“And, Lyria, if you’re listening to this before giving it to Volga, you’re a nosy little shit but I hope you don’t die. Barca out.”
Volga turns off the hologram and sits, pensive, until I clear my throat. She starts up from the table, and comes over with a smile to sit beside me on the couch. She knows I saw her listening to the message, but for a moment we both pretend I didn’t. Her large hand strokes my cheek. Four gold bands clink on her wrists. Her voice is tender.
“You’re far from home, Lyria.”
“So are you,” I reply. After a moment of searching my eyes, her own soften and she smiles and traces the surgery scars on my head.
“You are free of the parasite. How?”
“It’s a long story. But sorry. It cost me the Snowball.” Though happy for me, she looks older than I remember. For some reason we always felt the same age. Her face has more lines now. The ones on her forehead are deep grooves. “How goes your hunt?” I ask. Dumb question.
“Poorly. We hooked a calfling. Another has taken the sigil beast. An Ascomanni.”
Neither of us says anything for a long time.
“I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again,” I say. I take her hand. She rubs a callused finger over mine. Silence stretches. There are so many things to tell her. To ask. To say.
“Lyria, why are you here?”
“I came for you. To bring you home.”
“Home.” She pulls her hand back. I feel a distance form between us. There has always been a dark part of her. A part only too willing to use the guns she so fancied. “I am where I should be. Back with my people. I am home, Lyria.”
“Your people?” I ask. “I’m your people, Volga. That’s why I came all this way for you.”
Her eyes go cagey and she nods to the holocube. “Did you come for me? Or did you come for Darrow?”
“It’s not like that. This was my idea. He didn’t want me to come. I had to stow away on his ship to get here. He thinks I’m mad for coming to see you. Mad to think you’re not like Fá. I came here for you, Volga.”
Her eyes narrow. “Why?”
I’m hurt that she’d even ask like that.
“Why? I told you. Because you’re my friend.” She grimaces. “Aren’t you?”
“I am, yes. I am. But I am…more than that now. My grandfather has opened my eyes.”
“Volga. He serves a Gold. Didn’t you hear?”
“He served a Gold, long ago. He broke his chains in the Kuiper Belt. He has not seen Atlas since, and if he does he has sworn to kill him.”
I stare at her, barely able to contain my frustration. “He’s lying. This is all Atlas’s plan. He is Fá’s Allfather!”
“You have evidence?” she asks like a lawyer.
I hesitate. “No, but Diomedes saw him on the Dustmaker.”
“Diomedes? A Gold.” She smirks. “When Fá learned Darrow was here, he told me he would use tricks. Lies to turn me against him. Anything to reclaim his hold over the Volk. But the Volk are not Darrow’s to claim. They…we have our own destiny now. These worlds are meant for us, Lyria. With the Garter, we can feed ourselves. With the Deep, we will have technology to defend ourselves. With Ganymede, we will have a homeland with trees, mountains, seas. Soon enough the Republic will fall. When the Core Golds come, and they will come, we must be ready, strong. We will either win our freedom or we will die.”
I shake my head, unable to believe the words coming from her mouth, the excuses she uses to forgive herself. “Volga. Fá ate Ephraim’s heart.”
She pauses. “Yes.”
“He ate Ephraim’s heart.”
“It was a sign of respect.”
I pull my hands back from her and stand. Even sitting she is taller than I am. She peers down at me as if I were a child. “You swore to kill him.”
She licks her lips. “I meant to. I was filled with hate. Eleven days after Mars he put a blade in my hand. I put it to his throat. He told me to kill him for what he did to Ephraim. But he warned me. He said that if I killed him, his bloodguard would kill me. I could sacrifice my life for a Gray who sacrificed nothing for me. Or I could stay my hand and help him build a kingdom for our people.” She does not avoid my eyes. She is proud of her choice. “I chose my people.”
I’m bewildered. “Ephraim was like a father to you.”
“Ephraim?” She sighs. “You did not know him. He was a killer. A user. Ephraim treated everyone like a tool. That was his way. He used me from the day he met me. If I were not useful, he would have discarded me.” She picks her stubby nails. “I do miss him. Sometimes, I do. But he is in the past. My duty takes me elsewhere.”
“And that duty includes sacking cities? Enslaving people? That’s not the Volga I know.”
“You do not know me either,” she says. “You never did.”
That pisses me off. “Oh. Must have been talking to myself in that cell on the Pandora then. Must have just been Victra and me who fled the Red Hand across the snow. Just me and her when Ulysses was born. You must have never cried and told me it was because you could never have children, because they spayed you.” She grows angry, and I can’t stop pushing. “Must have not freed you from chains when the Red Hand had you working the mines like a Red. Must have been alone when Victra swam to mourn Ulysses.” She says nothing. “Volga, I don’t know what you’ve seen. What Fá’s told you. But I know this ain’t you. That you’re sick inside about all this. The Volk don’t belong out here, on the leash of a monster. They belong with the Republic.”
“The Republic.” She scoffs.
“The Republic stands for people like you, like me. It freed us for Vale’s sake. Not Fá. The Republic.”
“Freed us? How?” she asks, passionate. “By pulling your people up from the mines only to forget you and give your mines to Silvers. By pulling my people from the ice to die in their wars or as freelancers and mercenaries. Serving not just highColors, but Coppers. Greens and Reds. What has changed in the ten years since the Rising? A Gold still sits atop a throne and sends the lowColors to die for others who will not die for us. That is what Darrow wants. He has come here to kill my grandfather and take his Volk axe back. Nothing more. I will not be used to depose my grandfather only for Darrow to discard me and crown himself.”
“Did you get that from the old monster? It’s rubbish. Darrow didn’t come here for that. He came here for ships to save Mars. But when he saw what was happening to the lowColors he couldn’t let it pass. Now he’s helping the Daughters of Ares. You should see them. It’s all the Colors. He has even united them with the Raa to stop this massacre.”
“Of course. When we do it, it is a massacre.”
“When the Fear Knight is pulling the strings, yes. It is. Fá nuked Callisto. I saw Io!”
She waves off my mention of Atlas as another lie. Her disillusionment puts dread in my bones. She even talks like a warlord now. Where is the innocence I saw in her? Where is the friend I made?
“I am not a monster,” she says.