I feel the world sinking out from under me. She’s not going to let me go to the summit. “You’re going to let Atlas get away with it,” I whisper. “You’re going to just swallow it all.”
“The Volk will pay for their crimes. The Daughters are terrorists. Lune will destroy them. And I will destroy you,” she says. I search Diomedes’s face for signs of shame. There are none.
“Atlas is responsible for the deaths of millions of your people,” I say.
“Yes,” she says.
Oh no. No.
“You already knew,” I say.
“I am cursed to be the mother of Fear. My boy is so much like me. He feels too much. He is tortured. But he has his duty. And I have mine. That is what my son told me when he visited me in my cell when I was held captive by his pet warlord. It was his last revenge, you see. When we sent him as hostage to Luna, I did not see him off. I couldn’t bear it. The last words I spoke to him were, ‘Do your duty.’ ”
I feel like I am drowning. All my allies, all my people out here will be undone by this woman who is so old she will not live to see the future she steals from them.
“You are the matron of House Raa,” I say. “You are part of the Moon Council. You have a duty to your people. You would cast the moons into the shadow of another lie? Worse, you’ll demand your grandson bear its weight? Tell me, Gaia, how will it feel to watch Diomedes march to the Dragon Tomb when this lie is uncovered? To watch him waste his life the same way Romulus, your son, wasted his own.” I can’t help but laugh.
“Are we amusing to you?”
“No. You are tragic.” I look at Diomedes, unable to understand.
He just watches his grandmother.
Gaia hefts Pyrphoros. “What does it take to master one of these blades, Darrow?” Gaia rasps, but answers without giving me a chance to reply. “Pain. Discipline. Sacrifice. We of the Krypteia have a sacred charge separate from the edicts of the Moon Lords to keep order in these spheres. The hierarchy is essential to order.”
“Flawed as it may be, the Republic has proven that is not always the case,” I reply.
“Twelve years!” she cackles. “Twelve, all at war. We have secured contiguous government for more than a half a millennium, boy. Your frail experiment hasn’t the legs for another year. You think Gold is the problem? Pfff. There has always been a human pyramid, in every civilization beneath the sun. It is human nature to crawl upward. But if there are not rigid ceilings, everyone will think they should have everything. Then what do you get? An unstable structure at war with itself. Ravenous resource consumption, the despoilment of natural habitats, beauty, worlds. Your Republic and your free market rape natural sanctuaries, poach rare beasts to extinction, consume, devour what took an epoch of order to build.”
She glares at me. “I can speak twenty-one dead tongues, name every species of wildlife in our spheres, recite the caloric intake of at least one hundred and thirty cities in this Dominion. I have dedicated my life to the study of social engineering, to the history of humanity, and you tell me that a Red who can’t name five moons of Ilium should have the same say in government? Demokracy gives humanity what it wants, boy. The hierarchy gives humanity what it needs. Structure, and hope to escape our own stupidity.
“My son Atlas knows that my duty to the hierarchy supersedes all others. Even my great love of Rim independence. That is why he told me of his work here face-to-face. He knows I will be trapped in silence. He knows I understand the chaos that will awaken if his work here seeps into the light of day. He even granted me a boon, and said Fá would solve the problem of the Daughters for me. His last words were, ‘Do your duty, Mother.’ ”
I stare at Diomedes. His face is unreadable. “Diomedes, you can’t really go along with this. You can’t be that full of shit—”
Gaia looks at her grandson with absolute love. “Diomedes is a servant of the Dominion, of his ancestors, of the hierarchy.” She extends Pyrphoros to him. He takes it. “The blood of Akari swirls in his veins, so he will do his sworn duty. He will keep his silence, he will bear this disgusting lie for the greater good. And he will kill you. Here and now.”
“What of my guest rights?” I ask.
“Have you eaten bread?” she asks.
I almost laugh again. I’ll die because of a bloodydamn technicality?
“So what does she make of your new oath, Diomedes?” I ask.
“I was waiting for the proper moment to tell her. It is now.” He looks at the guards by the door. “Leave.”
They wait for Gaia to nod before obeying.
When they have gone, Diomedes stares hard at me, then wraps Pyrphoros around his own neck, hands his grandmother the handle, and then goes to his knees. Gaia stares in shock. “What is this?”
I feel exultant and watch Diomedes in admiration. A true man of honor.
He looks up at his grandmother and says, “Gold has failed its duty, Grandmother. In the Core, and here. When we failed to protect the people even from our own blood, the Daughters of Ares had to for us. How then are they terrorists? On Europa, they saved millions, both by harboring refugees and taking part in the assault on Fá. When defense was needed, they offered it freely and paid with their lives. I have sworn to protect them, to take up their cause as my own. Tonight, when I become Hegemon, I will deal with the matters before us, but I will, in time, pursue the cause of dismantling the hierarchy. I will reform our laws. I will demolish the Krypteia. You’ve said it yourself. The Achilles’ heel of the Core has always been greed, and ours has always been pride. I tire of both, so do the people. Gold has failed. We need order, yes. But not the same order that brought us here.”
Horrified, Gaia looks about to reply, but Diomedes is on a roll. It is the most verbose I have ever seen the man.
“I will not swallow this monstrous lie of Atlas. I will not make nice with Atalantia, who treats the lives of millions as a game. Akari asked for Gold to be philosopher kings. Maybe we were that way once. Now we are just dragons guarding our treasure. We may be superior in intelligence, in our life spans, in our capacity for violence, but not in our humanity. We failed, Grandmother, long before Atlas set his warlord on us, long before Rhea. We are medieval. We are grotesque. I love you with all my heart. But you represent a past that fears the future. I will not accept that. So, if it is true that the young cannot teach the old, and the old must always teach the young: kill me, for I will learn no other way.”
If anyone else had said such a thing to Gaia, she would laugh at them, but Diomedes is not a man fond of hyperbole. Gaia watches him with shock, then disbelief, then horror, then anger, and finally absolute misery. A burst of grief escapes her mouth. Tears stream. “No. Diomedes. No. No.” She flings away the handle of the weapon and tries to pull him up but it’s like moving an anvil. He pushes the weapon back into her hands.
“Diomedes stop this. It’s because of her. Isn’t it? That viper in our garden. Aurae. She’s cast a spell on you.” She slaps him. “Wake up.” She slaps him again. “You betray all your ancestors. Our family has been devoured! You are our future!”