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“I want three lancers attending the ArchGovernor at all times,” Leto announces quietly. We nod, the pack tightening. “No drinking.”
Tactus moans in protest.
Expressionless, the Jackal watches Leto give orders.
Pliny returns from speaking with the Citadel staff. Sure enough, we’re to share the lift with the Falthes. But something more menacing fills the air. Our Obsidians and Grays are to be left behind. “All families are to proceed to the gala without attendants,” he says. “No bodyguards.”
Murmurs go through our ranks.
“Then we won’t go,” the Jackal says.
“Don’t be a fool,” Augustus replies.
“Your son is right,” Leto says. “Nero, the danger …”
“Some invitations are more dangerous to decline than to accept. Alfrún, Jopho.” Augustus makes a cutting motion to his Stained. The two men nod silently and join the others to the side. Genuine emotion fills their eerie eyes, worry, as we join the Falthes on the lift and ascend. The head of the Falthe house smiles. His station improves.
The gala upon the roof of the Sovereign’s tower is modeled as a winter fairyland. Snow falls from invisible clouds. It dusts the spearlike pines of manmade forests and frosts my short hair with snowflakes that taste like cinnamon and orange. Breath billows in front of me.
The ArchGovernor’s appearance is noted with trumpet calls. Tactus and some of the younger lancers cut the Falthes off, obstructing their path so Augustus can enter the gala first. A body of pale gold and bloody red, we move into a grand landscape of evergreens. The pride of Gold culture awaits us. A terrible sea of faces that have seen things the first men could never even dream. You can see glimmers of our shared past at the Institute. The charmers of Apollo. The killers of Mars. The beauties of Venus.
Beneath the spire, the Citadel sprawls, and beyond those grounds glisten the cities with all their million lights. You would never guess that beneath that sea of twinkling jewels lurks a second city of filth and poverty. Worlds within worlds.
“Try not to lose your head,” Victra whispers to me, raking a clawed hand through my hair before going to speak with friends of hers from Earth.
I walk toward our table. Great chandeliers hover overhead on small gravthrusters. Light sparkles. Dresses move like liquid around perfect human forms. The Pinks serve delicacies and spirits on plates and in goblets of ice and glass.
Hundreds of long tables spread concentrically around a frozen lake at the center of the winter land. The Pinks wear skates to serve here. Beneath the ice, shapes move. Not sexualized perversities as one would find entertaining Pixies and lowColors. But mystical creatures with long tails and scales that glitter like the stars. In another life, it would have been Mickey’s dream to have a creature commissioned for this feast. I smile to myself. I suppose in a way he already has.
The tables are neither named nor numbered. Instead, we find our place as we see a great lion seated upon the center of our table, nearly motionless. Each family’s table is so claimed by their sigil. There are griffins and eagles, ice fists and huge iron swords. The lion purrs contentedly as Tactus steals a serving tray of appetizers from a Pink and sets it between the beast’s massive paws. “Eat, beast! Eat!” he cries.
Pliny finds me. His hair is bound behind him in a tight, complicated braid. His clothing, for once, is as severe as his pointed nose, like he means to impress the Peerless about him with his hawkish features and sparse accoutrements. “I’ll be introducing you to several interested parties later in the evening. When I signal for you, I expect you to join me.” He looks around distractedly, seeking important persons for his own aims. “Till then, cause no trouble and mind your manners.”
“No trouble.” I take out my pegasus pendant. “On my family’s honor.”
“Yes,” he says without looking. “And what a noble family it is.”
I gaze around the gala. Hundreds mill about already, with more arriving by the minute. How long should I wait? It is difficult to hold on to the rage that made me embrace this decision. They killed my wife, I tell myself. They killed my child. But no matter the anger I summon by reminding myself, I cannot burn away the fear that I steer the rebellion toward a cliff.
This will not be for Eo’s dream. It will be for the satisfaction of those living. To sate their lust for vengeance rather than honoring those who have already sacrificed everything. And it will be irreversible. But so is the course that has been set.
So many doubts. Is this me being a coward?
I’m thinking too much. That makes a bad soldier. And that is what I am. A soldier for Ares. He gave me this body. I should trust him now. So I take the pegasus and slap it on the underside of Augustus’s table, just near the table’s end.
“A toast?” someone says. I turn and find myself face-to-face with Antonia. I’ve not seen her since the Institute, when Sevro pulled her down from the cross she was nailed to by the Jackal. I flinch away, mind flashing to the night she cut Lea’s throat, all to draw me out of the dark.
“I thought you were on Venus studying politics,” I say.
“We’ve graduated,” she replies. “I did enjoy your christening. Watched it several times with my friends. Odious scent, urine.” She sniffs me. “Hard to get out.”
Nature was cruel to make her so terribly beautiful. Full lips, legs nearly as long as mine, skin smooth as butter, and hair like spun golden yarn from that storybook about the princess of cinders. All a mask for the wretched creature beneath. “I can tell you missed me while I was away.” She hands me a goblet of wine. “So let us toast to good reunion.”
It makes little sense to me that we live in a world where she can stand here weaving her evil webs when my wife is dead, when kind Golds like Lea and Pax have been ground to ash and shot into the sun.
“Fitchner once said something to me, Antonia. It seems appropriate now.” I raise my goblet in a polite toast.
“Oh, Fitchner,” she sighs, her breasts rising aggressively from her too-tight golden dress. “The bronze rodent has been making a name for himself here. Whatever did he say?”
