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I am empty.
What do I do now? There was always a fear, always a concern, always a reason to hoard weapons and food, always a quest or trial. Now, nothing. Just the wind sweeping in over our battlefield. An empty battlefield filled only with echoes of things lost and learned. Friends. Lessons. Soon it will be a memory. I feel like a lover has died. I yearn to cry. Feel hollow. Adrift. I look for Mustang. Will she still care for me? And then ArchGovernor Augustus suddenly takes me by the elbow and leads me away from the other stunned youth.
“I am a busy man, Reaper,” he says, mocking the word. “So I will be direct. You have created complications in my life.”
His touch makes me want to scream. His thin mouth emotes nothing. His nose is straight. His eyes contemptuous and made from the embers of a dying sun. So peerless. Yet he is not beautiful. His is a face carved from granite. Deep cheeks. Manly, tough skin, not burnished like that of the fools on the HC or the Pixies who gallivant around the nightclubs. He reeks of power like Pinks reek of perfume. I want to make his face look like a broken puzzle.
“Yes,” is all I say.
He does not smirk or smile. “My wife is a beggar. She pleaded with me to help her son win.”
“Wait. He had help?” I ask.
His mouth slides into a soft smile. The sort reserved for simple amusements. “I’m assuming you are not sharing my involvement with others.”
I want to break him. After all that has happened, he expects my cooperation, as though it is something due to him. As though it is his right that I help him. I unclench my fists. What would Dancer have me say?
“You’re fine,” I manage. “I can’t help you on the domestic front, but I won’t tell a soul that the Jackal had help from Daddy.”
His chin rises. “Do not call him that name. The men of House Augustus are lions, not fleabitten carrion eaters.”
“All the same, you should have put your money on Mustang,” I say, intentionally not using her name.
“Don’t tell me about my family, Darrow.” He peers down his nose at me. “Now, the question is how much you want for your silence. I accept no gifts. Owe no man. So you will be taken care of on one condition.”
“I stay away from your daughter?”
“No.” He laughs sharply, surprising me. “The foolish families worry over blood. I care nothing for purity of family or ancestry. That is a vain thing. I care only for strength. What a man can do to other men, women. And that is something you have. Power. Strength.” He leans closer, and in his pupils I see Eo dying. “I have enemies. They are strong. They are many.”
“They are Bellona.”
“And others. But yes, Imperator Tiberius au Bellona has more than fifty nieces and nephews. He has nine children. That Goliath, Karnus, the eldest. Cassius his favorite. His seed is strong. Mine is … less so. I had a son worth all of Tiberius’s put together. But Karnus killed him,” He’s silent for a moment. “Now I have two nieces. A nephew. A son. A daughter. And that is it. So I collect apprentices.
“My condition is this. I will give you what you want for your silence. I will buy you Pinks, Obsidians, Grays, Greens. I will sponsor your application to the Academy, where you will learn to sail the ships that conquered the planets. I will provide you with funds and patronage requirements. I will introduce you to the Sovereign. I will do all these things for your silence if you become one of my lancers, an aide-de-camp, a member of my household.”
He asks me to betray my name. To set aside my family for his. Mine is a false family, Andromedus, a family made for deception, yet some part of me aches.
I saw it coming. But I don’t know what to say. “One of your son’s soldiers might say something about your involvement, my lord.”
He snorts. “I’m more concerned about your lieutenants.”
I laugh. “Few of my army know the truth. And those that do will not say a word.”
“So much trust.”
“I am their ArchPrimus.” I say it simply.
“Are you serious?” he asks in confusion as though I misunderstand something as basic as gravity. “Boy, allegiances crumble as soon as we board that shuttle. Some of your friends will be spirited away to the Moon Lords. Others will go to the Governors of the Gas Giants. Even a few to Luna. They will remember you as a legend of their youth, but that is it. And that legend will brook no loyalty. I’ve stood where you stand. I won my year, but loyalty isn’t found in these halls. It is the way things are.”
“It is the way things were,” I say harshly, suprising him. But I believe what I say. “I am something different. I freed the enslaved and let the broken mend themselves. I gave them something you older generations can’t understand.”
He chuckles, irritating me. “That is the problem with youth, Darrow. You forget that every generation has thought the same.”
“But for my generation it is true.” No matter his confidence, I am right. He is wrong. I am the spark that will set the worlds afire. I am the hammer that cracks the chains.
“This school is not life,” he recites to me. “It is not life. Here you are king. In life, there are no kings. There are many would-be-kings. But we Peerless lay them low. Many before you have won this game. And those many now excel beyond this school. So do not act as though when you graduate, you will be king, you will have loyal subjects—you will not. You will need me. You will need a foundation, a supporter to help you rise. There can be none better for you than I.”
It’s not my family I would betray, it is my people. The school was one thing, but to go beneath the dragon’s wing … to let him hug me close, to sit in luxury while my own sweat and die and starve and burn … it’s enough to rip my heart out.
