“We must hurry,” Aja drawls in the center of the massacre. “They know we’re here. Bring your father and let us go.”
The Jackal nods. “A moment, if you please.”
Several meters away, Augustus lies pinned to the ground by three waiters. They hoist him up as the Jackal approaches, stepping over Lorn’s desecrated body.
“Is the Mask not as you like, Darrow?” he calls to me. “I made it just for you after you revealed your true self to me in Attica.”
The Jackal turns to his father. “What do you think, Father? Was this a ploy worthy your name?”
“You monster.” Augustus spits in his face. “What have you done?”
“So you’re not proud?” The Jackal wipes the spit away and looks at it. “Damn.”
“Stop this. My son, you’ve ruined us.”
“Adrius …,” Aja says impatiently. “We must go.”
The Jackal steps forward. “So now you call me son?” He clucks his tongue scoldingly and straightens his father’s jacket. “Was I your son when you put me on a rock for the elements to claim me? Three days. I was a baby. The Board didn’t even want an Exposure. But you thought I was so weak, and Claudius so strong. Was he strong when I had Karnus put him in the ground?”
His father’s lips tremble. “What?”
“I paid Karnus au Bellona seven million credits and six Pinks to sully Claudius’s girl. I knew Claudius’s honor would lead him into the ring. Funny thing is … it was your money. I asked you for it so I could invest in my future. And I did.” He frowns. “Father, did you really think a ten-year-old cares about the stock market? You should have paid better attention.”
“You killed Claudius.” Augustus’s voice breaks under the strain and he sags into the arms of those holding him, shaking from sadness. “You killed my boy.”
This would break Mustang’s heart.
“I am your boy,” the Jackal sneers. “I was a good son. I worshiped you. I feared you. I obeyed you. I learned what you wished me to learn. I went where you wished me to go. I did only as your will commanded. Yet I was not enough.”
Augustus shakes his head, drawing back his rage as the Praetorians cuff his hands together with magnetic shackles. His eyes rise to look at the monster he created. “I should have strangled you in your crib.”
“Come now, Father …”
“You are not my son.”
Adrius flinches. With those few words, Augustus releases something. And the small part of Adrius that held out hope to be loved disappears. He shakes off his humanity, leaving only the Jackal.
“Then farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear. Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost.” He whispers to some distant, fading part of himself as he lazily lifts the scorcher to his father’s forehead. “Evil, be thou my good.”
“Stop!” Aja steps forward. “Adrius! In the name of the Sovereign …”
The Jackal shoots his father in the head.
Eo’s killer drops to the ground, and I feel hollowness spread over my heart. Death begets death begets death. This is what Dancer warned me about. This is why Mustang said not to trust her brother. This is why my friends will die. Why I will die. Because I cannot match this evil.
Who can?
“You dumb little snake!” Aja shouts. “The Sovereign needed him to talk down the Outer Rim! Gorydammit.” She looks to the sky as flame trails blaze across the dark. Someone’s coming in hard from the upper atmosphere. Pulse weapon fire flashes across Citadel grounds as Praetorians encounter Augustus’s and Lorn’s first responders.
“I gave you this prize,” the Jackal says, nodding to me. “Do not whine now.” He references his datapad and points at the flame trails. “The Telemanuses are coming. Unless you want to play with them, I suggest we leave.”
Cassius agrees. “Lorn and Augustus are dead. This army will wither.”
Aja orders her Praetorians to their shuttle. They come to pick me from the ground. Victra’s hand on my leg slackens. Her eyes have closed.
“Roque,” I murmur through the thickness of the poison. “Brother …”
“No. No,” he says, not a monster, still himself, still quiet and tranquil, if dreadful in his sadness. “You are a son of Red. I a son of Gold. That world where we are brothers is lost.” But he comes close, bending, reaching with delicate hands to angle the ivory box in my lap toward my face. “And in this world, the power of Gold will never wane.”
I look into the box and my heart shatters.
All that has been, all that was to be, crashes down. Eo’s dream falls into darkness. Wherever you are, Sevro, Mustang, Ragnar, do not come back to this world. There’s too much pain. Too much sorrow to ever mend it.
I look into the box and see Fitchner’s head staring back at me through empty eyes, mouth stuffed with grapes. Ares, the one hope we had, the one man who picked me up when I was broken and gave me a chance for something better than revenge, has been butchered. And I know we are undone.