How could this be Ares’s plan?
Eo said if I rose, others would follow. But I’ve not yet risen. I’ve not yet done as she asked of me. I do not have an excuse to give up. To hand over her dream to others. Ares never knew Eo. He never saw the spark in her. I did. And my charge is to spread her love. Before I draw my last breath, I must build the world she wanted to raise a child in. That was her dream. That was why she sacrificed everything. And I will not let others decide my fate. Not now. Not if it makes me reject Eo, not if it make me sacrifice my trust in myself.
I wipe the tears from my face, anger replaced by purpose.
There is another way. A better way. I have seen the cracks in their Society, and I know what I must do. I know what the Golds most fear. And it has nothing to do with Reds rising. It has nothing to do with bombs or plots or revolution. What terrifies the Golds is simple, cruel, and as old as mankind itself.
Civil war.
THE WILLOW
I stalk back into the gala.
The Golds have taken their seats and formalities have begun in earnest. I am not subtle as I duck beneath the table and scrounge around on the ground to find the Pegasus pendant. I put it in my pocket. Straighten my jacket. Ignore the questioning glances and move boldly away from Augustus’s table toward the object of my interest. Pliny hisses my name. I pass him by. I blow him a kiss. He know
s nothing of what I have in store. Pliny is a man to make rules. I’m more the breaking type.
I weave through the tables that seat the noble families, gathering eyes as a stone rolling down the mountain gathers snow. I feel them adding to my velocity. My gait is careless, my hands coiled with danger, like the muscles of a pitviper. Thousands watch me. Whispers form a cloak behind me as they realize my target; he sits at his long table surrounded by his family members—a perfect Golden man attentively listening to his Sovereign speak. She preaches of unity. Order and tradition are of paramount importance. No one rises yet to challenge me. Perhaps they don’t understand. Or perhaps they feel the force of me now and dare not rise.
The Bellonas notice the whispers now, and they turn, almost as one, a family of fifty and more, to see me—a martial man. All in black. Young, untested in war. Unblooded beyond the halls of the Institute and the asteroids of the Academy. Some have reasoned me mad. Some have called me brave. Tonight, I’m both. The weight is gone. All the pressure I let crush me as I worried about expectations, as I gentlefooted around making a decision. Keep moving, I tell myself. Don’t freeze. Don’t stop. Never stop.
The Sovereign’s voice falters now.
Too late to go back. I dive in.
Smile.
And the gala goes dead silent as I spring thirty feet in the low gravity and land hard on the Bellona table. Dishes crack. Servers scatter. Bellonas fall back. Some shout at me. Some do not move even as their wine spills. The Sovereign watches, struck by curiosity. Pliny looks about to die. He’s gripping his knees in panic. Beside him, the Jackal is as strange and unreadable as a lonely desert creature.
I did not wear dress shoes tonight. I never do. My boots are thick and heavy. They crack the porcelain as I trod along the Bellona table, shattering dishes of pudding and squishing tender steaks despite the low gravity. My blood pumps through me. Intoxicating. I lift my voice.
“I’ll have your attention.” I crush a plate of peas underfoot.” You may know me,” I call to the thousands in assembly. There’s nervous laughter. Of course they know me. They know everyone of worth, though mine is more of rumor than substance. I see the Ash Lord whispering to the Sovereign. See Tactus laughing his ass off, choking for breath. Karnus leans forward with a cruel smile. Victra’s in heat. Even see Antonia nudging a tall, serene Gold. I avoid looking at Mustang. Pliny gibbers in Augustus’s ear. Augustus raises a hand to shut him up. “Do I have your attention?” I ask.
Yes. I do.
“Boy, sit down!” someone shouts.
“Make him,” Tactus replies drunkenly. “No? That’s what I surmised!”
“For those of you who do not know, I am a lancer of the House of Augustus, for another hour or so.” They laugh. “I am the one they call the Reaper of Mars, who struck down a Proctor, who stormed Olympus. My name is Darrow au Andromedus, and I have been wronged.
“We Peerless come from Golden ancestors. From conquerors with spines of iron. Honorable men, honorable women. But before you today, I see a family that is dishonorable. A family with spines made of chalk. A corrupt and fraudulent family of liars and cowards that conspires to steal my master’s Governorship, illegally.”
I crush a serving plate with my boots. Who knows if they conspire to do it or not? It sounds good. It seems like they conspire. And it’s the mask I need them to wear. Karnus replies beautifully by whipping out his razor and surging toward me. His father, the Imperator, waves him back. Praetor Kellan looks about to grab my feet and jerk me down where Cagney would no doubt cut my throat. The younger girls of their family think me a demon. A demon that killed their cousin, brother. They have no idea what I really am. But perhaps Lady Bellona does. Cadaverous in her grief, she sits surrounded by her brood like a withered lioness. They look to her as much as to her husband. The last thing I note of her is the trembling of her long right hand, as though it aches for a knife with which to cut me.
“Twice I have been wronged by this family. Once in the mud of the Institute. Again at the Academy by that one … and this one … and that one.” I point out all those who beat me in the gardens. I see Cassius now near the head of the table, just by his father and mother. Mustang sits beside him. Her face, a mask. Disappointed? Upset? Bored? When she quirks an eyebrow at me, I meet her eyes, walk toward her and set my foot on the edge of the wine decanter that sits in front of Cassius. All eyes focus there, like light falling into a black hole. Pausing time, space. Bending all forward. Breaths catch. “All courts of Golden law permit a man to defend his honor against any force that would desecrate it unjustly. From the old lands of Earth, to the icy bowels of Pluto, the right of challenge exists for any man and any woman. My name, gentle lords and ladies, is Darrow au Andromedus. My honor has been pissed upon. And I demand satisfaction.”
I tip the wine over onto Cassius’s lap.
He explodes up at me. Golds all over the grand party burst up from their seats in a great roar. Tactus rushes from our table, joined with Leto, Victra, all of the aides and bannermen of the vassals to my ArchGovernor—the Corvos, the Julii, the Voloxes, the huge Telemanuses, Pax’s family. Razors snap into hands. Curses splinter the winter air. And the Ash Lord, bent and gnarled as a lightning-blasted tree, leans down from the Sovereign’s table and screams, “Stop this madness!”
It’s only begun.
My hands shake like they used to in the mine.
Serpents surround me.
You could never hear them, the pitvipers. Could rarely see them. Black as pupils, they slither in the shadows till they strike. But there’s a fear that comes when they near. A fear separate from the rumbling of the drill. Separate from the throbbing heat that builds in your balls as you carve through a million tons of rock and all the friction radiates up, making a bog of piss and sweat inside your suit. It’s fearing the coming of death. Like shadow has passed across your soul.