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—
Atlas au Raa waits at the Grimmus shuttle eyeing the ceremonial dress of my guards. It is a product of chance that he survived the Long Night. When the power died, his cell
went into lockdown. I hear the queue to kill him was a thousand men deep. How he must have smiled at them as they beat at the doors. Rhone says it took the man’s Gorgons four hours to drill into the cell to free him.
He looks peculiar groomed and without his desert gear. His Fear Knight ceremonial armor is bone white and perversely etched with screaming children. Unlike most, he does not hide his true vocation behind gilded heraldic symbols. Yet there’s an anxiousness to him here in civilization which I did not see in the desert, a sort of alienation from the very thing he sought to protect.
“Aren’t you minorly overqualified for an escort?” I ask.
He eyes the Praetorians. “Aren’t they minorly overdressed?”
“For a funeral?” I ask.
“Kalindora has several days yet,” he says without pleasure. It says something about Kalindora that even a man like Atlas would look at his toes considering her death. “I know the poison. It is favored by the skuggi. Slow but thorough.”
“We both know I wasn’t speaking of Kalindora.”
He eyes me with amusement. “Well, Lune, I suppose that depends entirely upon you.”
Our shuttle arrives at the staging area outside the storm wall of Heliopolis. The triumphal arch that was commissioned in haste by Glirastes stands before the open gates. It is the most heterogenous gathering of any Triumph I can remember. Glirastes’s servants mill together, gawping at the spectacle as they share cups of wine and receive instructions from the Copper planners. Hundreds of the loyalists who answered my call and risked their lives to save their city are here. Most are midColor, though many low are amongst them. I could not have designed a better message to the people gathered here. You saved your city. You walk with me. Behind them, sprawling out into the desert, are the hundreds of thousands of soldiers captured in Ajax’s failed assault on Heliopolis. Their line snakes four kilometers long. Gold, Gray, Obsidian, and Blue drink down spirits passed out by Reds and Browns. Together they sing the ancient hymn Battlecry of the Lightbringer.
If only Aja could see this. If only my parents could.
A buzz goes through the assembly as I walk to my place at the honored fore with Glirastes and Rhone. The drunkest of the loyalists shout my name or begin to applaud. A Copper actarius bustles over to me with a huge datapad and a gaggle of assistants. She greets me with alacrity and guides me to my chariot. “It is made of the finest Mercurian onyx, dominus. A gift from the Dictator herself. It is incredibly light compared to most triumphal chariots, and with four of the Dictator’s bucephelon geldings to pull, your charioteer will be—” I raise a hand. She stops mid-sentence.
“Of course she favors geldings,” Rhone whispers.
I hide a smile.
“You expect a self-respecting Lunese Gold to ride in onyx like a Venusian sprite?” Glirastes replies. “Au Lune has brought his own chariot.” Several Praetorians wheel it forward from one of Glirastes’s shuttles.
“But the color coordination!” the actarius squeals before my Praetorians guide her away. Rhone stays to oversee the sunbloods’ transfer to the white chariot Glirastes had made specially for the event.
Pytha watches me from amidst Glirastes’s servants. They lower their heads as I approach. My friend held me in her arms for three whole minutes when Atalantia’s men delivered her to the estate. She tilts down her eye shades at me.
“My liege,” she says with a bow. Since I told her Cassius was alive, she has been distant, spending most of her time in Glirastes’s gardens. “I’ve decided I’ll be sticking around.”
I’m stunned. It is not what I expected. “May I ask why?”
“You need me more than the old boy does.” Her eyes dart about at the sycophants watching us. “Be a shame to see you survive the desert only to die in your sleep.” She jerks her head. “Now get. The worlds await you, my liege.”
I return to the chariot to see the horses ready to go. Rhone pats Blood of Empire on the neck and begs a word before I mount. His eyes focus on my chest. “I merely wanted to say, formally…We failed your family. More than once. I…I never thought I would see the Praetorian Guard reclaim its honor, my liege. I never thought I could reclaim my own. But you gave us the opportunity.” His eyes find mine. “We will not fail you.”
There’s equal parts pride and humility in this man. I wish he knew for a single moment how high the legions hold him in esteem, but if he were capable of knowing, he would not be Rhone ti Flavinius. I worry for him, for what awaits at the end of this Triumph. I have seen how easily lives are spent.
I do not wish to spend him or the three hundred who survived the Ladon.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “I believe for some reason that our fates are entwined, Flavinius. I will need you today, tomorrow, and all the days after. Within my household, I grant you the title of Dux.”
He blinks at me.
“Dux, my liege?”
“Are you fit for the task?” A Dux is an appointed right hand with unlimited imperium within a house. His word is my word. It is usually, but not always, reserved for Golds like Aja, who was my grandmother’s Dux. It will honor him as he should be honored, and at the same time show the Grays of the legions how I reward loyalty.
I have the sneaking suspicion that as go the Grays, so go the legions. After all, they do outnumber my race a thousand to one. As Glirastes would say: “Never pass up the opportunity to shore up your foundation.”
I pull the warrant of Dux from my pocket. He lifts his head and I seal the metal to his forehead. The skin burns as the hawk and crescent moon meld with his flesh and bone. He salutes with tears in his eyes and mounts his horse to follow my chariot.
