We land near the Citadel. Sticky, polluted wind bends the towering trees near our landing pad. Perspiration quickly beads along the top of my high collar. Already I do not like this ugly place. Despite the fact that we land here on Citadel grounds, which are far from the nearest cities and surrounded by forests and lakes, Luna’s air cloys and sticks to the lungs.
On the horizon, just past the spiked spires of the Citadel’s western campus, Earth hovers, swollen and blue, reminding me that I am so far from home. The gravity here is less than Mars’s, only one-sixth Earth’s, and makes me feel unsettled and clumsy. I seem to float when I walk. And even though coordination quickly returns, my body suffers its own lightness with strange feelings of claustrophobia.
Another vessel lands to the north.
“Looks like Bellona silver,” Roque says quietly, squinting against the sunset.
I chuckle.
He glances back at me. “What?”
“tust imagining having a pulseRocket right about now.”
“Well, that’s just … lovely of you.” He walks along. I follow, eyes lingering on the vessel. “I do love the sunsets of Luna. Like we’re in Homer’s world. Sky a hot shade of fresh-forged bronze.”
Above, the alien sky melts into night with the long setting of the sun. For two weeks, the daylight will disappear from this part of the moon. Two weeks of night. Luxury yachts cruise through
this strange day’s end, while nimble Blue-piloted ripWings soar past on patrol like bats glued together from shattered ebony.
The one-sixth gravity lets these Luneborn build to their heart’s desire. And build they do. Beyond the Citadel grounds, the horizon is fenced with towers and cityscape. RungPaths wind everywhere so that citizens can pull themselves through the air with ease. The network of rungs stretch between high towers as would ivy, linking the heavens with the hells of the lowDistricts. Along them, thousands of men and women crawl like ants on vines, while Gray patrol skiffs buzz around the thoroughfares.
The household of Augustus is assigned a villa nestled within thirty acres of pines on Citadel grounds. It’s a pretty thing among other pretty things in this stately place. There are gardens, paths, fountains carved with little winged boys of stone. All that sort of frivolity.
“Fancy a session of kravat?” I ask Roque, nodding to the
training facility beside the villa. “My mind’s running away with itself.”
“I can’t.” Roque winces, stepping out of the way of our fellow lancers and their attendants who file into the villa. “I have to attend the conference on Capitalism in the Governed Age.”
“If you wanted a nap, I’m sure they have beds in the villa.” “You joking? Regulus ag Sun is giving the keynote.”
I whistle. “Quicksilver himself. So you’re going to learn how to make diamonds out of gravel? You hear the rumor about him owning the contracts of two Olympic Knights?”
“It’s not rumor. Least according to Mother. Reminds me of what Augustus said to the Sovereign at her coronation. ‘A man is never too young to kill, never too wise, never too strong, but he can damn well be too rich.’ ”
“Arcos said that.”
“No, I’m sure it was Augustus.”
I shake my head. “Check your facts, brother. Lorn au Arcos said it, and the Sovereign turned to reply, ‘You forget, Rage Knight, I am a woman.’ ”
Arcos is as much myth as man, at least to my generation. Reclusive now, he was the Sword of Mars and the Rage Knight for over sixty years. Peerless Knights across the Society have offered
him the deeds to moons if he would but tutor them for a week in his form of kravat, the Willow Way. It was he who sent me the knifeRing that killed Apollo and then offered me a place in his house. I rejected it then, choosing Augustus over the old man.
“ ‘You forget, I am a woman,’ ” Roque repeats. He cherishes these stories of their empire the way I cherished stories of the Reaper and the Vale. “When I get back, let’s talk. Not the usual banter.”
“You mean you won’t yammer on about a childhood crush, drink too much wine, wax poetic about the shape of Quinn’s smile and the beauty of Etruscan grave sites before falling asleep?” I ask.
His cheeks flush, but he puts a hand over his heart. “On my honor.”
“Then bring a bottle of foolishly expensive wine, and we can talk.”
“I’ll bring three.”
I watch him leave, eyes colder than my smile.
