“You want to know what price I’m paying, Kavax?”
“There are those who say Kavax Telemanus is a bad Republican. It is true. I am…old in my ways. I have doubted many of this Republic’s policies. Especially concerning the Obsidians. But I hope you know my loyalty. And I like to think you trust me as much as I trust you.” I try to speak but he rumbles on. “It is also true I am not what I once was. My injury and my loss have…Well you are unaccustomed to seeing me weak.”
“You, weak?” I scoff at the notion.
“Don’t deny it. I know you and Niobe worry I take too much on. I am not what I was, but I am still very much in the game. You understand? Whoever your source is, whoever has been helping you find these traitors, you can tell me.”
I close my eyes. He’s still not let me go. I enjoy the embrace while it lasts.
“Imagine the worst, and it is true.” I can’t bring myself to say it.
He holds me tighter and kisses my head. He knows already, I realize. Of course he knows.
I think of his sons, both of whom spent their lives in service to me until their deaths—Pax at the Institute, Daxo on the Day of Red Doves—and I want to cry. I loved them both, almost as much as their father did.
“I didn’t want to break your heart by telling you the truth,” I say.
“Daughter, you are my heart,” he replies. “I trust you like I trust the vaulting sky. I look up, and there it is. Different shades, perhaps, but always there. Always true.”
There’s motion from the school. A door, obscured by the snow, opens.
Kavax kisses the top of my head again and releases me. Three figures make their way to us through the falling snow. My son and two instructors. Sophocles runs and leaps toward Pax, the tallest figure, to pester my son with kisses. When Kavax sees that my son has something on his head that is not hair, he darkens. A little startled myself, I put on my best face and beam a smile for Pax as he approaches. Instead of embracing me as I’d hoped, he salutes.
Six months at the school has made him nearly unrecognizable. His golden eyes are sunken, harder. His lips thinner. His skin pale as a miner’s. But he’s taller, far taller. “Pax. You’ve shot up like a godTree.” Already, he’s surpassed the height of the Blues behind him, his instructors. Soon he’ll tower over them. I eye the digital tattoos that now stain his laser-shaved head. They morph as snowflakes settle on his scalp. “Adept ink too. So soon?” I raise a disapproving eyebrow at the instructors.
The Blue instructors are both waifish but still cast more in the image of the school’s founder than your typical Blue. Veterans of our wars, both have scars, one a robotic right eye. By the phalera on their chests, I see both earned their scars under Darrow and Orion.
“It was due, my Sovereign,” the older, darker instructor says. “The Star Matron has chosen Adept Augustus for an accelerated track. He was fought over for three hours after his Divining before the navigators demurred.”
My son will be a hunter. It’s written on his forehead. The constellation Orion.
The instructors salute and give us space. Adept Augustus. Accelerated track. I withhold my anxiety from my face and feel warmth as Kavax embraces my son, then steps aside to give me my moment with him. It will be just a moment too. “How are you?” I ask my boy.
“Learning fast,” he replies, curt. “I hear the enemy is mustering for a summit. Is it regarding the action at Venus, or was it scheduled before?”
“Before, we believe. The Dustmaker was already en route to Earth.”
“Then it pertains to the next stage of the war,” he says. “Will it be Mars?”
“That depends,” I say. “On what, do you know?”
He considers. “Whether or not the Rim will continue to let Atalantia use them to soften us up, which she will unless she feels strong enough to attack and retain her primacy.”
He is so precisely correct it is impossible not to smile. “It is good to see you.”
He smiles, but not with his whole face. “You’re angry at the ink,” he says.
“Angry only that I was not consulted,” I reply. “By your instructors, not you.”
“You agreed, no special privileges,” he reminds me, which indicts me because the visit itself is a special privilege. “Is it news of Father?”
I feel a pang of guilt. Of course that’s what he would have presumed this visit would entail—news of Darrow’s death, or life, or would it be resurrection at this point? Does Pax assume his father is dead? “Only rumors that he lives.” I glance at Kavax. “But the source is…not credible.”
“What do you think?” he asks.
“It would be a guess.”
“Your guesses are often more researched than most people’s facts.”
My first impulse is to please him and make him happy, to spoil him. I know what is right. I trust my heart and narrow my eyes. “Do you really want me to speculate?”
He pauses. This is at the intersection of what I have taught him and what he’s learning from the Blues—speculation is fiction. My response may seem cold. It is not. It is a sign of respect from me, and also a reminder that I am not ignorant of his new way of life, nor excluded completely from who he wants to become.
“All hope is true until it is proven false. And even then with ingenuity it may be not,” he replies with a little smile. Then he takes a shot across my bow. “So you’re here to tell me you’ve decided to pardon Valdir. Finally.”
“No, Pax. When the enemy comes, he’ll be where he belongs. In a cell near the front lines, where he left the Free Legions. He rebelled against the Republic, don’t forget.”
“The Obsidians just wanted a little of the freedom they died for,” Pax says.
“There are ways of doing that in the Republic,” I reply. “There are senators. Avenues. In a civil matter the cause may be right, but force cannot be the answer. They proved it. Sefi rebelled and paved the way for that Volsung Fá to steal her throne and sack three cities. We are still suffering the consequences of Valdir’s decisions, Pax. When the enemy comes, we will feel it far more than we do even now. I cannot pardon him.”
“Because they left Father vulnerable on Mercury,” Pax says.
“Yes,” I admit. “But this is not a decision I made out of anger.”
He respects me enough to believe that. “This is about Lyria,” I say.
He perks up at her name. “Not lost in the Belt after all?” he asks.
“When you sent her out on the Snowball—without my approval”—
“Sorry, Mother,” he drones.
—“you said the device in her head had antecedents connected esoterically to Sun Industries. You said because of that she might be able to lead us to Sun Industries, and Quicksilver, and all the resources you think he’s hoarding.” His eyes narrow, but boyish excitement manages to fight its way through his stoic facade. He does love a bit of intrigue, so I tease him a little. “I looked into it personally while you were here. In fact, I found your hunch so compelling I sent a team of long-rangers to help Lyria’s search. Meanwhile I conducted a search for Regulus’s hidden books. It was not easy.”