“No. He cannot,” Skarde says, sly, sacrificing the day to win tomorrow.
“This man is no king then! He is just a man! Just a father! It is known by the Volk that a father’s shame is his family’s. So by the laws of the ice, let blood judge blood,” I say.
The jarls let it pass.
I toss the gauntlet to Volga as she approaches. Lyria follows. Volga is shorter than I am, and shy to meet my gaze. Eventually she does, and the shame in her expression is eclipsed only by her anger at Fá. She slips on the gauntlet and faces Fá. I take Lyria by the shoulder and guide her off to the side.
Whatever peace or malice Fá had left drains from him as he looks up at Volga.
“If not for the Volk…why did you do this?” she asks him.
“For a brother, and my deserved peace,” he replies.
“But the Passage…”
He seems to shrink a little. “This farce was not to last. I thought…if you were like me, you could not hate me. You could understand me. You could love—” He jerks as she plunges the gauntlet into his chest, up to the wrist, and gives a twist. Their faces draw close together. For the first time I see his features in her, hers in him, and Ragnar’s in both. Then Volga pulls out Fá’s heart and holds it before his eyes.
“Unworthy.”
She throws it over her shoulder and soon after, he teeters down to the ground to the delight of the crabs. Silence presides but for the sounds of the dwindling battle beneath the Pandora in the distance. No Obsidians cheer, because for the first time in years, they have no ruler. Seeing the chaos coming and the factions already forming, the Ascomanni look one last time at the corpse of the man they thought blessed by god and slip away into the dark.
I motion to Sevro.
He jogs over with his helmet off to become the scariest town crier the worlds have ever seen. “Hello. Sorry!” He steps up onto Fá’s corpse. “That’s better. Can you hear me now? Good. Great to be back. Lots of favorite faces here. We’ve shared a lot of good times. And now, a few bad ones. Let’s not make it worse. You know it could get really shitty really fast. You know what you’re like…come on. You do.”
The jarls all look at those with whom they have a grudge. For a moment, no one is looking at Sevro except Volga.
“So! With your consent, we will be your mediators in this transition period. Twenty-four hours from now you will meet on this island—furthest from my step stool’s favor—where you will vote on your new monarch. Each jarl will have two votes. Two! One for themselves. One decided by their braves. The braves cannot, I repeat, cannot vote for their own jarl. Recall your men. Bring your ships above these islands. If anyone leaves without a Howler escort, if anyone steals, if anyone kills, if anyone cheats, if anyone intimidates, they break Tyr Morga’s peace, and will earn his ashvar.” He gestures to me like I’m a show pony. “As you have seen, he’s gotten a lot scarier since you last saw him. But. He. Will. Not. Be. Your. King. He is not on the ballot and will not interfere.” Diomedes looks my way. “If you do not like these rules, let’s have it now.”
I walk to a flat spot and draw both of my blades and wait in the silence.
“Good,” Sevro calls after half a minute passes. “Now sober up! Wash your beards! You’ve campaigning to do. If you have any questions, I’m going to be on my wife’s ship testing out my new knives.”
He takes off. I offer Lyria a lift, but she turns me down. I follow Sevro into the air. We land a few minutes later in a hangar of the Pandora that Athena and Diomedes secured. Diomedes and Cassius land behind me. Gunfire rattles from deeper in the ship.
“Ascomanni are dug in throughout the ship,” one of the Kalibar Gold knights reports to Diomedes. “Resistance is stiff.”
Sevro gasps at the arcane symbols and religious totems erected by the Ascomanni in the hangar. “Jove’s putrid cock, this place is filthy.”
“Oh, now you care about a ship being clean?” Cassius says. “That’s rich.”
Athena rushes over from tending the wounded. “Is it done?” she asks.
“Fá is dead, but the menace remains,” Diomedes says. “Darrow has seen fit to experiment with demokracy for his Obsidians at the expense of our people.”
Athena is torn at hearing that. “We agreed you’d get them off Europa, Darrow.”
“I will, and I’m trying to make sure they don’t nuke the place as they go, or steal millions of your citizens,” I reply, more than a little peeved by their pedantry.
Diomedes gets very close to my face. “We agreed: they would surrender all the people they have enslaved, all the loot they have taken, and leave. Now you will have chaos. Now the Ascomanni will flee and infest the Garter. You have put everything at stake.”
I take a deep breath. “They already infest the Garter. Do you have an army to cleanse that infestation? Do you have an army to smash the Volk? No. So your only hope is that that Volk army out there chooses to let shine the better angels of their nature. Your only hope, Diomedes, is that they help you. So please get out of my face.”
He is furious, and whips around when Sevro clears his throat.
Sevro and Cassius have their weapons out. “Victra’s employees are in slavery on this ship and have been for a year. My employees,” Sevro says and takes the Twilight Helm from, of all people, Cheon. Four dozen Black Owls await his orders. “So we gonna whine or we gonna go—”
“Sweep your halls?” Cassius drawls. “Waiting on you, Ares.”
“Idiot,” Sevro mutters, puts on the helm, and runs toward the gunfire with Cassius at his flank. Diomedes and I exchange another glare and follow with the Black Owls. We can argue later. For now, there’s killing to be done.
PART IV
BROTHERS
For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother.
—HOMER
77
DARROW
Old Stoneside
TWENTY-THREE HOURS AFTER WE left the Volk jarls to begin their campaigning, I set down on an island in the northern Discordia Sea with Cassius. The light is a bruised blue. The water restless dark. There is not another island to be seen in any direction. Even in my armor, without its heater on it is cold this far north of Europa’s equator. I shiver. Cassius doesn’t. I wrap my thermal cloak tighter.
“So should I let you go in alone?” he asks.
“You’re the one who insisted on coming,” I say.
“Well, you’re injured and need a bodyguard,” he replies. “Savages about, not to mention Atlas.”
“If he’s not already back in the Core,” I reply. “Walk with me.”
“As long as you promise not to bring up the gala,” he says and touches his arm.
“Only if you don’t mention again how you don’t have a scratch on you.” Somehow he wasn’t injured at all in our fighting.
“I swear,” he says, and we walk together toward the keep.
The waves have not yet claimed the wandering island of Harmonia or the castle upon it that Lorn once called home. They will soon enough. The Discordia Sea is violent here in the north, and without its caretakers Harmonia cannot help but lose its war against the elements. Breakers thunder against its seawalls. Lichen grows on the castle’s towers. Coral and barnacles creep on ramparts that once sheltered the hills and forests that comprised the heart of the estate.