In the morning Volga and I load the coffin containing Ephraim’s remains onto a Julii racing ship that Victra has given us for the journey. Victra watches Volga secure the coffin inside. “It isn’t proper,” Victra says. “Keeping her from her revenge when you have had your own.”
“Haven’t you seen enough of that?” I ask.
“Not while Atalantia breathes. Not while Fá breathes. They cost me my son.”
“You wanna lose the rest of your children?”
Her eyes swivel down to me, and in a second I’m reminded of who she is, and who I am. “Careful, Blister.”
This woman owns cities and fleets, but I let her alone out of respect for her loss more than fear of all her legions’ and ships’ might. When it came down to it, she was just a mother on her own.
A Sol Guard rushes up to Victra and whispers something I can’t hear. She frowns. “Let them in.”
“All of them?”
“It’s the Reaper’s gorydamn brother. What do you think?”
Five minutes later, ten Republic shuttles crowd the landing pad, and the ArchGovernor of Mars walks out. Not Rollo. Somehow in all this mess, the Vox put him down in a firefight in the Citadel. Instead it is now Kieran O’Lykos. You wouldn’t even think he was the same species as his brother. He’s barely bigger than I am. And his is the kind of face meant for laughter and Laureltide dances. But he ain’t laughing as he strides toward Victra with two hundred Sons of Ares at his back. He looks like he’s gonna puke.
The Sol Guard nod in respect to their allies.
I haven’t seen that spiked helmet painted on armor in years. It really does chill the blood. The ArchGovernor greets Victra with a hug and casts a look at Volga before swooping Pax and Electra up—as much as he can, them being as big as he is. He garlands them with kisses, and then turns back to Victra with a somber look.
“Is there someplace we could speak in private?” he asks. She motions him to the shoreline. The two groups of soldiers chat across the lines as Victra and the ArchGovernor walk along the water. Pax watches intently. “What are they saying?” Volga asks.
“My hearing isn’t that good,” he replies.
“Nor your judgment,” she says point-blank. Pax looks up at her and is about to say something when she turns her back on him. Only eleven years old, and already sending men to their deaths. If Volga thought it didn’t weigh him down, she’d be dead wrong. He is in agony.
Ephraim must’ve gotten under his skin.
He was good at that, wasn’t he?
There’s a shout from Victra at something the ArchGovernor says. She wheels away from him and stalks back to us. “Volga, get in the ship,” she says. Her guards look as confused as Volga. The ArchGovernor catches up.
“It is this or another Olympia,” he calls.
“Since when do we kneel to monsters?” Victra snaps, stalking back toward the tiny man. “Since when do we abandon our own?” She jams a thumb against her chest. “I am Victra au Barca. I do not sacrifice my friends.”
The Reaper’s brother does not back down. “Heliopolis has fallen.” My heart sinks. My brothers…But he’s not done. “The Free Legions were slaughtered to a man. More than two million were impaled. My brother is dead.”
His brother.
It’s like watching wind move meadow grass. Grown men’s knees buckle across the landing pad. The Sons of Ares did not know. The Sol Guard did not know. Victra did not know. He hadn’t told her yet. She looks as if she is dying as she glances at Pax. The boy watches with a tremble in his hands. Whatever anger Victra had when she stormed away from the ArchGovernor crumples.
I feel something break inside myself. I don’t know what it is. I long ago gave my brothers up for dead. It’s for the Reaper, this emptiness. I guess I held some weird belief he couldn’t die. Some thought that as long as he lived, the Society could never come back.
But now it all seems possible. The Reaper is dead.
And they have killed something in all of us.
“By noon, all of Mars will know,” the ArchGovernor says. “Victra, my brother is dead. I know Virginia told you she sent a man. He’s been dark since he got to Mercury. Whatever happened, there were no survivors. And the Heir of Silenius has returned.” Victra stiffens. “Atalantia will sail on Luna. If the Vox don’t see reason…Earth won’t be able to hold. It will just be Mars that’s left. We can’t afford to fight the Obsidians with what’s coming. You know that.” Something goes unspoken between them. Something they can’t let us know. “Old debts are coming due.”
Victra turns to look at Volga. “I swore an oath to her.”
Volga looks around in confusion.
“What you lookin’ at her for?” I snap. “What’s going on? Victra?”