In the news footage that was pirated, they don’t even show Dio. But here, with the raw footage, I can rewind. I do so. I can amplify the sound. I do so. I watch it happen again: My mother hangs her head. Narol spits. Kieran covers the children’s eyes. Feet shuffle. Dio goes up the scaffold. All the sound is magnified. I sort out the white noise with the controls, and I hear what my wife said to Dio.
“In our bedroom, there is a crib I made. Hide it before Darrow returns.”
“A crib …,” Dio murmurs.
“He must never know. It would break him.”
“Don’t say it, Eo. Don’t.”
“I am with child.”
10
Broken
I break.
Sitting in a void. Staring at my hands. The hands that could not save my wife, my child. She was right. I wasn’t strong enough to bear the truth of Eo’s second sacrifice. Eo could have lived. Eo could have given us the child we always wanted. That future wasn’t worth her silence. I wasn’t worth it …
I feel something deep in my chest, a hollow raw ache. Like blackness has opened in the pit of my soul even as my body tightens and coils around grief. I weigh a million pounds. Shoulders slump. Chest compressed. My fingers clutch together. Funny to think these hands have been with me this whole time. They helped pull her ankles. They buried her in the soil. But they didn’t just bury her, did they?
No. They buried another life. One unborn. Our child, dead before it lived. And I never even knew. I failed them both. The amplified video replays again.
“I am with child,” she tells Dio on the scaffold. “I am with child.”
I replay it a dozen times, feeling myself shrink into a corridor of grief.
The Golds didn’t just kill her. They killed what I’ve always wanted to be—a husband and a father. If only I had stopped her. If only I had not pouted like a child when we lost the Laurel, she wouldn’t have thought to take me to the garden. If only I had the strength to pretend losing the Laurel didn’t bother me.
All the family I could have had. A wife. Sons. Daughters. Grandchildren. They’ve been slaughtered before they ever were. Eo will never hold our daughter. She will never kiss our son to sleep and smile over at me as his little hands clutch my finger. I’m all that’s left of that family that could have been. A dark shadow of the man I was meant to be.
The rage rises. We had a chance, and it is gone. Everything I wanted is gone, because of me and because of them. Their laws. Their injustice. Their cruelty. They made a woman choose death for her and her unborn child over a life of slavery. All that for power. All that so they can keep their perfect little world.
“You were not strong enough then,” Harmony says. “Are you strong enough now, Helldiver?” I look at her, tears making warm paths down my face. Her hard eyes soften for me. “I had children, once. Radiation ate their insides, and they didn’t even give them pain meds. Didn’t even fix the leak. Said there weren’t enough resources. My husband just sat there and watched them die. In the end, the same thing took him. He was a good man. But good men die. To free them, to protect them, we must be savages. So give me evil. Give me darkness. Make me the bloodydamn devil if we can bring even the faintest ray of light.”
I stand and wrap my arms around her as I’m reminded of the true horrors our kind face. Had I really forgotten? I am a child of hell, and I’ve spent too long in their heaven.
“Whatever Ares wants, I’ll do it.”
“Pliny sent the bitch,” the Jackal hisses as the Yellow physicians slowly remove the burned skin from his arm and reapply new growth cultures. “It wasn’t Sons of Ares. They wouldn’t kill that many lowColors. It’s against profile. Pliny probably. Or the Sovereign’s Praetorians using cover.”
The lights of passing ships glow through the glass. He curses and shouts at his servants to black out the windows. Grays brought me here to his private skyscraper instead of the Citadel, as I requested. The place crawls with mercenaries. He prefers Grays to Obsidians, except apparently that Stained. I’m the only other Gold, which shows the extent of the Jackal’s trust. His name would certainly bring enough hangers-on to fill a city, but he’s comfortable in his isolation. Like me.
“Could it have been Victra?” I ask. “She didn’t stay …”
“She’s already proven her loyalty. She wouldn’t use a bomb. And she’s in love with you. It wasn’t her.”
“In love with me?” I ask, startled.
“You’re blind as a Blue.” He snorts but says no more about it. “Our alliance must remain a secret until we’re off this damn moon, which means you were not in that tavern. If Pliny knew the extent of our plans, he would have been more thorough. I believe he was only targeting me. So you will return to the Citadel. Pretend as if nothing has happened. I will continue my plan with the syndicate lords, then purchase your contract at the end of the Summit.”
At which point, their world will change.
I turn to leave him, but his voice arrests me at the door. “You saved my life. Only one other person has ever done that. Thank you, Darrow.”
“Tell your new skin to grow faster. You won’t want to miss the closing gala.”
The next three days pass in a haze, my mind on Eo and what we lost. I cannot find escape from the grief. It plagues me even as I work myself to death in the estate’s gymnasium. I do not indulge in small talk. I pull back from my friends. None of this matters. Not to me. Life fades in the presence of pain. Theodora notices, and tries her best to relieve my dourness, even suggesting I distract myself with Roses from the Citadel’s Garden.
“Better you, dominus, than some rough man from the Gas Giants,” she says.
News of the bombings sweeps through the Citadel, dominating the news. The Society plays it well—broadcasting their aid relief. Sending out instructions on how to handle a potential crisis. Yellow psychologists analyze Ares on screen, conclude that a latent sexual trauma in his youth makes him lash out to seize control of his world again. Violet actors and entertainers raise money for those families who have lost loved ones. Quicksilver himself volunteers three percent of his personal fortune to relief efforts. Obsidian and Gray commandos attack asteroid bases where Sons of Ares “train.” Gray antiterrorist agents hold press conferences saying they have apprehended those responsible, likely some Reds they pulled out of a mine or Luna’s slums.
It’s a farce and the Golds play it so well. They hide from the cameras and make this seem a fight of all the Colors against Red terrorists. This is not Gold’s fight. It belongs to all of Society. Moreover, Society is winning because our sacrifice and obedience allow us to prosper. Bloodydamn horseshit.
Yet still, blame must be placed. So the ArchGovernor is pulled away to face inquiries regarding his handling of the situation. How have the Sons spread from Mars to Luna? they will ask. The Gold hornets’ nest has been stirred, as I said it would be, but still the gala continues. I watch the Golds play their games of intrigue, diplomacy, spiriting off to galas and conferences and summits, untouched by the dirty games with terrorists. They are protected, shielded from horror.
It would bother me, but they are shadows to me now. As though they’ve already fallen into memory. This present is pale compared to my past.
I touch the bomb on my chest in regret. It is of Mickey’s make. A copy of the pegasus I wore at the Institute, which contained Eo’s hair and now lies secreted away with my other personal effects. All I need do is twist its head and it becomes the bomb. The ring they gave me will activate it.
I draw away from friends, from Victra. She’s asked Roque what is wrong with me. I know he will answer that I’m like the wind, a creature of vagary and moods. Or something like that. He draws closer to me, visiting my rooms when I’ve gone to bed, attempting to spar with me in the gymnasium. But I cannot smile with him or listen to his soft voice read poems or discuss philosophy or even share jokes. I can’t let myself feel for him, because I know he will soon be dead. I try to kill him in my heart before I kill him in the flesh.