AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” he surprises me by saying. “Brutus would call me a human stain. Anastasia would use far gentler a vocabulary. I’m sure you remember her bleeding heart.”
“No, as a matter of fact.”
He searches my face, as if trying to detect a lie. “She would say I am making more enemies with every man I impale. That is why I impale Martians, not Mercurians.”
“To create dissonance and demarcation between interloper and loyal subject?” I reply pedantically.
“So we’ve read some of the same books, I see. You want to play this game? Very well. I’ve only barbarians for company out here. How many lives did you end in the Iron Rain? Don’t you have a killcount to mark on your breastplate?”
“It is impossible to reckon. Between ten and a hundred.”
“Do you feel their deaths acutely?”
“Vaguely.”
“There it is.” He leans back. “Distance has sanitized war nearly as much as Stoneside’s fucking ramblings. It has made it easy…romantic. I have no interest in sanitization nor romance. I apply scientific methods to produce psychological trauma in our enemies in order to create psychological casualties. To end their willingness to fight and shorten this war. That is my purpose.”
There’s a resentment in him, a hostility that seems intensely personal.
I don’t recall knowing him well enough to wound him. Or does he already know of Ajax’s betrayal?
“Enough digression. Why would you tell my men you are this Cato au Vitruvius? Did it amuse you?”
“Amuse me? What sort of nature do you think I possess?”
“A nature which is the product of your grandmother. The same nature she imparted to all her students. Answer the question.”
So that’s who the anger is for. The woman who gave him this role?
“I didn’t trust your men,” I say. “Ajax tried to assassinate me…twice.” By his expression, I see this is not news. “I could not risk revealing my identity to anyone but you, for fear of him completing the task.”
“And you think I am trustworthy?” he asks.
“You were my father’s best friend.”
“I am also Ajax’s father.” He picks at his cuticles. “Do you mean to kill my son?”
“No.”
He doesn’t believe me. “Do you even know why Ajax tried to kill you?”
“It goes back to childhood—”
He laughs. “It does indeed. She used to groom the both of you.” He leans forward. “Ajax is fucking Atalantia.” At first I thought I misheard. But it begins to makes sense. Ajax’s quiet when Atalantia kissed me. His territorial marking. His fear that I would replace him at his aunt’s side. “You didn’t know. Few do. She took my son as a…paramour before he turned sixteen. She would reward him for the heads of Gold blood traitors with sexual favors.”
“Did Magnus know?”
“Of his daughter’s depravity? Yes. Of its deeper depths and my son’s sexual enslavement to his remaining daughter?” He shrugs. “Magnus always had a selective conscience, especially with precious Atalantia.”
“And you just…let it happen?”
“Ajax may have my DNA, but I was off fighting for my Sovereign for half his life. When I returned…well, that boy is her creature to the bone now. Just as she intended. She and Aja always detested each other, you know. That Aja’s boy is now her personal killing machine is her ultimate revenge.”
“Did Atalantia give the order to kill me?”
“I doubt it. To do so would be to admit to herself that she cannot tame you,” he says. “She would not lose such a prize as you lightly. But if she did give the order, she would not tell me.” He pulls a fig from a bag and pops it into his mouth, offering me one. I take three. “So long as Ajax is ruled by his heart and cock, there will be no place for the boy who used to make him feel small. Knowing this, you still claim no intent on his life?”
“It changes nothing,” I reply. “I am here for the people of the Society, for Kalindora, for my Praetorians. I will not let them burn as hostages of the enemy. I know an assault is pending on Heliopolis. I assume Darrow is besieged there?”
