He is dead.
Cassius.
This is a nightmare. I’ll wake up in my bunk on the Archi and find him yawning in the cockpit. I cover my mouth to stop myself from crying out in pain. Why did he go? Why did he have to go? Why didn’t he just wait for me on his ship? It’s such a waste. I just got him back. I can’t think of anything but him smiling on the Archimedes when I told him we were brothers and he agreed and how he then just sat there in such contentment. So safe with me. Why did he go? I don’t want to be here. I want to be home with Virginia’s arms around me. Or back with him in the cockpit. We should have stayed on Europa. We should have fought. Dying at his side would have been better than this. I’d trade him for all the ships. All these Moon Lords. He was worth them all put together.
Diomedes is talking. I can’t hear what he says. He’s enraged. I’ve never heard him so angry. Then I look over and see the tears streaming down his face. He points at Lysander.
“Lune, you are a liar. And your empty words are evil. We spoke of Atlas. You confessed his involvement—”
“Who would not agree to a fiction to survive a meeting with Darrow? I only escaped as a child because I put the Dawn Scepter in Virginia’s hand. But I ask you, where is the Fear Knight? Lurking in the shadows? So he must be all around us all the time. Too often the Rising has blamed him for every evil that besets it. One man cannot be everywhere. I know for a fact he has been seen in operations in South America. Hundreds of witnesses can attest. As my allies can attest to my character. Darrow has poured poison in your ear and called it honey.
“I know you are a good man, Diomedes. But you have been manipulated. As have you, my noble Moon Lords. An enemy besets you, an enemy who has fought for years by Darrow’s side, led by the father of the man Darrow still claims as brother. And then Darrow arrives, as if by magic, to deliver your Diomedes from the clutches of doom, and present himself as your savior.”
I am too heartbroken and disgusted to speak. Gaia does for me.
“You wretched worm! Weasel,” Gaia snaps. “Foul tyrant seed. I spoke to my son Atlas. I looked in his face. I heard from his own mouth the game he has been playing.”
“Atlas did all this only to reveal himself to you and…let you live?” Lysander frowns. “Strange. Gaia, you are a master spy. You know how ludicrous your story must sound. Is there any person in that room who hates the Core more than you? Your husband was killed by my grandmother’s orders, as were some of your kin when they rose up in arms against their Sovereign. My lords, has she advocated for an alliance with Darrow?”
The Moon Lords look at each other. I could kill them all. Diomedes motions me to stay silent. As if Lune was leaving room for anyone else to speak. I watch the man prattle with a heart full of hate.
“Romulus was tricked by Darrow. Diomedes has been tricked by Darrow. The Raa have failed you, my lords. I came out here to save Ilium because I believe in unity. I believe in reform, peace, prosperity for the high and low. I believe in order, and the sacrifice needed to achieve it. But I also believe in tolerance and forgiveness. My allies and I will still destroy the Volk threat and the insurgents on Europa and sail home at no cost to you. No cost—save proof that we are united in the pursuit of peace. That proof is simple. Render Darrow unto me, or face the consequences.”
The Moon Lords, who have so far been entertaining Lysander’s tower of lies and allowing him to cast the shadow of doubt over Diomedes’s honor, show their true character. Without even looking at one another, they stand in unison against the ultimatum. Pride may be their folly, but it is also their beauty.
Diomedes speaks for them.
“Darrow has eaten the bread of this body. He is a guest. We decline your ultimatum. It is impossible. Lysander, I have offered you another path—”
“You say the Slave King has saved you. Very well. Let the Slave King feed you.”
The signal dies. The Moon Lords, all standing, wonder what the hell just happened. I am still slowed by the loss of Cassius. Diomedes turns to me, absolutely astonished at the bald-faced lies.
“Lysander knows your ways,” I say, numb. “He knows we have evidence. This call wasn’t for the lords. It was to show his allies he has a casus belli. You need to get your people to safety. If you can.”
I look at the slippers on my feet, everyone’s feet, and I feel dread in my belly.
Diomedes is about to say something, and then his eyes widen. We need more people like Diomedes in the worlds. He is true. He is noble. But unfortunately, that also makes him naïve to the extremities evil will embrace. The Moon Lords are naïve as well, because they think Lysander came to them in earnest to win their approval. As if their approval means shit to a man with a MoonBreaker. None of them yet understand that Lysander was just covering his ass before committing a war crime. The realization comes to Diomedes as a bar of light in the distance divides the blackness of his pupils. I turn to follow his gaze in time to see the catacomb-like darkness of the nivalnight beyond the Garter become as bright as a Mercurian summer day.
Particle cannons.
A column of light links the Lightbringer to the golden horizon of Demeter’s grain fields. The columns multiply, stemming from the Lightbringer and then from the Bellona and Votum ships. To the east, one of the atmosphere bubbles pops in slow motion, like a water balloon pierced with a needle. Orchards and grain fields flash burn as the superheated air ignites everything in its path.
The shieldDome of Plutus bangs like a gong struck by an avalanche as the particle beams hit the shield to form a cathedral of light and sound thunder over the city. The noise wakens me from my stupor of sorrow. I have faced many bombardments on three separate planets. They are the definition of hell. Far worse than anything else in war because of the helplessness they instill. Yet I have never been caught off guard like this. Like a civilian. No armor. No plan. No resources. No men. No gravBoots. Kilometers from my ship. The terror sweeps the humanity out of me, out of the Moon Lords, and we turn into mice scrambling for the exit.
“Order!” Diomedes calls, and the three other Olympic Knights rush from the side of the room to echo him. The authority in his voice is a tonic to our panic. “Evacuate by seniority.”
Marveling at their near instantaneous reversion from chaos to discipline, I watch the Moon Lords file toward the main exit by rows.
I peer out from between the columns of the House of Bounty, scanning the air over the city, over the burning grain fields to the east, and the burning orchards to the west, and I see what I feared. They fly low, visible only because of the light that shines off their plating. Missiles. The recently restored defensive shield over Plutus is strong, nigh impenetrable due to its energy coming from the tidal shifting of the moon itself, but there are always gaps for missiles to slide in under.
The decapitation stroke is on its way.
The city’s remaining defensive towers target the missiles and detonate the barrage shy of the House of Bounty. The missiles still tear a hole in the cityscape a kilometer wide. The House of Bounty shudders and lurches from the shockwave. I keep my feet. I’m one of the few who do. Diomedes and the Olympic Knights shout for the Moon Lords to move faster and carry the old. Something hits the building. A carving of a dryad breaks free of the ceiling and falls to crush a teenage Moon Lord who likely never held his world staff before today. Sticking out from under the statue, his hand twitches for the staff. It is out of reach. His hand takes on the same shape of the iron hand that grips the world he will never see again. His home, Triton.