TheArchimedesidles in the hangar. Before I called down to Diomedes and Darrow, I had Kyber send a team to retrieve it. Thanks to Atlas, I knew right where it would be. It was bad enough to kill Cassius. I could not bring myself to also destroy his ship. It feels like it is part of him, and if it is destroyed, he will truly be gone.
Pytha stands over Cassius’s corpse, which lies atop a gravSled. I approach and set down the helmet of Ares on the sled. He took it long ago when he knew his duty. Seems right he should keep it. Pytha does not look up. Cassius is dressed in a snow-white tunic and pants. I had Exeter sew a Morning Knight badge onto one of my cloaks for him. He does not look asleep or at peace in death. Too much damage was done to his corpse by my Praetorians after they saw Rhone’s body. Knowing that this is not how I wish to remember him, I close my eyes and picture the first time we met in the halls of the Citadel of Light. How dashing he looked standing between pillars gripped by jasmine, his blue cape fluttering, the Bellona wings on the shoulders of his court armor catching the light like pearls. I hang my head in wordless sorrow. If only he had left when I asked.
I consider entering theArchimedesagain, but there is nothing waiting for me inside except the past, and the past is dead.
Pytha’s eyes are bloodshot. Her work of sneaking Cassius aboard was discovered not long after I relieved her of command. My Praetorians, except Kyber and her circle, think she already escaped. She speaks only when I free her from her manacles. “You’re still sacking the Garter,” she says, noting the faint tremble of the ship.
“Yes.”
“Seventeen hours.”
“Yes,” I say heavily.
“If I ever see you again, I will kill you,” she says. “So why not kill me now? Too good to punch down?”
“I’m not a monster, Pytha. Cassius was an enemy combatant. You are not a fighter. I cannot kill you in cold blood any more than I can bearto bring his body home to his mother. I know that is not what he would have wanted. In the end, he chose Darrow. The Republic. They killed him, so let them bury him.”
She won’t even look at me. “Did he kill Atlas?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You didn’t deserve to kill that dragon. Cassius did. He was a true knight. Can I go?”
Wounded that she has nothing more to say, I nod. She pushes Cassius along on the gravSled toward theArchimedesand disappears inside. She will go to the Republic, I know, and carry with her sensitive information. But I know what she knows, and that presents opportunities to lay traps.
The ship rumbles as it lifts off. I feel a little sad as she turns the cannons my way. When she discovers they do not work, she flies out of the hangar and soon disappears. Kyber waits for me by the exit.
“Kyber, I owe you a great thanks. Not merely for helping me stop the Fear Knight’s coup, but for bringing honor back to the guards. I want no more of this kill-pool nonsense. No more cabals within cabals. There are still Gorgons amongst the ranks. We will sniff them out together.”
“Thirteen is a sacred legion,dominus. It’s part of the body of the Blood. It is a part of you,dominus. I will allow no corruption to gain a foothold.” I touch her shoulder. The whisper has never spoken more than in these last twenty-four hours, but command suits her, and the men respect her.
“With Rhone dead, there are very few candidates to replace him as Dux. There are many Golds who have already solicited me for the post. But it is important for all to know how close Gray is to my heart. I need someone the Praetorians respect. The post is yours, Kyber.”
Kyber salutes. “Gratitude,dominus. I will support you in every endeavor.”
I pat her shoulder and my com trills with an urgent message from the bridge.
—
I stand with the holograms of Cicero and Pallas reviewing the sensor report from their scouts. “Do we have any idea where this second fleet came from?” I ask.
“No,”Cicero says.“They are mostly Rim-style designs, some decades old, but it looks like thePandorais the flagship. Very strange.”
“We can’t hit the Volk fleet before they unite,” I say. “And it looks like combined they will cause us some problems, perhaps even have theedge. It’ll almost certainly come down to boarding actions. We’re faster than the Volk, so I’m of the mind to pass on this scrap. What do your clients think?”
Pallas laughs.“When your transports dropped off their packages, their eyes started glowing.”I gave a few of the horticultural spoils to each of the houses that contributed ships. Nothing compared to my own personal share of the treasure, but the revenue from just a single breed of bean or tree will pay for their expedition and more, far more.“I say we head home with the victory, the riches, and get back to the real war. If these mongrels want a fight, let them meet there where we outnumber them four to one.”
“I agree,”Cicero says.“My sister’s held down the fort long enough. Mercury will bloom after this, and my clients have barely lost five hundred men and women all told. Enough shadows and dust. Let us go home. I long to feel the sun.”
“Home it is then,” I say.
I take a seat in Pytha’s chair as the pilot guides us away from Mercury.
I look at the world I leave behind. The green band that once circled Io’s equator is gone, replaced by a conflagration that mirrors the hellish flames of Io’s many volcanoes. I wish I could finish off the Volk and be certain Diomedes and Darrow are dead, but with the bounty of the Rim in my pocket, my Praetorians scourged of the disloyal, the Ascomanni purged, and the strings that made me a puppet excised from my limbs and heart, I give the order for my ships to sail back to the Core at full torch.
Later, I return to my room and sit in the quiet in the place where I sat when I spoke with Cassius. The imprint of his body still marks the sofa where he sat. I feel empty and melancholic, but also strangely at peace. I fetch Atlas’s bag from where Kyber stored it and set it on the table. I open it. Inside, still stained with Cassius’s blood, are fourteen golden cubes.
I think that’s where I went wrong with Atlas. He might have needed Diomedes or Vela to open the vault, but I don’t think Diomedes knew anything about Orpheus orEidmi. Knowing the Rim there was probably some old blind White hierarch who held the secret, and would whisper it in the ear of a Raa should the dread weapon ever need to be used.
