By the time Kavax makes it back to me, I am ready for the enemy to come. I have more reasons to fight than they do. My armor is my love.
15
LYSANDER
Earth
Squinting into the sun,my old friend Ajax waits to greet me on the tarmac outside Atalantia’s citadel in New Sparta. He’s fully armored. I’m sluggish, recuperating from the beating and Earth’s gravity. Ajax mistakes my sluggishness for fear.
“You look frightened. Already missing your circus?” he says.
“The circus has kinder beasts,” I reply. He grunts.
“Except for the manticores, I hear.”
We watch Atalantia’s war machines slump across the horizon and her troops on PT jog in the distance. Everywhere I look, I see the banner of House Grimmus.
While I’ve spent the last half year building my reputation as an administrator and peacemaker, Ajax has spent it rebuilding the reputation Darrow crushed before the storm wall of Heliopolis. He hunted Darrow for months, unsuccessfully and to much snickering, before Atalantia grew tired of that sad spectacle and recalled him to use as her own personal wrecking ball. But she still refuses to trust him with higher command and to grant him the respect that comes with it.
“I wish you had accepted my invitation to the festival,” I said.
“As a rule, I don’t accept invitations to parties from men I’ve tried and failed to kill,” Ajax replies. “Nothing personal.” His eyes fall on my face and the pinkish shadow of healthy skin where my atrocious scar from Darrow’s boot used to be. “I see vanity won out. Thank Vulcan. That thing was monstrous. People will think you’re a Moonie keeping scars like that.”
“Atalantia’s vanity. Not mine.”
His eyes narrow. “It was like that then?”
“Yes. She had it removed from my face in transit from Mercury, after having her goons beat me to smithereens.” I apply ointment to the new pink flesh on my face. “Hurts like mad, you’ll be happy to know. The liver worse than the face, though.” I run a finger along the Peerless scar on my right cheekbone. “Least I got to keep this.”
“It’s vainer to keep marks like that burn. Darrow took my nose once. Imagine me, walking around like a serpent. Imagine him walking around without the fingers I took off his left hand when I was seventeen. Scars are for the poor or the pompous.” He searches behind me. “Where’s your new man friend? The talkative idiot?”
“Cicero, a perfectly lovely human being, is managing the conclusion of my games,” I say.
“Hiding behind his sister’s skirts, you mean. At least she’s brave enough to attend Atalantia’s summit, even though it’s Cicero’s duty. Truly, you must thank your stars to have finally found a friend you can count on.”
“Are you allowed to be jealous when you tried to kill me twice?” I ask.
He pats his razor. “This says I can be anything I gorydamn want to be. You’re welcome to disagree. Others have. You should ask them for advice, but you’ll have to brave the sun.”
I wonder how many Ajax has sent to their sundeaths. Even if I knew, my opinion on duels could not sour any further. I don’t know what transpired on the Venus docks between Darrow and Apollonius, but I’m sure when it all went wrong, it was certainly because of the latter’s lust for a duel.
“I thought you’d be rushing to hunt Darrow,” I say. “I’m sure those holos of Sevro, Cassius, and him running through the halls of the docks caused quite a stir.”
“I’m on assignment.” His eyes twinkle. He may hate Darrow, but any success Darrow has against Ajax’s competitors lessens Ajax’s own shame. “The Minotaur choked onthatmeal. But then again, so are the Carthii choking on theirs. Mad shit, that battle.”
“I imagine Atalantia’s sending a strike force?”
“Ten legions. First time I’m glad to be missing the action. All those meatstraws.”
“So you’ve come to what, gloat?” I ask.
He raps his knuckles on his gear. “I don’t need armor to gloat. I have an action today in South Pacifica.” His tone softens, and his natural awkwardness slips through, making him seem almost sweet. He’s unable to meet my eyes. “I just came to say…when Atalantia strikes you, don’t hit her back. Certainly don’t laugh. Go to your knees. Not too quickly though, or she’ll think less of you.”
I feel a pang of sorrow for him. “Is that what you did all these years?”
His mood darkens and any chance of him answering vanishes when Atlas joins us.
“Storm,” Atlas says. It is the coldest greeting between a father and son I have ever heard.
