She blinks as if she just ran into an invisible wall. “How do you know that?”
“Because I smuggled them to him in the iron caravans.”
“You are in bed with the Minotaur?” She looks as if she wants to drive a knife into my stomach.
“I can give you your inheritance. All of it. You. Not your father. You.”
“How?”
“No time. My life is in your hands. If you expose me, I’m dead and you get the petty satisfaction of revenge. If you say yes to my offer, you can be the head of House Carthii in a week.”
Her eyes dart to Tharsus. He’s gathered his friends. In a tight pack, they head for the table where they stacked their gravBoots. Calculating her chances of surviving her sibling rivalry and the time it would take to achieve the same goal, she looks me in the eyes and says, “Yes.”
Ambition is a reckless master. I turn off my jamField.
“Horatia will be in touch.”
Valeria watches Tharsus and his friends equip their gravBoots, and signals her brothers to stand down. Tharsus glances at me, his face pale, and takes off into the sky. His friends follow hot on his heels. They head east off the back of theLightbringer.My other guests have noticed the commotion now, and whisper to one another. I return to Rhone and Glirastes. Cicero joins me as I reach them.
“Lysander, we have radar signatures inbound,”Pytha says from the bridge.
“I see them,” Cicero says, spotting a squadron of dark shapes in the sky. Not ships. Men. “Are those yours, Lysander? They’re not ours.”
“No. Intercept them,” I tell Rhone. He motions the nearby Praetorians. They form up and are about to take off.
“Lysander. Hold,”Pytha says.“They’re broadcasting the Dictator’s writ.Olympic tag.”Everyone turns to look at me.“It’s the Fear Knight,”she says. A chill goes through me.
“It’s a legal action then. You have zero jurisdiction,” Rhone says.
“Stand down,” I mutter.
Rhone recalls the Praetorians.
Others see the inbound squadron and rush to the edge of theLightbringer’s hull to watch. Fear’s squadron, which must be made of Gorgons, descends from a higher altitude than Tharsus and his fleeing friends. They fall in the night sky like crows. Tharsus sees the interlopers and alters his escape trajectory. He and his friends dive down toward the blanket of clouds and disappear into them.
The Gorgons do not follow. My guests gasp and point as the clouds stutter with light. This time it is not fireworks. Tharsus flew straight into a trap waiting in the clouds. A few moments pass. Then Tharsus and only four of his friends race back out of the clouds. They flee right up into the waiting Gorgons. Disdaining weapons, the Gorgons catch Tharsus’s friends with their hands, pin their arms, and start beating them to death midair.
A single dusky figure emerges from the clouds to watch the scene. Atlas.
Tharsus spots Atlas. Even at this distance, I can feel Tharsus’s panic. The Gorgons block his exits, leaving him only one path of escape. He flees across the sky, back the way he came, to land hard amidst the party.
Valeria and her brothers laugh like hyenas at the sight of him. He is bloody, his left arm is broken, his fur coat ripped to shreds. He waves his razor and he calls out to me. “Lune! Lune! I am your guest! You must protect me!”
I lift my hands. “I am sorry. I cannot break the law. They have the Iron Fist.”
“Help me!” Tharsus screams at the guests. No one raises a finger. “Help—”
Then he hears Atlas land behind him. He goes still. Dread darkens his eyes. Shuddering, Tharsus turns to see the Fear Knight watching him from behind his pale mask of office. Tall, lithe, in addition to hisgravBoots, Fear wears gray armor styled with a moth motif. His blade is a long black hasta, slick with dark blood, and his right hand is sheathed in a heavy metal gauntlet.
The Iron Fist, writ of the Dictator.
Tharsus looks for escape. There is none. The Carthii cackle and urge him to come to them. “Help me! Someone! Help me!” he screams and starts for me only to find Rhone and a line of Praetorians barring his path. I feel a hand on my chest.
“There’s nothing to do,” Cicero says.
The Fear Knight comes for Tharsus. Finding neither escape nor aid, Tharsus resolves to die well. After a life of privilege, he is denied his last wish. His enraged attack is easily turned by the Fear Knight. After three slashes, Atlas raises the Iron Fist and Tharsus is snared by the device’s statis field. He floats, suspended in zero-G. Atlas cuts off Tharsus’s feet first, then his hands. The severed parts float in the field with their former owner.
Atlas makes a fist with the gauntlet and Tharsus screams as his limbs crackle and compound fracture in a dozen places. Only then does Atlas release him. Tharsus flops screaming to the hull. Wiggling wormlike to nowhere, he gasps as Atlas grabs him by the hair and drags him toward the menagerie. Atlas takes a golden serving bowl from a table as he passes, puts it on Tharsus’s head, bends the edges with his hands to enclose Tharsus’s head, then stuffs Tharsus into the manticore cage.
