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Face torn with betrayal, Seraphina is dragged cursing from the room. Cassius and I are left on our knees, a sick feeling spreading through me, as I realize that we too must be forgotten. All those weeks in the cell just to face the same end. For me. For Pytha. For Cassius.
“What of the gahja?” Diomedes asks his father.
“They could be the Slave King’s spies…” Marius murmurs. “Interrogate them.”
Romulus paces before Cassius and me.
“You saved my daughter’s life. For that, I give the gift of my thanks and my son has given you the gift of reprieve from torture. By the calluses on your hands, I know you are men of weight, and so I awarded you the dignity of my attention.”
“We’re your guests—” I begin, prepared to launch into a long spiel about honor and dignity. But he speaks over me.
“Guests are invited. You cannot stay. You cannot leave. So the only right I can afford you is a swift end.” He turns to Pandora. “Behead them, put their bodies into their ship, and then cast it into Jupiter.”
“Diomedes,” I say, hoping I gauged him right.
There’s a small hesitation in the large man. “They saved Seraphina’s life,” he says.
“And to keep her alive, there must be no witnesses to her return except those we trust,” Romulus replies.
I search for some clever gambit, straining for an outlandish conceit that might save us. Something out of the Reaper’s own book. Cassius is preparing to launch himself not at Diomedes, but at Romulus himself, to try to take a hostage. I know the current of my friend’s mind, and how I might help him using my body as a shield against Diomedes. I’ll likely die for it. But he’ll have a chance. The tension builds first in his muscular neck, then his toes as he finds purchase on the stone. And just before Cassius is about to fling himself forward, the ground rumbles under our feet. Diomedes steps back from us.
“What was that?” Diomedes asks. “Volcanism?”
“No.” Romulus puts a hand to the ground. “A missile strike.”
Vela pulls her datapad and snaps several questions into it. “Romulus, we have incoming vessels. Our escorts are down.”
“Impossible,” Marius whispers. “No one knows we are here.”
“Evidently someone does,” Romulus replies. “How many ships?”
Vela blinks hard at her datapad. Romulus is forced to repeat himself, “How many?”
“Ten warhawks.”
“Ten?” Diomedes repeats, startled by the number.
“And more chimeras.”
“How could they get past the orbital defenses?” Marius asks.
“They didn’t come from orbit,” Romulus murmurs. The Golds all tense at the implication. Vela takes control.
“Pandora, have your Krypteia stall them in the hangar.” Pandora salutes and heads toward the hallway, flanked by her men. Vela turns to the rest of the bodyguards. “Protect your Sovereign.”
But then Romulus begins to laugh.
“Father?” Diomedes says, sparing a confused glance at Marius as their father sits back down on his cushion and sets his razor on the ground. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting…”
“For what?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Your mother.”
DIDO AU RAA, WIFE of Romulus au Raa and mother to his seven children, enters the warroom as if she has the intention of tearing it down from the inside. She stalks at the head of an armored column of cloaked Peerless Scarred dressed for war. Orange goggles cover their eyes. Dark ugan wrap around their faces. Unlike Romulus and his sons, they carry heavy weapons and wear battle masks and skipBoots. I see not a single Obsidian or Gray amongst them. This is a Gold affair. Cassius
and I crouch together, momentarily forgotten. We search for some passage from the room, but there’s only one door.
