The venom drains out of the looks from Diomedes and Dido as they begin to construct their own narrative for the room’s silence. I improvise a little and flick my eyes up to Atlas. Just for a half second. Several dozen people see, and look. Helios is one of them. Then more look at Atlas. Then half the assembly is looking up to the gap in the awning at the man hanging over the silence like the Sword of Damocles.
It is a perfect answer as to the nature of the silence that grips the assembly. It seems to all as if everyone else has been cowed into silence.
Atalantia turns to look at me with a puzzled expression, but I remain the picture of fidelity to her. She squints around the room. “Nothing from you, Horatia? No quibbling from your morally august flock?” Horatia plays it up by looking down. Atalantia is starting to get angry. Like she said, she depends on dissent. Subjugation is not a good look in a crowd as pathologically competitive as this. A dictator is the highest peer, but a peer still. She looks like a sovereign. Worse. A queen.
“Quiet bunch today, Julia. May I speak now?” Atalantia asks. Julia waves her on.
Atalantia uncoils herself from her black chair of office to give what all have come for—her plan for the next stage of the war.
“My noble counterpart from the Rim speaks with wisdom hard learned. Yes. Dido,” she says, clutching at her own heart, “I feel your anger. Your rage for Mars. The flames lick my heart as they licked my father’s skin when Darrow and Apollonius burned him in his bed. But…we cannot run from hard truths. My friends, the hard truths are what we must address today.
“I hope it steels your heart to know that I concur. Yes! A Rain must fall on Mars!” Her supporters thump their benches all around me. I abstain. “The Ecliptic Guard must be smashed! Augustus rooted out from her father’s old den. Julii pulled down from her moon roost. Every traitor must be tried and hanged! Their slingBlades beaten into collars! Agea stormed! The helium liberated! But…” she says amongst thecheers of her supporters. “But…the hard truth is if you turn your back on a wild boar to kill the lion, the only thing you’ll bring home is a tusk through your thigh. That is why, yes! Yes. Mars must fall. And after Luna, she will.”
Her supporters fill the Colosseum with a roar of support that sends the crows in the attico scattering. Alone now in the high perch, Atlas catches me watching him. He tilts his head.
“Which is why…Which is why!” The cheers quiet as Atalantia lifts her hand. “I have accepted Lysander au Lune’s petition to lead the vanguard of the Luna Rain along with the legions of the gens Falthe…six months from now! So that when Luna is reclaimed and the Society restored, there will be once again a Lune upon the Palatine!”
Her hardliners applaud me and turn to shake my hand. Diomedes has had enough. He stomps down to the speaking floor and stalks out. If they’d planned to stage a walkout, Dido or Helios should have been the one leading it. Nonetheless, they nod to the others and begin to follow the Storm Knight out.
My dreams of a united Society will burn before my eyes if I stay seated.
I clock Horatia. She nods.
Now is the moment. All is arranged.
When he sees what I am about to do, fear grips Ajax. He steps forward from his station with the Olympics, his hand outstretched, imploring me to stay safe on my knees in Atalantia’s cage with him. Instead, I stand.
17
LYSANDER
Mars Must Fall
“Where have all theshepherds gone?” I shout.
Atalantia turns with all the members of the Iron bloc to stare at me. Ajax looks at the ground, already mourning me. I push my way through them down to the floor. Diomedes has stopped halfway out the exit. “The Diomedes I know does not run from a fight,” I call. “If you gave up so easily in the field, Earth would still be in the Republic’s hands. Stay. Hear me speak.”
“Why should I listen to anything you have to say?” Diomedes calls back. “Palantine serpent. All can see where you sit.”
“Do you seek to aid Virginia?” I turn on his mother and the rest of their deputation before scouring the risers. “Gold infighting with Gold. Is that not how we arrived here? How Darrow shattered our hold on the spheres? Why the Dockyards of Venus now rattle with civil strife? We allowed our enemy to divide us before. Bellona against Augustus! Rim against Core! We are victims of our own bickering. We’re doing it all over again!Vox clamantis in deserto!Can none of you see it? This. Is. How. We. Fall.”
“Lune boy. You do not have the floor,” Lady Bellona calls to me, mocking. “You like games, yes. Games have rules, so do we. Sit down. Mind your manners.”
“I invoke my right of interjection,” I say. “It is my due as a direct descendent of a Conqueror.”
“At least you remember the archaic rules. You’ll know then that you will need thirty members to validate your interjection.”
“Forgive him, Julia,” Atalantia calls. “Lysander found his way to a cup and lost his wits on the journey. His youthful passion is usually such a virtue, but this is his first summit. It’s all so very exciting for him.”
Many laugh at me, and not just the Irons.
“Drown with laughter that which you cannot retort, how gauche,” I reply. “Do I have thirty members?” Horatia and her entire bloc raise their hands, as I asked her to arrange earlier in the morning. “Princeps Senatus,I have thirty members. I’ll wait while you count.”
I earn a few laughs. The Moonies are more than a little mystified by the theatrical style of our politics. Dido nods to Helios. They don’t retake their seats, but they wait. Julia makes a show of counting and sighs as if it’s out of her hands. “He’s right, Atalantia.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Atalantia mutters.
“You fuck off. On what grounds do you interject, young man?”
