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The dragoon commander produces a Praetorian dagger and puts it to the dragon tattoos that circle his neck.
“The fault lies not with you, but with your patron. I was the one who was lost. Now, on your feet, Praetorian.”
He stands. In his forties, he’s no longer the arrogant lurcher I remember winning the Legion Pyramid at the summer martial games. War has aged him past his years, but the boyish glimmer remains in the sharpshooter’s pale eyes. “Exter? Fausta?” I ask, searching behind him.
“Dead. Exter by the Goblin on Luna. Fausta from an orbital strike on Mars.” A shame. They were always kind to me, particularly Fausta. “Kruger is still shooting the wings off flies. He’s my decurion.”
“How did you know I returned?” I ask. He looks at Kalindora. I turn on her in surprise.
“Atalantia cares for Atalantia,” she says. “But there are many of us who would not see the heir die on the hour of his return. These men are sworn to you. As am I, my liege. Old oaths outweigh the new.”
“Am I to take this to mean Atalantia means me harm?”
“Of course not,” she replies. “She wept when she received your communiqué, but you are a Lune, and scar or not, you have no right to prevent these men from honoring their oaths.”
This is not what I had in mind when I set out to prove my loyalty to Atalantia. It is a disaster. The Praetorians are not simply men sworn to my house. They are as much a symbol of the Sovereigncy as the Morning Chair itself. I search for Ajax but cannot find him in the mill of his landing legions. Seraphina has wandered over. She recognizes Rhone and takes a step closer.
“I apologize I could not bring more men, and for the accoutrement,” he says, frowning at the blue and silver armor he wears. “We believed you dead. The most shameless have gone mercenary. Some have found work with the other houses. Most went to Atalantia. These here were with Julia au Bellona. Her house isn’t what it was, but she doesn’t spend men as quickly as the rest. She’s terminated our contract as a gesture of fidelity to you.”
I feel a pang of guilt. My own family glowers at me with suspicion, and Cassius’s mother sends me an olive branch. More. A backing of my claim. I know enough of the woman to know she’s playing her own little game, but now she’s beginning to interrupt mine.
“The Lady Bellona knows I’ve returned, then,” I say to Rhone.
“Little escapes Julia au Bellona.” He smiles. “It was a long-range communiqué. But she says she will be joining you shortly. More of the Guard will come from the other houses as soon as they hear of your return.” He clears his throat, suddenly very serious. “It will be as it was, my Sovereign.”
I look past the man to see Ajax watching us.
His eyes are filled with so much wrath you would think I had just arranged for the Morning Chair to be delivered straight to the desert.
“So much for your word to my brother,” Seraphina says. Her Rim eyes are chromed out for the desert light and unreadable, but her look of disdain is total.
“Lower your voice, man. I am not the Sovereign,” I tell Rhone. “Nor do I intend to be. Purge it from your thoughts lest you wish to see me dead.” I wheel on Kalindora. “How dare you presume—”
“Am I to be scolded like a child by a child?” she asks. “How odd this world is.”
“Don’t mock me. You know how this looks.”
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I do.”
Dammit all to Hades. I stomp away from her and the Praetorian, hoping to get a word with Ajax, but he is clustered in a thick knot of his officers. They sit on the edges of their cockpits. Seneca has produced a metal canteen from a thigh storage pouch. Another Gold supplies small tin cups, which Ajax fills. “To life and landfall,” he says, and they tip the whiskey. “We’ll finish the rest in Heliopolis. Sorry, little brother. Lost you in the sea of Pra
etorians. You should wear a crown so we can find you.” No whiskey is poured for me. A woman gives me her own cup too eagerly. I’m wearing my suit, so I can’t take it.
The first suitor makes their bid, poorly.
Ajax notices.
“May we have a moment, Ajax?”
He ignores me to address his men. “The intel and sensors didn’t lie. We’re five hundred kilometers from their nearest deployed force. We are in a slow tango with Heliopolis. They never thought we’d sneak a hand up the back of their skirt.”
Atalantia’s gambit is bold. While the bulk of the army focuses on the battle with the Republic in the north, she looks beyond the battle. The capital, Tyche, is the emotional victory for Votum. But Heliopolis is the prize—control it, control the south and her thousands of iron mines. Grimmus troops will occupy the Sun City, and they will stay for generations. The poor Votum have no idea what they’re paying for her to take their planet back.
It is shameful. And none of them care. As cliens, or clients of House Grimmus, Atalantia, their patronus owes them protection and sponsorship. She will be sure to richly reward their loyalty and service in arms.
“It will be an assault,” Ajax says. “Soon as the ground iron and infantry land, we push west in force. Seneca, take a century. Harass their vedette and drones. If it breathes or beeps, it dies. I want them blind as we—”
Ajax is interrupted as a signal comes over the general officer channel. The Golds slide in unison back into their starShells and latch up as the message crackles.
