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“Darrow, you stand here asking us for more men and women, more ships to wage this war. So I ask you, and pray to the Old Man who guards the Vale that you can give me an answer, when will this war end?”
“When the Republic is safe.”
“Will it be safe when the Ash Lord falls? When we have Venus?”
“The Ash Lord is the heart of their war machine. But he rules with fear. Without him, the remaining Gold houses will turn on each other within a week.”
“And what of the Rim? What if they come and we’ve smashed our armies to bits to kill one man?”
“We have a peace treaty with the Rim.”
“For now.”
“Their docks are destroyed. Octavia saw to that. The Starhall analysts believe they could not attack us, even if they wanted to, for another fifteen years,” Mustang says.
“Romulus does not want another war,” I say. “Trust me on that.”
“Trust you?” My old friend frowns. “We have trusted you, Darrow.” I feel the same anger in him that I saw when he learned of what I did to the Sons on the Rim. “So many have trusted you. For so many years. But you’re in love with your own myth. You think that the Reaper knows better than the People.”
“You think I want war? I loathe it. It’s stolen my friends. My family. It takes me away from my wife. From my child. If there were another path, I would take it. But there is no path around this war. The only way is through.”
He watches me for a moment.
“I wonder, would you even know peace if you saw it?” He turns to the senators. “What if I told you, what if I told all of you there was another path? One that has been hidden from us?” Caraval frowns and leans forward. Sevro glances my way. “What if we could have safety not tomorrow, not a decade from now. But right this very moment? Peace without another Iron Rain. Without throwing millions more into the guns of the Ash Lord?” He turns to my wife. “My Sovereign, I invoke my right to present a witness to the Senate body.”
She’s caught off guard. “What witness?”
Dancer does not answer. He looks expectantly down the corridor to his right. At the end of it, a door opens and a lone set of heels click against the stone floor. In hushed silence, the senators crane their necks to see a tall, imperious woman of later years striding out of the corridor into the Senate hall. She stands a head taller than the Republic Wardens, excepting Wulfgar, as she passes on the way to the center of the floor. Her eyes are Gold. Her body serene and slight, despite her height. Her hair is spun behind her and caged by gold mesh. A gold collar in the shape of an eagle encloses her neck. Her gown is black and covering every bit of skin from her neck to her toes. And upon her regal, bitter face is a single curved scar.
I glare at the woman. She has been shadow to my life ever since I beat her favorite son to death in a simple stone room sixteen years ago. Now she comes to stand before the Senate.
“What is the meaning of this?” Mustang demands, rising from her chair to dominate the room. Dancer does not back down.
“This is Julia au Bellona,” he says against the rising furor. “She brings a message from the Ash Lord.”
“Senator…” Anger flushes Mustang’s face, and she takes a violent step forward. “That is not your place! Foreign diplomacy is the province of the Sovereign! You overstep.”
“So does your husband, but do you scold him?” he asks. “Hear what she has to say. You will find it illuminating.” The senators shout their desire to hear Bellona out. Dread enters me. I know what Julia will say.
Mustang is trapped. She looks down at the woman, both the remnants of two great Gold houses that destroyed one another in their feud. Of their families, only Cassius remains. If he is still alive somewhere out there. “Say your piece, Bellona.”
Julia looks up at Mustang with utmost distaste. She’s not forgotten how Mustang sat at their table with Cassius and then turned her back on them.
“Usurper,” she says, refusing to use Mustang’s honorific. Her eyes look upon the senators with aristocratic disdain. “I traveled a month to stand before you. I will speak plainly so you understand. The Ash Lord tires of war. Of seeing cities turned to rubble.” She continues over shouts of protest. “During the Siege of Mercury, emissaries, including myself, were sent to the Morning Star to seek audience with your…warlord.” She glares at me. “We asked for an armistice. He replied with an Iron Rain.”
“Armistice?” Mustang murmurs.
“And why did you request an armistice?” Dancer prompts over the whispering senators.
“The Ash Lord, and the War Council of the Society, wish to discuss terms….”
“What terms?” Dancer presses. “Speak plainly, Gold.”
“Did the Reaper not tell you?” She looks at me and smiles. “We requested a cease-fire in order to discuss the terms of a permanent and lasting peace between the Rising and the Society.”
THE ROOM BURSTS INTO A CHAOS of thrust fists and rippling togas. Only the Obsidians do not move. Sefi watches the reaction with a neutral expression, unreadable as ever. Mustang turns on me in a fury. “Is this true?”
“He never wanted peace,” I say coldly. Sevro is rocking in his seat in an effort to keep himself from strangling Julia au Bellona in the middle of the Forum.
