I witness Dido at long last: the immensity of her resolve, the cruelness of her intellect, and I am terrified to think that I ever was so arrogant as to presume her Romulus’s inferior simply because I’d heard his legend more. She reminds me of the woman who taught me all I know—more passionate, less subtle. But a shade of my grandmother dwells in this woman. At her side, Seraphina sits with a weary expression that seems to say she understands all but will suffer it because she must.
But I cannot watch my brother suffer much longer.
There will be no end to it.
No mercy. Just death, and for what?
Cassius limps to his feet, again standing over the body of his foe. The floor is littered with them. “I am Cassius au Bellona.” He pants for breath, barely able to go on. “Son of Tiberius…son of Julia.” He squares his shoulders and summons his pride to lift his voice. “Morning Knight, and my honor remains.”
“Mother! Stop this madness!” Diomedes cries out. “He has won. How many of our blood will you throw away?”
“As many as honor demands,” she says. “Save your kin, Diomedes.”
He does not rise.
“A pity,” Dido replies. I feel the words coming before they leave her lips, because I saw Seraphina’s legs bouncing, her fingers tightening the laces on her boots, and I saw Dido notice the glances shared between us at dinner. Now the woman turns to me, only one card left to play and she plays it well. “Ser
aphina, honor House Raa.”
SERAPHINA BOLTS UPWARD LIKE A KUON released from its leash. She leaps, clearing the heads of those seated beneath us, and pulls free her razor before she lands on the killing floor. Diomedes watches in fear for his little sister. But the Golds clamoring for their chance to face Cassius now sit back down in disappointed silence. They think the matter settled. Seraphina is the executioner.
Cassius bleeds and sweats, his golden curls matted to his forehead. His knuckles sliced and savaged by metal. Blood soaks his shoes. His body is shaking from pain as steam trails off his flayed skin and open meat, but still he stands, using one of the discarded hasta for a crutch, watching neutrally as tall Seraphina lopes into the circle. This is his end. But there’s nothing glorious about it.
All I feel now is dread.
The same dread from that day when I watched my grandmother die and did nothing to stop it. Not even when I saw Cassius and the Reaper’s pack finish Aja. I cannot hate him for his part. It was I who did nothing to protect those I love. And I do love him. In this moment, he is true and pure and, in a way, everything I wanted to be as a child. Tears, unwelcome and unfamiliar, leak out my eyes as Cassius looks at me and shakes his head. Let me die, he is saying. That is all he wants. Absolution in death. But it is the wrong absolution.
The wrong death.
Seraphina steps past the corpses of her cousins and nods to Cassius. “Bellona, would that we had met as equals. You deserve better.”
“We all deserve the worms, Raa,” Cassius replies. He wipes blood from his paling face. “Shall we meet them together?”
In reply Seraphina draws up into the Shadowfall, a shade herself, and Cassius sinks into the Willow Way.
Hoping to surprise her, and knowing he can’t last for long, Cassius lunges forward with his remaining strength. It is not enough. She ripples into motion. Not as fast as Darrow, not as strong as Aja, but smoother than either could ever hope to be, sliding sideways easy as a bird’s shadow over the sea. She blocks his blade with her hasta and spins her kitari from her belt and hammers the blunted handle into his knuckles. Cassius’s razor slips out of his hand and skitters over the bloody marble. He hunches without a weapon, panting. Sluggishly, he lunges for another discarded razor, but Seraphina cracks her whip and sends the weapon Cassius seeks flying into one of the walls.
She stands over Cassius and allows him one last honor. My friend crawls to his knees. Pauses there, gathering his breath, and with a groan manages to gain his feet. Dazed, he looks around the arena, lost until his eyes desperately find me. He gives me one last smile.
One of thanks because he thinks that I have let him die for his cause.
But I watched Aja die. I watched Grandmother die. And I did nothing but huddle in fear. I stayed silent and obeyed when Cassius said follow because I was afraid by crossing him I would lose him and be alone. Here at the end of the worlds, in the belly of a mountain surrounded by enemies, what is left to fear?
I will not watch any longer.
I launch myself from my seat, sailing in the low gravity over the heads of the Golds beneath me to land on the white stone of the killing floor just outside the circle. Seraphina turns around at the sound, stunned. I hold out my hands to the guards, showing I have no weapons.
“Don’t…” Cassius slurs.
“I won’t let them kill you.”
“Do not step into the Circle,” Seraphina growls. “You have no right to this fight. His crimes are his alone.”
I turn to face Dido and the host of Raa.
“I have every right.”
I let the Martian drawl molt away from my voice like a tattered cloak to reveal my Hyperion heart beneath, and for a moment, I feel proud to represent the City of Light here, so far from home. Luna may never have been perfect, may never have been as noble as I thought it was as a boy, but it gave peace for seven hundred years. I tire of apologizing for it, of being afraid of my own heritage.