“Are you done?” Diomedes says.
“Talking? Yeah.”
Cassius has gone very introspective. “Do we know for a fact Lysander’s working with—”
“For,” I say.
“With Atlas?” Cassius asks.
“He was surprised on the bridge. I know that. He saved my life,” Diomedes says. “That he lives suggests there is a new arrangement. Perhaps he surrendered to a fait accompli. Darrow, I know you are angry. But this is a good thing.”
“For you,” I say very slowly. “Not for the Volk. Their ships are slower than Lysander’s. And I know what that moonBreaker can do. The Volk are dead. The Daughters too. You’ll have your justice.”
I can’t help the petulance. This false summit is close to breaking me.
“No. I will not have my justice. Not if this is Atlas’s plan. Not if those Volk do not become a weapon against Atalantia.” Diomedes pauses. “I do not want to see the Daughters slaughtered either. I am not stingy with my oaths. The only hope the Volk have is to unite their fleet with Athena’s. That is in motion. It will take time.”
Even then. We can’t outrun the Core ships. This battle will eat Mars’s reinforcements. So what now, I kill a Lune? Atlas switches back to Atalantia, and acts like it was his plan all along? Bloodydamn. Why can I never be a step ahead of that man?
“For now, I recommend you suggest to the Volk that they stay on Europa,” Diomedes says.
That’s ridiculous. Breathe in, out.
“Why?” I ask.
“Atlas has planned this. That feast you interrupted was part of the plan. But we know the next step after that was to take the Deep. Massacre the Daughters. Casualties didn’t matter, because that monster was coming to smash anything left.” He points out at the Lightbringer in the distance. “They know they’re faster. They know the Volk can’t run.”
A thought comes to me. “Atlas functions best in the dark. Perfect coms discipline. We’ve almost never intercepted a signal. He trusts his operatives.”
Diomedes nods. “Eventually they will know their plan has gone awry. Why let them know until we’ve made our move?”
Maybe it takes a Raa to beat a Raa. “They won’t be in a rush,” I realize.
“How fair is Lysander? Is he greedy with glory?” Diomedes asks Cassius.
“Very fair, in his way. And no. He’s not greedy with glory.”
“Then he will wait for Ganymede’s soldiers. To make this a joint operation so as not to offend Rim dignity.”
“So we have time,” I say. He nods.
“Not much, but a little. Whatever you think of him, Darrow, Lysander came out here to protect the Rim,” Diomedes says. “To reawaken the idea of unity. We know now my grandmother is alive. We know Lysander craves a lasting alliance with us. We also know we have a ship that can get to the surface. And I know how to get into the Garter. So I suggest we go down, find my grandmother, and show her the truth behind Lysander’s theater.” He points at the Lightbringer. “That is a monster that cannot be dueled. So let’s tie it down, and find some leverage.”
“What is the one thing Lysander is afraid of losing?” I ask Cassius. “A person, a—”
“His reputation,” Cassius says, already accelerating the Archimedes toward Io.
81
LYSANDER
Parting of the Shadow
FOUR-HUNDRED-AND-SIX PEERLESS KNIGHTS OF the Rim kneel in the wheat fields west of Plutus.
The knights are as old as a hundred and twenty, and as young as sixteen. Some came from bunkers burrowed across Io, or from the cells beneath Plutus, or from smaller moons—having fled Fá’s army—but most came from Ganymede. They left behind the safety of its orbital shields to honor my call to arms. Eleven hundred knights of the Core join them in the sacred rite. After the ritual, we will flow up into the ships that wait beyond Plutus’s life-abiding pulseBubble. Then on to Europa and battle against the crème of Fá’s host.
The climax to Atlas’s play draws near, and I ache to be done with it.
An ancient Ganymedean with a face like a mallet stands from his knee and bellows, “I fear that I shall never banish my shame. I fear that when I die, all my granddaughters will remember of me is that I hid behind Ganymede’s shields while Io and Callisto burned!”
He sinks back to his knee.
The Rim dwellers call the ritual the Parting of the Shadow, or the Expiation of Fear. First performed by Akari and his bosom companions before they put themselves into tubes and launched themselves down at Earth.
Since we do not believe in gods, the confession is dedicated to our ancestors. Though I know they do not hear us in the Void and that we speak only to make ourselves brave and hone our intentions before battle, the importance of Gaia’s invitation to partake in the rite is impossible to ignore. No knights of the Core have taken part in the ritual since the Dark Revolt.
Atlas was right. Nothing makes people fall apart like fear, or come together like hope. That hope for the Rim is me. My fleet, my knights who sailed here with the virtues of the Conquerors in their hearts. I feel heady with momentum.
I am impatient to send the Obsidians reeling from the Rim and out of my life. I shudder to think of what might be happening back home. Yet I allow myself this moment of satisfaction. The battle will be a formality, though I am the only one in the field today who knows that.
A nineteen-year-old Olympic athlete from Ganymede famous for her prowess in the javelin and the pankration rises with severe dignity and shouts, “I fear I will run if death is certain. That I will break before the common Gray falls back in retreat. That my body is greater than my will. And my station greater than I deserve.”
She sinks back to her knee. Cicero stands to my direct right, a look of profound importance gripping his face. Kneeling at the head of the ceremony with me, Gaia, the legates of Ganymede and my own army, he scans the ranks of Peerless, tears in his eyes.
“Though this cause is worthy, I fear that I will perish out here in the dark! That I will never feel the kiss of Sol upon my face again!”
He falls to a knee. Lit by the light of the Garter’s artificial suns, his armor burnished to a mirrorlike sheen, he is the picture of a holy warrior. Gaia rises. Her wizened face would be comical peeking out from her armor, were it not so twisted by hate. “I fear that even in victory, we have lost the future. I fear our people already sailing into darkness will never be found nor liberated. I fear they will endure forever in bondage.”
She sinks back to a knee.
There’s a pause. The longest of the ritual before another stands.
A half hour and nearly a hundred admissions later, a silence falls on the gathering. It is not mandatory to speak, but it is seen as bad form for a commander of my stature to not participate. It reeks of pride. I stand and stare at the faces of my people and wish I could speak honestly.
I fear Atalantia. I fear crossing Cassius again one day. I fear Darrow causing mischief back home. I fear my own weakness. I fear Atlas and his wrath. I fear his presence almost as much as I feared his absence. He is due back today before we sail. I fear he failed in his mission. I fear he will have succeeded. That a weapon powerful enough to make Mars surrender in a week will fall into his terrible hands. I fear that I will never be anything more than his puppet. Most of all, I fear my own concessions will come back to haunt me. That I will be laid bare before these people as a fraud.