Several of the other lancers attend the conference with Roque. The rest make themselves comfortable as Augustus’s Gray security teams comb the grounds. Obsidian bodyguards trail Golds like shadows. Pinks sway gracefully into the villa in a constant stream, ordered from the Citadel’s Garden by members of the ArchGovernor’s household staff who find themselves bored from travel and seek a little merriment.
A Pink Citadel steward guides me to my room. I laugh when I arrive. “Perhaps there has been a mistake,” I say, looking around the small room with its adjoining washroom and closet. “I’m not a broom.”
“I don’t under—”
“He’s not a broom, so he won’t fit in this closet,” Theodora says, standing in the doorway behind us. “It is beneath his station.” She looks around, pert nose sni ng disdainfully. “These would not even suit as closet to my clothes on Mars.”
“This is the Citadel. Not Mars.” The steward’s pink eyes survey the lines on Theodora’s aged face. “There is less room for useless things.”
Theodora smiles sweetly and gestures to the rose-quartz tree pinned to the man’s breast. “I say! Is that the black poplar of Garden Dryope?”
“Your first time seeing it, I would guess,” he says haughtily before turning to me. “I don’t know how they raised your Pinks in Mars’s Gardens, dominus, but on Luna your slave should do her best to look less affected.”
“Of course. How rude of me,” Theodora apologizes. “I merely thought you would know Matron Carena.”
The steward pauses. “Matron Carena …”
“We were girls together in the Gardens. Tell her Theodora says hello and would call on her if time is found.”
“You’re a Rose.” His face goes sheet white.
“Was. All petals wilt. Oh, but do tell me your name. I would so like to commend you to her for your hospitality.”
He mumbles something quite inaudible and departs, bowing lower to Theodora than to me.
“Was that fun?” I ask.
“Always nice to flex a little muscle. Even if everything else is starting to droop.”
“Seems my career ends where yours began.” I chuckle morbidly and walk over to the holoDisplay sitting near the bed.
“I wouldn’t,” she says.
I bite my bottom lip, our signal for spying devices.
“Well, of course, that. But the holoNet is … not where you want to be right now.”
“What are they saying about me?”
“They’re wondering where you’ll be buried.”
I haven’t time to reply before knuckles rap against the frame of my room’s doorway.
“Dominus, Lady tulii requests your presence.”
 |
I follow Victra’s Pink to her room’s private terrace. Her bath alone is larger than my bed.
“It’s not fair,” a voice says from behind the ivory-white trunk of a lavender tree. I turn to see Victra playing with the thorns of a shrub. “You being cut loose like a Gray mercenary.”
“Since when have you been concerned with what’s fair, Victra?”
“Must you always fence with me?” she asks. “Come sit.” Even with the scars that distinguish her from her sister, her long form and luminous face is without true fault. She sits smoking some designer burner that smells like a sunset over a logged forest. She’s heavier of bone than Antonia, taller, and seems to have been melted into being, like a spearhead cooling into angular shape. Her eyes flash with annoyance. “I’m as far from an enemy as you have, Darrow.”
“So what are you? A friend?”
“A man in your position could use friends, no?” “I’d rather have a dozen Stained bodyguards.” “Who has the money for that?” she laughs.
I raise an eyebrow. “You do.”
“Well, they couldn’t protect you from yourself.” “I’m a bit more worried about Bellona razors.”
“Worry? Is that what I saw on your face as we descended?” She lets a merry sigh escape her lips. “Curious. See, I thought it was dread. Terror. All the truly unsettling things. Because you know this moon will be your grave.”
“I thought we weren’t fencing anymore,” I say.
“You’re right. It’s just I find you very odd. Or, at least I find your choice in friends to be odd.” She is sitting in front of me on the lip of the fountain. Her heels scrape against the aged stone. “You’ve always kept me at arm’s length while bringing Tactus and Roque close. I understand Roque, even if he is as soft as butter. But Tactus? It’s like flossing with a viper and expecting not to get bitten. Is it because he was your man at the Institute that you think he’s your friend?”
