“I did have his full attention, Virginia. For a moment. In a dark street. He was tired, wounded but so was I. I broke his sword. Probably his arm. And put my razor through his chest. Then he fled and left his sword behind. It was not cowardice to run, he’d simply been outmaneuvered. Just as you are now.”
I nod to the statue of Darrow to the north. “Have you seen it up close yet?”
“Not yet,” he says. “But by week’s end, we’ll have pushed you off the pole, and I can take a closer look.”
“Pay special attention to what’s in his hands. It just looks like a sphere from far away. It’s not, at least in its details. It’s hundreds of manticores, hydra, skulls, hammers, eagles, a few Poseidons, mermaids, centaurs, and crescents he has taken from the prows of Gold warships. No room to include any from ships smaller than a destroyer-class. You understand? That is consistency against intense competition, Lysander. For twelve years now. One battle does not make you a lord of war.”
“I have Darrow’s blade. I have Darrow’s warship. Now I have more than a third of your moon. I also have seventy thousand of your best troops encircled in Sector Three. Your men are exhausted. We have legions that haven’t even landed yet. By the end of the week, half your army will be cut off and herded toward the Hollows, where we will kill them.”
“Fine. By the balls then,” I say.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You don’t have me by the throat. You have me by the balls. You can wrench and twist and it will cause me terrible agony. But in the end, they are just balls, and I am a woman, so I will go on, enduring without my balls and I will pester you with death by a billion cuts. Except it won’t be me. I am not a captain who goes down with his ship. I am aSovereign, who will delegate to people more suited for tunnels and darkness and the horrors that happen there.”
“Pegasus Legion is at less than half strength. You’d waste them here?”
“No. Rat Legion. I believe even you know them.”
By his expression, I see their reputation does proceed them. “They were on Mercury…” he says.
“Sure. Sure. But you know how legions work. Like snakes shedding skin. What we’re left with is the old skin between theaters. The tough skin. The veterans who earned their discharge. Ones that went toe to toe with Atlas. You know. Our worst, because they learned from the enemy. Odd, their centurions petitioned me personally to come up here. Something about you impaling their brothers and sisters from Heliopolis to Tyche.”
He sighs. “That was Atlas.”
“Poor man. Gets blamed for everything.”
“You judge my name, not me.”
“Yes. How unfair to prejudge a man based on something he can’t control.” I smile. “What reflection of you shall I judge then? Your company? Your politics? Your deeds?”
Gears move behind his eyes as he squints at me. “Bluff. All omens, no figures. You may have snuck in Rat Legion, but if you try to bring real numbers, Helios and Dido will eviscerate them as they come up the gravWell. We are invested in Phobos. We will take it.”
“Yes. Because youhaveto take it. Atalantia waits, licking her lips for you.”
“You could drag it out for months. But we both know where the battle for Mars will be won. On the ground. In the tunnels. All this is blood down the drain. Yours, mine, all while Atalantia grows stronger.”
Oddly enough, that is my problem as much as it is his.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ve seen footage of your address to the Two Hundred by now. I knew things were not perfect between you and your fiancée, but I must admit I hadn’t counted on you openly rebelling against her.”
“Can you blame me?” he asks.
“Not one bit. Truly, I thought it was an expertly navigated and well said bit of discourse.”
He smiles at that, the genuine compliment being received in kind.
“Virginia, I’ve known you almost my entire life. You’ve taught mesome of my most cherished lessons. Chief among them, that we as a people need a language other than violence, or this war will never end. In many ways you and I are more alike than anyone else in this struggle. We were both raised in the shadows of tyrants and expected to be the same. But you are not Nero any more than I am Octavia. You proved it by sparing my life all those years ago. Allow me to prove it now.”
At last, a hint of light.
“How?”
“A solution to this…quagmire. If you agree to quit Phobos with all your legions, I will guarantee safe passage to the planet.”
“Including those encircled?”
“Yes.”
