“Oh, we know his style,” Thraxa says. “Rhonna. Darrow’s niece. It wasn’t Atlas who beat her face in. Your boy did that, after he shot Alexandar in the head. Not in combat. While they were having drinks.”
Cassius frowns. “Alexandar au…”
“Arcos,” Colloway says coolly. It’s the first time since he arrived that I’ve seen him look at me with any degree of sympathy. “He was Darrow’s archLancer, Bellona. He was an arrogant shit, but the best soldier I’ve ever served with. Full stop. He offered Lysander blades. Lysander declined. Took his head off at range. His own cousin’s.”
Cassius’s face falls. ArchLancers to an Imperator are often as close as children. The guilt on his face is exactly why I didn’t tell him. It’s not his fault, and I didn’t want his sympathy.
I miss Alexandar. We all do. Which is why we all feel so sick looking at Sevro’s auction.
Harnassus steps up to me, gentle. “Darrow, I know no one wants to be the one to say it, so I will. There’s nothing to do here. We’re millions of clicks behind enemy lines. Thanks to Bellona we have helium, and the reactor repairs on theArchimedesare being finalized. We should burn for Mars while we still can.”
I stare at Sevro’s image. The Dockyards of Venus are not so far away.
He’s close. Closer than I thought.
Love for Sevro or hate for the horned one? Which is it that draws me like gravity?
“Why did we survive Mercury?” I ask. No one answers. I look around the room. “Why did we survive this prison here?”
“Darrow, we haven’t survived yet. Not until we get home,” Harnassus says. “Every day you’ve held us together, telling us home would soon be in reach. Now it is. Now is your chance to get back to our forces. To Virginia…to your son.”
I resist that current and feel the pull of this new one.
“We survived so we could make a difference in this war,” I answer for them. “The fight on Mars begins over Venus. The ships of the Ash Armada come from one place and one place only—the Dockyards of Venus. Atalantia betrayed Apollonius to us. The man is pathologicalwith his grudges. So, the only reason she’d let him keep those dockyards is because she believes he has the ability and the willingness to destroy them. I left Apollonius with only a handful of men. Which means there are only a few ways he could present that dire a threat. Bombs, no? That gives us an opportunity.”
Harnassus blanches. “Darrow…you can’t.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Look at us. Look at yourself. We’re hanging on by a thread.”
“But we’re hanging on,” I say. I glance at Char. “Only half dead.”
Char is done. “My gifts belong to the Republic. I will not squander them on another one of your suicide missions, Darrow.” He gets up, lights a burner, and walks out.
I glare daggers at his back. Least he got his food.
Thraxa may not like Char’s lack of tact, but she agrees. “Darrow, whatever luck we had, we spent getting off Mercury. With Orion dead, it has to be you who leads the fleet. Our priority must be to get you home.”
Only Screwface has not spoken. His rancor at Sevro has been replaced by a look of abject sadness. Whatever complaints he had, he loves his friend. Still he shakes his head at me, begging me not to consider it.
I look at the rest of them. I saw enough hunger strikes in the mines to know how they’re broken. Magistrate Podginus would pretend to agree to the terms. He’d descend with food. Roast chickens, fresh bread, hunks of steak glistening with fat. Then he’d find a technicality. He’d hem. He’d haw. He’d sigh. And he’d renege on the deal. It’d only take a day or two for the first strikers to cross the line. People can endure anything except false summits. False summits are where they break. My friends broke the second Cassius waltzed in with that helium.
My heart is often iron, but it melts for the broken.
They will try a peaceful mutiny. I can smell it in the air. They love me, but they will restrain me. I can’t let it go like it did with Wulfgar. So I feign a surrender.
“I’m tired. Give me the night to think it over. Is that fair?” I ask.
“Of course,” Harnassus says, relieved. “You know how much Sevro means to all of us.”
Screwface nods and wipes his eyes. Thraxa squeezes my shoulder with her metal hand.
I return to staring at Sevro as my friends leave. His expression isfrozen at the very moment he realized he was being sold at auction. The very moment he realized he’d become a piece of meat.
I massage my aching left arm, hating my frailty.
“Are you prime?” Cassius asks. I turn. I was so focused I did not realize he and Aurae had remained behind. He leans against the wall beside the door observing me from the shadows. Aurae’s eyes are still closed, her face far off and pensive. I don’t answer and turn back to Sevro, thinking.
