“Can you lift us over the wall?” I ask.
“Things are almost outta juice,” he grumbles. “Let’s try.” We hug one another and he lifts me into the air, wincing and favoring his left arm. The boots sputter and shiver out sparks. Twice we dip down. Then we’re over the wall. I set down atop and Sevro dips down again to pick up the next Howler. Moments later, his head appears at the top of the wall for a moment, then vanishes as his gravBoots spark and whine. With one last mechanical pop, the boots give out and Sevro and the Howler fall the ten meters to the ground.
A great boom thunders from across the city. Smoke rises distantly.
Mustang did it.
Above, the translucent shield that separated this world from the world of ships fails. It wobbles and, distorting the fires in the city and the lightning above like a corrupted mirror, shatters into prismatic mist. Or one-eighth of it shatters; a flood of pent-up water falls down on that section of the city in great gray sheets.
“It didn’t work!” Pebble cries from the other side of the wall.
But it did. One by one, the nexuses that cast the shield overload. It’s a chain reaction as great sheets of water from the storm finally fall on Agea. Roque, if he’s winning, will launch the reinforcements. The city is as good as taken. And even now, the Sovereign will be extracted from the bunkers by her bodyguards to make an escape from the lost planet. But the shuttle pads are still two kilometers on the other side of the Citadel grounds. This was all supposed to be different. I should be in my armor, a hundred Obsidians behind me, a dozen of my best Golds. Instead, I lead a pack of my friends into a meatgrinder. I need to change the paradigm, but I won’t risk them. I glance down the wall at Sevro, who immediately recognizes the look in my eyes.
“No, Darrow,” he says. “Think of your mission!” He’s begging me, jumping and clawing at the wall as I turn away. “Don’t do it, Darrow. Wait! They’ll kill you!”
I drop over the other side of the wall into the Citadel’s gardens.
Some men have threads of life so strong that they fray and snap those around them. Enough friends have paid for my war. This one’s on me.
“DARROW!” he screams, horrible, desperate. “STOP!”
I run faster than I have in all my life. The Sovereign will not escape me. I did all this to catch her. Take her, break the Society. Take her, and the stage is set. We will rise. We can win. I jump rows of shrubbery, sprint around fountains, tear through rosebushes. Blood leaks down my arm. I do not feel my body. I fly over the earth. SlingBlade in hand.
There.
I round a corner of the Citadel. Past a garden of roses lies a courtyard of white scored black by the engines of personal yachts. Four lonely ships sit in a landing zone that can hold a hundred. All the shuttles are black with a giant gold crescent on their broad chassis, but the thickest of them, one with larger engines and a reinforced hull, is the Sovereign’s. The others are decoys, nearly as thick, nearly as armored. In the air, they are indistinguishable.
I’ve been seen on sensors, no doubt. Gray lurchers are coming for me. Obsidian bodyguards have been loosed from some hidden barracks to kill me. They’ll only catch me if I stop. And even as I examine the landing pad, I do not break my stride. Oranges bustle around the black shuttles, prepping them to launch. I’m not too late. But the door from the Citadel is far closer than I to the ship.
They come out in a rush. I don’t see her. Just purple capes swirling in the rain and wind. They duck their heads into the gale, look upward at the sky where Iron Rain entry trails glow behind the storm, making the dark clouds look like steel heating slowly in the forge. My Titans come.
The Praetorians hurry, running up a long ramp into the shuttle’s belly with the Sovereign. I catch her face as she ducks into the ship’s belly. I see Aja amongst her entourage. And Karnus. And Fitchner, that ugly traitorous son of a bitch. I run faster. Legs numb with exhaustion. Lungs aching. All I am, I put into this moment. My life in the mines, the hours suffering with Harmony, the horrors at the Institute. All the love I’ve earned and lost and still wish to live for, I let burn in me.
Half the entourage waits on the pavement, left behind to watch the ship as its lights glow and its engines prime. The decoys mimic its motions. A Bellona Gold turns as I near. His eyes flash wide and I slash him at the run as he lets out a half scream. More turn—women, men, warriors, Politicos, Golds and Silvers I recognize from my days at Augustus’s side.
Their realization of my presence comes in waves. The enemy is supposed to be at the gates, not amongst them, so they flinch in seeing me. And when they gather their wits, I’m already past their armored hands. I dodge a Gray’s outstretched grip, snag a small munitions pouch from his waist. I lash backward, hitting flesh.
Shouts. Fumbling for razors. Bullets, pulseblasts, snap past my head. The shuttle’s ramp retracts as it begins to rise.
I scream and jump with all the might I’ve ever had. The hand of my injured right arm grips the ramp’s edge. My eyes bug from my head with the strain and pain in my fingers. The ship continues to rise. The roar of the engines fills me, rattling my heart against my ribs. The ramp continues to close. I grunt desperately and jerk myself upward, awkward at the odd angle, but possible in the low gravity. I roll forward into the bay and onto my knees and pant, slingBlade against the floor. The sound of the engines slipping away as the door shuts and pressurizes. All I hear is my ragged breath and the rumble of the deadly shuttle as it makes its escape.
I look up.
42
Death of a Gold
Six Praetorians in full armor watch me. Karnus is with them. And Aja. And stocky Fitchner, his eyes widening as he sees me. The Sovereign stands in front of her Praetorians, tall but hardly coming to their shoulders.
Blooydamn. I didn’t think they’d all still be in the bay.
“Darrow?” Fitchner almost moans.
“What?” Karnus laughs, looking about to see if the others notice how ridiculous a present just fell in their laps. “What?… Andromedus, where did you come from? It looks like Jove himself just shit you out.”
I stay on my knees, panting, dripping blood and rain and sweat and mud.
“We can leverage him as a hostage,” Fitchner says quickly as the ship rises in the sky.
“No,” the Sovereign answers. “Achilles would never have been ransomed, for by being captured, he loses what makes him Achilles.” She regards me for a cool moment. I spit phlegm on the ground. “Aja, cut off his head.”
Aja paces toward me. “Stupid boy. No friends. No army. No hope.”
I chuckle darkly. “Who needs hope when you have a pulseGrenade?”
I hold up the munitions I ripped off the Gray’s belt. They recoil.
“What do you want, Andromedus?” the Sovereign asks slowly.
“To prove you are not invincible. Land this ship.”
Octavia smiles and speaks into her com. “Pilot. Roll.”
The pilot does a barrel roll. Without gravBoots I lose my feet, slamming into the ceiling then back to the deck. My enemies stay rooted in place. Aja kicks the pulseGrenade out the open hatch. It explodes far beneath.
I look out into the night, where my plan just disappeared.
“Pride.” Octavia smiles. “I suppose it makes fools of us all.”
I take my time looking back to her, realizing how very stupid I was to think I could control all the variables. And now I’ve slipped up.
“You won’t escape,” I say.
“You know I will. Why else would you risk jumping on my shuttle?” She nods to one of the Olympic Knights and a strange, high-pitched warble ripples through the air twice before subsiding. A ghostCloak. Impossibly expensive for a whole ship. My friends won’t be coming to rescue me.