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I speak quietly, but all can hear.
“Pliny au Velocitor, you are a traitor to ArchGovenor Nero au Augustus. You have conspired to destroy his house, to forcibly marry his daughter, to kill his son, and betray him to the Sovereign, who has set herself against him. Your master raised you up, and you tried to tear him down. You have betrayed his trust all for personal gain. Worst of all, you have failed.”
“Stop him!” Pliny screams now, wildly gesticulating at me. “Moira!”
Moira whispers to the Storm Knight, and both step to the side.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Pliny mutters. “Aja said she would kill you on Europa.”
“And who do you know that can kill me?” I say, that ridiculous Gold rage building in my voice so that it might impress all these hungry souls. “The Jackal failed. Antonia au Severus-Julii failed. Proctors Apollo and Jupiter failed. Cassius au Bellona failed. Karnus failed. Cagney failed. Aja au Grimmus and her Praetorians failed.” The hangman failed. The mines and pitvipers failed. “And now you fail.”
That’s when I slip forward, faster than a striking pitViper and slap him across the face. He pitches sideways out of his seat like a leaf battered by the wind, careening into a Gold who stood to the side. She spits on him and moves for me.
“You are a worm who thought himself a serpent just because you slither. But your power was not real, Pliny. It was all a dream. Time now to wake.”
Pliny scrambles to his feet, pushing himself away from me. His carefully combed hair is a mess, and redness swells on his right cheek. I spin him around and slap him again, harder. He’s startled. Doesn’t know what to do. He was not taken from his bed during his first day at the Institute and beaten by Obsidians. He did not ride upon the snow-crusted beaches at the head of an armored column. He did not starve. So now all he can do is scramble and cry.
I seize him with my hands, raise him high into the air. But I hurt him no more. I will not demean the moment with cruelty like Karnus or Titus would. My condescension is my weapon. I set Pliny back in the ArchGovernor’s chair. I buff his dragonfly pin. Straighten his hair like a kindly mother. Pat him on his tear-stained cheek and extend my hand, which bears my House Mars ring.
He kisses it without me asking.
“Goodbye, Pliny. I leave you to your friends.”
I walk away, the eyes of all these Peerless following me, abandoning Pliny. I hear a slurping sound and do not turn, because I know what razors sound like when they kill. They didn’t even wait. Pliny is forgotten.
These Peerless thump their chests in salute to me. The monsters. They go with the wind, chasing power. But they don’t realize power doesn’t shift. Power is resolute. It is the mountain, not the wind. To shift so easily is to lose trust. And trust is what has kept me alive. Trust in my friends, and their trust in me.
The Sovereign knows this. It is why she keeps her Furies close. They would die for her, as my friends would die for me. Because in the end, what does all the power in all the worlds matter if your closest friends can betray you? The Sovereign’s father learned that when his daughter took his head. Pliny learned at the price of his life. I forgot it, distanced myself from my friends, and nearly lost everything because of it when Tactus felt as overshadowed and alienated with me as he did with his brothers. It is why I started fresh with Victra, why I told Ragnar the truth, why I must make amends with Lorn and Roque.
Trust is why Red will have a chance. We are a people bound by song and dance and families and kinship. These people are allies only because they think they must be.
I look at them now and I know they are so stern and so rigid that they will break and shatter against each other, not because of me, but because of what they are.
I float on my gravBoots, pausing to say, “Tell all who will hear, the Reaper sails to Mars. And he calls for an Iron Rain.”
36
Lord of War
“Power is the crown that eats the head,” the Jackal said to me as we planned the invasion. He spoke in reference to Octavia. But the truth reaches further than that. These Golds have had power for so long. Look how they act. Look what they want. They jump at the chance for war. They come from near, from far, ships racing to join my armada as they learn that I have called for an Iron Rain, the first in twenty years. I used the Jackal to spread the news, along with footage of Pliny’s fall. Many of them are second sons and daughters, who will not inherit their parents’ estates. Warmongers, duelists, the glory-hungry. And each bring their attendants of Grays and Obsidians. The worlds of the Society wait with bated breath to see what happens today. If we lose, the Sovereign rules on. If we win—complete civil war. No world can stand apart.
Legions marshal within my ship as my armada gathers around the dock moon of Phobos. I carry my razor curved as a slingBlade; crooked and cruel, it is my scepter. My iron House Mars ring tightens as I flex my hand and stare through the viewports. The pegasus bounces against my chest.
I cannot see my enemy—Bellona and much of the Sovereign’s local fleets—but they lie between me and my planet. The Sovereign’s ancient Ash Lord comes fast from the Core to aid with his Scepter Armada, but he is still a week away. He cannot help the Bellona today.
My Blues watch me, and my generals—of Victra au Julii’s personal fleet, who abandoned her mother’s forces, of House Arcos, of the House Telemanus, and the bannermen of Augustus.
Mars is green and blue and pocked with shielded cities. White caps mark her poles. Blue oceans stretch along her equator. Fields of grass along with thick forests coat her surface. Clouds swirl about her, a cotton shift to hide her sparkling shielded cities. And there are guns. Great stations in the deserts, around the cities, where shipkilling railguns point to the sky.
My thoughts dip below the surface of the planet. I wonder what my mother is doing now. Is she making breakfast? Do they know what comes? Will they even feel it when we do?
My fingers don’t tremble even on the brink of battle. My breath is even. I was born to a family of Helldivers. I was born to bloodline of dust and toil, born to serve the Golds. I was born to this velocity.
Yet I am terrified. Mickey
carved me to be a ‘god of war’. But why do I feel like such a boy standing in silly armor? Why do I want to be five years old again, before my father died, sharing the bed with Kieran, listening to him talk in his sleep?
I turn to the sea of Gold faces.
