He tastes. “Just desserts, domina.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Pallas says and pats my shoulder. “Well done.”
“Fires are coming. What’s the haul, Lucilla?” I ask.
“The majority of their western agricultural portfolio is now under our control,” Lucilla says and begins to go into details. I listen and watch my troops. Below, caked in dust, ash, sweat, and occasionally blood, groups of Praetorians and house legionnaires flow in from looting seed banks and capturing valuable human assets.
“You are confident these trees can grow in the Core?” I ask Lucilla, interrupting her. “I’ve lost nearly a hundred Praetorians in this endeavor already.”
“We have already begun preparing to adapt the cellular samples to Mercury’s biome.”
“Mercury?” Pallas asks with raised eyebrows.
“Rim horticulture outpaces the Core’s by a century, at least. With the DNA sequences alone, we can close that gap within the year,” I say. “In five years, I will make the Waste of Ladon a crop heartland fertile enough to feed the whole of Luna, and then some.”
“I hear rebels make good fertilizer,” Pallas says. “Cicero must be delighted. As you must be. The revenues will be…immense.”
I nod. “It’s about time my house diversified its portfolio.”
“Yes, can’t sell power alone.” She glances up at our ships above. “Walk me to my craft, Lune?”
I walk with Pallas to her ship. She flew a custom ripWing down instead of a shuttle. One of the charioteer’s many eccentricities. She appraises me in its shadow.
“I apologize. After your games on Mercury I told Lady Bellona you didn’t have the stomach for this sort of enterprise.”
“I didn’t yet,” I say.
“What changed?” she asks.
“I was taught how the worlds work,” I say. “If you don’t have the stomach to win, there’s plenty of people who do, and will.”
“Well said.” She looks around and steps closer, her voice low. “The lady will appreciate how this was done, Lysander. We still have our hero narrative—thanks to Darrow and the perfidious Moonies—and now we have also bewildering profits. Some of the Reformers may blanche at this, but our clients are perfectly satisfied. None can even detect the smell of bullshit radiating from you. That’s a compliment.”
“Bullshit?” I ask, innocent.
“Flavinius isn’t the only Praetorian missing. Kyber is the only one on your personal detail to survive your little purge, it seems.”
“The assassins were very thorough,” I say.
“How thorough?” She tilts her head. “Do I have to sleep with one eye open?”
“You have nothing to fear,” I say.
An invisible weight falls off her shoulders. “My, my. Really?” She brushes ash from my hair. “Remind me to stay on your good side.” She pulls herself onto the wing of her craft. “Cicero. He’s valuable, and a sweetheart. Polish this up with him, and I’ll polish up Cassius with the lady, yes?”
“That can be done.”
She pauses. “It’s best she does not see his body. Julia is a realist, but also a mother. You understand?”
I nod and back away as she takes off.
* * *
—
I find Cicero near the burn line watching the wall of fire creep across the grain fields. His eyes are red and his shoulders and hair covered with ash. I follow his gaze toward a huge grove of olive trees. Several dozen growers stand facing the oncoming fire holding hands.
“They give each individual tree a name,” he says when he hears me approach. “They said they sing to them and it makes the trees happy, and a happy tree produces better fruit.”
“Why aren’t those growers in the sanctuary?” I ask. Three cities will be spared bombardment. I know not everyone will make it there, but it seemed decent to spare as many as possible. The infrastructure is the target not the civilians.
“They said the trees were their children, and they will die with them. Then they spat on me.” He turns. He looks miserable. “I know the Raa and Darrow tried to kill you, but these growers, they just live here. What they said was beautiful. This place was beautiful.”
“This place is military infrastructure, Cicero. It feeds sedition. Disunity. I know this act feels monstrous. I know it does not feel right. If it did, we would be monsters.” I think of the pain I feel and will probably feel forever for killing Cassius. “When we lose something, we remember only the good and yearn for that. We forget the bad. We forget the Rim’s transgressions. We forget the war back home started just up there.” I point to the sky. “Half-measures only lengthen the road to peace, and make that peace all the more fragile. This was necessary.”
He sighs and looks up at the falling ash. “They will call us Ash Lords.”
“No, Cicero. A man once told me that the burning of Rhea was a mistake only because Octavia assumed the credit. That man was wrong. The burning of Rhea was a mistake only because it targeted the wrong organ—the heart of that rebellion. We have targeted the stomach. The Raa, if they survive, and the Moon Lords will either crawl to us for food or kiss our feet, and call us deliverers, or their people will rebel and we will sail and they will call us domini.”
He says nothing.
“Look at me, Cicero.”
He does. “You are what? Thirty-six? You and I will live for a hundred and fifty years more. I will end this war this year. And the hundred and fifty years that follow will be a time of unity, healing, and building. Those who die now do so so that billions more may live in peace. We will need your good heart then.” I touch his chest. “Together, we will construct wonders, explore near stars, spread light further into the darkness than ever before. You and me. Now come. It’s time we depart.”
He smiles at my last words and lets me pull him away. But before we take off, he glances back to watch the growers burn.
* * *
—
The Archimedes idles in the hangar. Before I called down to Diomedes and Darrow, I had Kyber send a team to retrieve it. Thanks to Atlas, I knew right where it would be. It was bad enough to kill Cassius. I could not bring myself to also destroy his ship. It feels like it is part of him, and if it is destroyed, he will truly be gone.
Pytha stands over Cassius’s corpse, which lies atop a gravSled. I approach and set down the helmet of Ares on the sled. He took it long ago when he knew his duty. Seems right he should keep it. Pytha does not look up. Cassius is dressed in a snow-white tunic and pants. I had Exeter sew a Morning Knight badge onto one of my cloaks for him. He does not look asleep or at peace in death. Too much damage was done to his corpse by my Praetorians after they saw Rhone’s body. Knowing that this is not how I wish to remember him, I close my eyes and picture the first time we met in the halls of the Citadel of Light. How dashing he looked standing between pillars gripped by jasmine, his blue cape fluttering, the Bellona wings on the shoulders of his court armor catching the light like pearls. I hang my head in wordless sorrow. If only he had left when I asked.
I consider entering the Archimedes again, but there is nothing waiting for me inside except the past, and the past is dead.