“And?”
“And a few days ago we received her signal from the Belt—deep in contested territory. No, that’s a euphemism. Lost territory. I believe we may have found Quicksilver’s base.”
“And you think he may have forces strong enough to deliver us?”
“We caught his old logos. The logos doesn’t know what’s out there. But the information he did know suggests Quicksilver may have an entire fleet.”
Pax smirks like his father. “When will you send your emissaries?”
“I just came from Agea. They launched before sunset.”
His face falls. “Who?”
“Quicksilver’s favorite senators, and one or two of his least.”
He blinks at me as if I said something stupid. “He’ll dismiss them all. If he doesn’t kill them.”
I frown. “Why would he kill them?”
“If Quicksilver dreamed of a nightmare, it would look like the Vox Populii, Mother. You know how sensitive he is when it comes to politics, to socialism. Few men bear insults well, least of all Regulus ag Sun. After all his efforts, to have his head hunted by a mob, his tower ransacked, his friends butchered…” He shakes his head. “Without Father, he’ll want nothing to do with us. Honestly, he might even despise the Republic. You should have sent me.”
“You?”
“Mother, Regulus only cares about rarity. Respect.”
“Pax…I can’t send you off-planet,” I reply. “It’s chaos. Do you even know the life expectancy of a sailor out there right now?” In reply he looks at the Conservatory and then back at me. “I can’t, Pax. I will beam him a message, should the senators fail. He may listen to me.”
“Did he build a statue in your honor?” he asks. “No. He built only one. Not for you, not for Fitchner, not for Eo. Just Father. Spare your emissaries the trip.”
“We need those ships. Victra’s docks can’t replenish our losses fast enough. The Rim has choked us of the resources we need from the Belt. We need help. Badly. We can’t wait for your father.” He shrugs at that. “Pax, we don’t even know if he’s alive.”
He smiles at that. “Tell that to the pilgrims.”
I pause. “You know about the pilgrims to Lykos?”
“The ones going to pray for Father’s return? I’m in school, not on Pluto,” he replies. “Father is alive until proven dead. I know you balk at religion—rightly so—but if Father is anything, he is bloodydamn hard to kill. Now, my sect is preparing for a match with Virgo. Was there anything else?”
The question is as cold as his eyes. He’s not forgotten how we last parted, what I said to him, but I fear he mistook my disappointment in myself for disappointment in him.
“I wanted to tell you…” My voice falters. “You know I did not approve when you asked to study here. Do you know why?”
“You think I’m resigned to becoming a weapon.”
“Are you?”
“The people need symbols,” he says.
“When you have children, I hope you never have to feel the pain of hearing that from them,” I say. His eyes soften. “It’s true. I wanted more for you than a life of war. But I see you now for what you are. A son of the Rising. I wanted to tell you I am proud of you. Not only proud of you, I’m proud of what you saw in Lyria, and that you chose this place. My generation apparently cannot do this on its own. And…I wanted to tell you, in case I don’t have the chance again…I’m sorry.” He tilts his head. “I’m sorry this is the world that was given to you. It wasn’t fair to bring a child into this. I should have waited.”
He searches my face. “Do you wish you had?”
“No. If I had, you wouldn’t be you, and I think you’re perfect.”
He looks down at his feet, searching for words. When he finds them, he looks up at me with the raw emotion of his father, but without the anger or the pain. “Mother, your inheritance was guilt. Father’s was surrender. Because of you, because of Father, mine is struggle. That is better than guilt. It is better than surrender. I do not blame you. I thank you. You never pretended the world wasn’t broken, even when a broken world favored you.” He takes my hands. “I think…if love is anything, it is truth. If life is anything, it is struggle. You taught me that. Father taught me my life is not my own, not unless we win. So, do not come back here. Do not think of me. Fix your gaze on our enemies. Fix your heart on the struggle. And win.”
The instructors whistle at Pax. “I have to go,” he says.
“Can I ask something of you?” He nods. “You greeted me as your Sovereign, but—”
He steps forward and wraps his arms around me, and I wrap mine around him. It is the first embrace we’ve shared where I can feel a hint of the strength his arms will one day possess. I hold him for as long as I can.
He is my favorite smell, my favorite sound, my favorite sight. He will never know how much I love him because he does not remember the day Darrow and I conceived him, or the months I carried him inside me, or the minute he came into the world, the moment he said his first word or took his first step, or made me laugh for the first time. I remember all those things, and all the things about them. Where the sun lay in the sky, how his father’s eyes sparkled, what I feared in those moments, what I hoped for his life to be. That season of life is a haze to him, but when I die and reflect on my life, I know I will still believe that season was the meaning of mine.
When he walks away from me back toward his instructors with Kavax sharing a few jokes at his side, the whole of my heart goes with him, and I pray it is not the last time I see him, though I know it might be, because the enemy will soon be on their way. As the door closes behind him, I think on the stupidity of war. How ridiculous we must be to wage it when emotions like love run so much deeper in us than hate.
By the time Kavax makes it back to me, I am ready for the enemy to come. I have more reasons to fight than they do. My armor is my love.
15
LYSANDER
Earth
SQUINTING INTO THE SUN, my old friend Ajax waits to greet me on the tarmac outside Atalantia’s citadel in New Sparta. He’s fully armored. I’m sluggish, recuperating from the beating and Earth’s gravity. Ajax mistakes my sluggishness for fear.
“You look frightened. Already missing your circus?” he says.
“The circus has kinder beasts,” I reply. He grunts.
“Except for the manticores, I hear.”
We watch Atalantia’s war machines slump across the horizon and her troops on PT jog in the distance. Everywhere I look, I see the banner of House Grimmus.
While I’ve spent the last half year building my reputation as an administrator and peacemaker, Ajax has spent it rebuilding the reputation Darrow crushed before the storm wall of Heliopolis. He hunted Darrow for months, unsuccessfully and to much snickering, before Atalantia grew tired of that sad spectacle and recalled him to use as her own personal wrecking ball. But she still refuses to trust him with higher command and to grant him the respect that comes with it.
“I wish you had accepted my invitation to the festival,” I said.