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Did she think of him in her last moments, or some childhood love? The tragedy of death is that I cannot ask, and her secret dies with her.
Theodora is dead.
The Obelisk rises, stained red all along the bottom. Blood runs through the grooves. People from the crowd rush forward to dip their kerchiefs and banners in the blood troughs. They wave them around as Servilla au Arcos, Alexandar’s mother, watches them with a look of beleaguered contempt. Then the remains are hosed away and Servilla is secured to the grisly hook. She shouts something. Then the stone comes down again.
Does Alexandar feel it on Mercury?
When all have been executed, th
e image disappears.
I hear voices moments later as the circus comes to the courtroom. A dozen aides swirl around Publius, exultant with their newfound power. What dreams these Vox must have. What fools to think it comes for free. ArchImperator Zan, surrounded by her own staff, walks with Publius.
“Your agents missed their opportunity,” Zan says to Publius. The Blue looks at me, makes a small sound of distaste, and glares back at the Copper. “I advised you to use Dunhul instead of your mercenaries.”
“If you weren’t so paranoid of Mars, we wouldn’t be in this position.”
Zan sneers. “The Reaper’s brother runs two-thirds of Mars, the Obsidian bitch runs the other third, and you say I am paranoid?”
“He only runs Mars because your men put a bullet through ArchGovernor O’Sicyon. As for the Obsidian, we know whom to blame.”
They look at me.
“We have more than enough helium to act before we take the mines back,” Publius says. “The Telemanus and Augustus armada is on its way here. Turn your eyes to that, Zan. I will deal with Mars.”
After Zan departs, Publius dismisses his staff to the far wall and looks at me. I search his face for some sign of evil. Even now it is a pleasant face. A small chin and delicate facial bones, with only a long nose to add drama. But those eyes, for so long cold and distant, flicker with excitement.
“Apologies, Virginia,” the Incorruptible says. “I am sorry it came to this. If your child had only been delivered to me as requested, we could have spared you this trauma. But change is not always pretty.”
An “honorable” man like the Incorruptible could harness the Wardens. They were poised for defection after Wulfgar’s death. But it must have been Lilath who poisoned the togas, and destroyed the barrier to let the mob in. Publius isn’t an operator. But how did he know about my agreement with Dancer? The question is driving me mad.
“I looked up to you once, you know. I truly did.” Lilath’s puppet smiles sadly to himself and leans against the dais. He doesn’t know he’s a puppet. He thinks he is in control. And here comes his gorydamn speech.
“I thought you were our great hope. After the Fall, I sung your praises. I debated radicals in our political halls. I preached an even middle ground. I thought the Vox misguided in their fervor.
“You were not perfect, far from it, but you were the best we could hope for. ‘Let us be sensible,’ I said to those radicals. ‘Let us understand we cannot make a new world in a day.’ But I was naïve. Our whole political discourse was like a great infant. None of us knew our business or how big our feet were. There was no culture to build upon. Politics was new to us, but not to you.
“I watched you dismiss the voiceless majority. I watched you accrete power even as you spouted demokratic platitudes. I watched you lead us rung by rung back into the old world. Soon I knew there was no middle ground. Only the past and the future. The poor and the rich. Us and you. It was then I realized sensibility is torpor by a more palatable name.
“Since the first ape pulled himself out of the mire to fashion an axe from stone, the meek have served the strong. We learned to content ourselves with crumbs. We allowed ourselves to be placated by religion. A promise of something after all this horror. We allowed ourselves to be enfeebled by poverty. We learned to be scolded whenever we raised our voice. Lasting change must be slow and steady and civil, we were told. That civility neutered us. But tell me, Virginia, was Gold civil when they conquered Earth? Did they assemble in peaceful protests? Or did they come with terror?”
He paces before me, waxing grandiloquent.
“If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during revolution must be virtue and terror. Virtue without terror is helpless—as I have learned after ten years of being ‘the voice of reason.’ Terror without virtue is evil—as Gold has taught. My terror is nothing more than speedy, severe, and inflexible justice. It is an emanation of virtue, a vehicle for it.
“I know. I know. You think I allied with a monster.” He picks lint from his toga, not knowing the strings his monster has put in him. “But the child was meant to be returned to you after you stepped down. You have done far worse. You allied with the Moon Lords. Fascist slavers.” He looks direly offended. “Using a criminal organization is hardly comparable. And now that you have removed them for me, hardly problematic. Your attacks on their facilities were nearly without flaw.
“I know you look down on me for this monologue, but after so many years of biting my tongue, it feels good to have a voice. I wanted you to see the executions because you will be found guilty today and die tomorrow, since my techs tell me you have a self-destruct protocol in your brain.
“Before you do—die, that is—I wanted you to understand that I am different from you. What remains of the Syndicate is already being destroyed. I do not abide criminality. Quicksilver has deserted Luna, but he will be hunted down and put to the Obelisk like your spymaster. I do not allow allies to escape justice when they are villains just because they have utility. I am going to remake the world, Virginia. It will be as it should. One without hierarchy. Without economic class distinctions. One in which it will be criminal to own excess wealth. Where the loftiest goal of a human being is to serve the People. No corporations. No private citizens. All serve one another for dignity and protection of the common good. All men were created equal, and I will make them so.” He claps his hands together. “Now, are you ready for the justice of the meek?”
WE ARE JOINED BY SIX radical Vox senators who survived the massacre to comprise the People’s Tribunal. Several dozen others join, but it will not be a public monstrosity. Likely Publius wanted to limit the possibility of my allies rescuing me. Whichever of them is alive. Even through the muddle of serotonin I feel the fear of the final tally. Will I ever see anyone I love again?
That’s the loneliest thought.
Not my husband. Not my son. Not Kavax or Niobe or Sevro or Leanna or even Victra. No one but these fools.
They dither first with proclamations of the day’s importance. Of the seriousness of my ridiculous crimes to impose my will on humanity. Then Publius reads the charges as the robotic cameras zip around for dramatic angles. With one twenty centimeters from my face, I listen and try not to smile from the chemicals racing in my brain.
