“Do not speak of Rhea to me, girl.”
Victra’s teeth glimmer in a cruel smile. “So there is a Rage Knight beneath the wrinkles and moth-bitten rags.”
Lorn surveys her, seeing the wrathfulness of youth in her, and he looks to me, as if to wonder just what sort of man brings Golds like Tactus and Victra to his side. Does he even know me? his eyes ask. No, he’s realizing. Of course not.
“Honor in the first. Honor in the last. Those are my family words. Whereas you … young lady, well, the name Julii does not exactly lift one to nobler purpose, does it? You’re just traders.”
“My name has nothing to do with who I am.”
“Snakes beget snakes,” Lorn replies, not even looking at her now. “You mother was a snake. She begat you. Ergo, you are a snake. And what do snakes do, my dear? They slither. They wait, coldblooded, cruel in the grass, and then they bite.”
“We could ransom her,” Sevro says. “Threaten to kill her unless Agrippina joins us or at least stops pissing all over our plans.”
“You’re a sinister little shit, aren’t you?” Victra asks.
“I’m Gold, bitch. What’d you expect? Warm milk and cookies just because I’m pocketsized?”
Roque clears his throat, drawing eyes.
“It seems we are being unfair, hypocritical even,” he observes. “All here know my family is full of politicians. Some of you might even think I come from noble blood and noble seed. But we Fabii are a dishonest breed. Mother’s a Senator who lines her pockets with agricultural funds and lowColor medical subsidies so that she can live in more homes than her mother did. My paternal grandfather poisoned his own nephew over a Violet starlet a quarter his age, who ended up stabbing him and blinding herself when she discovered he killed the nephew, her lover. But that’s nothing next to my great-great-uncle, who fed servants to lampreys because he read Emperor Tiberius pioneered the strange passion. Yet here I am, spawn of all that sin, and I wager no one here questions my loyalty.
“Why then do we doubt Victra’s? She has remained steadfast to Darrow since the Academy. None of you were there. None of you know anything about it, so I insist you shut your mouths. Even when her mother demanded she abandon Darrow and Augustus, she stayed. Even when the Praetorians came to kill us on Luna, she stayed. Now she is here, when we are little more than a ragtag coalition of bandits, and you question her. You disgust me. It makes me sad to be amongst you bickerers. So if another man or woman questions her loyalty, I will lose faith in this fellowship. And I will leave.”
Victra’s smile for him is like a sunrise, creeping, slow, then blindingly bright. It disappears slower than I thought it might have. The warmth in her surprises Roque as well, and his fair cheeks are quick to flush.
“I am not my mother,” Victra announces. “Or my sister. My ships are mine. My men are mine.” Her wide-set eyes are cool, almost sleepy, but they flash as she leans forward now. “Trust me, and you will find reward. But all that matters is what Darrow thinks.”
All eyes turn to me and my silence. In truth, I was not thinking about Victra, but about Tactus and wondering how easily he could tell that I kept him at arm’s length. When I showed him love at first and he rejected the violin, I grew embarrassed and hurt. So I pulled back. Better if I had been true to how I felt and stayed the course. His walls would have broken. He never would have left. He could still be here. I’ll not make the same mistake again, least of all to Victra. I reached out to her in the hall, and I will do so in this company.
“Chance made us Golds,” I say. “We could have been born any other Color. Chance put us in our families. But we choose our friends. Victra chose me. I chose her, like I chose all of you. And if we cannot trust our friends …” I look to Roque plaintively, seeking absolution in his eyes, “… then what’s the point in breathing?”
I look back to Victra. Her eyes say a thousand things, and the Jackal’s words come back to me as he lay burned on his bed from the bomb. Victra loves me. Could it really be so simple? She does all these things not for the Julii way of gain and profit, but for that simple human emotion. I wonder, could I ever love her? No. No, in another world, Mustang would never be a warrior, would never be cruel. In any world, Victra would always be this. Always a warrior, like Eo really. Always too wild and full of fire to find peace in anything else.
Mustang notices something pass between Victra and me.
“Then it’s settled,” Mustang says. “Back to the matter at hand. Pliny waits now with the main fleet. There, he has brought all of my father’s bannermen to compose a document of formal surrender to the Sovereign and a restructuring of Mars. The deal, as far as I understand it, will make him the head of his own house. He, along with the Julii and the Bellona, will be the powers on Mars. Once the peace is agreed upon, it will be sealed with the execution of my father in the courtyard of our Citadel in Agea.” Mustang looks around the table, letting gravity build behind her words. “If we do not rescue my father, this war is done. The Moon Lords will not come to our aid. In fact, they will send ships against us. Vespasian’s forces from Neptune will turn around. We will be alone against the entire Society. And we will die.”
“Good. That makes things simple,” I say. “We take back our fleet, then we take back Mars. Any ideas?”
33
A Dance
I sleep with a dream of the past. My hand curled in the tendrils of her hair. About us the vale lay quiet in slumber. Even the children did not yet stir. The birds rested on knotted limbs in the pinewood nearby, and I heard nothing but her breath and the crackling of the old fire. The bed smelled of her. No scent of flowers or perfume. Just the earthy musk of her skin, of the oils in the hair around my hands, of her hot breath as it warmed my cheek. Her hair was of our planet. It was wild like mine, dirty like mine, red like mine. A bird outside croons loudly. Incessantly. Louder. Louder.
And I wake hearing someone at my door.
Kicking aside sweaty sheets, I sit up on the edge of the mattress. “Visual.” A holo appears of Mustang in the hall. I rise instinctively to let her in, but when I reach the door, I pause. We have our plan. There’s nothing left to discuss at this hour. Nothing from which any good could come.
I watch her on the holo. Shifting foot to foot, something in her hands. If I let her in … it’ll just cost us both in the end. I’ve already hurt Roque. Already killed Quinn and Tactus and Pax. Bringing her close now would be selfish. At the very best, she survives this war and she learns the truth about me. I back away from the door.
“Darrow, stop being an ass and let me in.”
My hand choses for me.
Her hair is wet and loose, her uniform replaced by a black kimono. How fragile she seems next to Ragnar, who lurks in the hall.
“Told you,” she says to Ragnar. To me she says, “Knew you’d be awake. Ragnar here was being stubborn. Said you needed to sleep. And he wouldn’t take the food I brought him.”
“Do you need something?” I ask more coldly than I intended.
Her feet make a show of shuffling nervously. “I’m … afraid of the dark.” She pushes past me. Ragnar watches this, eyes giving nothing away.
“I told you to go to bed, Ragnar.”
He does not move.
“Ragnar, if I’m not safe here, I’m not safe anywhere. Go to bed.”
“I sleep with my eyes open, dominus.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Well, do it in your bunk, Stained. That’s an order,” I say, hating the master’s words as soon as they come from my mouth.
Reluctantly, he nods his head and slips silently down the hall. I watch him go as the door hisses closed. I turn to find Mustang inspecting my suite. It’s more wood and stone than metal, the walls carved and worked with woodland scenes. Strange the efforts these people go to in order to make themselves feel part of history and not a piece of the future.