“Friend?” I laugh at the idea. “After Tactus told me how his brothers broke his favorite violin when he was a boy, I had Theodora spend half my bank account on a Stradivarius violin from Quicksilver’s auction house. Tactus didn’t thank me. It was as if I’d handed him a stone. He asked what it was for. I said, ‘For you to play.’ He asked why. ‘Because we’re friends.’ He looked back down at it and walked away. Two weeks later, I discovered
he took it and sold it and used the money for Pinks and drugs. He is not my friend.”
“He’s what his brothers made him to be,” she notes, hesitating as if reluctant to share her information with me. “When do you think he’s ever received something without someone wanting something in return? You made him uncomfortable.”
“Why do you think I’m wary with you?” I lean closer. “It’s because you always want something, Victra. tust like your sister.” “Ah. I thought it might be Antonia. She’s always ruining things.
Ever since the shewolf gnawed her way out of Mother’s womb and stole human clothes. Good that I was born first, else she might have strangled me in my crib. And she’s only my half sister anyway. Different fathers. Mother never saw much point in monogamy. You know Antonia even goes by Severus instead of tulii just to take a piss on Mother. Cantankerous brat. And I get saddled with her moral baggage. Ridiculous.”
Victra plays with the many jade rings on her fingers. I find them odd, contrasting with the Spartan severity of her scarred face. But Victra has always been a woman of contrasts.
“Why are you talking with me, Victra? I can’t do anything for you. I have no station. I have no command. I have no money. And I have no reputation. All the things you value.”
“Oh … I value other things too, darling. But you do have a reputation, all right. Pliny’s made sure of that.”
“So he did play a part in the gossip. Thought Tactus was just running his mouth.”
“A part? Darrow, he’s been at war with you since the moment you kneeled to Augustus.” She laughs. “Before then, even. He counseled Augustus to kill you then and there, or at least try you for the murder of Apollo. Didn’t you know?” She shakes her head at my blank stare. “The fact that you’re just now realizing this shows just how ill-equipped you are to play his game. And because of that, you’re going to be killed. That’s why I’m speaking with you. I’d rather you found an alternative instead of sulking in your beastly quarters. Otherwise, Cassius au Bellona is going to come and he’s going to take a knife and dig right here …” She caresses my chest with a long-nailed finger, etching
the outline of my heart. “… and give his mother her first real meal in years.”
“Then what is your suggestion?”
“You stop being such a little bitch.” She smiles up at me and holds out a dataSlip. Grudgingly, I take the edge of the thin metal slip, but she holds on, pulling me toward the edge of the fountain, between her legs. Her lips part, her tongue playing along the top as her eyes trace my face, up and up to my eyes, where they try to spark a fire. But there’s none there; with a feline sigh, she lets the dataSlip go. I run it over my personal datapad and an advertisement for a tavern appears on my display.
“This isn’t on Citadel grounds,” I say. “So?”
“So, if I leave, it’s open season on my head.” “Then don’t advertise your leaving.”
I take a step back. “How much are they paying you?” “You think this is a setup!”
“Is it?”
“No.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” “Most people can’t afford the truth. I can.” “Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You never lie.”
“I am of the gens Julii.” She stands slowly, anger uncoiling like
a razor. “My family trades in commerce enough to buy continents. Who could afford to purchase my honor? If … one day I become your enemy, I will tell you. And I will tell you why.”
“Everyone’s honest till they’re caught in a lie.”
Her laugh is husky and makes me feel small and boyish, reminding me she’s seven years older than I. “Then stay, Reaper. Trust in chance. Trust in friends. Hide here till someone buys your contract, and pray they didn’t do it just to serve you up to the Bellona like a suckling pig.”
I weigh the odds and extend a hand to help her up. “Well, when you put it that way …”
“Colonel Valentin?” Victra asks the shorter of the two Grays who wait for us on the ramp of the shuttle. It’s a shit can. One of the ugliest fliers I’ve ever seen. Like the front half of a hammerhead shark. I eye the taller of the Grays warily.
