Now there’s the roar. I hate how my body shivers at the idea of glory. There’s something deep in man that hungers for this. But I think it weakness, not strength, to abandon decency for that strange darker spirit.
I look at the Jackal to the side of the bridge. He has little importance on this day. He has done his work bringing all these men and women here. He has muddled communications and sowed false information, leading much of the Sovereign’s aid to the Bellona scattered chasing false rumors of elements of my fleet sneaking off to attack Luna. A ploy only. My forces are all here.
“Quite the puppet master you play,” the Jackal whispers to me as we wait for the Whites to enter the bridge behind the waiting Golds. Sevro scoots closer to me, as if to remind the Jackal his place.
“You made most of the strings. I never thanked you,” I say quietly back to him.
His plain face wrinkles with distaste. “Must we become sentimental?”
“You helped Mustang escape. That’s why Pliny caught you.” He never mentioned it, never boasted or used it as leverage. It was the simple act of a brother helping a sister. I shrug. “And you tried your damnedest to save Quinn. Maybe you’re a better man than you know.”
He laughs that barking laugh of his. “Doubtful. But tomorrow, a traitor will be king, and a Empress shall be traitor, so maybe wicked men can be virtuous.”
I look out the viewport. “Are your satellites ready?”
“For the virus?” He nods. “My Greens will shut down all communications as soon as you give the word. For fifteen minutes, it will be quiet as death, for everyone. Their global and regional defensive units won’t have surveillance or sensors. Time enough to shatter most of the static positions.” He looks at his feet, as though suddenly self-conscious. “Save my father if you can.”
Sevro shifts, annoyed at our whispering.
“I will.”
I’d rather Augustus rot forever in a hole in the ground. But I need him once Mars is taken. Despite what I can do, I’m not a Governor or a king. I need his legitimacy, as Theodora reminded me last night. Without it, I’m just an arm with a razor.
“And you’re sure about Agea?” he asks. “About the prize? Otherwise it’s reckless.”
“One hundred percent.”
“Good. Good. Prime luck then.” He moves away.
“Replacing me already?” Sevro snorts, watching him go.
“He’s got one hand. You’ve got one eye. I have a type.”
The ceremonies continue. Two hundred Golds bend their knees as the Whites walk through their ranks. I try to think it a stupid, solemn thing, all these men and women with their pompous silence and their attention to tradition. But this is the history of mankind in the making. And there is a nobility to the moment.
Armor glints against the artificial light. Ethereal Whites wander through the ranks, virgin maidens barefoot in snow-white cloaks, with daggers of iron and laurels of gold. Child Whites carry the triangular golden standards—a scepter, a sword, and a book crowned with a laurel. I feel hands on my shoulders.
I feel their weight.
They say this is the way the Old Conquerors went to battle, with virgins of White wounding them with iron. They touch our brows with the laurel and cut our left palms with the iron as they whisper softly in our ears:
“My son, my daughter, now that you bleed, you shall know no fear, no defeat, only victory. Your cowardice seeps from you. Your rage burns bright. Rise, warrior of Gold, and take with you your Color’s might.”
Then each warrior smears the handprint of blood across his face and across the top of his demonfaced helm. One by one we stand in silence. Each Gold represents ten legions. This is the storm that will fall on Mars in a torrent of metal. Ten million Golds, Grays, and Obsidians.
“We do not fight a planet. We fight men and women. Cut off their heads and see their armies crumble,” Lorn reminds us all.
The assembly of warriors stands, faces now smeared with blood, and together we recite the names of our chief enemies. “Karnus au Bellona, Aja au Grimmus, Imperator Tiberius au Bellona, Scipia au Falthe, Octavia au Lune, Agrippina au Julii, and Cassius au Bellona. These are wanted lives.”
In the halls of my enemy, they will recite my name, and the names of my friends. He who kills the Reaper will have bounty and renown. Individual hunters and killgroups will scan our com signals, searching for me. And in packs they will descend, some for single battle. Others for the sly kill of a sniper’s bullet. Some will not even participate in the battle for Mars. They are Gray mercenaries. Freed Obsidian bounty hunters. Knights of Venus and Mercury here only for my head, using their family assets, family soldiers, to help them privately stalk me and make their own glory. The Jackal intercepted a communiqué that three of the Olympic Knights are here. They all will have watched me, studied my recordings, my victories, my defeats. And they will know my nature, the nature of my Howlers. But I will not know them.
Let them come make their introductions.
I’m more interested in meeting Cassius. At least that’s what I told Lorn. But he knows that’s not true. A deep shame burns in me for how I yelled like a monster at his family. I beat him fairly, but I didn’t have to like it as much as I did. Sometimes I wonder if he were raised a Red and I a Gold if he wouldn’t have ended up a better man than I am now, and I a worse man than he ever could be.
For some reason I think I could have been capable of great evil. Maybe that’s the guilt. Maybe that’s the fear of a life where I never knew Eo. I don’t know. Or maybe it’s the fear of knowing how easily I fall to pride.
My warriors disperse back to their own family vessels. I watch out the viewport as half a hundred shuttles streak away to the great armada we’ve assembled. Though they know we’re here now, our enemies did not expect us to come to Mars so quickly.
I turn my attention to my remaining commanders. Orion will lead the Pax and Roque will lead the fleet in conjunction with Victra. I approve of their plan. The rest of my inner circle lingers, except for Mustang, who goes ahead to the hangars.
I reach up slightly to thump both of the Telemanuses on their shoulders. “Pax would have looked brilliant this day.” Sophocles curls around Kavax’s ankles.
“My brother always looked brilliant,” Daxo says warmly. “Silly, shouting, trying to be like Father. But brilliant nonetheless. We’ll kill Tiberius au Bellona, don’t you worry.”