My concealed com crackles with a priority message. Rhone reports from within the Lightbringer. “Dominus, it is urgent.”
Pallas’s eyebrows creep upward. “Problem?”
“It seems we’re out of wine. Excuse me, goodlady.” I step away from the party to have the conversation near a row of Praetorians. “Rhone, go.”
“There has been a nuclear explosion at the Dockyards of Venus. The Carthii have used it as pretext to launch a full-scale invasion of the dockyards. The Minotaur is asking for reinforcements.”
I reach for the Mind’s Eye to quell the reflexive panic. The sounds of the party shrink away. My heart slows. My welling anxieties slide from chaos into even ranks and await my attention. I look past the Praetorians to the dark sky. The clouds move below.
“I see. Is that all?”
“The situation is still unfolding, dominus.”
“Who else knows this?” I ask.
“Anyone with a telescope.”
“Do we still have eyes on Atlas?”
“Kyber has him in Tyche questioning Coppers.”
I trust Kyber’s competency as much as I trust Rhone’s. Still, if anyone could spot a whisper following him it would be Atlas.
“Have Pytha prep our contingencies and get on deck, I need you here.” The threat of exposure is severe. If the Carthii take prisoners, the Martian exiles will tell their torturers how they got to the dockyards. Not good.
Cicero meets my eyes from across the party. He was listening too and had enough sense not to come over. I hail his com. “Cicero. I need you to tell Tharsus to get out of here now. I don’t want a situation that I can’t control. Keep him away from the Carthii.”
“On it.”
I search for Valeria au Carthii. Amidst her brothers, her head is tilted as she listens to someone in her ear. She’s just finding out as well. Her brother points out Tharsus. Apollonius’s brother is wrestling a small carveling atop a tree to the laughter of his friends.
Sensing my distress, Glirastes abandons Pallas and comes over. I deploy a jamField from my ring so our guests can’t overhear us.
“Dockyards have gone bad?” Glirastes asks. I nod. Thankfully, he has the composure to conceal his panic and his urge to remind me his doubts about the Minotaur. “What does Rhone think?”
I spot him exiting the hull via a lift. He jogs over.
“You need to act as if nothing’s happened,” Rhone says when he joins. “But Apollonius is demanding reinforcements. If we want to move out, we should mobilize our legions and Cicero’s as soon as possible. Mercury is closer to Venus than Earth is. We can beat Atalantia there.”
“If we aid him then we’re in open rebellion against our lawful Dictator,” I say.
In the orchard, Cicero has delivered the news. Tharsus comes down from the tree to find the Carthii staring at him. He shouts for his friends. As he desperately tries to collect the deviants lost in their own fun, the Carthii make their move.
I rush to intercept. I almost get bulldozed by Valeria’s brothers, but I get in front of her before she’s close enough to cause Tharsus harm. She’s within my personal jamField. Her brothers are not. I cover my mouth. “Do you want your inheritance?”
“It is burning,” she says. “So I’ll burn Tharsus. Move or I’ll start thinking you had something to do with it.”
“Your father is not headed for an easy victory. But rather the fight of his life.”
She scoffs. “The only threat was the atomics. I hardly think a handful of Grays will stop our legions—”
I roll the dice. “The Minotaur has eighty thousand Martian veterans.”
She blinks as if she just ran into an invisible wall. “How do you know that?”
“Because I smuggled them to him in the iron caravans.”
“You are in bed with the Minotaur?” She looks as if she wants to drive a knife into my stomach.
“I can give you your inheritance. All of it. You. Not your father. You.”
“How?”
“No time. My life is in your hands. If you expose me, I’m dead and you get the petty satisfaction of revenge. If you say yes to my offer, you can be the head of House Carthii in a week.”
Her eyes dart to Tharsus. He’s gathered his friends. In a tight pack, they head for the table where they stacked their gravBoots. Calculating her chances of surviving her sibling rivalry and the time it would take to achieve the same goal, she looks me in the eyes and says, “Yes.”
Ambition is a reckless master. I turn off my jamField.
“Horatia will be in touch.”
Valeria watches Tharsus and his friends equip their gravBoots, and signals her brothers to stand down. Tharsus glances at me, his face pale, and takes off into the sky. His friends follow hot on his heels. They head east off the back of the Lightbringer. My other guests have noticed the commotion now, and whisper to one another. I return to Rhone and Glirastes. Cicero joins me as I reach them.
“Lysander, we have radar signatures inbound,” Pytha says from the bridge.
“I see them,” Cicero says, spotting a squadron of dark shapes in the sky. Not ships. Men. “Are those yours, Lysander? They’re not ours.”
“No. Intercept them,” I tell Rhone. He motions the nearby Praetorians. They form up and are about to take off.
“Lysander. Hold,” Pytha says. “They’re broadcasting the Dictator’s writ. Olympic tag.” Everyone turns to look at me. “It’s the Fear Knight,” she says. A chill goes through me.
“It’s a legal action then. You have zero jurisdiction,” Rhone says.
“Stand down,” I mutter.
Rhone recalls the Praetorians.
Others see the inbound squadron and rush to the edge of the Lightbringer’s hull to watch. Fear’s squadron, which must be made of Gorgons, descends from a higher altitude than Tharsus and his fleeing friends. They fall in the night sky like crows. Tharsus sees the interlopers and alters his escape trajectory. He and his friends dive down toward the blanket of clouds and disappear into them.
The Gorgons do not follow. My guests gasp and point as the clouds stutter with light. This time it is not fireworks. Tharsus flew straight into a trap waiting in the clouds. A few moments pass. Then Tharsus and only four of his friends race back out of the clouds. They flee right up into the waiting Gorgons. Disdaining weapons, the Gorgons catch Tharsus’s friends with their hands, pin their arms, and start beating them to death midair.
A single dusky figure emerges from the clouds to watch the scene. Atlas.
Tharsus spots Atlas. Even at this distance, I can feel Tharsus’s panic. The Gorgons block his exits, leaving him only one path of escape. He flees across the sky, back the way he came, to land hard amidst the party.
Valeria and her brothers laugh like hyenas at the sight of him. He is bloody, his left arm is broken, his fur coat ripped to shreds. He waves his razor and he calls out to me. “Lune! Lune! I am your guest! You must protect me!”
I lift my hands. “I am sorry. I cannot break the law. They have the Iron Fist.”
“Help me!” Tharsus screams at the guests. No one raises a finger. “Help—”
Then he hears Atlas land behind him. He goes still. Dread darkens his eyes. Shuddering, Tharsus turns to see the Fear Knight watching him from behind his pale mask of office. Tall, lithe, in addition to his gravBoots, Fear wears gray armor styled with a moth motif. His blade is a long black hasta, slick with dark blood, and his right hand is sheathed in a heavy metal gauntlet.