Cassius looks down at him. No measure of humor to the man, just pride, not the vain sort I’ve seen in him over the years. War and life have drained that vigorous spirit from him. This is the face, the bearing of a man who wants nothing more than to die with a little dignity. “Yes,” he says loudly. “I did.”
“Glad we cleared that up. He’s a murderer,” Sevro shouts to the crowd. “And what do we do to murderers?”
The crowd roars for Cassius’s life. And Sevro, after making a show of cupping his ear, gives it to them. He shoves Cassius off the edge of the walkway. The Gold plummets till the cable around his neck snaps taut, arresting his fall. He gags. Feet kick. Face reddens. The crowd roars hungrily, chanting Ares’s name.
Mobs are soulless things that feed on fear and momentum and prejudice. They do not know the spirit in Cassius, the nobility of a man who would have given his life for his family, but was cursed to live while they all died. They see a monster. A seven-foot-tall former god now mostly naked, humbled, strangling on his own hubris.
I see a man trying his best in a world that doesn’t give a shit. It breaks my heart.
Yet I do not move, because I know I’m not witnessing the death of a friend as much as I’m seeing the rebirth of another. My company does not understand. Horror stains Kavax’s face. Victra’s too—even though she held little pity for Cassius all this time, I think she mourns the savagery she sees in Sevro. It’s an ugly thing for any man to bear. Holiday pulls her weapon, eying the Reds nearby who point to Kavax. But they’re missing the show.
I watch in awe of Sevro as he bounds up onto the railing, arms wide, embracing his army. Beneath, Cassius dangles and dies and the crowd beneath makes a game of seeing who can launch themselves high enough to pull his feet. None succeed.
“My name is Sevro au Barca,” my friend cries out. “I am Ares!” He thumps his chest. “I have killed forty-four Golds. Fifteen Obsidian. One hundred and thirteen Grays with my razor.” The crowd roars in approval, even the Obsidians. “Jove knows who else with ships, railguns, and pulseFists. With nukes, knives, sharp sticks…” He trails off dramatically.
They slam their feet.
He beats his chest again. “I am Ares! I am a murderer too!” He puts his hands on his hips. “And what do we do to murderers?”
This time no one answers.
He never expected them to. He grabs the cable from the neck of one of the kneeling Golds, wraps it around his own neck, and looking to Sefi with a demented little smile, winks and backflips off the railing.
The crowd screams, but Victra’s stunned gasp is the loudest. Sevro’s rope snaps taut. He kicks, choking beside Cassius. Feet scrambling. Silent and horrible. Face turning red, on its way to purple like Cassius’s. They swing together, the Goblin and the Gold, suspended above the swirling crowd that’s now stampeding trying to get up the ladder to the walkway to cut Sevro down, but in their madness they overload the ladder and it bends away from the wall. Victra’s about to launch herself into the air on her gravBoots to save him. I hold her down. “Wait.”
“He’s dying!” she says frantically.
“That’s the point.”
It is not a boy who dangles on that line. It is not a brokenhearted orphan who needs me to pick him up. It’s a man who has been through hell and now believes in the dream of his father, in the dream of my wife. It’s a man I would die to protect even as he dies to save the soul of this rebellion.
Kavax is transfixed, watching Sefi who stares down at the curious scene. Her Obsidian are just as confused. They glance to her, searching for leadership. Ragnar believed in his sister. In her capacity to be better than the world that was given them, one in which there is no such thing as mercy, no such thing as forgiveness. Silently, she hefts her axe and swings it into Sevro’s cable and then, reluctantly, Cassius’s. Somewhere, Ragnar is smiling.
Both men tumble through the air to be caught by the swirling crowd beneath.
Kavax has not moved since Sevro jumped, watching Sefi with a profound look of confusion. Still with his hand on the com to call his children, but I lose him in the crowd. The Sons of Ares and Howlers have formed a tight circle around their leader, shoving others back. Sevro hacks for breath on all fours. I rush to him and kneel as Holiday helps Cassius, who wheezes on the ground to my left. Pebble drapes her Howler cloak over his body.
“Can you talk?” I ask Sevro. He nods, lips trembling from the pain, but his eyes are all fire. I give my arm and help him stand. I hold up a fist, demanding silence. Sons shout the others down till the twenty-five thousand breaths balance on the beating heart of my little friend. He looks out at them, startled by the love he sees, the reverence, the wet eyes.
“Darrow’s wife…” Sevro croaks, larynx damaged. “His wife,” he says more deeply. “And my father never met. But they shared a dream. One of a free world. Not built on corpses, but on hope. On the love that binds us, not the hate that divides. We have lost many. But we are not broken. We are not defeated. We fight on. But we do not fight for revenge for those who have died. We fight for each other. We fight for those who live. We fight for those who don’t yet live.
“Cassius au Bellona killed my father….” He stands over the man, swallowing before looking back up. “But I forgive him. Why? Because he was protecting the world he knew, because he was afraid.”
Victra pushes her way to the front of the circle, watching Sevro who speaks now as if it was meant for her and her alone. “We are the new age. The new world. And if we’re to show the way, then we better damn well make it a better one. I am Sevro au Barca. And I am no longer afraid.”
“You’re bloodydamn manic,” I tell Sevro when we’re alone in Virany’s infirmary. Sevro’s holding his neck laughing at himself. I kiss the top of his head. “Bloodydamn insane, you know that?”
“Yeah well I stole that one from your playbook; what does that say about you?”
“That he’s insane as well,” Mickey says from the corner. He’s smoking his laced-burners. Purple smoke slithering from nostrils.
Sevro winces. “That slagging hurt. I can’t even look sideways.”
“You sprained your neck, damaged the cartilage, lacerations in your larynx,” Dr. Virany says from behind her biometric scanner. She’s a lithe, tan woman with that special small silence inside her reserved for people who have seen both sides of hardship.
“Just as I said when you came in. All these tools you use, Virany. Really where’s the art in it?”
Virany rolls her eyes. “Another ten kilos on your body and you would have broken your neck, Sevro. Count yourself lucky.”