I pick out two cubes, one with the Red sigil, one with the Gold. The only question I have left to ponder is which, were he in my position, Silenius would use first.
89
DARROW
The Only Path
It is a crimehow easy it is to forget home and those you love when you are at war. I used to feel guilty for how seldomly Pax would cross my mind. Usually it was only in a quiet moment before sleep or waiting for the shower water to grow hot. I would bring him mementos from distant battlefields as a way of proving he was in my thoughts. To him. To myself. To Virginia. Even to our household servants.
One of his favorite mementos was from the Himalayas on Earth. A Gold commando captain whose name I forget had a curious collection of glass globes that I discovered after relieving the man of his head. Inside the globes were tiny models of cities. Some had weather that shifted with the seasons. The one I brought home was a city trapped in perpetual winter.
I spent much of the idle hours in the Raa bunker recovering from my shoulder injury, finishing my memoirs to Pax, and telling him more and more about Cassius. That is probably why, as I emerge from the mouth of the Raa bunker three weeks after Lysander’s attack on the Garter, I think of that globe city and its fantastical buildings. Most of the atmospheric generators that allowed the bounty of the Garter to blossom and flourish on this hellish moon were destroyed in the two-day bombardment. But not all of them. Not Plutus’s. The atmogens were stationed beneath its everlasting defense shield, and though he could have, Lysander didn’t bother to send men to destroy them. As a result, a new climate has emerged.
Ash snows down on the buildings, on the blackened trees, on thebarren fields where it gathers in drifts that shift with the wind much like the sea. The air is cold and those who bundle themselves against it move hunched like mourners across a solemn winter landscape. The gold of wheat, the green of corn, the purple of plum, the red of pomegranate, the blue of berry bushes far as the eye can see has all been washed gray.
But not all is lost.
Overhead, dark ripWings perforate a cloud and bank toward the mass of a jade green warship that hovers over the dead city. More ships trundle to the east and west, along the ashen band Lune has made of the Garter. Their spotlights carve through the grimness, searching for more survivors. It is only a fragment of the efforts Volga has made to help the people of Io, and Volga’s contributions are only a piece of the puzzle. Even though they might help spot survivors, Volga is wise enough to keep her Obsidians on their ships.
Instead, smaller figures skip across the landscape like hares. The Daughters are not freshly arrived. They came to help a day after Lysander departed. It’s taken them weeks to find and uncover the collapsed bunker entrances. Until today, we were trapped beneath the surface of Io. At Plutus alone, I spot ten hearthcraft offering medical aide to refugees. These craft may be painted Raa black, but the hastily sprayed red owls on their wings mark the emergence of Athena and her Daughters as something far more important in the Rim’s political landscape than rebels or terrorists.
Standing by my side, Diomedes watches the Daughters’ hearthcraft with mixed feelings. His grandmother’s face is far less conflicted. Sour and humbled, she scowls at the hearthcraft only to shoot a glare at an Athenian frigate parked on a hill where apples once grew. “Are we to kiss their feet now? And thank them for stealing our ships? Our ships that might’ve made the difference against Fá?” she says. “We’ll see how long that lasts when the Shadow Armada arrives.”
It’s that sort of talk that makes me fear this moment of idealism will be washed away by realpolitik before too long. All my hopes rest on Diomedes and his fabled honor. It is precarious to put so much faith in one man, but no more precarious than putting my faith in Volga. So much balances on the good intentions of dangerous people. It’s enough to give a man gray hair.
“I do not kiss feet,” Diomedes says after a long moment. He scans theMoon Lords, seeing similar sentiments in their ranks. “But I will clasp hands.”
“I thought Lune didn’t use any atomics,” Gaia says.
“He didn’t need to,” I say.
“Then what is that mutant?” she says and points to a strange figure descending a building riven down its center by an orbital strike. The figure leaps from one side of the fissure to the other, before bounding our way.
I run toward him and he stops, takes off his helmet, and opens his arms for a hug. I slam into him and cling to him and Sevro hugs me back. “Cassius…” I say.
“I know.”
I break down and Sevro holds me, hard, not humoring me, but clinging to me too. I know Cassius always rubbed him the wrong way, but when I pull back I see tears in his eyes. “I’ll miss the prick,” he admits. “I’ll miss him a lot.” Sevro smells terrible, and like home. He presses his forehead to mine. “We saw the bombardment from halfway across Ilium. I wanted to come straight off, but Athena and Volga wouldn’t join their fleets. Lyria worked on Volga. I worked on Athena. Finally they agreed to move in concert, but Lune didn’t stick around to give battle.”
“He’s more afraid of Atalantia than he is of us,” I say. “We’ll make him pay for that.”
“Damn right.”
I tousle his warhawk. When he finally pulls back, he glares at Diomedes. “You idiot. What do you think this is? The Middle bloody Ages? The only thing Lunes honor is themselves. You had that piece of shit in your grasp, Bellona. This. It’s all on you, man.”
Diomedes holds out his hand and closes it over the ash that falls on it. “It would appear the lesson is learned.”
“Glad Bellona could pay for your education, fool,” Sevro growls.
“This man is the Hegemon of the Dominion now,” Gaia says. “The Moon Lords have resurrected Akari’s post for him. Show due respect. He is to be referred to as—”
Sevro turns on Gaia. “Shut up, crone. I know all about you. Athena’s educated me.” He spies armored figures descending from thePandoraand stalks toward the frigate on the hill. “Best not keep your saviors waiting.”
Gaia stares after him, then at Volga and her descending entourage the way Caesar might have regarded Gauls entering the Forum with weapons. “Is this why we lived? To ally with beasts?”
“If Mars does not feed us, we will starve or else crawl to Lune,” Diomedes says. “So yes.”
When we reach the hill, Volga and Athena wait on either side of a square table charred black during the bombardment. The two women are a study in opposites. Athena wears her helmet but also the oil-smeared jumpsuit of a laborer, and stands with a slouch. Volga has become a warrior queen in image if not yet in proof. A mane of blue feathers flows from her shining silver warhelm. I’m disgusted to see Fá’s warsaw clings to the mag-holster on her back. Yet Volga’s face, when she doffs her helmet, is covered in a mask of ash. She is bald too. I search for Lyria amongst the titans of her entourage and spot her soot-stained hands folded in front of her. It was not Volga’s idea to wear the ashes and so come bearing her shame on her face, but the fact that Lyria thought of it and convinced her means far more to me. She looks at me in pain and her eyes start to well up.
