I snort at the stupid power of childhood bonds.
“What?” Cicero asks.
I deflect. “Something your sister said months ago. If a charm offensive is needed, call on Cicero indeed. If it means that much to you, you have my blessing. Not that you need it.”
After losing both Cassius to Darrow and Ajax to Atalantia, I’m careful not to tread on my friends’ spirits these days.
“You do see me. I told Glirastes as much,” he says with a delighted smile. “Where is the old bag anyhow? Mayhaps I’ll dedicate the next victory to him.”
“He left,” I say.
“You chased him away, no doubt,” Cicero says. “You must be gentler with him.”
“I am gentle with him.”
“You are kind, but not gentle. Artists are sensitive about their work. And you’re his work of personal redemption,” he says. I frown. “He helped Darrow, didn’t he? The Storm Gods were as much his devils as they were the Reaper’s. He has much to atone for.” He spots something over my shoulder. “Oh shit. Incoming cretin.”
“Centaur or bull?”
“The hornier breed.”
Tharsus and his menagerie are headed straight for us. “The idiot,” I mutter.
“Didn’t you tell him to keep his distance?” Cicero asks.
“Several times,” I say.
Cicero ducks his head. “He’ll get us all skinned by Grimmus sociopaths.”
“I’ll be stuffed and strung as a puppet. You’ll be skinned.”
“Don’t say that. That’s terrible. Oh gods, he’s getting closer. Do you think he’s seen us?” Cicero tries to hide in the basket of his chariot.
“Cicero, my goodman! A true Flavius Scorpus you are,” Tharsus calls. Cicero pops up like a prairie dog at the compliment.
“Well, I won’t say I disagree!” Cicero says.
“What spectacle! What bravado!” When he’s close enough, Tharsus’s tone darkens. “I can read lips from a hundred meters, you slanderous goat rapists.”
“We know.” I clap Tharsus on his muscled shoulder and my hand comes away smelling of sandalwood and pheromones. “Yet even being reminded you were violating our agreement, you kept on coming.”
“It’d be even more peculiar if I kept my distance from such illustrious company.” He leans in, flirtatious or just being clever about hiding his mouth from lip-readers. An audio distorter vibrates on his middle finger. “You’re not doing your job, Lune. You’re supposed to slide your hands into monied panties to finance our grand crusade, not fingerblast Gray prostates down in the cheap seats. It’s my brother’s job to be loved by soldiers. You are just a broker for men and money.”
“Money your brother will just waste at Syndicate auctions,” Cicero says.
Tharsus brandishes a smile that is all too smug. “A waste, you say?”
Several more of Valeria’s brothers have joined their racing team now. One of the Carthii throws a grape at one of Tharsus’s poet friends. Another tosses a chicken bone. I tilt my head at my Praetorians to discourage the instigators. Markus—a sundark water-buffalo of a centurion, one of Rhone’s favorites—is only too happy to oblige.
“Tharsus, go away.” I flip him a few credits, as if I’ve lost a bet. He pockets them, grinning at my discomfort. “You’re going to start a brawl that won’t end here.”
“Please. They touch one hair on my lustrous head, and my brother will blow the construction spindles on their dockyards one by one until I’m returned to him. How then will the war be won? When the enemy has their docks and the Society doesn’t have theirs?” Tharsus purrs. “Quell your anxiety, Palatine child. I’ve come only to give you news from Apollonius. While others—like that fool Ajax—burned precious helium prowling the system for the elusive wolf, my brother has lured him from the shadows for a test of martial valor.”
“Inconceivable!” Cicero squawks. “That broadcast worked?”
“Indeed. And soon my brother will lay Darrow low.” He touches my arm. “Calm your loins, precocious catamite. Your old flame Cassius is snared as well, and will be gifted within the fortnight for your pleasure. Mayhaps the Lady Bellona will unlock her vault for you then.”
I stare at him. “Cassius is alive. He tried to free Sevro with Darrow?”
“Yes.”
“And your brother has them both?” I ask.
Tharsus looks so smug he might faint. “Yes.”
I’m staggered. I thought Cassius died out on the Rim until I saw him rescue Darrow from Heliopolis eight months ago. I assumed since then, with Ajax, the Dustwalkers, and others looking for them, that Cassius had met some grisly end. Cassius was like a brother for ten years. Imperfect, yes. But a brother still. I preferred him dead, in a way. At least his end was noble. It hurt, but it was better than him being alive and fighting at Darrow’s side instead of mine.
It is a hard game, this. So I must be hard. I will give him to his mother, Julia. Perhaps that is the key I am missing to open her vaults.
“Look at that. Already counting the coins,” Tharsus says. “You!” Tharsus cries, distracted by the Bellona charioteer exiting the shade of her arcade to scold one of her grooms at work on her horses. Tharsus is off, his muscular arms gesticulating like a mantis in a mating dance. “You, brilliant woman. Of course you know me, but I must know you. What grace! What bravado! What spectacle.”
Cicero and I stare after him as he accosts the young Bellona charioteer. My mind whirls. Apollonius has Darrow and Cassius. A great anxiety sloughs away at the thought, replaced by another anxiety. Darrow must die, of course, but must Cassius die too?
Cicero folds his arms and pouts. “What’s the matter with you?” I ask.
Cicero sighs. “It’s just…spectacle, bravado, those were the same compliments he gave me.”
I spare him a second glance. He’s not joking. I do love Cicero, but sometimes I wonder if I wouldn’t be taken more seriously with the dread Ajax au Grimmus at my side.
* * *
—
Night falls on Heliopolis and the races give way to theater and parties. Laughter and music from rooftop celebrations and coastal galas drift through the lamplit streets. The cobbled path I walk wends along the wharf and then through a grove of starburst trees to an amphitheater cut into the side of a cliff. A play is on, but that is not why I have come.
I’ve come because a grand ship named the Dustmaker slid into orbit at midday, and I must meet its master.
I leave my Praetorians behind and descend to stand behind the back risers. Down on the stage, backed by the sea, an agonized Oedipus is realizing his queen is actually his mother. LowColors on the seats and the embankments, huddled with spiced wine and sweets, weep. Discordant sounds of celebration creep across the water from a floating island in the far distance, as if mocking Oedipus’s agony. I doubt anyone else notices. Thessian, the famed Violet actor of Earth, is old now, but age has not diminished his craft.
Filled with emotion by his performance, I lean against an olive tree and watch until Oedipus blinds himself, the chorus speaks, and the crowd melts away from the amphitheater back toward the bars and acrobatic displays by the wharf.