“We are one people. We always have been. I know that now. My betrayal of you betrayed the dream I claimed to fight for. Eo did not even know these worlds of yours existed, but she would have believed, as Ares did, that this dream has no boundaries. It is open to all. It includes all of those brave enough to stand when the Golds tell us to kneel. And it includes those who are perhaps not brave enough, not yet. My mistake was in thinking I was alone. That if I fell, if I lost, there’d be no one left to fight. I know that is not true. Because Ares fell, and look at all of you.”
I look down at Sevro.
“Alone we are weak, at the mercy of fear. Alone we are too willing to compromise our morality. Our courage comes from the belief that we are not alone. That we cannot be divided. That is why I beg you: learn from my mistakes. Let my death have a greater purpose: saving as many lives as it can. I am not here to petition for myself, but for those Europans stranded on the surface. For the Ganymedes hiding behind their shields, or the Ionians still holding out in their crypts. I beseech you all, do not turn your back on the Core, on those living free on Mars, or those fighting to regain freedom on Mercury, on Earth. We are all one people. None of us is alone.
“Here, now, you believe you are alone against Fá and his Horde. Your fear will tell you that you must protect your own. That you must keep the sealifts closed, even if it means the civilians on the surface will be slaughtered, enslaved. You believe you have no choice. But you do.” I nod to Diomedes. “That is the prince of Sungrave. You can judge him for the sins of his ancestors. You can kill him. Or you can let him tell you of Kalyke. Let him tell you of Sungrave and the slaughter he has witnessed. You want change? Now is the time to make it. To show this Gold, all Golds, the quality of your dream. You want progress? Unity? Make it. Here and now, and for the future.”
I pause until the echoes of my voice recede. No one jeers any longer. My hands tremble behind my back. Bound as they are, I cannot reach for Pax’s key. But I feel it pressed against my chest, and hope he would be proud of this speech, overwrought as it is. In my head, I wrote it as if he stood beside Sevro. Even if I die, maybe he will hear it one day and know I found myself in the end.
“When I was sixteen, Dancer O’Faran, one of the great heroes of my life, told me that I was a good man who would have to do bad things. That is why Ares chose me: he knew I could be the dirty hand of the Rising. I could be the man who does the bad things. For most of my life I have thought that was a curse. Now I see it was a blessing. If you look at where we started, we are a thousand times stronger now.
“I do not ask for your forgiveness or your mercy. I ask only that you succeed where I failed. Do not surrender your dream to fear. Do not take the short route through shadow. You know your path. If you think you are alone on it, just look to your right, look to your left, look across the solar system, and see what I see. A tide of one people who want only one thing: liberty.”
I am done. The eyes judge and the eyes hate. There is no cheering or pumping of fists, only a shuffle of feet, a clatter of chains as the guards exchange Diomedes and me. Athena reads the hulking man his charges. When it comes time for him to speak, he looks around without any contrition and glowers out as if facing a firing squad.
“Civilization is based on exchange and social contracts. I was taught that the lowColors exchanged liberty for security and stability. We have failed to provide security. We have failed to provide stability. We have failed you. The contract is broken. Take your due.”
61
DARROW
The Three Masters
DIOMEDES AND I ARE escorted into a nearby cell to await the verdict of our sham trial. The cell is stone. The metal door is the cell’s only hint of modernity. Another man occupies it. A handsome man with a black eye and a burn from a stun weapon on the left side of his neck.
“Oh, it’s you,” I say to Cassius.
“Hello.” He waves politely, both hands shackled together. I sit next to him.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I’m in the middle of a rescue, actually. While it is taking longer than expected, I’m optimistic with regards to its outcome.” I don’t laugh. “All right, I’m lying. They left some Black Owls on the Archimedes and now I have a black spot on my pride and a very black eye.” He winces. “The Owls are far better at sneaking than fighting Obsidians, I’ll tell you that.” He scratches his beard and ponders for a moment. “Are we all going to die?”
A cheer from the Daughters in the cavern rattles the cell.
“Yes,” Diomedes says.
“Probably,” I correct, annoyed at the man’s pessimism.
“You talked forever,” Diomedes mutters at me. “And looked weak.”
“You basically told them to slag off and shoot you,” I snap.
The Daughters cheer in the cavern again.
“Apparently you both were terrible.” Cassius leans back. “What a waste of talent. Honestly, it’s like a bad joke. We might be the best three razormasters to share a room in the last sixty years, and it’s a prison! And not one of us was taken in a straight fight.” Diomedes and I look at each other, each wondering about the other’s claim to the title of master. “Oh, that’s right. You two haven’t seen each other fight—”
“Cassius?” I say.
He perks up. “Yes?”
“Shut up,” Diomedes says.
“My goodmen, it’s uncivilized to do anything but laugh in the face of death. Why do you think I’m always so jaunty these days?” Cassius grins when a third cheer comes, the loudest of all. “That must have been for my sentence.” I roll my eyes. “Come, come, Darrow, am I not allowed to be the best at anything?”
“Fine. You can be the most despised,” I say.
“Thank you, contrition at last.”
Even Cassius’s false bravado thins and he goes silent after a while. He doesn’t ask, but we all wonder what’s taking the Daughters so long.
It’s Diomedes who breaks the silence. “I did not need you to speak for me,” he says.
“What?”
“You impugned my honor,” he says.
I stare at him. After a moment of anger at the man’s unbelievable pride, I shake my head and look away. “Why did you?” he asks.
“Lives. Saved,” I reply, mocking his laconism.
Cassius snorts a laugh. Diomedes is not amused.
I take Pax’s key from under my shirt and hold it between my hands. “It’s not for the cell,” Cassius says when Diomedes perks up at the key. I close my eyes and send a prayer to Pax across the void. I’ll not get my book or letter, whatever it is, to him now. But maybe Sevro will, and maybe he’ll hear this prayer and know that I thought of him in the end.
“It was the Cestus,” Diomedes says. I look up from my prayer. He’s staring at the floor. “Kalyke.”
I sit straighter and glance at Cassius. “Go on,” Cassius says.
“Helios had only just returned from a scouting mission,” Diomedes says as if sharing the information is causing him physical pain. “He boarded and I transferred the Cestus to him. Only it was not Helios. It was an imposter with Helios’s limbs carved onto him. The imposter must have used the Cestus to fire on our own fleet.”