“Yes, domina,” Valentin says, nodding his cinderblock head
with the rigid precision of a man risen through the ranks. “You are sure you were not followed?”
“Certain as death,” Victra says. “We should depart fastlike, then.”
I follow Victra into the shuttle, scanning the grounds behind us. We wore ghostCloaks as soon as we departed Augustus’s villa. A dozen hidden hallways and six old gravLifts later, we arrived in a dusty, seldom-used section of the Citadel’s launch pads. Theodora left us there. She wanted to come, but I won’t take her where we’re going.
A Gray scans Victra and me for bugs as we board the ship.
The ship’s ramp slides closed behind us. Twelve craggy Grays fill the small passenger hold of the shuttle. They’re not the dashing sort. tust craftsmen of a dark trade.
Though there are averages, Colors are diverse in composition due to human genetics and the differing ecosystems throughout the Society. The Grays of Venus are often darker and more compact than those of Mars, but families move and mix and breed. The talent levels in each Color are even more variable than appearance. Most Grays aren’t destined for anything more than patrolling shopping centers and city streets. Some go to the armies. Some to the mines. But then there are the Grays who were born a special breed of wicked and clever and have been trained all their lives to hunt the Gold enemies of their Gold masters. Like these in the shuttle with us. They call them lurchers
—after the mutt dogs of Earth crossbred for uncommon stealth, cunning, and speed, all for one purpose: killing things bigger than they are.
“We’re bound for Lost City and it’s just the twelve of you?” I ask.
I know they’re enough. I just don’t like Grays. So I push their buttons.
They eye me with the quiet reserve of a family meeting a stranger on the road. Valentin’s the father. He’s built like a squat block of dirty ice carved by a rusted blade, and his sun-blasted face is dark and set with quick eyes. His lieutenant, Sun-hwa, leans toward us, tough and gnarled as an olive tree.
Both are Earthborn by the looks of their continentally ethnic features. These Grays wear no triangular badge of the Society’s Legion on their civilian street clothes. Means they’ve served their mandatory twenty years.
“We’re tasked with your protection, dominus,” says Valentin as
Sun-hwa loads an exotic circular weapon on the inside of her left wrist. Looks plasma based. “My team has prepared a secure route. Estimated traveling time: twenty-four minutes.”
“If Pliny finds out where I’m going, or if the Bellona know I’m out of the Citadel …”
“The lurchers know the situation,” Victra says. “I don’t see a Gold badge. Mercenaries?”
“Means we are good enough to live this long, dominus,”
Valentin says flatly. “We’ve prepared for all eventualities. Contingency plans and support have been organized.”
“How much support?”
“Enough. We’re just the transporters, dominus.” His mouth twitches into a smile and I take his word for it. “Bigger problem than the Bellona is third parties thinking an opportunity’s just stumbled their way. Where we’re going, there will be a hell of a lot of third parties, dominus. Shit complicates our ROI. Sun-hwa?” “Wear this.” Sun-hwa tosses me a bag of plain clothing. Her voice drones on in a monotone drawl. “You’re tall can’t do shitall about that but we’ll do a quick dye job with this this and this.”
She tosses Victra another bag. “For you. Boss thought you’d dress too fancy.”
Victra laughs at that.
“Muzzles off, boys,” Valentin barks as the ship trembles and rises in the air. “We’re live.” Thumpers and burners prime in practiced hands. Staccato sound of steel on steel. Like metal knuckles cracking as magnetic rounds go into chambers. The lurchers conceal weapons in hidden holsters over tight scarabSkin armor. Three wear illegal wrist weapons. I eye the contraband as
I slip into my scarabSkin. It drinks in the light, a strange pupil- like black. More the absence of color than anything else. Better than the duroArmor we had at the Institute, it’ll stop some blades and the occasional projectile weapon like the common scorcher.
The ship shudders as its main engines overtake the vertical thrusters.
“Talon and Minotaur, be advised. Icarus is on the move,” Valentin rasps into his com. “Repeat. Icarus is on the move.”
