We free several slaves taken by House Ceres months prior. There are few, but most are House Mars or Juno. They find this new alliance strange, but it is an easy pill to swallow after months of toiling in the ovens.
The night ends on a sour note as I am woken an hour into sleep. Mustang sits on the edge of my bed as my eyes flutter open. When I see her, I feel a spike of terror in me, assuming she’s come for a different reason, that her hand on my leg means something simple, something human. Instead, she brings me news I wished never to hear again.
Tactus flouted my authority and tried to rape a Ceres slave during the night. Milia caught him, and Mustang barely stopped her from cutting Tactus a thousand different ways. Everyone is up in arms.
“It’s bad,” Mustang says. “The Diana students are in their wargear and are about to try and take him back from Milia and Pax.”
“They’re mad enough to fightPax?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll get dressed.”
“Please.”
I meet her in the Ceres warroom two minutes later. The table is already carved with my slingBlade. I didn’t do it, and it’s much better work than I could have managed.
“Thoughts?” I fall into the seat opposite Mustang. We’re a councilof two. It’s times like this when I miss Cassius, Roque, Quinn, all of them. Especially Sevro.
“When Titus did this, you said we make our own law, if I remember right. You sentenced him to death. So are we still doing that? Or are we doing something more convenient?” she asks me as though she already thinks I’m letting Tactus off the hook.
I nod, surprising her. “He’ll pay,” I say.
“This…it justpissesme off.” She takes her feet off the table and leans forward to shake her head. “We’re meant to be better than this. That’s all Peerless are supposed to be—transcendent of the urges that”—she holds up ironic airquotes—“enslavethe weaker Colors.”
“It isn’t about urges.” I tap the table in frustration. “It’s about power.”
“Tactus is of House Valii!” Mustang exclaims. “His family is ancient. How much power does that asshole want?”
“Power overme, I mean. I told him he couldn’t do something. Now he’s trying to prove he can do whatever he wants.”
“So he’s not another heathen like Titus.”
“You’ve met him. Of course he’s a heathen. But no. This was tactical.”
“Well, the clever shit has put you in a tight spot.”
I slap the table. “I don’t like this—someone else picking the battles or the battlefield. That’s how we will lose.”
“It’s a no-win, really. We can’t come out ahead. Someone is going to hate you either way. So we just have to figure out which way is the least damaging. Prime?”
“What about justice?” I ask.
Her eyebrows float upward. “What about winning? Isn’t that what matters?”
“You trying to trap me?”
She grins. “Just testing you.”
I frown. “Tactus killed Tamara, his Primus. Cut her saddle and then rode over her. He’s wicked. He deserves any punishment we give him.”
Mustang raises her eyebrows as if this is all to be expected. “He sees what he wants, and he takes it.”
“How admirable,” I mutter.
She tilts her head at me, lively eyes going over my face. “Rare.”
“What’s that?”
