I feel that little snap go through my hands. I’ve betrayed Eo.
I spit on the stones. My mouth is dry. Haven’t had anything to drink all morning. My head aches. Time to drop my balls, as Uncle Narol used to say. Time to see Cassius.
He sits with his ionBlade out on House Mars’s table. He’s in the seat I carved with my sigil. The old House flag lies across his knee. The Primus hand dangles around his neck. So much time has passed since he put that sword in my belly. The weapon looks silly now. A toy, a relic. I am so far past this room, past his blade, past his reach, yet his eyes stop my heart. The guilt is like black bile in my throat. Fills my chest and drains me.
“I’m sorry for Julian,” I tell him.
His hair is golden curls but matted with grit and grease. Fleas make their home there. He is still beautiful, still more handsome than I ever will be. But the spark in his eye has cooled. Time and space away from this place are what his soul needs. Months of siege. Months of anger and defeat. Months of loss and guilt have drained him of all that makes him Cassius. What a poor soul. I feel sorry for him. I almost laugh. After he put a sword in my belly, I pity him. He has never lost a battle. He alone of all the Primuses can say that, except for the Jackal. Yet he takes the badge and flips it to me.
“You’ve won. But was it worth it?” Cassius asks.
“Yes.”
“No hesitation.…” He nods. “That’s the difference between you and I.”
He sets the standard and his sword down and walks close to me, so close I can smell the stink of his breath. I think he’s going to hug me. I want to hug him, to apologize and beg for his forgiveness. Then he pulls open a scab on his knuckles, sucks the blood from it and spits in my face, startling me.
“This is a blood feud,” he hisses in highLingo. “If ever again we meet, you are mine or I am yours. If ever again we draw breath in the same room, one breath shall cease. Hear me now, you wretched worm. We are devils to one another until one heart beats no more. Now rot.”
It is a formal, cold declaration that requires one thing of me. I nod. And he leaves. I stand trembling for a moment after he’s gone. My heart thuds in my chest. So much pain. I had thought it would be over, but not all scars heal. Not all sins are forgiven.
I take the Mars flag and pin the Primus badge to myself. I watch the map on the wall. My slingBlade banner flutters over every castle there; my men secured the rest even as Tactus makes ready Olympus for Mustang’s assault. Now those castles belong to me, not to the wolf of House Mars. My slingBlade looks like the L of Lambda. My clan. The place where my brother, my sister, my uncle, my mother, my friends, still toil. They feel a world apart, yet their symbol, a symbol of our rebellion—a working tool made into a weapon for war—flies over all the Houses of the Aureate except one. Pluto.
I leave the castle through the spire. I am a Red Helldiver of Lykos. I am Gold Primus of House Mars. And I am going to my last battle in this bloodydamn valley. After that the real war begins.
44
The Beginning
Tactus has assumed command in my absence. The man is a cruel beast, but he’s my cruel beast. And with him at my side, my forces are fit for bloodshed. Our armor glistens. Three hundred strong. Ninety new slaves. They will not have a chance to earn their freedom. There were not enough gravBoots for all. Or enough armor. But everyone has something. The DeadHorses and the Howlers group together near the edge of Mount Olympus. They stare down, a thin arc of gold, at the ground a mile below. Our adversaries are in the mountains. When Mustang and the Jackal come from the snow peaks, they will be at a disadvantage. We have the highest ground. The rest of my force—Pax’s former squad and Nyla’s—guard the golden fortress and the Proctors. The slaves are there as well. I wish Pax were by my side. I always felt safer in his shadow.
I’ve sent Nyla and Milia and a dozen others in ghostCloaks to scout the mountains for the Jackal’s movements. Who knows what intel Mustang has given her brother? He will know our weaknesses, our disposition, so I shift everything as much as possible. Whatever she knows will be useless. Alter the paradigm. I wonder if I could beat her as mercilessly as I beat Fitchner. The girl who hummed Eo’s song? Never. I’m still Red at heart.
“Hate this gory part,” Tactus sighs. He leans his wiry body past me to peer out over the edge of the floating mountain. “Waiting. Pfah. We need some optics.”
“What?”
“Optics!” he says loudly.
My hearing goes in and out. Popped eardrums are nasty things.
He says something about Mustang and cutting her thumbs off for starters. I don’t catch most of it. Probably don’t want to; he’s the sort to make braids of someone’s entrails. “There!” Then we see a golden flier pierce a cloud. Three more follow. Nyla … Milia. Mustang … and something else.
“Hold!” I call to Sevro and his Howlers. They echo the command as Mustang approaches carrying something odd.
“Lo, Reaper,” Mustang calls to me. I wait for her to land. Her boots bring her quickly to the ground.
“Lo, Mustang.”
“So Milia says you figured it out.” She looks around with a curious smile. “This must all be for me then?”
“Of course.” I’m confused. “Thought there might be a scuffle bewtween Augustus and Andromedus.”
“No scuffle this time. I brought you a gift. May I present my brother, Adrius au Augustus, the Jackal of the Mountains, and his standard. And he’s”—she looks at me with a hard smile as she realizes I thought she betrayed me—“disarmed.”
She drops the Jackal, bound, gagged, and naked.
“Bugger my goryballs,” Tactus hisses.
I have won.
Mustang stands beside me as the dropships come to Olympus. She’s told me not to feel guilty about doubting her loyalty. She should have told me her family ties even though she doesn’t claim the Jackal as her brother. Not in spirit. Her true brother, her older brother, was killed by one of Cassius’s, a brute by the name of Karnus. Augustus and Bellona. The blood feud between the families runs deep, and I feel its riptide pulling at my legs.
Yet the question remains, is Mustang her father’s daughter? Or is she the girl who hums Eo’s song? I think I know the answer. She is what Golds can be, should be. Yet her father and brother are what Golds are. Eo never would have guessed it could be this complicated. There is goodness in Golds, because in many ways, they are the best humanity can offer. But they’re also the worst. What does that do to her dream? Only time will tell.