crying. They fix on the floor. She is frozen.
“Grandmother?”
“I heard you.”
“Will you help us?”
“I cannot…but I will not oppose you.”
“That is not enough,” he says and tilts her head up and looks her in the eyes. “When my brother died at the Battle of Ilium, you told me it was my duty to take his place as heir to the Dominion. You are the matron of House Raa. But you are more than that. You are our link to the generations who came before. Most of your contemporaries have faded into the mists of history. It is not yet your time to fade. Shine bright for me, Grandmother. Lend me the light of your wisdom, your cunning, your fame. Atlas claimed your duty is to keep his secret. Atlas is wrong. Your duty is not silence. Your duty is to use your voice.”
The words and the conviction behind them animate Gaia.
She touches his cheek. “My little storm. I have waited so long for you to realize your strength is not in your arms. That it is like this…” She laughs. “I will never agree with you on this course of action. But…maybe that is natural. I am the dusk now. You are the dawn. I have lived. I have had my say. I will help you have yours. That is what your mother and father would have wanted.”
I look out the window. The darkness beyond the Garter is now complete.
“It is nivalnight,” I say. “It’s time.”
“Then we go,” Diomedes says. “And we must trust Lysander and Cassius will meet us at the summit.”
