Dark Age (Red Rising Saga 5)

“If you can’t share air, hold your breath,” Diomedes mutters to his sister.

“We should not be here,” she presses. “We’re not ambassadors. I should be with the forward commandos and you at Lux’s side leading the legions. Not glad-handing sybarites.”

Diomedes kneads the joints of his jaw.

“We are what our leaders ask us to be,” he replies.

“And if they told you to clean latrines again?”

“Then I would be beloved by all Browns. And pray the mess cooks don’t serve Venusian food too often for supper.”

She snorts at that.

“This isn’t a dishonor, Sera. I was chosen by the council to represent the Rim. You were chosen by a consul. It is an honor. It is the honor.”

“Even though you don’t believe in this war?” Her eyebrows crawl upward. “Well, don’t worry, brother. I doubt you’ll see

much of it. Damn Lux’s honor. Sending Raa when a Copper would have sufficed. We’re going to be hostages, even if this Core tramp decides she wants to ally with us before she sticks a razor in our backs.”

“I rather think it would be poison,” Diomedes replies.

Seraphina pats her brother’s cheek. “Either way, you’ll be a fine hostage. So good at following orders.”

She stalks back to join the escort soldiers.

“The Core isn’t like the Rim,” I say after she has gone, choosing my words carefully. Diomedes despises only one thing more than gossip. “Blood bubbles from spilled wine.”

“You worry that Seraphina will provoke someone into a duel.”

“Everyone, actually.”

“She is violent, not stupid. She demurs to me.”

“And if Dido gave her directives that contradict your own?”

He ignores my comment, but I know it strikes home. While Diomedes represents the Moon Council, his sister has only one master: her mother. And Dido is anything but conciliatory to the gens Grimmus. After all, along with the Jackal of Mars, they organized the affair at Darrow’s first Triumph, where Dido’s eldest daughter and her father-in-law were butchered.

Dido has not forgotten, nor has Diomedes.

He stares at the Annihilo. “My father once said anyone interesting is at war with themselves, and can thus be described in just two words. What are Atalantia’s?”

“Velvet buzzsaw.” He says nothing in reply. “Atalantia has a savage brain and immensely contagious charisma. She is hindered by neither guilt nor doubt. She knows no half measures. She is a social strategist, a herpetologist, a sculptor, a laughing, masterful woman in love with the sound of her own voice, and convinced that beauty is the pinnacle of existence—in any form.” I do not speak of her vices. It would be improper for him to ask, so he does not.

He lets the silence stretch and then looks over at me. “Do you know what I learned from my father’s death?”

I wait for him to tell me.

“Not to ramble.”

Exposed to the harsh elements of Io, Romulus wasted precious air on his last proclamations, and fell short of reaching the tomb of his ancestor, Akari.

I swallow my reply.

Lost in thought, Diomedes looks back at Atalantia’s ship. After a time of consideration, he speaks. “You are the legal heir of House Lune, and stand to inherit whatever remains of its possessions.” He means ships, legions, oaths that have no doubt passed to House Grimmus. Any inheritance I am due will cost Atalantia dearly. “Will she see you as ally or rival?”

I do not know.

I embarked upon this course believing I could reason with my godfather. He was always rational, but now he is dead. Atalantia as Dictator is far more unpredictable.