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“You are brought here today before the People’s Tribunal so we may adjudicate your guilt or innocence as to the charges of: high treason, assassination of Dancer O’Faran and loyal senators of the people, election fraud, bribery, conspiracy to install despotism, embezzlement, and fornication with a known collaborator of the Core Golds, Daxo au Telemanus. How do you plead?”
I stare at them, finding it difficult to frown. They hold themselves with such ludicrous self-importance. Canaries pretending to be eagles. No, not canaries. Canaries can smell death coming. They’re dodo birds.
“Silence will not save you from these charges, citizen,” Publius says, frowning as an aide walks up and pours him a glass of water. Something moves in the glass. The robotic cameras go dead and drop to the floor, hacked. There’s a noise in the back of the court.
Something resembling a scream.
Publius shouts for the Wardens to investigate. Half of the two dozen make for the door, calling for backup as if their coms weren’t dead. I stare straight at Publius as the weapons fire outside and grow silent.
“Publius, what’s happening?” a Red senator asks.
“It’s Sevro!” one of them cries.
But Publius knows. He knows all too well, because moving in his glass is a squid. The remaining Wardens take defensive positions around the entrance and the senators. I look up at the ceiling as three transparent shapes drop from it.
They land beside the Wardens guarding Publius and tear off their heads.
Blood fountains onto the ghostCloaks. They deactivate to reveal three tall Go
lds in black armor embedded with the bones of complete skeletons.
I know their blood-spattered faces.
Each one was from House Pluto, the dark brotherhood my brother formed during our year at the Institute. They shared the hunting grounds with me as children and human flesh with my brother. Each was there at Darrow’s Triumph, and survived ten years in isolation. They are pale and mad from their time in our aquatic prison, and laugh as the Vox senators scream. The Wardens at the door are already dead. I tilt my head back just enough to see the rest of the psychopaths enter.
Seventeen remain of the blood-soaked Martian savages that my brother collected for his own personal quest to depose Octavia and reach the highest office in the worlds. Not a one of them is out of their thirties, and it seems a hilarious realization to think that perhaps their time in defeat will be but the footnote of their saga.
Lilath, Queen of the Syndicate, walks at the head of the pack.
She pulls off the Red face, wig, and contacts she wore at the Forum, and takes a black iron crown from one of her men and sets it on her head. She walks toward me carrying a Warden’s head. She rolls it like a playing ball toward the speechless senators. They murmur her name in terror. Several try to flee.
She runs a hand along the back of my head as she comes to a stop. “Publius, you’ve been very naughty.” Her voice is dead and empty of humor. “I gave you that seat and you try to kill me. This is not the behavior of a pet.” She produces a studded dog collar and a leash. “Come.”
Publius does not move. The Vox senators stare at him. “You’re in league with Boneriders?” a Red cries. “Have you gone mad!”
Publius has lost his voice. Lilath’s becomes a whip. “Publius, come.”
“You’re not a Red?” he murmurs.
Lilath tilts her head. “The right hand of the Emperor, a Red? Disgusting.”
“Begone, slaver!” a Blue shouts at her. “We are free men and women here! We wear your chains no more. We would rather die than—”
Lilath lunges in a way the Blue probably never thought possible. One moment she is beside me, the next, she has tackled the Blue and is hacking her face apart with an iron hatchet. When the Blue’s head is a ruin, Lilath walks back to me and holds out the collar, motioning, “Publius, come.”
Publius quivers and I feel sorry for him. How this all must have started as a distant fantasy when Lilath came to offer him her services. Closer and closer he drew to his prize, a year away, a week away, a day away, and finally he had power.
Now this.
That would test any soul.
His crumbles. He lowers himself to his knees and crawls to Lilath. She fits the collar around his neck very gently and strokes his face. “You will be a good dog, won’t you?” She stays face-to-face with him. “Won’t you?”
“Yes.” He lowers his head.
“Yes what?”
“Yes…domina.”
