“I am,” Diomedes says. “So believe in me. I will honor Akari. I will protect the people. I will bring order, but in my own way.”
Gaia looks up to the ceiling as if to ask the heavens why they cursed her with this affliction. Then she hardens, looks at her grandson, wrests her thumb on the retraction toggle on the handle of Pyrphoros, as if she’s about to take off his head. He watches her in sadness, but he will not yield, he will not bend, his convictions are iron, and when she realizes that, Gaia breaks. The weapon falls from her hand and she sinks to the floor in grief.
Diomedes unwraps Pyrphoros from his neck and wraps his arms around his grandmother. He whispers to her and she buries her head in his chest. All the grief from these last months, and maybe even this last decade, pours out of her. Her frail body shakes for some time before growing still. After a few minutes, Diomedes helps Gaia stand. “The summit is nigh. I will need your support, Grandmother. This family has more to do.”
Her eyes are raw and red from crying. They fix on the floor. She is frozen.
“Grandmother?”
“I heard you.”
“Will you help us?”
“I cannot…but I will not oppose you.”
“That is not enough,” he says and tilts her head up and looks her in the eyes. “When my brother died at the Battle of Ilium, you told me it was my duty to take his place as heir to the Dominion. You are the matron of House Raa. But you are more than that. You are our link to the generations who came before. Most of your contemporaries have faded into the mists of history. It is not yet your time to fade. Shine bright for me, Grandmother. Lend me the light of your wisdom, your cunning, your fame. Atlas claimed your duty is to keep his secret. Atlas is wrong. Your duty is not silence. Your duty is to use your voice.”
The words and the conviction behind them animate Gaia.
She touches his cheek. “My little storm. I have waited so long for you to realize your strength is not in your arms. That it is like this…” She laughs. “I will never agree with you on this course of action. But…maybe that is natural. I am the dusk now. You are the dawn. I have lived. I have had my say. I will help you have yours. That is what your mother and father would have wanted.”
I look out the window. The darkness beyond the Garter is now complete.
“It is nivalnight,” I say. “It’s time.”
“Then we go,” Diomedes says. “And we must trust Lysander and Cassius will meet us at the summit.”
86
DARROW
Nivalnight
I WAIT IN THE SMALL chamber beneath the House of Bounty’s speaking floor. Periodically I glance at the entrance, hoping to see it open and Cassius waltz in carrying a box and wearing his cocksure smile.
As time ticks on, anxiety starts to creep in. Diomedes’s condemnation of his uncle and his wicked schemes is muffled through the walls. Now and then the stone rumbles with the anger of the Moon Lords. There is a pause that must mean they are voting for Hegemon. A cheer trembles through the stone, followed by Diomedes’s voice and a grumble of anger, Diomedes’s voice again, then silence. A moment later, Diomedes comes through the chamber’s door.
He now wears a pure black cape and a ring with a black stone that swirls with motes of dust. “I am Hegemon. It is time.”
I glance at the room’s other door. “Lysander and Cassius are not here yet.”
“No. I had wanted to present the lords the truth, then the heads of Atlas and Fá at the same time to show no favoritism. But Lysander is late, so you have the honor of going first.”
“You told them about Lysander’s involvement with Atlas?”
“Yes, I revealed to them its full nature, and the mission I have charged him with. They also know you saved my life, and of your heroism on Europa. They do not know what you carry, however.” He nods to the box in my lap. “Come.” He departs and leaves the door open behind him. I follow with a last glance at the other door.
I walk through the stone tunnel to the sound of Diomedes’s voice.
“Should you draw blood from this man, you draw that blood from me.”
Honoring the Rim ritual of not bringing the dirt of the external world into the sacred meeting, I remove my boots at the end of the tunnel and slide on a pair of slippers before stepping out to join Diomedes.
In his full power, he stands in the center of the speaking floor holding a plain black spear. The Spear of Akari. It is made of duroglass to show the dangers of war. I walk toward him under the gaze of the three Olympic Knights who stand to either side of the speaking floor. They must be the only members of their order to have survived Fá’s invasion. Knees crackle in the risers and robes shift as the Moon Lords stand to watch me approach Diomedes. There is an emblem of a golden flower on the floor. When I join Diomedes atop the emblem, he breaks a piece of bread from a loaf and I eat it. After this guest rite, he nods for me to proceed.
Now, as a guest of all the Moon Lords, I turn to face them. War has pruned the legislative body of its numbers and many of its military-age members. But Atlas must have wanted an audience for his horrors, because they look as if they must have been in session when Fá attacked. Though their robes are identical, each of the lords carries a heavy iron staff.
The staffs are unremarkable except for the iron hand on the end of each. These iron hands clutch the sphere the lord represents. The depictions of their worlds are as beautiful and colorful as the staffs are austere.
The lords are despicable in so many ways, but there is dignity here in their cloudy gold eyes and hair shot through with white. Though not all are old—many are very young, and must be the only members left in their delegation who survived the invasion because the young ones sit alone. Silent, noble, they all watch me with contempt.
“You know me. I am Darrow of Mars, ArchImperator of the Republic, and I come to present a gift, ask a boon, and to beg your pardon. My gift first.” I set the box on the floor and pull out the head of Volsung Fá by its valor tail. It shifts the wintry weather of the room like a Storm God.
There is no sound. The dignity the Moon Lords are obliged to retain before an enemy like me would not allow that. Yet they regard the head of Fá with relief in their eyes. Pure, sweet relief. Gaia is the first to bang her staff on the floor. The entire room follows her lead, even the Codovan of Ganymede whose dockyards I once destroyed. They recognize and affirm the gift and the worthiness of the act. The acclaim goes on for almost a minute.
When it ends, I go to a knee, the Moon Lords sit. Their slippers whisper against the stone, their knees crackle, their robes shift.
“I have slain your enemy, but I am the same man who turned the guns on the Dockyards of Ganymede after the Battle of Ilium. That battle secured your independence, but my act cost the lives of thousands of your citizens, and deprived the Rim of its best tool to secure a brighter future. We were allies. The act was dishonorable and a crime. I know I cannot hope to have your forgiveness as a man for that, but I hope to attain your formal pardon for the benefit of the peoples we represent.”
No staffs recognize my apology. Not even Gaia’s. The senators of the Republic would be awed by the expressions of the lords. They are models of rugged, impassive haughtiness.